Justice League Unlimited – Episodes – Season 3, Episode 2 – Shadow of the Hawk

Batman is suspicious of Shayera’s new boyfriend, a mysterious archeologist with sinister ties to her Thanagarian past.

Media by Bird Boy
Review by Bird Boy

Voices:
Maria Canals as Shayera
Kevin Conroy as Batman
Phil LaMarr as Green Lantern
James Remar as Carter Hall, Shadow-Thief
Gina Torres as Vixen
John DiMaggio as Dreamslayer

This one certainly had a lot of neat elements in it. We got to see Kator
Hol (Hawkman) for the first time in the series, debut of the Extremists and an awesome rendition of Shadow-Thief.

There?s plenty of action in just the opening scenes, with the Extremists going against the Justice League and then after that we immediately go into the introduction to Carter Hall. The Shayera-Lantern-Vixen triangle is played up here, with glances to each of them along the way.

After that, we?re treated to a humorous string of dialogue in a elevator, where Shayera walks in a slinky dress (more on that later) and
Green Lantern exclaims at the image of her. Batman then walks on, starts spouting some internet dialogue (?banned for flaming?) that I couldn?t help but chuckle at and then kills the humor by saying Carter Hall?s been stalking Shayera. Way to be a mood killer, Bats!

Combined with the excellent dialogue and story, we got some pretty animation as well (no this isn?t where the Shayera dress comes in). The tomb that Carter and Shayera explore and later kick butt in is beautiful; the writing on the wall, the lighting, coloring?it?s all awesome looking. I?ve always been interested in Archeology, so this episode had doubled enjoyment for me.

The fight animation was fluid, the backgrounds (especially one of the pans of the pyramids) were gorgeous and there was some good fight choreography with Shadow-Thief. The scene where Shadow-Thief starts spreading out limbs all over the place and chasing Batman was reminiscent of Clayface in ?Secret Society??intimidating, scary and cool looking all at the same time; in addition to that, we got one sweet bit of animation of Batman?s cape swirling and covering him. The cape was reminiscent of what I?ve seen in The Batman; perhaps the boarders were as infatuated with that cape animation as I am.

Music was pretty good as well. I noticed what sounded like a cue from
?Divided We Fall? after Shayera slams Gorgon into the building; it sounded like one of the guitar riffs as Brainiac?s ship was going down.
I can?t tell if it was the same or just reminiscent of it, but I didn?t mind hearing it again, as it was one of my favorite parts of that episode.

Now then?the Shayera dress. In addition to seeing her in not only a dress that looked like it came from Lois Lane or Barbara Gordon?s nightie closet, we saw her in her old Hawkgirl outfit as well as some
?snow gear? one (both in clips from news reports with Carter Hall in the background). The dress, however, has sparked some odd fan debate.

The throwaway line exchange of ?I miss the dress.? ?You didn?t last night.? has caused fans to speculate wildly about how ?easy? Shayera is.
I?m not concerned about what the heroes do in their off time, but I?m just rather humored by the whole situation. On top of that, I find it hard to believe that someone would sleep with a person on the same night they find out that they may be stalking them. Shayera?s stupidity level isn?t that low on the 1-10 scale, folks.

Overall, it was a pretty good episode. I loved the Egypt aspect to it all and I was pretty enthralled with it all along the way. The only improvement I can think of really had nothing to do with the episode, but with the credits themselves: they list a voice actor (John
DiMaggio?Bender!) for a minor villain part, but the main villain of the show (Shadow-Thief) isn?t even credited. Shame too, I?d like to know who it was, he had some great dialogue.

Updated: And according to Dwayne McDuffie, James Remar (Carter
Hall’s voice actor) voiced Shadow-Thief.