Justice League (2001) & Justice League Unlimited (2004)
Where I watched it: HBO Max.
Episodes Watched:
Justice League -- Season 1 Episodes 1-3: Secret Origins Parts 1-3
Justice League -- Season 1 Episodes 8+9: Injustice For All Parts 1+2
Justice League Unlimited -- Season 1 Episode 3: Kids’ Stuff
Justice League Unlimited -- Season 2 Episode 6: Double Date
Like pretty much everyone else, I’ve been a fan of superheroes for a long time. I started liking superheroes in the aughties with superhero media made for kids like Sky High and Teen Titans, and then (again, like everyone else) became fully obsessed when the MCU and DCEU machines started cranking out content. As an adult, it’s easy to become cynical about the billion-dollar genre (and there are valid criticisms), but superheroes still hold an undeniable appeal.
Because Zack Snyder’s Justice League just came out, I watched a different Justice League this week. This Justice League is an animated series that ran on Cartoon Network from 2001 to 2004, together with Justice League Unlimited, its sequel series which ran from 2004 to 2006 (Unlimited is essentially the final three seasons of Justice League, but with more characters). For the purposes of the review, I’m treating them like they’re one show, since they basically are. Even though I watched a lot of Cartoon Network as a kid, I don’t remember ever seeing a Justice League episode before now. I definitely think it’s the kind of thing that I would have been really interested in when I was younger, and wouldn’t mind watching more of now.
The show starts with the main cast of seven (Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, The Martian Manhunter, The Flash, and Hawkgirl), but expands to add more characters, including a wide variety of villains. The amount of characters doesn’t feel overwhelming, though, the plots are balanced well and there isn’t a character or subplot that feels uninteresting. There are diverse background characters, and while some of the representation in the show could be better (I especially noticed the show’s treatment of its female characters has some problems), it’s still ahead of most of the superhero TV and movies that have been released since.
Comic book plots tend to be a bit soap operatic and convoluted, where every hero has a tragic backstory and every villain has a Rube Goldberg-esque plan for world domination. As the genre goes, though, Justice League is fairly easy to follow (at least from what I watched), and doesn’t require you to catch every detail to enjoy it. The show probably won’t wow you with its mastery of plot structure, but it held my interest and didn’t feel too predictable.
Justice League can get dark, both in terms of tone and including certain real-life details (eg, WMDs). The show first aired in November 2001, and I think the showrunners realized that if they made the Justice League’s battles against existential threats too sanitized, it would ring false for children who had just lived through 9/11. Despite the dark aspects of the story, there are plenty of light moments, too. I appreciate that the humor is earnest, and when it’s not, the writers don’t act like they invented sarcasm (for my money, a lot of comedy in the superhero genre is a very particular style of Witty Banter™, where humor tries so hard to be smart and slick that it comes across as self-satisfied). The show is aware that it’s a little ridiculous sometimes, and leans into it. There are also lovely, offbeat moments, like a scene where two mafiosos talk about how to bake scones.
These days, most superhero TV shows have some twist or riff on the genre in some way. Sometimes, though it’s nice to watch a show that’s just what it says on the tin, that doesn’t try to break new ground or subvert expectations. Justice League is exactly what you want out of a superhero show: Familiar characters having intergalactic battles and being buddies along the way.
Detailed content advisory for Justice League & Justice League Unlimited
(note: I have only seen seven episodes)
Language:
Multiple instances of “oh my Lord.” Some minced oaths like “heck.” Insulting language like “fool.” At one point, a villain calls another villain a “witch” for fighting back against an unwanted advance.
Angry to have to return her badge when forced to resign from the Justice League, a hero tells another hero “I hope you choke on [the badge].”
A character calls another character’s bluff by saying “you don’t know jack about [a subject].”
Violence:
A lot of combat, including both hand-to-hand combat and explosions and firearms. I didn’t see any blood or injuries. A character threatens another with a razor blade. Villains occasionally kill characters offscreen.
Sexual content:
A couple of instances of women being sexually harassed by villains. Some of it will be noticeable to children (A man grabbing a woman and licking her with a serpentine tongue; a man telling a woman he wants to keep her in a cage), some of it may not be (a man telling a woman to bring him a tray of oysters after he’s already made suggestive comments to her).
As expected with the genre, women’s costumes are fairly revealing (though definitely not as bad as they could be). There are also multiple scenes where a man is dressed in only underwear/a loincloth, though these are generally not meant to be sexy moments.
There are multiple romance subplots, with a fair amount of kissing.
Some mildly suggestive language.
Questionable content:
Flashing lights, especially (of the episodes I watched) in the three-part pilot.
Frightening imagery in multiple episodes, including body horror.
Some elements of episodes contain stereotypes about women. For instance, in an episode where the team turns into kids, Wonder Woman uncharacteristically becomes “bossy” (though she really isn’t any bossier than the rest of the team).
Some people might feel uncomfortable with the fact that Wonder Woman occasionally calls on Hera for strength (it’s unclear to me whether this is a prayer or just an expression).
In one episode, a character threatens a villain’s life. The villain tells the other character to go ahead and kill him since he is terminally ill (with basically a sci-fi equivalent of leukemia) and death would just be “saving [him] from months of bedpans and feeding tubes.” I found this to be a flawed perspective on illness (some people require bedpans and/or feeding tubes their whole lives).
