TSOP – Episode 25 – The Final Episode

Secret Origins Podcast, Episode 25. Hello and

welcome to the once and final episode 25 of the

Secret Origins podcast. See what I did there?

See what I did there? We now have gone unlimited,

or we've been going unlimited. I am your host,

Dave, Joe, and Mike, and joining me is Lupus

Convoy. Hello, sir. Hello. How are you? Sad.

This is our last episode. Yes, this is the last

episode. And I had to work a Once and Future

Thing joke in there. And as Lupus just said,

today we'll be recapping Justice League Season

5 and final overall thoughts on the entire series.

25 episodes. It's taken us a year to do this.

The final episode will be hitting the airwaves

February 2, 2011. I forget which way it is if

that dumb bastard Puxatani sees his shadow. It's

six more weeks. If he doesn't see it, it's early

spring. Whichever it is, I hope to God it's early

spring because I am tired of fucking looking

at white shit. I think it's still going to happen

if you like it or not. God, son of a bitch. Stupid

fucking groundhog. I don't think you can really

blame the Groundhog for this. Yes, yes I can.

And we are Ustreaming this episode of the Secret

Origins podcast, and I don't know why one of

our Ustream viewers says that he does not like

Batman Beyond. What the hell is wrong with you,

Scotty -do? He's not Scotty -don't. Yeah. I'm

going to stick Scrappy on you unless you start

watching Batman Beyond. Dude, nobody deserves

that. No one deserves the Scrappy -Doo. Well,

no one deserves the Scooby -Dum, but everyone

deserves the Scrappy -Doo. No one deserves the

Scrappy -Doo. No one deserves Scrappy -Doo. Hitler

did not deserve Scrappy -Doo. Yes, and another

one of our Ustream watchers, Mr. Glade Packer

over there is like, oh, gods, because he knows

exactly what argument I'm bringing up. Pee -wee's

Playhouse, oh, god, that is not entertainment.

But anyway, yeah, so basically episode 25 here

will have two parts. It will have the season

five overall thoughts. and favorite moments and

stuff like that. And then we're going to go through

the entire series and have an overall discussion

on the actual Justice League, Justice League

Unlimited series. And I've said from day one

of this podcast that I do not look at these shows

individually. Justice League Unlimited is a rebranded

version of Justice League. Yes, they changed

the format. Yes, they changed the intro and the

outro theme song, which I love that they changed

it. It is one show. They are not two separate

shows. So that's why throughout all 25 episodes

of the Secret Origins podcast, I have just called

it Justice League Season 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5. I

don't see them as individual shows because they're

not. They are one show. I tried looking up Justice

League Unlimited on IMDb. It pulled up the Justice

League thing. And under the Justice League thing

on IMDb, and we all know how... well -versed

imdb is but you know under justice league it

lists all five seasons as it's one show so that's

that's just the way i look at it um what have

you been up to lupus up there in new hampshire

you you guys have a lot of snow as well don't

you yes but in new hampshire we go oh six inches

that's nothing i know exactly we have when we

tonight we have a snowstorm that is scheduled

to be Somewhere between around 16 inches, I believe.

And that's enough for us to go, oh, we're getting

a little bit of snow. Oh, okay. Everyone just

grab some food. We're used to it up here. Yeah,

exactly. Now, if we really were to drop this

much snow somewhere south of the Mason -Dixon

line, it would be, oh, my God! It's an apocalypse.

Yeah, I tell you. We get an inch and a half,

two inches here in Louisville, Kentucky, and

people frigging panic over that. It's like, oh,

my God, it's the end of the world. And I feel

fine. 500 geek points if anybody gets that reference.

Oh, man. Yes. What else do we want to talk about?

I guess we'll get this out of the way here. We've

made it no secret, even though we love Justice

League and the DC animated universe, we're also

Transformers fans. And holy crap, multiple versions

of Masterpiece Rodimus. Not just a Hasbro and

a Takara version, but a Hong Kong version as

well. Now which version are you going to get?

Poor Proto Man, he has to get six of everything.

The man is going to be broke. Yeah, Proto Man

is going to go bankrupt over Masterpiece Rodimus.

It is a masterpiece, though. Yes, yes it is.

So back to the superhero stuff. We are going

to take a quick break. You're going to hear,

I don't know, some random favorite clips of ours,

I guess. And we'll come back with the Season

5 overall discussion. So, yes, Season 5 of Justice

League. Now, you said off -air, it just didn't

seem like it was a whole season. Yeah, it seemed

really just short. It's not so much that it was

short. I mean, it was a full animated 13 -episode

season, as far as the animated series goes. Animated

series are either 13 episodes per season or 26

episodes per season, depending on the show and

the producers and all that. The reason why it

probably seemed like it went by so fast or seemed

like it was really short is because great storytelling,

a lot of action. I mean, a few of those episodes

22 through 24, I mean, I remember there was a

couple of them where we barely had any notes

because it was just so much good action. That's

true. Yes. Let's start with the bad stuff first.

The worst episodes of this season, at least for

me, are Chaos at the Earth Core, To Another Shore,

and Patriot Act. I could not stand those ones.

Patriot Act, as I said when we reviewed that,

it was nice to see, even though we didn't really

have to see what happened to Eileen, but it was

kind of nice to see. like the remnants of what

happened to Cadmus after Divided We Fall. But,

I mean, really? Eiling turning into giant, hulking

-looking thing and coming after all of these

heroes who have no superpowers? Oh, God. There

wasn't any wrap -up to it either. Just, oh, he

runs off into the sunset. Yeah. That's it? Really?

Yeah, he hulk -jumped into the sunset, yeah.

You can't tell me it wasn't the Hulk. Dear God.

So funny. So funny. So what about you? What are

some of your least favorite or hated episodes?

Grudge Match. I knew you were going to say that.

It's right up there. I hate roulettes. And just...

Every sci -fi story has got to have that brawl.

episode you know they always go into the black

black market brawl fight it's just every season

every or every series sanctuary did it i'm pretty

sure star trek did it at one point i know someone

probably like no but to illustrate my point it's

just one of those cliched episodes that is always

in the storyline and i just i think we could

have done without honestly We did it once. We

don't have to come back and do it a second time.

Well, the difference, at least for me, is before

you move on, the difference for me was grudge

match was all girl fights. Whereas, oh, what

the hell's the damn episode? The one with Wildcat.

Shit. Cat and Canary. That was more of Wildcat

going up against all. It was more of the regular,

you know, male. Ultimate Fighter things, whereas

Grudge Match was all chickfights. And as I said

in that episode when we reviewed it, only if

they were naked and there was a tub of pudding.

Yeah, it still wouldn't do anything for me. Well,

yeah, that's because you prefer the other. Anyway.

You swing the other way. Great brain robbery.

Just, again, another cliche episode, and if you've

seen one, you've seen a lot of them, and the

only one, only... The time I've ever seen this

cliche pulled off well was Farscape. See, I disagree

with you because Great Brain Robbery was an amazing

use of Michael Rosenbaum's and Clancy Brown's

voice talents. Okay, but other than that, I mean,

story -wise, did it really progress anything?

Well, we did get some closure as to why when

we got... When, who was it that said, I think

it was Red Tornado that said, he speed shifted

right through the wall and Green Lantern was

like, that's why the real Flash doesn't do it.

Because his power is so... So, I mean, it's not

like they're ignoring what happened in Divided

We Fall, but at the same time, I mean, you know...

Sanford got it as a reaction to Divided We Fall.

It was one of those, he has the power, he chooses

not to use it. Yes. I know I'm mixing genres

here, but with great power comes great responsibility.

We're not in the Marvelverse, thank God. What

else? With great comic writing comes great retconning.

Or horrible retconning, I should say. Chaos at

the Earth's core. I mean, I love Stargirl, but...

That's pretty much it for this season. Yes. For

me, my favorite episodes are almost everything

else. I didn't really – Dead Reckoning was okay.

It wasn't a great, great episode. But, I mean,

if there was ones that I had to throw in kind

of like on the fence type of stuff, like I don't

love it but I don't hate it, it would probably

be – Dead Reckoning, Flash and Substance was

great for the Flash references, but probably

Dead Reckoning and Far From Home I'm on the fence

about as far as I could go either way as far

as liking them or not liking them. But I Am Legion,

Shadow of the Hawk, Great Brain Robbery, Ancient

History, Alive and Destroyer, all amazing to

me, I think. Just actually seeing and they did

Legion of Doom, and they did an updated version

of the headquarters, and it was just amazing.

And then in the two Hawkgirl -centric stories

with Shadow of the Hawk and Ancient History,

I'm a huge James Remar fan, and I actually love

him voicing Hawkman. That's just a great voice

cast, I think, for that role. And just seeing

that story was amazing. Plus, you know, Shire

in that dress. Oh, my God. Judas Priest. It's

a good band. Yeah, yeah. And then Alive being,

you know, we had back in Task Force X in Season

4 where it was all of the supervillains or all

of the non -powered supervillains or whatever

you want to call them. You know, infiltrating

the Watchtower where in Alive is all the super

-powered villains. It's an entire villain episode

up to the very end where you get like maybe three

seconds of heroes at the end where Lex says,

we have a problem. And the twist, because nobody

knew, I don't think at the time, and a lot of

people probably might not realize this, but the

twist at the end of Alive as far as... who talent

actually brings back. Oh my, I was shocked because

they specifically said back in, uh, what was

it? Uh, season three. Uh, where is it? Um, no,

let's see. Season. That's season one. Yeah. Yeah.

No, they, they specifically said back in season

two of justice league when they were still doing

two parters, uh, that the twilight two parter,

um, And no, this has nothing to do with New Moons

and werewolves and all that bullshit. But they

twilight Tupar with Darkseid and Brainiac. They

specifically said in the commentaries that they

killed Darkseid. He's gone. He's not coming back.

So when he was the one that came back and alive,

I was like, holy shit. And then Destroyer. Destroyer

to me is just amazing. As I've said in a previous

episode when we talked about Epilogue, I know

I understand what they were doing with Epilogue

because they didn't realize they were going to

get picked up for a third or fourth season. They

didn't realize they were going to get picked

up for another season, so I understand what they

did with Epilogue. But for me, Epilogue needs

to go after Destroyer. What about you? Which

ones do you like the best? So we got Ancient

History and Shadow of the Hawk, which was a great

two -parter, which really should have been closer

together in the season, I think. Yeah, they should

have been. Just made into a two -part. I liked

Dead Reckoning like it was okay. But I really

think that Dead Man, from a character point of

view, I like what they're doing with Brightest

Day and making him deal with the morality of

who he is and what it means to live, which is

the whole dichotomy, which I think would have

been a lot better. That being said, I... I think

Shadow the Hawk and... Ancient History. Thank

you, Ancient History. I'm looking at it going,

what did this say? I really think that that is

definitely one of the star story arcs. Yeah.

The only problem with having them closer together

within the episodes of the season... is that

time actually elapses from Shadow of the Hawk

through those other episodes, and then we come

to ancient history. I think Destroyer was a nice

way to wrap it up. Oh, yeah. I still kind of

feel like the end of it could have been a little

bit better. I'm not quite so forced. I didn't

think it was forced at all. The end of Destroyer

was just awesome. If they had, in the seasons,

put a little bit of a bit here and a bit there

about Jean in the little Chinese guy's form,

just a little bit more than just, oh, random

guy on the Great Wall of China. Oh, I need to

go help. Wait, who the hell's this guy? If there

had been a little bit more pretense and preamble.

But see, I think the whole point of when they

were, was it Far From Home? Not Far From Home.

To Another Shore, when they had that episode

and they had Jean leave, the point of it was

he had to go out and be away from the league

and live his life as a pseudo -human or whatever

you want to call him. Or whatever. And he had

to be gone. It's kind of like Darkseid. He had

to be gone. I don't think it would have worked

as well, because the whole point is, you're supposed

to have that shock and awe of, okay, you're supposed

to have that what -the -fuck moment of, okay,

who's this little Chinese old man saying he has

to go help? But you're supposed to have that

shock and awe when, I mean, I knew immediately

it was Jaune as soon as I saw him turn into the

Red Dragon, for Christ's sake. Obviously. I think

you have to have that shock and the awe for when

Diana jumps in the air and hugs him. I don't

think it would have worked if you had him, like,

even as a background character in some of the

other episodes between To Another Shore and Destroyer.

It just seemed like he was this random deus ex

machina. Nah, not really. Because you're reuniting

the original seven. and they're living their

lives. They're going on. And of course, the whole

thing where Flash goes, and these are the end

times, and then Diana goes, the adventure continues.

The point of it is that they've left themselves

open -ended with Destroyer. Yes, chronologically

in the DC Animated Universe, Epilogue kind of

ends it all, but even Epilogue... leaves it open

to where Terry McGinnis' Batman flies up into

the sky. So we know the League goes on in the

future, but what I'd like to see nowadays is

the same animation style as Justice League and

have adventures after Destroyer up until... Batman

Beyond. Up until the first episode of Batman

Beyond where Bruce Wayne in the premiere episode

in Rebirth of Batman Beyond has his final adventure.

I want to see those stories now. I'd like to

see what happens after Destroyer up until we

get to Batman Beyond chronologically in the DCAU.

That's one of the reasons why I love Destroyer

is because it does leave it open -ended. I honestly

would love to get just one Like, more seasons,

more info. Yeah. Like, not a full, like, oh,

just Batman, but, like, maybe some one -shots

here or there. Which, I mean, it kind of makes

me excited for Young Justice, honestly. Because

we're getting that... We're getting the characters

that we know and love and... Kind of. I mean,

Young Justice is completely different. Young

Justice is... The sidekicks. No, but there's

a lot of, like, the actual Justice League. Oh,

yeah, no, I understand that, but the main point

of Young Justice is Robin and Aqualad and the

sidekicks, even though the promos say don't call

them sidekicks. Well, that's what they are. They're

Justice League. Miss Martian? Yeah, what? Miss

Martian. Oh, God, don't get me started. Hey,

she's an actual valid character. The whole head

-slapping thing. But anyway, back to Season 5

of Justice League. Yeah, and the voice cast for

this season. I mentioned James Remar earlier,

but just all of the, like, Daniel Dae Kim as

Metron. Oh yeah. Uh, anything that comes out

of Kevin Conroy's mouth, anything that comes

out of Batman's mouth is just gold. Um, the relationship

between John, not John, uh, John Stewart, uh,

Mari and, and Shira, uh, in the episode, uh,

uh, in, in, in, uh, ancient history. I love that

whole scene. It's like, I could put some water.

You'd never know it. Not worried one bit. And

out it goes into the trash. Yeah. And Gina Torres

was Mari. And that was just amazing. Actually,

it's funny. I'm getting into every morning at

6 a .m. on TNT, they run syndicated episodes

of... Joss Whedon's Angel series. And we're just

now getting up to the point in the season, season

four, where Gina Torres is going to come in as

Jasmine. So she's got a great overall voice.

And, you know, Destroyer, the speech that Superman

makes at the end. Same thing. George Newbern

delivered that spot on awesome. That was great.

You know, the whole thing about that man won't

take a, you know, that man won't stop until he

can't take a breath speech. And then the whole,

you know, just see how powerful I really am.

Just overall, season five was, as I said, it

was great storytelling. It was awesome, awesome

animation. Plot points. They're not really plot

points, but there are some episodes, as we've

said, that kind of suck. Poor Tala. Yeah. Yeah.

And Tala. Tala's voicing. Oh, my God. Juliette

Landau voicing Tala and giving her that Natasha

moose and squirrel type of voice. Oh, baby. Yeah.

Yeah, exactly. Lex, baby, you don't really think

I cheat on you? That was moose and squirrel.

Because we are Ustreaming this episode, I'm so

going to throw one of the Ustream watchers under

the bus. Glade Packer, you are wrong, dude. Legacy

was awesome in Superman the Animated Series,

the two -part finale of Superman the Animated

Series. It's awesome for what it was, but Destroyer...

is a very awesome episode for JLU. But anyways,

what else do you want to bring up about Season

5 here? Okay, so we've already talked about in

prior episodes the villain -centric episodes,

but I think one of the episodes that really needs

to be brought up again is Flash and Substance.

Oh, yeah. that there's more ways to deal with

villains than just beating them with punches

and sticks and laser blasts, especially with

how he dealt with the trickster. And it was nice

to have Mark Hamill back, who is more than just

some whiny little kid on a desert planet. But,

yeah, it's great to see that there's more than

one way to deal with these people. Yeah. That

they're not just... Not all villains are there

just to take over the world. Some of them are

just there to steal enough to make their mortgage

payments. True. And I think what really comes

in is that whole reaction between Batman, Orion,

Trickster, and Flash, where Batman and Orion

are used to having to make people talk and not

used to sitting down. And actually, this is perfect.

call back to epilogue. I mean, really, because

with Batman, he's used to making people talk,

and he's used to doing whatever it takes. That's

his mantra throughout the entire DC animated

universe, between Batman the Animated Series,

all the way up to Justice League, and Batman

Beyond. Do whatever it takes is pretty much his

mantra as far as that goes. But I just now noticed

that his actions in... flash and substance of

trying to make trickster talk and flash was like

no just you know let me handle this and he goes

over and he talks to trickster and he you know

talks him into turning himself in um where we

have that later in epilogue in that in that jlu

flashback scene where batman sits with ace i

mean you know that's probably where he got the

whole the whole thing of Of sitting with aces

from Flash. And let's be honest, I mean, Flash

is easily the heart of the entire league. I mean...

At least the conscience. Yeah. He's definitely

the person to sit there and be like, to take

a step back and be like, okay, everybody, you

know, you're making a really bad decision here.

Why do we have only these options? And even,

you know, and another thing about, you know,

the characters, I mean, Green Arrow. What cartoon

character is going to come straight out and say

that he is left wing? On a kid's show. Exactly.

You know, he specifically says, you know, I might

be just an old lefty and blah, blah, blah. But,

you know, and Green Arrow. Oh, God, don't get

me started. Green Arrow was just awesome. I would

love to talk to Ken Shriver or whatever, whatever,

whatever is how you say his name, just to get

some Green Arrow. promos out of him. And I think

my favorite Green Arrow moment in the entire

series was when he hummed his own theme music.

That was classic. He did not just pull a crunk.

He pulled a crunk. Yeah. Yeah, it was so, so

awesome. Oh, God. So, so, so awesome. Alright.

Anything else we want to bring up before we move

on? I think we've covered almost everything.

All right. Oh, I do have to give... I will say,

though, Patriot Act, sticking their thumb out

at Marvel. Yeah. For Captain Nazi. That was so

tongue -in -cheek. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Okay, that's

all I got for now. So we're going to move on

to our final overall recap of Justice League.

Each of us is willing to make the sacrifices

a hero needs to make, even the ultimate one.

I consider myself one of the luckiest guys in

the business for having the opportunity to work

with this entire career of DC characters, all

kind of culminating with Justice League. What's

to stop history from repeating itself right here

on Earth? We are. These were interesting characters

in their own right, and they spark against each

other in interesting ways. We love to see that,

when a group of disparate people somehow manage

to work together for the duration. We didn't

go in thinking we were going to make the best

superhero show ever, but toward the end, we realized,

hmm, we may have made the best superhero show

ever. I think if we look back at the Hanna -Barbera

and the Filmation superhero shows, that we look

at them today and we go, isn't that quaint? Isn't

that old -fashioned? And yet, at the time, they

were not that far from where the comic books

were maybe 10 years before that. The Justice

League was sort of the Kiwanis Club. And it was

seven guys and Wonder Woman, who was literally

their secretary. And they all agreed on everything,

and they were all hell fellows well met. And

they got along perfectly, and they were really

powerful, and the villains didn't have a chance.

Teams in the early days had a cobblestone quality.

It wasn't so much a matter of pitting the characters

against each other in their personalities originally.

You couldn't have conflict at television at that

time, so they had to fight natural disasters.

And everything had to be nice and friendly and

kind. When you're a kid, you don't know anything

about how do adults relate to each other. It's

comforting, it's reassuring to see that everybody

gets along. They wouldn't use the real villains

from the comics. That bugged me as a kid. I'd

rather read the comics than watch the cartoons.

So when we started looking at doing Justice League,

we wanted to try and be... sort of more true

to where the comic books had come since that

time. We were all supercharged with enthusiasm

for the show and the possibilities of what we

could do in a superhero show. Comics are more

respected. Standards and practices understand

that you need drama, conflict. We wanted to stick

with the main big seven of the Justice League.

And it was important for us to find unique voices

for all of the heroes. We really wanted to mix

it up with some tension amongst the team. We

had already established that Superman and Batman

had tension, and then there were these new characters

that had to come in. And so we defined them by

types. Green Lantern was the no -nonsense military

guy. Flash was kind of the slacker, laid -back

dude. Wonder Woman was a princess, newly arrived,

who didn't really know the norms of the world.

Whereas Hawkgirl was knowledgeable about things

that Wonder Woman had no idea about. John Jones

was the ultimate outsider. It was about them

learning how to deal with each other and learn

how to work together as a team. I think it was

cool that, no, they didn't pretend that they

liked each other. They didn't pretend that they

agreed with one another. You know something,

Bruce? You're not always right. Character is

conflict, and so if you've got a team where all

of the characters agree with each other all the

time, you're gonna have a pretty boring show.

I think it's more interesting to see people who

don't agree come together for a larger purpose

than to see people who absolutely agree on everything.

As much fun as the old stuff was, I think we

had a little bit more fun. The original concept

for Unlimited was that it was going to be kind

of like a cross between an ongoing team show,

like the first two seasons of Justice League,

but also kind of like a weird backdoor pilot

anthology. We were going to be bringing these

other characters, and the shows would be, theoretically,

more about the guest stars. We ended up getting

deeper into the characters in the half -hour

pieces than we did in the original series. It's

important to have all these different characters

because it creates a reality. that's separate

from our own reality. We have to believe that

there's a world where there are all these different

kind of colorful costume characters who interact

with each other. The B -level characters, I think,

are kind of more interesting. We can sort of

have a little bit of license with the characters

to do what we want with them. When you start

bringing characters like the Question or Vixen

or Huntress, we had no idea how they interacted.

Once we realized we had two full seasons of shows

that we could do... and we had this huge cast,

we could kind of create like this big mega plot.

The world was not just contained to the superheroes.

You could bring in characters like Amanda Waller,

who is ostensibly a good character, but she does

some really vile things to accomplish her needs.

You really think we can do something with this?

We did an entire story that was told from the

point of view of the bad guys. We realized, hey,

every time Cadmus does something against the

Justice League, the Justice League wins. So that

means Cadmus is just really not that credible

a threat anymore. So we needed to have Cadmus

come in and win in one episode. Listen to me.

We've got one advantage. This tower's so big

and there's so much staff on it, no one's going

to notice us. Unless one of you does something

stupid. We treated our villains as if they were

the good guys. And we treated the Justice League

as if they were like these unknowable, you know,

godlike beings up in this watchtower in space.

You've got to have somebody monitoring them to

see that they're not really bent on world domination

or they've got some villainous plot of their

own. And yet, by trying to monitor them, they

become the bad guys. Somebody's got to do something

about this. Do your stockholders know about this,

Bruce? A line item hidden in the aerospace R

&D budget. When we first started Justice League,

our first self -imposed rule that we gave ourselves

was that we didn't want to rely too much on the

continuity of our previous series, Batman and

Superman. And as we did more shows, it became

clear that it wasn't. a universe. By the time

we got to Justice League Unlimited, we were just

thinking back and said, you know, we've had several

secret organizations in both Superman and Batman.

We realized, hey, you know, what if every one

of those secret organizations that we'd had before,

what if they're all part of the same secret organization?

How do we deal with the things that we messed

up and manage to sweep them under the rug or

justify them? The nice thing about the Justice

League animated series is it has the benefit

of that would -be cohesion. and an understanding

that you're trying to create a coherent world.

We started deliberately trying to tie all this

stuff together into this one big massive climactic

story that was going to put a big exclamation

point at the end of the sentence of the DC universe.

We knew with Justice League that we wanted to

touch on several famous stories from the DC comic

books, and one of them was for the man who had

everything, the idea of Superman living in a

fantasy world. I promise you, I'll never forget.

We knew we wanted to adapt that for two reasons.

We had introduced Mongol in Justice League, and

we knew he had a mad -on for Superman. And we

also wanted to do the Trinity idea of Wonder

Woman, Superman, and Batman teaming up. So this

was a perfect story to adapt, so we really stuck

close to it. But I think this is yours. I think

my favorite episode to write was the Christmas

episode where Superman kind of takes pity on

John Jones and takes him back to Smallville with

him for the holidays. Kitty. It really was like...

doing another episode of the Superman series

because we had the same voice cast doing Ma and

Pa Kent, the same house. But it just felt like,

you know, going home a little bit, you were able

to keep a lot of the same creative threads running

from show to show, particularly in regards to

character continuity. You could take a character

such as Orion that showed up in Superman and

then really play him out and give him a greater

role in Justice League. Talk. while you still

have a jaw. In the Batman story that features

the demon, it's a story that really is focused

on trying to convince... the audience that magic

can happen in batman's world by the time we get

to justice league that work has already been

done and so then we can do a story that focuses

on who the demon is and what his story is using

all of those worlds to make our world seem bigger

and more real so when you saw an adventure you

realize these characters had lives outside of

the few minutes that we saw in each episode then

you got somebody like supergirl who's just trying

to prove herself, you know, and get out from

under her cousin's shadow. The innocent from

another world who doesn't know her way around

to a contemporary teenager to a grown -up woman

who's ready to leave and do her own life. That

makes for a lot of really cool dynamics. In some

cases, I want to see those stories more than

I want to see them going out and beating up Felix

Faust or the Parasite again. When they leave

the story for a while and come back, there was

always growth. There was always something that

had happened in their lives that affected where

we are now. Working with a cast of Justice League

was terrific because if you ever had a favorite

character in the DC universe, you got to use

them. Whenever we adapt a character from the

comics into the animation, we try to stay true

to at least the intent of the character. You

want to reproduce the essence of what people

are interested in and what the fans are interested

in about that character and make it visible to

someone who hasn't read all the comic books.

A lot of the characters in the DC comics came

from the 40s and 50s and so when we looked at

trying to introduce them to a new audience we

had to find ways to make them relevant. I've

got 60 years of Green Arrow incarnations to look

at and to pick and choose what I want. that helps

serve the story I'm telling now. This is somebody

from a comic book you've been reading your entire

life and you can have them come in and do something

that's very much like that character and then

you move on and it makes it feel much richer.

It was also a chance to take characters who had

never appeared in animation before and really

give them a larger presence, a bit more stature.

The difficulty in adapting those never before

adapted characters is usually tone. Say something.

Preemptive strike. Our hawk and dove, is it comedic

or what? And it requires a lot of creativity

on the part of the writers to make them. come

to life. The main benefit to the characters that

haven't appeared many times in movies and other

TV shows is that people don't have as fixed an

image. Everybody knows Wonder Woman, Superman,

The Flash, Batman. Not so many people know Hawk

and Dove, The Vigilante, Vixen. You have to look

at the character and figure out, okay, what is

specific to Mr. Terrific? What are the elements

that are Mr. Terrific? How best can we present

them? if they had their own show, what they would

be doing on that show. A character like Green

Arrow, he's straight up out of the comics. His

look, he's got the Neil Adams costume. He's got,

you know, the left -wing liberal, you know, sensibility.

I know he actually talks about being a lefty.

The government must do for people what people

can't do for themselves. Who does that? What

comic character, what cartoon character has ever

admitted to have left -leaning philosophy? I

just helped a little guy in a big club like this.

You tend to forget all about him. He's the swashbuckler.

He's also the womanizer. You know, I mean, he's

straight up Ollie Queen out of the comics. Back

off, nuke boy! Captain Adam, he gets his authority

from the military. And if the military is against

the Justice League, then he's against the Justice

League. Some of the more obscure characters,

they're dropped into flavor certain episodes.

And yet, in some cases, they really catch on

with an audience. Like, you know, the question...

really became a great character. I had no idea

that the Girl Scouts were responsible for the

crop circle phenomenon. Few people do. Few even

think to ask the question. To get the appeal

of the question, you have to almost write a parody

of the question and then pull it back a couple

steps. You're lucky to have me along. Hardly.

You're drawn to my eccentric charm. Our version

of the question is influenced by Ditko's original

character. He's a wonderful contrast to the entire

league. because he has no face, he has no powers,

but really what he has is a mind and a point

of view. And that's his power. And it's amazing.

In the comics, a character like the Question

would never, ever be in the Justice League. But

that was just like this weird conceit we had.

Literally any DC hero could be drafted into the

Justice League because, you know, it's like,

hey, if we need you, we'll call you. Wannabeast,

be ready. Wannabeast, for crying out loud. I

didn't even grow up with the character. I'd seen

ads for it when I was a kid, but I was always

intrigued by this thing. He's nothing like the

character in the comics because the character

in the comics is probably the weirdest character

the DC ever, ever came up with. He was fun for

an episode. He just added a little bit to it.

I don't know if we're going to see the Wannabeast

series. A lot of the guys we chose were frankly

just red shirts. They're just guys to walk through

in the background sometimes when we need a...

a crowd scene of superhero characters. Some of

them never even opened their mouths. Aztec. I'm

sorry. I'm sorry. I'm not a fan. I don't know

Aztec. But in a way, we didn't abuse the character

by doing him incorrectly either. The wall's submolecular

integrity has been compromised. We tried to pick

characters who were visually interesting. We

wanted to break up the silhouettes of them so

they weren't all just guys in spandex. Vigilante

is a really good case in point. He's a character

that, even if you know nothing about the comics

or you've never read a character that had the

Vigilante in before, The minute you see him,

you get him. He's a cowboy guy who rides a motorcycle.

Done. Same thing with the Shining Knight. Okay,

he's a knight. He's a guy in golden armor with

a sword. It's like, okay, you get it, you know?

Logically, characters like Green Lantern or Superman

probably should not be interacting with characters

like Green Arrow because characters like Green

Arrow are very likely to be inadvertently killed.

But they work so well in the team structure.

You introduce an element of humanity to the concept

of superheroes and it provides a touchstone for

the audience. They provide characters that can

serve as the unpretentious contrast. Sometimes

the conscience of other characters. Sometimes

it's comic relief. Sometimes it's that gruff,

scrappy kind of quality that we long to see and

that by nature Superman or Wonder Woman do not

exhibit. Certainly Superman wanted them there

and Batman wanted to be there to keep these godlike

characters from losing touch with the people

that they had sworn to protect. The challenge

of Justice League is how to justify getting a

group of people together with their own ideologies,

their own philosophies, and they don't really

fight well, play well with others. So you create

a threat, a world threat, a cataclysm that's

so great that there's no excuse. These people

have to get together to fight. In the end, we

did make a really great superhero show that is

bigger than the sum of its parts. We love comics,

we love the characters, and we feel an incredible

responsibility to present them in the best way

that we know how. Millions more people will see

these characters because of the animation than

would ever have known about them just from comic

books. It's about more than just superheroes.

It's not just a cartoon. It's an animated story,

but it's universal in its appeal. Hopefully,

we were able to turn a whole new generation onto

these classic characters. And you just heard

Unlimited Reserve, which is the special feature

on the bonus disc of the complete series of Justice

League. And now it is time for us to do our overall

series recap. Did you first watch this when it

was running on Cartoon Network, or did you catch

it? When it first aired on Cartoon Network. Did

you really see it? I caught it late. I caught

it way after that. I didn't catch it back in

2001 when it first started airing. I caught it,

like, I think when I started to notice it. And

I was like, what the hell is this show? Was I

caught Once and Future Thing Part 1 when JLU

was running. And I was like, whoa, more DC animated

universe cartoons. Holy crap. And I've been hooked

ever since. I truly believe myself to be a DCMA

Universe aficionado because I've read almost

everything. I've listened to all the commentaries.

I've watched every single episode multiple times.

And I just absolutely love it. I'm going to put

it out there right now. The two worst episodes

of the entire series are... War World and Chaos

at the Earth's Core. I want to disagree with

you. Really? I will go with the episode that

shall not be named. What, War World? Yes. Okay.

I just feel like there's another one that should

have been there. Now, I'm looking at this as

worst episode of the entire series, not just

either the first two seasons of Justice League

or the final three seasons of Unlimited. I'm

looking at it as, like, episodes I will never,

ever watch again. And as far as, like, the two

worst ones, it would be War World and Chaos Theory's

core. Only a Dream, Eclipse, and Terror Beyond

are in there somewhere, but they're not as bad.

How about Maid of Honor? I liked Maid of Honor

for what it was. It wasn't horrible. Hearts and

Minds, the good thing about Hearts and Minds

was the voicing of Despero was Keith David. But

these episodes, while... They are kind of bad.

They're not worst episode ever. You know what

I mean? I don't know. Eclipse is pretty bad up

there. It's bad, but it's not like War World

was just useless. War World shouldn't even have

been in there. The only reason why they probably

put War World in there was so they could have,

for the man who has everything later on in Unlimited,

so Mongol could come back with the Black Mercy,

for Christ's sake. We'll talk about the Black

Mercy. Oh. Okay. Yeah, so. Yeah. I'm going to

go by season. For me, my favorite episodes from

season one, I liked Secret Origins. For the simple

fact that it introduces us to the League, I still

don't know how the hell Batman knew Hot Girl,

but... It's the goddamn Batman. Yeah, it's the

goddamn Batman. I liked In Blackest Night as

well, because we're getting, you know, GL stories

and everything else, which is very cool. I liked...

Injustice for All was okay, but it's not one

that I really, really particularly care for.

I really like Night of Shadows. Edrigan rules.

Gone, gone, the form of man. Rise the demon,

Edrigan. I'm going to have to get that clip again.

Oh, God, I love that. And then Savage Time, the

three -parter that ended Season 1. I absolutely

love that as well. What about you? Oh, let's

go through. Let's see. We had Secret Origins.

Blackest Night was okay. You just don't like

it because it's not a Guy Gardner story. And

still he comes up in the final episode. Well,

he's going to come up a little bit later when

we talk about the toy lines. Let's see. Enemy

Blow was – I liked it for Aquaman being total

badass. Yeah. Let's see. Injustice for All was

kind of funny. I mean that was seeing him mack

on a cat. Bats and cats. Oh, yeah. What did you

say? War World. Yeah, that's all we can really

say about that one. Paradise Lost was okay. Brave

and the Bold. It's nice to see Flash -centric

episodes, of course. Then we get the setup for

the whole Gorilla City. Yeah. Fury. That was

the one with the... The female -centric, like,

oh, we're going to make every man in the world

die. Yeah. Night of Shadows. Morgan Le Fay is

pretty badass. I like her for a villain. And

yes, Etrigan, Etrigan, Etrigan. You know what?

Metamorphosis. I was not too thrilled with that

episode. Really. Metamorphosis? Nothing. Really.

They could have done something else with that

episode. Savage Time was pretty cool because

we got to see Vandal Savage. It's a shame we

didn't get to see Scandal Savage, which would

have been awesome. But that's it for Season 1.

Yeah, and the thing about most of season one,

while they did rectify the fact that they made

Superman an out -and -out wimp in this season,

the thing about season one is, like, Batman.

Batman has great lines everywhere, not just in

JLU, but just in this entire series. I don't

need to do anything. I'm a part -timer. Remember,

yeah. As far as Season 2, I liked Twilight. I'm

not going to stop until you're just a greasy

smear on my fist. I love that. I like Tabula

Rasa because I like seeing... First of all, we

got to see Mercy in power. Lex was on the run.

That was kind of cool. A Better World, part one

and part two, I like that. I loved Hereafter.

Hereafter was awesome. Hereafter was awesome

for the simple fact that you have Bruce lamenting

Clark for like a minute and a half, and then

an explosion happens. And then he's like... What

was it you always said, Clark? The never -ending

fight or the never -ending battle or whatever

it was. Just, you know, so many different sides

to Bruce Wayne slash Batman throughout this entire

series. And just that moment just made the hereafter

so awesome for me. I could have done without

the cockroach, the giant freaking cockroaches.

For Christ's sake, it looked like they were,

you know, super troopers on that planet fighting

the damn cockroaches. Wildcards. Finally, a Joker

episode in Justice League. Anytime Mark Hamill

has done the voice of the Joker has been awesome.

That was his last episode, right? No, that wasn't

his last episode. That was the Joker's last episode

in chronological order of DCAU, but that was

not the last time that Mark Hamill appeared as

a voice in DCAU. Yeah, I meant the Joker. Yeah,

it was the last time the Joker appeared. Let's

see here. Comfort and Joy. I know we needed something

between Wild Cards and Star -Crossed, but I don't

know. I just... I like that we see the humanite

again, the ultra -humanite, and I like that it's

kind of a... I mean, obviously, it focuses on

each of the League members, but... It's not something

I could watch all the time. I gotta go back really

quick. I didn't really bring up... Even though

only a dream on a whole, I don't really care

for the episode, but again, it goes back to Batman.

And... Give me a triple. And then him humming.

Again, Batman moments in the DC Animated Universe

are just awesome. No matter what he does, they're

just awesome. And then Starcross. Starcross did

several things. Starcrossed... showed us finally

after teasing us for so long about Chayera, or

Hot Girl at this point, you know, teasing us

with her origin and all that stuff, and finally

show the Thanagarians. It is the first time that

they were ever out of their costumes as far as...

In civilian clothes, too. Yep, as far as the

other ones. And we've learned which Flash is

in Justice League. Hold on, hold on. Clark Kent,

Wally West, Bruce Wayne. Honestly, it still comes

back to Batman. He delivers some of the best

lines. Wally's got some good lines, too. No,

he does, but just... Those that needs to be playing

off everybody else. Yeah. Yeah. What about you

for season two here? Season two. Um, 12 of the

gods is okay. Kind of, um, Tabula Rasa. That

was definitely up there. Uh, what? Only a dream.

That was awesome. Again, Maid of Honor, eh, really?

Okay, I mean, yeah, it's Vandal Savage, but still,

eh. The Princess of Kasnia made me want to punch

her. Hearts and Minds is actually really good.

Okay, A Better World. That has to be one of the

best episode story arcs for that season. Yeah.

Setting everything up. Yeah. Terra Beyond, I

really did like that one. Especially for giving

all those nods to H .P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos.

Yeah. I hated Eclipsed. Secret Society, okay,

yeah, that was pretty good, just because it leads

up to later on down the road. Yeah. Hereafter,

that... was... It was a singular episode, to

be nice. Or a singular story arc. It's interesting

to see... I would have liked to have seen a little

bit more of a moral issue with Clark. See him

kind of hearken back to Bruce, maybe, just to

be like, okay, hey, what have I got to do to

survive? You mean hereafter? Yeah. Because he

had to go into the future. There's nothing. He

thinks he's the only person alive on the planet.

And he's powerless. It's nice to see the character

development for Vandal Savage and why he would

help him go back. Plus, I mean, Vandal is a good

guy. Oh, coffee? Tea? Anyone? Yeah. Wild cards.

That was such an... Awesome, awesome episode.

Yeah, it was. I can't croon about that one enough.

Again, Bat and Bargo, damn it all to hell. No,

at least Joker was in this one. He was. And I

have to wonder how good the episodes would be

in the later seasons if they could have used

the Bat villains. Yeah, but I mean, even so,

with what we got from the later seasons, it was

still awesome. Oh, it was still awesome, but

I would have liked to have seen... How the storylines

could have been changed, especially if the Joker

was still around in the whole Lex versus Grodd

scenario. Yeah. And then Starcrossed. That was

an awesome, awesome, awesome way to end the season.

Yes, it was. Now, before we go on to Season 3,

we're going to talk about how did you like the

Season 1, Season 2 theme, the intro theme? Okay,

it was good. I just think it could have been...

It didn't have the oomph as the later season.

I liked it for what it is and for what the story

format was for the first two seasons, but going

into... The Unlimited seasons. I absolutely love

the Unlimited theme. The Unlimited theme, every

time I hear that, I hum along with it. We see

in Initiation that time has passed and they've

expanded the league. We don't get closure as

to what happened. at the end of star cross that

comes in bits and pieces throughout seasons three

and four. But just seeing that scene where green

arrow, green arrow or green arrow, um, you know,

gets beamed up to the watchtower and they, they,

they, they pan around. You see all these heroes

was just amazing to see that. It was eyeopening.

Just how many characters that they had there.

Yep. This wasn't just one little, like, oh, we're

going to have a few people show up, it'll be

great. No, this is like a huge army that they've

drummed up. Yes, exactly. And world -spanning.

Yep. For the man who has everything, I love how

they made the... Well, you can talk about this

here in a minute, but I love how they did the

Trinity episode with just centering the story

around the big three of Superman, Batman, and

Wonder Woman. This came out of the comics, did

it not? Isn't this a direct adaptation? You know,

honestly, I'm not entirely sure. I think it is.

I believe it was a comic. Popular story written

by Alan Moore. Illustrated by Dave Gibbons for

Superman Annual 11 in 1985. Yeah, yeah. I love,

and this is something else we're going to bring

up throughout. I mean, they kind of played it

up in Season 2, but not really. I mean, they

kind of did with Starcross and stuff like that,

but not really. But Batman and Wonder Woman,

will they, won't they? I love the beginning scene

of For the Man Who Has Everything because of

the simple fact that it's Wonder Woman and Batman

in the invisible jet, and they're not bantering,

but they're trading comments to each other. She's

chiding him for, you know, did you buy him a

gift card? No, I bought cash. And then she's

like, He's like, well, what did you get him?

I'm not going to tell. He's got super hearing.

He can hear that too. And my only problem with

this episode is the fact that it's fucking Mongol.

If it had been somebody else, it might be cooler.

Yeah. But honestly, though, it up to that point,

we didn't see Clark as this little wimp. You

know, in this he totally went absolutely ape.

Oh, yeah. Like this is the point where he's going

to kill somebody. OK, grab some popcorn. Yes,

exactly. And I love the way the way Bruce. as

Clark is in the dream sequence, and Wonder Woman's

off fighting Mongol, and he's like, good, she's

in the Hall of Weapons, it'll buy her some time,

but you've got to snap out of it, Kent. And all

this. And just seeing Loana and Van Al, and what's

his name? Fucking hell. Shooter McGavin, Christopher

McDonald, as... As Zor -El. Or not Zor -El. No,

it's Jor -El. Sorry, holy crap. Superman fans

will kill me now. They're at the door with the

pitchforks. Yeah, exactly. But just having Christopher

McDonald voice another character like that was

just amazing. And having him reprise that role

was awesome. We can skip Hawk and Dove. I hate

that fucking episode. Well, you know what? Diana

hates you too. Who gives a shit if it's fucking

Fred Savage? That episode sucked. That looks

like you really feel. I just did. Fearful Cemetery,

we get the start of more Cadmus stuff. With the

whole Supergirl, Galatea thing. That one was

alright. It wasn't bad. I didn't dislike it.

It's something that I could probably watch again

just for the fact that Green Arrow has a lot

of good lines in it. It's the start of the whole

Cadmus thing, though. Yeah, it is. I mean, technically,

the... The actual full -on arc starts with Question

Authority, but there's hints throughout certain

episodes between now and then. But, I don't know,

Fearful Symmetry, it's not a bad episode. It's

not an episode that I can't or don't want to

watch, but it's one of those episodes where I

could take it or leave it. What about you? You've

seen it, you've watched it. Okay, let's move

on. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Kids stuff. Kids

stuff is amazing. Says the man who collects Transformers.

I agree. It was an excellent episode. And the

twist at the end. After all that, what happens

to the little brat? He turns into an old fart.

And then we've eliminated an excellent villain

from the series. Yeah, Morgaine. Morgana? Yeah.

Not Morgaine. I know, I know. Mordred. What a

little annoyance. You know what? Honestly, I

think that little bastard deserved it. But that's

because I really didn't like him. There's a lot

of Arthurian people going, oh, oh, no. Bad lupus.

That's funny. Plus we get to see the crab mask.

And for those who don't know what I'm talking

about, it's the – Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah,

Kyle's crab mask. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I got it.

I got it. Is there any other episodes you want

to talk about? Yeah, there was. How could you

miss this little piggy? No, hold on. I didn't

miss it. I wasn't done with kids' stuff yet,

but no, the crab mask. Baby Etrigan? Oh, God.

Baby Etrigan. Oh, my God. That's just so awesome.

You're not our mommy. No. But I promise you,

we'll find all your moms, and I'm going to tell.

Oh, yeah. Baby Adrigan. Baby Adrigan made Boom

Boom. This is a job for Superman. And I like

Diana and Batman again. You okay, tough guy?

Lego, I'm fine. And moving on to this little

piggy, why don't you give your thoughts for a

second? I've got to go mute because I have to

pull something up on the computer, so why don't

you start giving your thoughts about this little

piggy? Okay, we get to see the dichotomy, or

not dichotomy, the relationship between Bruce

and Diana. He's trying to put up all these reasons

why he couldn't possibly date. We know he doesn't

at the end anyway. You know, why he thinks that

it's inappropriate and, you know, why he's thinking

about her. And she just promptly crushes the

stone gargoyle in response. We get to see the

sensitive side of Batman as he sits there and

sings, which, you know, is by all accounts well

worth the price of admission. And we get to see

Cersei, who is supposed to be the antithesis

for Diana. It was just an awesome, awesome episode.

Throwbacks to Zatanna in the former episodes

of the Batman animated series. I thought it was

just great. Yeah, exactly. And then Wonder Pig

using the bracelets. That's so awesome. The reason

why I went mute there for a moment, ladies and

gentlemen, was because I was looking up the Justice

League Unlimited toy line because I saw something

in there the other day. Did you see Wonder Pig?

Hold on, hold on. I knew that there was a Batman

with Wonder Pig, but there's... I don't know

if it's already released. That's why I'm looking

for it. There's supposed to be Bawana Beast with

Wonder Pig. And I can't find the damn listing

anymore. Warlord, Superman. Here we go. Buona

Vista with Wonder Big. Late spring 2011 singles.

Oh, God. You know you got to get it. See, the

funny thing is, I would have... I don't have

the Batman with Wonder Pig, but I guess because

I would have... I have another JLU Batman already.

I guess Bawana Beast with Wonder Pig would be

cool because I could have them both standing

there. I'd have the Batman and the Bawana Beast

with Wonder Pig standing there, but that's just

so awesome. The Wannabe Beast? Yeah, Bawana Beast.

So, so awesome. No, James, not Spider Pig. No,

Wonder Pig. There's a difference. Oh, I just

got this horrible mental image of Spider -Pig

hanging upside down, trying to kiss... Wonder

Pig. Wonder Pig. Oh, God. In the Spider -Man

kiss. Go there. Why did you have to go there?

God damn it. Why wouldn't I go there? Yeah, that's

true. We've gone other strange places. Oh, shit.

Wait, what? hot wing sex like that's oh well

yeah that was me that wasn't you i i came up

with hot wing sex and for those of you uh who

haven't listened to the secret origins podcast

before what hot wing sex is is anytime hot girl

gets with anybody more specifically john stewart

but anybody it's hot wing sex um uh all right

so the return uh The return featured the return

of Amazo. One of my favorite bits in this is

the Mork and Mindy gag with the egg -shaped barbershop

chair thing throughout the tunnel going into

it. And then the Get Smart gag with the opening

doors and closing doors. And the return also

featured at the very end is the return of Shire

Hall, a .k .a. Hot Girl. That was cool. I see

what they did there. Ah, double entendre of the

words. Yep. I did not destroy Olay. It was in

my way. I simply moved it. Well, could you move

it back? It is done. You gotta love Robert Picardo.

I... Absolutely loved seeing Kyle Rayner again

because I think the last time we had seen Kyle

was in Superman the Animated Series. He was in

Superman the Animated Series? Yep. In Brightest

Day. I tried to point that out to you when we

reviewed Blackest Night way back in Episode 2.

You know what? It's Kyle. Kyle sucks. He dies

every couple of episodes. You know what? Guy

Gardner sucks. Guy Gardner sucks. Even though

Guy Gardner is getting an action figure in the

Justice League Unlimited line, it specifically

says non -show character. I'm going to punch

you, boy. No, but what I was trying to say was...

Way back when we did the In Blackest Night episode,

I didn't realize at the time that in the Superman

the Animated Series, there was an episode called

In Brightest Day. So you have the first two lines

of the Green Lantern Oath in the DC Animated

Universe as episode titles, In Brightest Day,

In Blackest Night. No evil shall escape my sight.

What? Oh, yeah. No evil shall escape my sight,

yeah. The Greatest Story Never Told. Well, thank

God it was never fucking told. I hate that fucking

episode. I like it. Booster Golden kissed my

ass. I know he might. Probably. The only good

thing about that episode was Skeets. That was

funny. I love Skeets. Skeets was awesome, but

Booster Gold? Fuck Booster Gold. But they had

Elongated Man, who was the piv. Yeah, the PIV.

Yep. Yeah, Jeremy Piven. And then Ultimatum was

their version of the Wonder Twin Super Friend

Thingamabob thing. Because Ultimatum has the

Ultiman. Two of the Shifter and Downpour and

Shifter were basically the Wonder Twins, for

Christ's sake. All they needed was Gleek. Yep.

I like Gleek, for some reason. And when I say

Gleek, I mean the monkey from Super Friends.

I don't mean those fucking Glee fan people. Hey!

Fuck that shit. No. Fuck that show. And then

we have, well, before I go on to Darkheart, what

did you think of Ultimatum? I thought it was

okay. I liked the fact that they made the Winter

Twins actually cool. Kind of. No, no, they were

cool. When they were mindless? Oh, yes. Well,

when they were mindless later on, yes. But in

this episode... So, A, in comparison to what

they used to be, they're still cool. Well, in

this specific episode, though, they're so super

emo. Well, yeah. How else are they going to get

the sales up for those girls? That's before Twilight.

God. That's so wrong. Shut up, Glade. I don't

care what you say. Moving on to the Dark Heart.

Batman to all points. I could use some air support

since I can't fly at all. Now would be good.

You're good. And James Hennigan or Jamie in the

chat said a second ago in the Ustream chat, Wonder

Boobies. Well, this is where Wonder Boobies really

comes in because she put the atom. In between

her tits. Wonder Woman has Adam in her cleavage.

You jealous? You are. Oh, hell. And Dark Heart

really was... more Cadmus stuff because Cadmus

took the remnants of the Dark Heart, even though

they could never get any of it to work again.

But that'll come up way later. Never mind the

giant space gun that they used. Oh yeah, the

space gun to dig the trench. Yeah, that's right.

And that put everybody on edge. Yep. I always

used to get Wake the Dead and Dead Reckoning,

confused. I always thought Dead Reckoning with

Boston Brand was Wake the Dead, but Wake the

Dead is the zombie Grundy episode. He already

was a zombie. Well, no, no, no, no. I mean, like,

in the Terror Beyond when he died way back then,

when, you know, that ended with... Showing the

grave, Solomon Grundy, born on a Monday. Yes,

he already was dead, but Grundy himself was finally

dead. In the beginning of this one, stupid -ass

fucking high schoolers try to arise something.

They got something out of it. What they got out

of it was a more zombified Grundy because Grundy

has no emotions. He's just pure energy and all

that stuff. Rage. Yes, rage. Internet rage! Anyway.

The Once and Future Thing two -parter, the only

two -parter in JLU. Well, at least the only two

-parter that actually says Part 1 and Part 2,

because Shadow of the Hawk and Ancient History,

while they are Parts 1 and Part 2, they don't

specifically say that in the title. Part 1 was

Weird Western Tales, and Part 2 was Time Warped.

I love... This was one hell of a way to go out

on a season. This was awesome. You're just saying

that because you got to see Wonder Woman in boots

and tight -fitting clothes. What? And she was

all dressed up like a cowgirl. Oh, yeah, as a

cowgirl? Yeah, I don't really care. I'd rather

see her in a short skirt. So, anyway. Or a slinky

dress. All right. Who's a lucky bastard? Anyway,

yeah, Once and Future Thing Part 2 I absolutely

loved because we get to see an adult static.

We get to see old Bruce again. Very, very cool.

We actually, the greatest thing about Once and

Future Thing Part 2, we get to see young Bruce

and old Bruce. tag -team somebody as far as questioning

somebody. Crotchety. Shut up. Crotchety old Bruce.

Yeah. And one of the greatest things about that

was Batman being the good guy, and Green Lantern

goes, it's all relative. And I like Terry McGinnis'

Batman Beyond line of, Bruce Wayne, Batman. Batman,

Bruce Wayne. Or have you met? Not now. Great.

What did they used to call it? Stereo? Oh, God.

And then going into, or did you have any thoughts

on Once and Future Thing just as kind of like

wrap up and overall? No, honestly, I think you've

covered all of it. It was a great two -part episode

to end. It was. The whole man shader was a...

It was a grumpy pregnant lady. A cranky pregnant

lady. Of course, if I laid an egg that size,

he's kidding, man. He's kidding. So we know what's

going to happen. It's just a question of getting

to that point. Well, the other thing is, I know

you said you didn't quite care for metamorphosis

with metamorpho. Yeah. And I knew this before

I'm going to bring this up, but... I believe

in that something about GL said whenever he has

his firstborn, he would name him after Rex. And

lo and behold. His name is Rex. Warhawk is Rex

Stewart. And we should mention that Warhawk was

a character that they made up for this continuity.

He was never in comics before. So moving into

season four, Cat and Canary. Cat and Canary is

okay. It has that first tensions between Huntress

and Canary. And it has Green Arrow first noticing

Canary, which was just awesome. But you probably

like the scene more where he actually comes out

of the shower or the steam room or whatever.

That was a very nice scene. Yes. Ties that bind,

meh. Whatever. I get that it's Kirby characters.

I get that it's Fourth World and all that. But

I have no connections to that episode. I have

no connections to those characters other than

Granny Goodness because she was in Superman the

Animated Series and it's Apocalypse and all that.

But I just, you know. They named the villain

Vermin Vunderbar. Vermin Vunderbar. I give you

this cake. You can't have your cake and eat it

too. The Doomsday Sanction, we actually figure

out how Doomsday was conceived. He's part of

Cadmus, which is very awesome. It's very not

comic, but... Well, yeah, but they had to make

it fit with the show. One of the things I absolutely

loved about Doomsday Sanction was the rotating

tables between the two camps. I thought that

was a really cool effect. That was a really awesome

shot. Yeah, it was. And then Task Force X, pretty

much outsiders looking on the league, was just

amazing. You know, seeing, well, you know, the

one which surprises me, I can't believe this

didn't happen, but the one bat villain that didn't

get hurt by the embargo, the Clock King. They're

like, we'd never use him anyway. Well, they used

him a lot, not a lot, but they used him for a

couple episodes in Batman the Animated Series,

but yeah, he wasn't like over it. Yeah. Holy

shit. He's not the Joker. He's not, you know,

Penguin or any of those. But still, it was nice

to see him make another appearance. What did

you think of just Task Force X overall? I thought

it was nice. God. It made me think of Secret

Sex and... All of that, villains for hire, and

it was just so... You had Deadshot, you had the

villain -centric part of the episode. I think

that was definitely one of the highlights for

that season. Yeah, it was. Let's see. Then we've

got The Balance, which we find out... How Wonder

Woman got, you know, we find out, you know, Wonder

Woman's secret past that Hades is her father.

Huh? Who's the baby daddy? Yeah, really? The

balance, I didn't really care for. It's an okay

episode, but it's not something I would go back

and watch on a regular basis. Now, Double Date.

I love Double Date. That was awesome. I will

say that. I liked the balance. Um, I'm for the

fact that, you know, me being Mr. Greek reconstructionist,

you know, I, I loved what they did with Hermes.

That was just spot on way to go. But, um, yeah,

double date was awesome just for itself. Um,

still, Mandragora just made me go. Oh, I need

to bring, did you ever see that? Twitter post

I made to you. The future of what happens to

Mandragora's boy. Yeah. Edgar Mandragora shows

up again in Batman Beyond, and he looks totally

different between being a young boy and the adult

Edgar Mandragora. But, oh, my God, it was so

nice them seeing. And, of course, you know, chronologically.

Outside of the timeline, but chronologically

as the shows were made, obviously Batman Beyond

was made before this, but I like how they were

able to mesh the styles together between adult

Mandragora and child Mandragora. I thought that

was really cool. Next up is Hunter's Moon, a

.k .a. Mystery in Space, which this is the Thanagarian.

Wrap up. We find out that Crotalic died. Fuck,

what the hell is his name? Krager is in some

sort of body suit from what Jaune did to him

in Starcrossed. Perinduel is the same bitch she

always was. I will give Hunter's Moon one awesome

thing. Nathan Fillion, as Vigilante, And Gina

Torres as Vixen. Right, right. It was a Firefly

episode. Yeah. Specifically, Fillion as Vigilante.

I'm going to have to go back and get this line

for some audio when he's in the spaceship. Hard

and sarn thing which no one can't get to work

proper or whatever he said. Oh, my God. That's

hilarious. That's just so hilarious. And then

we have the four -part finale, which technically

is a four -part finale, which starts with Question

Authority, Flashpoint, Panic in the Sky, and

Divide, We Fall. Question Authority, just their

version of the question, which is based off the

Steve Ditko question, I believe. Um, it was just

awesome. And Jeffrey Combs voicing him is just

awesome. The bad part about it is it's not really

bad, bad, but bad is good. Today's opposite day.

You know what I mean? Uh, but the, the funny

thing about Jeffrey Combs is now he is voicing

ratchet and transformers prime. And all is I

can hear at a ratchet is it's the question stuck

in ratchet's body. But yeah, what did you think

of Question Authority? The question is an awesome,

awesome character. Yes, he is. Random show up

of Mantis, and I'm like, what? Overall, I think

these four episodes make up some of the best

writing ever in any animated series. Yeah, this

arc is so tight. And just so, so awesome. Like

they could put this into novel form and sell

it, and it would be bestseller. It is awesome

beyond belief. Yes, it is. Yeah, question authority

is when they interrogate him. H -E -L -E -T.

Don't forget it. Egglets, no one really knows

their true purpose. It is sinister. And then

Flashpoint, the... Oh, wow. I totally skipped

over Clash. It was that kind of an episode. Clash

is where they worked in Captain Marvel into Justice

League and whatever. I mean, the only really

good thing about that is when Batman calls John

for help, he's like, you? Need help? You never

need help. You never need help. Yeah, exactly.

Except when he's falling, because he can't fly.

Yeah. But that was really the only good thing

about Clash. Yeah, Flashpoint, that knock -down,

drag -out fight between Supes and Captain Atom

was awesome. I gotta say, I haven't really brought

this up before, but... Amy Acker as the voice

of Huntress, and for those who might not know

who she is, she was Winifred Burkle in Angel.

I'm sure she's done other stuff, but that's mainly

where I know her from. Just her voicing the Huntress

is just awesome. And then Panic in the Sky. Oh,

man. That episode had so much action and just

great lines. So awesome. Huh? Oh, that was really

good. What? Panic in the Sky. Yeah. Batmobile

lost a wheel. The Joker got away. Yeah, exactly.

What? One of the things that when World's Finest

Podcast covered Panic in the Sky. they had raised

the question of whose hand it was that saved

Batman when Lex knocks him out the window. Now,

I've analyzed the picture of the League, the

seven when they come back up, because I took

a screencap of all seven of them standing there.

I analyzed that picture, and I took a screencap

of the hand that grabbed Batman by the cape,

neck, whatever part it grabs. It cannot be Superman

because the hand, it doesn't have a sleeve on

it. Superman's sleeves come up to just about

to where his wrists are, so it can't be Superman's

hand. It doesn't have a bracelet on it, so it

can't be Wonder Woman's hand. Almost every other

league member, Flash and GL, they both either

have gloves or their whole arm is covered, so

it was Hot Girl that saved Batman. Interesting.

Yep. It was Hot Girl that saved Batman because

she's the only one with short sleeves. And then

Divided We Fall. Oh, man. Divided We Fall was

epic. And not over -the -top epic either. No,

no, no. It was just epic. Very well done. Yes.

Very, very well done. A lot of action. Great

story. Ghostbusters references, at least one

of them anyway. Don't cross the streams. When

Superman and GL cross the heat vision and the

ring power to cut the Brainiac head. And that's

the other thing, Brainiac. Coming back and fusing

with Luthor. Which will have ramifications in

the later season. Yep. Oh, yeah. What about you

for Divide and We Fall? Honestly, I think the

end speech was extremely powerful. Oh, yeah.

Both by Superman and by G .A. Yeah. And then

the whole scene where Wally basically does the

sacrifice. You know, everyone doesn't take him

serious, even Lex. And he shows what he's capable

of doing, why he holds back. and that he is just

as qualified to be on the tops in the original

seven as Supes and everyone else. Yep. And then

the only reason why I'm talking about it here

is because throughout the entire run of Secret

Origins podcast, we've gone in episode airing

order, however the episodes aired, but epilogue.

is a great exclamation point or period on the

DC animated universe. As I said earlier in the

Season 5 recap, I would love to see adventures

from Destroyer up until Epilogue happens. That

would be awesome. But Epilogue itself, with Waller

as the dotty old lady. She wasn't Dottie. She

knew exactly what she was doing. Oh yeah, I know,

I know. Project Batman Beyond. She didn't know

what she was doing when she came up with that

name. But Epilogue is just awesome. And the reason

why I say that Epilogue should go at the end

of Justice League Unlimited Season 5 is because

if you take the dc animated universe as a whole

uh episode one of batman the animated series

uh on leather wings the first thing we see is

batman flying by a chopper we don't really see

him but we see the shadow of him And the cops

are like, what was that? And at the very end

of Epilogue, you have Terry flying through the

sky past a Gotham police helicopter. So it kind

of like bookends itself around it. The fact that

Terry and Dana have been dating for 15 years

and, you know, Terry finally told Dana the secret

at some point. This is why I want a cartoon from

Bruce, Tim, and them. like I said, that has adventures

from destroyer up till epilogue, because I want

to know what happened throughout that time. Um,

it would be so awesome to get that, but just

epilogue was just epic. It was a nice end off.

Yes. And then we kind of already really covered

season five earlier, but season five minus the

ones that we don't like, which is cast the earth's

core, turn to the shore. Dead Reckoning, Patriot

Act, Grudge Match, and Far From Home, all the

other ones are just fluid storytelling. A lot

of these other ones, like Chaos Theater's core

and all that, to me, they're just one -shots.

If it doesn't directly affect one of the original

seven, it doesn't really, for me. But just overall

awesome. What about you? I think you've actually

covered everything. I mean, this was just...

I've always thought of these not as... I thought

this last season was kind of like the one -shot,

like, side stories. Mm -hmm. Not like, oh, everything

that happened, the continuation of the story,

it just seemed like they're side stories, honestly.

Yeah. I don't know, it's... background flushing

for some of the episodes like Ancient History

and whatnot. Grodd and his plan just turning

everyone into monkeys? Really? What happens to

Tala? The return of Darkseid? It just... I don't

know. It was a great... It's kind of like a bonus

season, honestly. Yeah, it is. It so is. Very,

very awesome. And to end it all is Destroyer.

And to me, Destroyer is very awesome. It's a

nice exclamation point on the season. I wouldn't

say it's the best episode overall. It's right

up there. At least for me it is. It is right

up with as one of the best episodes ever. Just

really, really great. What about you? You're

kind of meh on Destroyer, so. Yeah. It was good,

it just wasn't as epic as some of the other episodes

we had prior. I mean, how can you really hold

up in comparison to the last four of the prior

season? Yeah, but it's Darkseid. You know? Yeah.

I mean, it only... Yeah, I mean, you know, the

last season it was Brainiac and Luthor. Now it's

Darkseid, and technically Darkseid and Brainiac,

because... I believe I said this in episode 24,

you know, back in Twilight when the Brainiac

asteroid blew up, Darkseid was still on it, so

he technically melded with Brainiac. So you have

a dark Brainiac side. Because his whole... Seriously!

Seriously! Because you have... Darkseid has Brainiac...

on his outfit now. He's not just the navy blue

skirt wearing mofo, which is very, very, very

awesome. Really quick, before we go to the outro

or some clips and then we'll go to the outro,

I kind of want to go over some of the JLU line,

the toy line. Some of these toys are just awesome,

awesome stuff. Winter pig. Yes, Wonder Pig. One

of the ones I'm absolutely looking forward to

getting eventually is Mr. Terrific. I just think

that's awesome that he has a figure. With the

T -balls. Yeah, well, they call it the T -spheres,

but yeah. Superman with Starro, that was just

awesome. Let's see, what was the other one here?

I mentioned this earlier, even though it's more

Batman the Animated Series, the three -pack of

Batman, Joker, Grey Ghost. My birthday is coming

up on February 9th. If anybody wants to get me

Darkseid and Kalabak or the Parademon two -pack,

there's a Darkseid -Kalabak two -pack based on

his look in Destroyer or the Parademon two -pack.

You can find those at bigbadtoystore .com or

you can find them on Amazon. I think Big Bad

Toy Store is probably going to be the cheapest

place you can find them. I think they're $40

a piece, which is not bad for markup, considering

on mattycollector .com they're $25 a piece, and

I think they're sold out at this point on Matty

Collector. I do have Lobo. Lobo's an awesome

JLU figure. He was one of those oversized singles.

which is very, very cool. I think that's it for

now. I think we're going to go to some of our

favorite clips and lines and stuff like that,

and then we'll come back with the outro. Get

into some episodes. Any minute now, Brainiac

will explode. And guess what? You're going with

him. No, Darkseid. To get off this rock, you'll

have to go through me. You really are a glutton

for punishment. Time and again I've beaten you,

humbled you. What makes you think today's outcome

will be any different? Because this time, I won't

stop until you're just a greasy smear on my fist.

Let's go. Give me a triple. Now. Adrenaline rush

wearing off? Good. The doctor will see you now.

Sorry, I'm gonna have to cancel that appointment.

Coming here was the mistake of your life. See,

the closer I am to someone, the stronger I get.

I'll be able to go into your brain even if you're

wide awake. My brain's not a nice place to be.

What's that stupid song going through your mind?

It's what's keeping you out, Johnny. Well, before

we get to the outro, something miraculous has

happened. And even though in the outro I will

have said, leave us iTunes reviews, goddammit,

apparently somebody did. And it wasn't Lupus.

It wasn't me. My buddy Godspeed from the TFW

boards, he goes by Human Singularity on iTunes.

I don't know why, but has left us a review for

Secret Origins here. The title is Like the Justice

League, You Will Like This Podcast, and it has

five stars left on January 28, 2011. Two mega

-fans go episode by episode through the whole

Justice League cartoon from the early 2000s.

A must -listen for those just now jumping on

the Young Justice bandwagon. Check it out. So,

thank you, Godspeed, for that. Thanks, Godspeed.

Yes. And now, the outro to episode 25. Well,

Lupus, that's it. Scary. There should be more.

Well, it did take us a whole year, even with

scheduling conflicts, it did take us a whole

year to get this podcast on, which is good for

getting all 91 episodes reviewed plus season

recaps and toy talk and stuff like that, but

yeah. No, there still needs to be more. I'm not

disagreeing. As I've said throughout this entire

episode, I want some sort of Justice League or

some sort of DCAU cartoon that takes up where

Destroyer left off and shows adventures from

that point up until Batman Beyond and then showing

the adventures of Terry, obviously through the

Batman Beyond show. Up till Epilogue. I want

to see adventures from that point to that point.

It would be so awesome to get that again. But

just overall, I love Justice League. Justice

League... Earlier in this episode, I played that

special feature on Limited Reserve, and in that,

James Tucker, one of the producers, says that

they never set out to make the greatest superhero

show ever, but... They kind of made the greatest

superhero show ever. What a happy little coincidence.

Yes, exactly. Silly little side effects. Yes.

Before I go into the outro, do you have any parting

words you want to give to the listeners and all

that? I want to know what happens to the whole

Vixen Shaira. John? I don't know how that ends

up. Bruce Timm has said in the special features

on the DVD, we know sometime down the line that

John and Shire get back together. Whether it's

two years, ten years, whatever, because they

have Warhawk. I would love to see an animated

version of... You know, cranky, shy, or pregnant.

Exactly. That would be so... Oh, God. The only

problem is we cannot have Booster Gold and Skeets

there to deliver the baby. Too true. But at the

same time, what would she be craving? Those weird,

like, are they oysters or are they something

else? Probably oysters. Those oysters that she

likes. Oh, God. That's going to take a long time

to go grocery shopping. Yes. Yes, it is. But,

yeah, I mean, it's been a great run, and I'd

like to thank all those people in the Ustream

that have joined us. We've only been Ustreaming

with Secret Origins Podcast, I think, since episode

19. So I'd like to thank everybody who's come

out. Ken Curry. Thanks, everybody. Ken Curry,

Glade Packer, Jamie Hannigan. Scotty do and,

and super fan Clark. Um, so yeah. Uh, thank you

to everybody who's come out each time that we've

done one of these. And, um, for those of you

who just joined us on new stream, I want you

to go to iTunes. For those of you who are in

the U S and Canada, go to iTunes, subscribe to

the secret origins podcast, and then leave us

feedback. Damn it. Somebody please leave some

feedback. We podcasters, we live off of feedback,

and honestly, we've been starving for a couple

episodes. We've been starving for the whole damn

podcast is what we've been starving for. I mean,

we barely have any ratings on iTunes. But yes,

please go subscribe, listen to the entire show

from the beginning, and we will go from there.

Well, anyway. Yeah, so time for the outro. Thank

you for joining us here on the Secret Origins

podcast. There are some ways to get in contact

with us or leave feedback for the show. Visit

the website, geekcastradio .com. Leave the show's

feedback in iTunes. Please do this. You can follow

us on Twitter. The show name there is Secret

Origins. Mine is TFGOMike. What is your Twitter?

CaminitiStyle, C -A -M -I -N -I -T -I -S -T -Y

-L -E. Become a fan on Facebook. Go to facebook

.com slash geekcastradionetwork. Call the voicemail

line. Tell us what you're leaving a message for

and your name. 502 -526 -5821. As far as voicemails

for Secret Origins Podcast, if you guys are going

to leave iTunes reviews or voicemails, what will

probably happen is Steve Megatron and I are going

to be launching Legends of the Dark Knight, where

we talk about Batman the Animated Series and

Batman Beyond and pretty much anything Batman

-centric. in the DC animated universe. So there

will be a lot of Batman talk coming later this

fall, I believe, is when that show is going to

launch. It's called Legends of the Dark Knight.

We'll be launching it then. So I think the Secret

Origins feedback will probably be featured on

that, and you and I, Lupus, can just record a

separate segment that we can put into. whatever

episodes that Steve and I do. But yeah, Legends

of the Dark Knight coming this fall from Geekcast

Radio Network. We hope you enjoyed this episode

of the Secret Origins podcast, and thank you

for joining us on this journey. For now, I am

TF2 and Mike with... Lupus Carboy. Thank you

for listening, and not until next time. But before

we go, The Flash has something to say. I love

you, too. These are the end times.