Where to start... Well I suppose I should admit that I'm decidedly
not in the target audience for this show. Nothing to do with age or anything, but rather this is a show for comic book fans and/or those who like facepunching and explosions. Many of my criticisms are not problems to either group.
What sucks:
-
Voodoo Sharks. I mocked the gorilla episode about Gorilla City that's inhabited by super smart gorillas and the supervillain gorilla king with mind control earlier, but in reality everything ever made can be put in similar silly terms. Justice League's problem is I don't have to put things in silly terms because
the show already does. The first season is especially guilty of this, but it goes on throughout the show. Explanations that raise more questions than answers permeate a very large number of episodes, and these explanations are often presented in the same way people make jokes about stupid explanations. I'm giving the benefit of the doubt that these things are much better explained in the comics where the stories and characters originated from, so comic book fans likely won't care about this one.
- Too many fighting scenes to the point where many fights feel like pointless filler... probably because they are pointless filler. Seasons 1 and 2 made
every story a 2 or 3 parter, even the crappy ones. To fill up the time they sprinkled fights wherever they could. Imagine a 15-20 episode long shonen anime fight session, and compress it down to 2 episodes without removing any fights. Basically that; lots of 3-5 minute tangles that don't have any relevance to anything.
- Problems with scope and contrast. After the world's endangered for the 8th time I stop really caring. And since there's always a fight every few minutes, the big climactic one at the end of each story tends to feel less than climactic.
- Deus ex Machina. Superman is especially guilty of this, popping out of nowhere 3/4 the way through a story so he can block an energy beam or whatever. I'm fine with heroes showing up in the nick of time to save the day, but it needs foreshadowing to work.
- I dunno if there's a technical name for this, but: explaining how things worked as an afterthought after the conflict is over. Stuff like: "how did you survive the explosion?" "Oh, I found an escape right before the place blew up."
- Any story that has anything to do with time travel. The rules changed all the time and usually left plot holes.
- Anything that touches Batman Beyond's canon, as they love screwing with it in nonsensical ways. Young Batman meeting his older self and Terry is a bad case, as that knowledge would definitely of affected his actions in the old series. I'm not even going to mention the incredibly stupid retcon concerning Terry's father.
- They made Batman a douchebag for some reason. A big part of Batman's personality (as I see it) is his uncaring and condescending attitude is as much a disguise as his outfit. Here, he's just uncaring and condescending all the time (even worse than in Batman Beyond, where he was old and cranky).
- The misogyny sprinkled here and there is grating. It makes a villain all the more despicable when he accuses someone of "hiding behind a skirt," but when the heroes say such crap? Eww. Also the fact that female villains almost always fight female heroes. At the very beginning of Batman the Animated Series, Batman claimed to be "an equal opportunity crimefighter" to a female villain before punching her out. Doesn't seem to be the case in JL, for any of the male heroes.
What's awesome:
- Almost all of my complaints up there faded or vanished entirely as the series went on. The point it transitioned from "meh" to "actually pretty good" would be season 3, where they stopped making everything a two parter. With less time to fill with pointless fighting, they actually gave most of the screentime to important things like exposition, character development, and
meaningful conflict.
- Well done animation and choreography. I actually felt the super powered characters were wearing down during fights, rather than ineffectually exchanging punches and breaking things.
- Interesting characters, especially when they expanded the cast in season 3. I'd love to watch a Flash or Question or Green Arrow series.
- Pretty great music.
- A damn good story arc dealing with balance of power (season 4 mostly) is definitely the high point of the series.
- Poignant lines are all over the place. Whoever wrote the dialog did a damn good job.
Were I to suggest this to anyone else, I'd say skip season 1 and 2 entirely and start with Justice League Unlimited (season 3). Read some synopsis of the first two seasons if you want, since some important stuff to the later storylines happens there, but overall I'd say they're much lower in quality and only worth your time if you're bored.
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Topic: [MILK] There were 12 eggs here what did you do with them? (Happy thread?!) (Read 16183614 times)