Justice League – Injustice For All (Pt. 1 & 2)

When Lex Luthor discovers that he has contracted an incurable case of
Kryptonite poisoning, he blames the Man of Steel. Using his vast personal fortune, Luthor hires a team of the world’s most powerful super-villains to destroy Superman and the Justice League.

Episode #09 – Injustice For All, Part 2
Original Airdate – September 13th, 2002

With The Joker, The Ultra-Humanite, Solomon Grundy, Shade, Star
Sapphire, Cheetah and Copperhead to assist him, and a captured Batman,
Luthor begins to strengthen his diabolical efforts. The entire Justice
League must assemble to face their greatest challenge yet.

Media by Bird Boy, Jim Harvey
Review by Barb Gordon

Voices:
Kevin Conroy as Batman
Maria Canals as Hawkgirl
Susan Eisenberg as Wonder Woman
Phil LaMarr as Green Lantern
Carl Lumbly as J’onn J’onzz
George Newbern as Superman
Michael Rosenbaum as Flash
Clancy Brown as Lex Luthor
Mark Hamill as The Joker, Solomon Grundy
Ian Buchanan as Ultra Humanite
Oliva D’abo as Star Sapphire
Steven McHattie as Shade
Sheryl Lee Ralph as Cheetah
Efrain Figueroa as Copperhead
Jason Marsden as Snapper Carr
Grant Heslov as Doctor
Ashley Edner as Trina
 

Part 1

The song “Money makes the world go around” certainly comes to mind when viewing Injustice for All. It is at the least a story surrounded and very much driven by the money aspect. Well, on to what worked, what didn’t, and anything else in between.

It had a pretty good opening, albeit a basic one with Lex and Superman squared off against each other and Lex with his kryptonite. Of course, what makes it so interesting is that “Superman” is really Martian
Manhunter. This was an awesome show of J’onn really using his abilities, not only looking like someone, but sounding like them as well. You gotta love the look on Lex’s face when Superman suddenly isn’t affected by the rock anymore. Nice touch with Batman grabbing the kryptonite from Green
Lantern, a bit of a World’s Finest moment there. So now we have the real
Superman going after an escaped Lex, and once again many fans groan and wonder as to why Superman is so weak looking. In some episodes lasers and such don’t faze him one bit, yet getting hit by a small size rocket sends him crashing down? Good characterization, though, at the point where Superman meets up with Lex — It was enjoyable to see a bit more of a relationship between the two in how concerned Superman sounded.

The hospital was just one of the many weak scenes there seemed to be in this episode. Really, Lex seemed like such a baby as he whined on and on how it was Superman’s fault he had kryptonite poisoning. Who was the genius that was toting it around forever? But at least Superman didn’t flinch when the clipboard hit him. Lex seems to be a lot more then just good-looking, intelligent and incredibly rich…who knew he was so tech savvy? Here comes into play the first scene where the money song should be ringing in everyone’s ears with Ultra-Humanite giving up his pretty nice living arrangements to break out with Lex. A little bit of inconsistency with Lex grabbing a box from his cell, just where did he happen to get a little pack of explosives? Some more inconsistency in the placement of where Lex and Ultra-Humanite are — If it’s Metropolis, then why in the world is Batman in the area? More good characterization here, this time with Batman and the style of his voice. It was enjoyable to see him change from his gruff and cold attitude to that of gentleness when dealing with the frightened little girl. Really nice exchange between Hawkgirl and Batman, the lesser I think of the two best dual character interactions in I4A.

I know even the basic idea of the Injustice Gang is a bit cheesy, but it’s amazing how utterly pointless they seem to be as they get into quarrels with one another so easily. Albeit each character had nice intros, but all in all, it was more then cheesy to see them bickering so easily amongst each other. Of course, money does solve just about everything. Purple really must be the new “in” color as represented by
Lex himself; it suits him quite well.

Flash and Hawkgirl have always had their moments between each other, always bits of hinting to sexual banter back and forth, but the
Watchtower scene was the most intense and hilarious by far. I found it to be the better, and easily most amusing, of the two dual character moments, the lesser already explained earlier. Yet again fans begin to wonder just how weak Superman is, how can Star Sapphire take him out with just one hit? It’s just shy of painful to watch. Well, that, and seeing how lousy Lex seems to handle a gun as he practically allowed
Batman to just waltz up and “surprise” him.

Now, I understand the whole secret identity concept, but is there really a need for Batman to have his mask on while he’s in the medical bay? A good scene followed by a not so good scene: It was interesting to see how imposing Superman was towards Batman, and his look of surprise of actually being able to get away with it. Yet the following scene had to be another one of the weak ones. Obviously here was a chance to show some deep interaction with J’onn and Batman, but all it came off as was
J’onn spouting seemingly pointless dribble about Batman’s lack of superpowers.

It’s amazing who can waltz through your door at any time of the night – just how did Joker get wind of Lex’s operation? For someone who’s a psycho killer, Joker only seemed to irritate Lex with his presence. A cute scene at best with the IG playing cards, but it was pretty boring nonetheless, and a really weak way to get Batman to get duped. He’s the world’s greatest detective, last time I checked, yet Joker can just walk up behind him and wack him over the head. Of course you can’t deny how awesome the laugh was, Hamill never ceases to please in that department.

Part 2

Batman is such a great manipulator, as shown when he easily fools around with a few members of the Injustice Gang. Ultra-Humanite and Grundy going out it seemed a bit out of place perhaps. Considering how intelligent Ultra-Humanite is, it seems a bit odd for him to stoop to using brute strength so quickly. The tete-a-tete between Cheetah and
Batman is quite enjoyable. Batman’s voice seems to change quite a bit through this episode, especially at this point. The “Try me” line is downright disturbing. The blurring effects are great for a character such as the Flash, but for a chair, like in the scene with Joker and Lex, it’s rather pointless. The blurring effect with the chair was overused for this scene and rather detracted from it and what the characters were doing. Flash’s role in the interrogation with Superman and Copperhead seemed rather off considering he really didn’t do anything. It would have been nice to have seen him interrogate Copperhead himself. It also seemed a bit unusual for the rest of the Justice League to be waiting at the jet outside the prison. Almost like appearing just for appearance’s sake.

It’s rather amazing how long it took Flash, Superman and the others to locate the bomb in the Watchtower. Saving the world: not a problem, finding something like lost socks in the dryer: problem. I think most people got some semblance of a Frankenstein vibe as Ultra-Humanite uses his scientific know-how to help Lex with his condition….it’s alive, it’s alive! Nice Speedo’s but yet again with the purple and green look. Do
Lex and Joker unknowingly go to the same clothing store?

Now Cheetah being a traitor seemed obvious considering her kissing
Batman and what looked like basically caving in. The twist at the end in that particular area is really great, and a great part of the episode as a whole, but I’ll come back to this point a little later. Martian
Manhunter taking the initiative was new, interesting, and well, incredibly lame. What makes it such is how easily he’s taken out once he’s infiltrated the building. Almost have to feel sorry for how many times he was knocked out in a single episode. The Wonder Twin “cameo” is absolutely hilarious and yet another minor highlight of the episode as a whole. It’s always enjoyable when something like that is thrown in to please the fans. And finally, after Superman can’t seem to get any weaker, he actually beats Grundy up quite well in their last confrontation.

The Shade is considered by many to be a very interesting and amazing character in the comic universe, but in this episode he’s just about downright pointless. Nice suit, yes, and one heck of an interesting cane, but it’s painful to watch how pointless his presence is and just how easily he can be taken care of. So now I’ll come back to the traitor issue of the storyline; Ultra-Humanite being the traitor in the end completely took me off guard, yet made so much sense when you really think about it. Money does make the world go around, doesn’t it? The “et tu” line coming from Lex could have been interesting, but it was a rather weak and cheesy line at best. Lex ends up coming full circle to where he was in the beginning of the episode, locked up in prison having to listen to whatever Ultra-Humanite is listening to. All around it was a pleasing episode, though the basic idea of the Injustice Gang and what they did in this episode wasn’t incredibly interesting. Some good moments with particular characters, especially with Batman proving that you don’t need powers to be a great superhero.