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:
Doctor Fate and Aquaman rescue Solomon Grundy, intent on using him to help battle an ancient evil. Superman, Hawkgirl and Wonder Woman are conflicted about this goal.
Note: The pairing of these heroes is an homage to the Marvel Comics superhero team The Defenders. The plot is based upon H. P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos.
THE EXTRA DUSTY RECAP:
Part 1 opens with military personnel on the hunt for Solomon Grundy. When they find him, they strike preemptively, and a fight ensues. Grundy seems to just want to be left alone.
Grundy: Grundy told stupid soldiers to stay away but soldiers still come. NOW GRUNDY CRUSH!
The military gets the upper hand, trapping him with a high tech laser, but as soldiers arrive with a thick metal vault to serve as his cage, Aquaman shows up and intervenes on Grundy’s behalf, helping him to escape.
Later, we learn that Aquaman has promised Grundy gold, in exchange for assistance in something.
Grundy: If stupid fish man tries to trick Grundy, Grundy will CRUSH!
Grundy celebrates being given a chest of gold as we find out that Dr. Fate’s wife is present. She telepathically summons Fate to join them. After Dr. Fate appears, he asks Grundy about his origins. Grundy cannot remember, so Fate casts a spell of revelation on him.
We learn Grundy’s original name was Cyrus Gold, an evil man who performed many evil deeds, until he aroused an evil as great as his own. Gold was murdered and his body was cursed with a powerful grigri and then tossed into a swamp – which had mystical properties of its own. The two magics did not sit well together.
Fate: And so it was that decades later, the swamp gave birth to a walking dead man, soulless and empty, always seeking and never knowing why.
In the present, Fate says that Grundy meets their needs, Grundy mutters that he remembers, and Aquaman says that they need to begin immediately as the future of Atlantis is his only concern. Grundy now objects to helping, pushing the gold chest aside, and says that he wants what was taken from him – his soul. Fate promises to do everything he can to help him.
Elsewhere, the Justice League helps and is then confronted by a military officer we met in the episode’s beginning. He complains to them that his men had Grundy well in hand until they interfered. They are unaware of the earlier confrontation. He tells them Aquaman was involved.
Later, the Justice League debates what the actions of Aquaman might mean. Superman advises going to him to ask about it. Their discussion is interrupted as a sea monster attacks the shore. Superman is shocked that it can injure him. It also rapidly overcomes Wonder Woman and Hawkgirl.
WW: Hera, give me strength!
HG: Do you have to say that all the time?
The three of them finally fight it off and it flees deep into the ocean. Hawkgirl is convinced that it is working on behalf of Aquaman. Soon after, the Justice League goes to visit Atlantis and they meet with the Queen – Aquaman’s wife. Hawkgirl is confrontational while Superman tries to be more diplomatic. The Queen becomes offended, tells them that if her husband wants to see them, he’ll summon them, and she leaves. Superman is even more suspicious of Aquaman after due to the mention by the Queen of Dr. Fate, noting that only magic could have hurt him as the sea monster did.
Superman, WW, and HG go to visit Dr. Fate. He does not respond to them at his door, so HG breaks the door open with her mace.
Fate, Aquaman, and Grundy perform a spell involving all three of them. The Justice Leaguers walk in on the three of them as they finish the spell, with Fate shouting “SO FATE DEMANDS” over and over. The three then set out to interrupt what is happening, by force. Hawkgirl’s mace repels the magic and they seem to have stopped what is happening. Aquaman shouts at them, asking if they realize what they’ve done and he orders them to leave. Superman insists that he’s not leaving without Grundy and without a good explanation. We get a three against three fight.
In hte middle of the fight, Grundy tells Superman that the magician promised to help him. Despite that, they continue fighting, with Superman eventually dropping him to the earth from the atmosphere. Separately, Aquaman fights Wonder Woman with no quarter given. Hawkgirl fights Fate. As they fight, she sees Thanagarian runes and insists that he tell her what he knows about her home world.
Aquaman appears with Fate where Superman has Grundy beaten. He tells Superman to give him Grundy, and Superman replies that it is way past time for them to explain what is going on.
Aquaman: I’ll explain it to your grieving friends.
Wonder Woman returns to the battle, as does Hawkgirl. The Justice League then gets the upper hand.
Superman: You’ve run out of choices. Tell us what you’re doing now.
[inter dimensional monster suddenly shows up]
Fate: We were trying to prevent *that.*
to be continued…
[Part 2]
Aquaman tells everyone to stay back while Fate confronts the evil. Surprisingly, Hawkgirl joins him in the sky and recites the incantation with him. They seem to drive the thing away.
Fate: How could you possibly know that incantation?
HG: Where I come from, it’s the closest thing we have to a prayer.
Fate tells them again that they need to complete the original spell while the entity they just confronted has temporarily retreated. Superman again, aggressively, demands answers about what is going on. Despite the likely truth that there is no time to tell the story, Fate tells it anyway. He shows them a vision of Atlantis from thousands of years ago, when it was above the waves and ruled over by sorcerer kings. Atlantis found itself under attack by extra-dimensional beings called the Old Ones.
Fate narrates that the Old Ones nearly destroyed humanity as they prepared the way for the greatest of their number – Great Ixthultu. Aquaman tells them that King Poseidon gambled that they could be stopped, gathered all the mystical energy on earth, and forged it into a single weapon – the trident. It worked to banish the Old Ones from their realm. The price of victory was the sinking of Atlantis. The energy used to win was the same energy that kept the city above water.
Aquaman: He saved the world but doomed Atlantis to rest forever at the bottom of the sea.
Fate tells them that the Old Ones are seeking to return and Aquaman explains that they interrupted the spell that Fate was seeking to cast to bar their way. Wonder Woman tells them that she will not allow them to torture Grundy again. HG tells her that it’s not exactly torture – and that it’s more like sacrifice. Superman asks how she knows so much about it and she explains that her people once worshipped Ixthultu.
Superman: Forget the ceremony, we’re not sacrificing Grundy or anyone else.
Aquaman: Grundy volunteered.
Superman: I’m not sure he’s competent to volunteer.
The group begins to argue over what they should do, with some suggesting that they go directly to Ixthultu’s world to fight him. Fate likes this idea and thinks it might work better than their original plan, but Aquaman does not. Fate lets him return to Atlantis. He then travels to Ixthultu’s world with Grundy, Superman, Wonder Woman, and Hawkgirl.
At home, Aquaman assembles his war council. He cannot hear the thoughts of the creatures of the sea. We see sea monsters – the Old Ones – flooding into the ocean.
The group on Ixthultu’s world is attacked and nearly overwhelmed almost instantly.
Grundy: Grundy hates stupid screaming man!
He is successful in his counter-attack initially. He falls off a cliff though but is surprised that “bird nose” saved him.
Grundy: Bird nose help Grundy? But Bird Nose and her friends hate Grundy.
HG: Grundy helps Bird Nose. Bird Nose helps Grundy. Excuse me, Hawkgirl smash.
Collectively the group survives their first assault and moves on. Meanwhile, the Atlanteans are under siege. The Justice Leaguers, Grundy, and Fate find a breach between Ixthulu’s world and earth. Fate instructs Superman and Wonder Woman to halt the advance of the Old Ones, traveling through the breach, while he, Hawkgirl, and Grundy take the battle to Ixthulu.
Fate, Grundy, and Hawkgirl find Ixthulu. He is initially invisible until Fate realizes the evil’s vastness is such that he is everywhere. They confront each other and then begin fighting.
Superman grows angry enough during his part of the fight that he begins using his heat vision violently.
Ixthulu has captured HG and asks if she has anything to say. She tells him she has a gesture for him, but her hands are tied. It replies that it has missed her people. He says that he earned the faith of their people, but she asks what the price of the souls of her ancestors was. Grundy hears that “snake face” steals souls and ferociously demands that it give him his own soul back. He then attacks Ixthulu, entering the body of the creature, attacking. Meanwhile the battle outside shifts, with Ixthulu’s Old Ones now retreating.
Aquaman and Fate seal the breach. They with Superman go looking for the others, finding them in a figh with Ixthulu. Thanks mostly to Grundy, they are winning. Inside, Grundy – who cannot be killed – wins his fight with Ixthulu. Hawkgirl finds him after the fight. He is badly injured.
Grundy: Grundy can’t move. Bird Nose get Grundy’s soul for him?
She tells him to rest and promises to finish what he started. She attacks the now defenseless Ixthulu with her mace. After it is defeated, she returns to Grundy.
Grundy: Do you think Grundy’s soul is waiting for him?
She tells him yes, for his sake and despite not believing it, and holds his hand while he dies.
Later, the Justice League plus some others hold a funeral for Grundy. Hawkgirl comments that he was happy at the end, though she does not know why. Aquaman tells her that it’s faith and that you’re not supposed to understand it. The episode ends, focused on Grundy’s tombstone.
REACTION:
As mentioned above, this episode was an homage to the Marvel Comics superhero team The Defenders. The plot is based upon H. P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos. On the whole, I think this was a strong story.
It is really difficult to like the Justice Leaguers in the first half of this story. They are collectively a little too much on the “fight first, ask questions after we’ve won” side of things – Hawkgirl in particular. It’s one thing to assume the worst of historic foes, but they’re doing that with allies. It worked out for the best in the end, and it was understandable on their part, but it was a big red flag about the JL. Do they have the right to assert ultimate authority over all situations, even then ones about which they are ignorant, at all times?
Hawkgirl was the worst in part one, and generally when you get a JL member who is unnecessarily obnoxious in part 1, they get a chance to be heroic in part 2 and that was the case here.
Hawkgirl is an interesting character in this story. She’s kind of playing the role of the team atheist – despite working alongside a literal goddess. But in her case, her people ousted their god. In this episode, she does so to the god of her ancestors, directly. The messaging here is that even the gods who are real are limited, and that given time and development, they cease to be viewed as gods at all. The JL in that sense kind of exists within a pagan pantheon environment, rather than a Abrahamic one.
On the other hand, the episode also advocates for and promotes a tolerance of faith – pointing out the important role it sometimes plays for those who have it. Does it matter for Grundy if his beliefs are 100% accurate, provided that they give him comfort? Is it Hawkgirl’s place to do the old, “well, ackshulally…” with him? The episode decides on “no” as its answer.
The ending arc was relatively emotional. Even someone as evil as Grundy deserves an opportunity to die in peace. You feel the weight of that in this episode and it was a relief that he seems to have been given that chance. Hawkgirl who is usually a rought character was tender – and that tenderness from her really sold the moment. The story perhaps did not value the life of Ixthulu, and the potential consequences / fallout of killing him… but it did value Grundy’s life (Perhaps we will learn to value Ixthulu’s life in a future episode.)
Overall… good story! Hopefully there is some fallout, too, with Aquaman/Atlantis and what we’ve now learned about Hawkgirl’s background.
