I am – Hercules!!
It airs in the states on May 21! That’s like a month from now!!
Hiya Herc, Solo4357 here again with another Justice League review!
What's it called?
"Task Force X"
What's it about? A small group of criminals gets recruited by the government to retrieve a weapon from the Justice League.
Anyone we know?
Deadshot, without his mask and costume, is about to get fried in the chair when Colonel Flagg intervenes. Other include Platique, a plastic explosives expert seen before only in the comics, but here sans powers.Boomerang, Flash's enemy from the comics, and the return of the Clock King, from the Batman: The Animated series.
The Clock King? Has there been a lot of continuity in JLU?
It's definitely the series' strength. While continuity has always been present in all the DC animated universe shows, there has never been an Arc like JLU is doing. Originally, the series tried to be mini-movies, which they all did quite well. But there was very little progression across the season's and our heroes pretty much were as they started out when any of the previous series began. The closes was the Apokolips invasion in the Superman series, but that was about it. Here, they have taken the Buffy approach, each episode is digging a little deeper into Cadmus and the upcoming showdown we all know is going to happen. The build up is tremendous. This also lets them bring back villians we haven't seen in over a decade, like the Clock King.
What's the downside?
The downside is sometimes the episodes don't feel quite as epic as in the past, and this is exemplified by Task Force X.
So what are they going to steal?
Remember the "Hawk and Dove" episode? Yeah, it sucked, but I did wonder what happened to the Annihlator. Well, guess what Task Force X is going for!
What's good?
The tension between the team. The sexual innuendo. (Couldn't say that on Kids WB!) The general Bad-assness of J'onn. "Before or after I change my shorts?" The battles. "You're a very bad boy." The appearance of the Vigilante, Shining Knight, and Atom Smasher. (Names I had to look up.) Adam Baldwin's voice work. "Define Weakest please."
What's bad?
In the age of a post 9/11 era, these guys get on the Watchtower way too easy. In the original show, there were only the core seven ever on the Watchtower, so breaking in would've probably been darn near impossible. Now, they have a whole staff outside of the heroes working on the Watchtower, they know the government is moving against them (hell, tried to nuke em in the previous episode) and yet security is laughable. And who the hell's paying for all this? Bruce Wayne's rich, but even he can't bleed money dry like this. God knows what that thing costs. The whole "bad guys being recruited to do a job for the government" seems overdone to me.
How does it end?
John (GL) telling J'onn... "We can't trust anybody now."
Rating?
The rating is difficult because big things are set in motion, but there some flaws on how they got there. I enjoyed it as a piece of the puzzle, but those used to more single-story episodes may be lost.
Even so, Solo4357’s rating for “Justice League” 4.4?
****
The Hercules T. Strong Rating System:
***** better than we deserve
**** better than most motion pictures
*** actually worth your valuable time
** as horrible as most stuff on TV
* makes you quietly pray for bulletins
