Justice League Unlimited – Episodes – Season 3, Episode 1 – I Am Legion

Lex Luthor escapes from a maximum security prison, only to be invited to join Grodd’s unstoppable Legion of Doom.

Originally titled "We Are Legion."

Media by Bird Boy
Review by Bird Boy

Voices:
George Newbern as Superman
Maria Canals as Shayera, Fire
Michael Rosenbaum as Flash, Dr. Polaris, Officer
Clancy Brown as Lex Luthor
Powers Boothe as Gorilla Grodd
Corey Burton as Brainiac, The Key
Scott Patterson as Special Agent King Faraday, Aztek?
Seymour Cassel as Chuck Sinanni
Takayo Fischer as Marzey

Those who kept up with Justice League Unlimited news already knew about the beginning to the first season three episode. Luthor?s escaping from prison, the meet up with Grodd and the reveal of the Legion was something people were talking about for months and were finally able to see late on Saturday. One thing that wasn?t widely noted, however, was that Luthor was ?talking? to someone in the car; this was later revealed in the episode to be Brainiac. Talk about a neat little addition to a character I didn?t think we?d see from again.

?I Am Legion? reminded me a lot of the series premiere ?Intiation.? We have a basic set up, a general idea who this new group of villains is, a few key members (no pun intended) and who?s leading the whole thing.
Grodd?s got quite the racket going up there and it looks like they?ll be causing trouble for the Justice League later on. There?s definitely a lot to look forward to in the later part of the season.

Of course, like ?Intiation,? ?I Am Legion? does fall short. There?s almost too much action and little plot. We have a few developments on
Luthor?s character and visions of Brainiac, the Legion set up and
Flash?s infatuation with Fire (the character, not the substance) and the introduction of the only remaining Black Hawk (remember the flying guys from ?The Savage Time? ?). That does sound like a lot when typing it out, but they?re really small moments of things that are all filled in with a bunch of punching. Flying sharks with machine guns (What? no lasers?), War Wheels (?The Savage Time? again) and metal octopuses, there was a lot of fun stuff to see, but it all proved kind of moot in the end. I guess we had to see Black Hawk Island?s defenses, but it still seemed like it could?ve been toned down. Oh well?saves more for future plots.

The animation was on-par with last season; we got a neat spiral of the ship crash landing on Black Hawk Island, but aside from that it was pretty much the same shots and angles, nothing all that amazing. The same goes for the music; some nice bits and pieces, but nothing that really stood out.

The premiere to the season started off strong but kind of faltered along the way. The new characters (Rosenbaum voiced three, I think Ron Perlman voiced ?The Key?, as it sounded like him in the beginning of the episode, but it didn?t towards the end) were cool to see, but those who aren?t familiar will get a big dosage of ?who the hell??; still, The Key and Dr. Polaris were explained during the episode, so only those in the
Legion HQ were a mystery (again, drawing parallels to ?Intiation?).

Update: Turns out Corey Burton voiced "The Key", not Perlman.