Hi! Welcome to my episode-by-episode recap of, and reaction to Justice League. There will be no spoilers beyond the current episode. As is my custom with recaps, I will give you a short summary recap followed by a long and unnecessarily helpfully detailed version. My reaction will follow at the end if you just want to scroll past all of the recap.
If you want to see my prior Justice League episode reviews, click HERE:
THE QUICK AND CLEAN SUMMARY:
The team solicits the aid of the New Gods, including Orion, Lightray, and Highfather. The resulting destruction of Brainiac’s base is thought to be the end of Darkseid, although Superman believes otherwise.
THE EXTRA DUSTY RECAP:
On board the ship, the Justice Leaguers no longer have control and are waiting to see what happens next. They exit their craft to look around the place wherein they have been docked against their will. After a while, Brainiac appears and greets Superman as Kal El and offers him an opportunity to join him in renewing the legacy of Krypton.
Superman: You must be joking.
Brainiac: Why do you reject your great heritage?
He reminds Superman that the entire history of Krypton is encoded within him. As Brainiac continues, declaring himself to be Krypton, Superman calls him a perversion that dishonors his father and the memory of his people. When Brainiac verifies that Superman again is rejecting his offer, he opens an assault on the Justice League with weapons now rising up from all over the inside of the mothership.
After the Justice Leaguers decapitate Brainiac, Hawkgirl notes that it’s over. Another Brainiac android emerges to tell her it has not even begun. This brainiac is followed by dozens of other Brainiac androids.
On New Genesis, the Highfather is helping a young girl tend to the garden. They are interrupted by Orion, who is accompanied by Wonder Woman and Batman. The two Justice Leaguers tell the Highfather than they come with a warning from Superman that Darkseid is under attack on Apokolips. Highfather chides them not to speak that name in front of children, and Orion counters that they should be afraid. Highfather leads the adults away.
Orion wants to finally defeat Darkseid, once and for all, while he is occupied with a separate attack. Highfather tells him no and points out that Orion is too young to remember the endless bloodshed that preceded their peace agreement. He leaves them to seek answers from the Source.
The Justice League is fighting and winning against Brainiac when Darkseid boom tubes himself into their midst. He begins attacking the Justice League and seems to take them down. Brainiac approaches Darkseid and points out that it appears their stratagem was a success.
While they wait, Wonder Woman and Batman ask Orion about the people below the Cloud City. He replies that they are not important. He makes to leave, and they remind him that Highfather said to wait. He tells both of them to try and stop him, then leaves.
Batman: Next time I let Superman take charge, just hit me real hard.
Batman follows Orion through the boom tube portal he exited through.
Darkseid and Brainiac continue talking. The former reminds the latter than in exchange for delivering Superman to him, he promised to spare his planet. Brainiac agrees. Darkseid comments that he cannot understand why Brainiac needed Superman. Brainiac explains that to evolve his programming, he must extract living DNA from the last Kryptonian. He then does so from a comatose and bound Superman, who begins shouting as the process begins. Brainiac says that not he will become a true life form, the likes of which this universe has never seen.
Just then, Darkseid presses a button. The white lights of Brainiac’s machine change to red. He asks Darkseid what he has done. He replies that he made a minor modification to override the control circuits and then informs Brainiac that he is now the instrument of his will.
Elsewhere, the other Justice Leaguers wake up. Martian Manhunter notes then that Superman was right and that this was all an elaborate trap. Hawkgirl asks where Superman even is. Martian Manhunter cannot locate him telepathically. As they search Brainiac’s ship, MM notes that there might be information stored within about Thanagar. Hawkgirl tells him that there is no time for that now.
Meanwhile, as Darkseid tortures Superman, he tells him that Brainiac is his solution to the ultimate problem – the antilife equation. Orion and Batman arrive at Brainiac’s ship. Darkseid is telling Superman about his desire to remake the universe in his own image.
At the Source, a storm emerges. Highfather blames Darkseid and declares that New Genesis needs to be evacuated.
Hawkgirl and Martian Manhunter find Darkseid and attack him. He orders Brainiac to defend him, which he does under compulsion. The bad guys are winning until Orion and Batman arrive. The newcomers even the battle. Batman – covered by MM – begins doing something to the control on board the ship. We see in a few moments that he overloaded the circuits, allowing Superman to escape. Superman’s escape then starts a chain reaction. The ship issues a warning of critical system failure due to an incomplete circuit.
The Justice Leaguers escape the ship via a tube, as Superman looks for Darkseid. As they flee, Darkseid begins a fierce hand to hand fight with Orion. Darkseid compliments his biological son on not growing up weak, but then renders him unconscious a moment later.
Darkseid: Spare the rod…
When he turns after the fight, he finds Superman waiting for him.
Superman: Any minute now, Brainiac will explode. And guess what? You’re going with him.
Darkseid calls him a glutton for punishment and reminds him of how often he’s beaten him and humbled him.
Darkseid: What makes you think today’s outcome will be any different?
Superman: Because this time I won’t stop until you’re just a greasy smear on my fist. Let’s go.
They fight, with Darkseid quickly getting the upper hand. Elsewhere, as the Justice League evacuates, Wonder Woman asks where Superman is. Batman calls him an idiot and tells the rest of them to take off, saying he will go get Superman himself. We cut back to the Superman-Darkseid fight. With Darkseid’s boot on his face, Superman users his heat vision to burn holes in said boot (and presumably the feet inside the boot.) Superman, now filled with rage, takes the upper hand. Before he can finish him off, Batman arrives. When he tries to pull Superman away, Supes casually flings him several feet, hard, into a wall. Batman grabs him from behind and opens a boom tube, which forces them both to leave.
Seconds later Brainiac’s ship explodes with Darkseid on it.
On the surface of Apokolips, Batman and Superman look up at the explosion.
Batman: Nothing could survive that, not even Darkseid.
Superman: You know something Bruce? You’re not always right.
On New Genesis, Highfather cares for a badly battered Orion. Their search for the other survivors from the city in the sky is not going well. Just then, the children of the gods arrive, brought forward by Lightray – the person who helped Wonder Woman and Batman in the previous episode when they were attacked by the monster. As the episode ends, with Highfather telling Lightray he has found his place, MM comments to Hawkgirl that perhaps someday she will find her own place as well.
REACTION:
This is one of those stories wherein the whole thing would have been avoided by just listening to Superman in the first place. For me, that made it ironic when Batman was complaining to Wonder Woman about “letting Superman” be in charge. But that’s kind of the difficulty with a character like Superman. To some extent, he doesn’t really need the Justice League. He could pretty much do everything by himself if he needed to do everything. Then the episode ends with Batman still not listening to Superman (we all know Supes is right about Darkseid surviving.) Would Superman have survived that explosion, too? Almost certainly. Would he have actually *killed* Darkseid if Batman hadn’t pulled him away? It’s not that I don’t think he would have tried. I think Darkseid is one of those rare exceptions to the “no killing” rule for the Man of Steel. I just don’t think he could do it even if he tried. Darkseid is as tough to kill as Superman himself.
So wrong or not, Batman probably just saved everyone some time by not letting him try.
It’s a little fun to watch DC stories while keeping in mind that Superman is always holding back (intellectually and physically.) I think Darkseid is also always holding back though for evil chess playing / not-revealing-his-plans reasons. The two characters have a lot in common, actually. Presumably Highfather, if motivated, has equivalent power but we didn’t get to see it here.
The New Genesis / Apokolips “trading sons peace deal” thing is pretty crazy. The two episodes gave us a glimpse of a nature vs. nurture argument, and made a strong argument for the value of nurture. Highfather’s son was… unimpressive on Apokolips. We didn’t see much of him, though. Maybe there’s more of Highfather there than we got to witness. It shouldn’t be surprising that Darkseid would beat down any potential threat that migh emerge to himself from Highfather’s biologiacl son. He likely would have done the same with his own son. Orion was the good guy (but less powerful) version of his biological dad.
The weak part of this story was the shoehorning in of Hawkgirl’s mysterious backstory. That tells me that her backstory will at some point be very critical to how this season goes. We shall see.
All in all, this was a really good story to launch season 2. We get a little dissension in the JL ranks. We meet maybe the two most powerful opponents to Superman in the universe. We aren’t clear where everyone stands when the story ends (alive-dness, alliances, etc.)
