The road to hell...

[greenygal]

Justice League's really been knocking them out of the park lately, and this was no exception. What's scarier than any number of villains? Heroes determined to save the planet...or else.

--Apparently politics is bad for Luthor's brain; he usually doesn't rave like that. The speech he gave about Superman letting him do these things was good, though, even if a super-genius villain really ought to be smart enough not to taunt the invulnerable powerhouse about how the only way he can win is to kill the villain.

--I also can't help but think that Superman could have stopped Luthor without deadly force. Maiming, maximum. But Luthor's not about to point that out, and Clark has clearly had enough of this--witness the way he turned Luthor's body into a bonfire. He didn't have to do that; he wanted to.

--As disturbing as the Justice Lords' universe is, I can't help but snicker sympathetically at how bored they are. While Luthor is cheerfully manipulating the truth to serve himself, as always, he does have a point: these people exist to fight the bad guys. Without those bad guys, they're more than a little lost.

--"Do you sleep better now?" "You know I do." I just adore John and Shayera. Even when they're evil. (Although Flash/GL shippers can probably reassure themselves that the relationship only took off after Flash died...)

--Hey, Lois! Two Loises, even! Of course, ours was only on screen for about thirty seconds or so, but she asked an intelligent question, and it's a start. Anyway, I'm happy to see that AU-Lois is trying desperately to act as Clark's conscience (shades of "Brave New Metropolis," a little), even if he's not listening to her at all. This is all made even more depressing by the fact that he really does seem to love her--he's not still coming around, after doubtless a full two years of getting harangued, just for her gazpacho, and he seems honestly hurt and frustrated that she doesn't understand what he's doing.

--And that house arrest thing just makes the relationship even more twisted. I mean, yes, of course it's disturbing just on its own, but what's really making me wonder is that other people are evidently allowed to leave the house, so apparently this is specific to Lois in some way. Has she been imprisoned as a political dissident (which she clearly is) and is the fact that she's confined to an apartment instead of in jail somewhere due to Clark's intervention? Or, possibly worse, is she supposed to be in protective custody due to her relationship with Superman? I can absolutely just see him telling her this is for her own good. And since she's not allowed to have visitors or make phone calls, Clark may be the only one she ever gets to see, so she seesaws between wanting to strangle him and begging him not to leave... *shudders* There needs to be fic, here, there really does.

--The fact that Shayera is the only one of the Justice Lords who seems to have doubts about what they're doing (well, Batman, but he had to be prodded) and the response John gives her made me wonder if she and J'onn and Diana got told by the others that this was how it had to be, and if they knew more about Earth they'd understand. I mean, really, J'onn as a fascist overlord of the planet? (Mind you, he'd be frighteningly good at it. No resistance movement would have a chance.)

--"What's that?" "Breakable, I hope." I love Batman's deadpan sense of humor.

--Mind you, I love Flash rocketing in to do away with the thing even more. I know, I really do, that they can't play him realistically because the rest of the team would never get anything to do. This does not stop me from cheering loudly on the rare occasions he gets to take out the bad guy in the blink of an eye.

--I didn't realize the rock-troll-looking guy was Doomsday until I read the credits. That's what I get for never reading that story. Is there subtext to using him? Possibly, but I confess I don't know what it is, aside from the geek amusement factor of _Kingdom Come_ meeting _The Death of Superman_.

--After watching Doomsday kick the Justice Lords around for a while, I started to wonder if they'd gotten out of practice, what with never having any opportunities for fights anymore. It could just have been intended to show us that Doomsday is really tough, of course, but I thought it was an interesting idea.

--Good move with AU-Diana saving the train, just as any of the Justice Leaguers would have done--these characters really do think they're the good guys.

--"It's not them." Luthor is too damned smart for anybody's comfort. (Admittedly one doesn't need to be a supergenius to figure there's something wrong about a sudden costume and attitude shift, but personally I would have gone for mind control.)

--"Who could predict you?" Eeee! Flash outsmarts Batman! Flash outsmarts Batman! I loved this so much--actually, I loved this whole sequence, AU-Bats sneering at our Bats, and needing to see Flash, and justifying himself, and Flash just flatly refusing to listen to any of it, and the Batman/Flash discussion, and Flash improvising a way to escape just out of sheer frantic necessity, and Batman being so frantic about him that he falls for the oldest trick in the prisoner's book--oh, and that last crack about "You'll appreciate this someday." Flash does not take well to being told that things are for his own good. All this, plus, I am possibly the world's only Flash/Batman 'shipper, so my fangirl squees were probably audible in other states--I mean, they were just giving it to me here. "I think he likes you," indeed.

--"It isn't that far from what we do, if you think about it." "I'd rather not." Killing off the AU-Flash was a good idea for several reason, but I suspect it originated with the writers trying and failing to get Flash to be evil. :)

--Who'd'a thought. You can make Arkham more disturbing. All those blank-faced bad guys... *shudder* It's actually a relief to discover that even a lobotomized Joker will still make trouble.

--I question that the Justice Lords would have left Hawkgirl there, though. Arkham's not a hospital, it's a mental instution; surely, in this universe, they have actual criminal hospitals? (Unless they've lobotomized all the criminals and therefore don't need any security, I suppose.)

--Oh, and Flash deliberately picking the flowers is so absolutely and gleefully him. He was getting so much good stuff here...

--You know, Superman's got a point about the Watchtower. :)

--After many years of playing headgames with all around him, Bats finally has to outthink himself. A tiny part of me is snickering loudly. (I'd be asking a silly question if I wanted to know how AU-Bats got out of those restraints, right?) That sequence is really disorienting (Kevin Conroy must have been having fun ;), and fascinating to listen to. Especially when AU-Bats scores a direct hit with the line about no eight-year-old boy losing his parents.

--But then we have a problem, because there really seems to be something missing between "You win" and "We'll go out the back." Sure, the restaurant scene is incredibly disturbing (and the bit with the red light made me grin), but it can't be the first time AU-Bats has seen something like that. I mean, in general I buy that he switched sides, because for all his paranoid control tendencies Bats tends to be conscious of the need to keep the demigods around him from going too far. But in a universe where he's evidently been fine with that for years, we needed a little more detail on his sudden change of heart.

--John standing over Shayera's hospital bed and carrying her out--oh, oh, ohhhh... *sniffle* Mind you, my first thought when my brain cleared a little was "Is it really wise to remove an injured woman from medical support equipment?" But thinking about it, that's totally John and Shayera. If she dies in getting out, well, it's bad, but it's better than leaving her behind to be a hostage for the bad guys. (This is a big reason why I like this couple; I think they have the same priorities.)

--Feel the derangement this episode caused me: when that soldier challenged AU-Bats, I was seriously expecting him to get shot. Mangled, at the least. And I'm still not convinced Bats wouldn't have done it if the guy hadn't backed down immediately.

--"You're the smart one. You figure it out." Yeah, Bats, you're always telling us you're the smart one, so justify that overblown reputation... ;) (Note that it looks like Clark is the one who actually came up with the idea, too.)

--AU-Superman's line about being patient is incredibly disturbing. This guy is dreaming about killing Luthor.

--So it's not that I wasn't paying attention to the poetic justice of the League's trap, or the Tiara of Death, but, well, Flash took out Superman! (God, he's had whole episodes go by without a quarter of the stuff he got to do here--and no, not just the ones he wasn't in. ;)

--And not content with taking out Superman, he then has to almost get killed by him. Partly I think that was Flash taking his new feelings about being the conscience of the group a little too much to heart, but also, it's got to be really tough for him to imagine that Superman, even an evil alternate-universe Superman, would ever hurt him. And he looks so hurt, later, that he wasn't important enough to make the difference. Clark knows better, though, and if I needed any more out of this episode than I was already getting, the clear and unambiguous acknowledgment that our Superman is AU-Superman, but for the grace of God...well, I like that a lot.

--"A deal's a deal." For just a minute there, I cringed. There are many villains who would refuse a point-blank opportunity to kill the hero because they've promised not to. Lex Luthor is not one of them. Then we continued into the bit about the pardon, and I relaxed. Yes, that deal I think he'd keep.

--Luthor is going into politics? Uh...wasn't he fatally ill from Kryptonite poisoning? Did I miss that getting dealt with? I mean, I'm not complaining exactly, because we've had a fair bit of "Luthor is going to kill the Justice League with his dying breath" already, and I'm perfectly happy to trade it in for the story possibilities of Luthor gaining political power, but still... (Also, I have to question Luthor getting political power in this universe, where he's been going to jail, breaking out of jail, and fighting the Justice League in a robot suit, but on the other hand if anyone can spin it it's him.)

--Does anyone else really, really want to know what happened to the depowered Justice Lords?

Comments

[kerithwyn.livejournal.com]

Nothing coherent except this rocked, yep. And I assume you've seen Te's Bat/Flash fic by now.... ^_^

[ratcreature]

I'd be asking a silly question if I wanted to know how AU-Bats got out of those restraints, right?

I wondered that too, but I guess he must have built in some safeguard only known to him, so that he couldn't be held captive in his own prison or something like that.

But in a universe where he's evidently been fine with that for years, we needed a little more detail on his sudden change of heart.

I thought it was Batman taunting AU-Batman with how proud his parents would be of what he accomplished that turned him around, rather than the restaurant scene in itself, and that mostly worked for me.

[greenygal.livejournal.com]

I thought it was Batman taunting AU-Batman with how proud his parents would be of what he accomplished that turned him around, rather than the restaurant scene in itself, and that mostly worked for me.

First, I still find that a bit weak. He's been living with this Gotham for two years, and all it takes is someone pointing out that things like this are appalling for him to change his mind? He was of the opinion that the Waynes would have been fine with it until our Batman told him otherwise? (Actually, there's a decent possibility here that he's been spending so much time down there in the Batcave that he'd actually been isolated from what life had become like in surface Gotham. If that had been implied more strongly, that would have helped.)

Second, I still don't think it's played well. We see our Batman pointing out something he'd rather not hear. We see his wholeheartedly going over to our guys' side. What we don't see is the reflection, the moment of decision, or better yet an explanation of that moment--and we needed to. He's been working to make all this happen for two years. Nowhere previously in this episode has he shown the faintest indication that he thinks the Justice Lords' approach is wrong--indeed, he's the one who originated the whole plan to go do the same thing on our side. He passionately defends his approach to our Batman, not ten minutes before he switches sides. IMO, that much setup requires a much more convincing depiction--preferably, not one that takes place off-screen--of his change of heart.

I don't think I'd be harping on this so much except that they made this big point of having our Batman apparently go over to his side in a dramatic fashion right before the commercial break, and then that turns out to be...well, a trick, I guess, as it's pretty much dropped. So our Bats says he's changing sides, and doesn't, and the other guy doesn't seem like he's changing sides, and does, and I just generally felt jerked around.

[ratcreature]

It's not that I wouldn't have liked it to be explored more, though I guess introspection isn't that easy to convey in a fast paced cartoon. Also I didn't read the changes in their attitudes quite like you, I saw it more as Batman being depicted as torn about the issues, that both views were a real possibility for both Batmans, otherwise Batman (the non-AU one) couldn't have played his trick so convincingly. To me the argument that Batman had with AU-Batman sounded like both were very familiar with the reasoning, like they'd gone over this in their head quite a lot and it really was an argument with "himself" in a way, and that the margin by which the AU-Batman decided to support the benevolent dictorship approach wasn't that big, just still worth the costs. Also, I'm not even sure the AU-Batman totally switched sides to the Justice League view, i.e. that he would undo all they'd done in their universe, but rather that he decided to stop enforcing their way on that other universe, acknowledging their position. I mean, the Justice League isn't shown to go back to bring democracy to the AU either or anything like that, the way I understood the conclusion was that Luthor's ray-gun thingie incapacitated the Justice Lords, and I assumed they're sent back, and both universes go their separate ways, with mutual non-interference.