Justice League Unlimited – Episodes – Season 1, Episode 9 – Ultimatum

The Justice League meets the Ultimen, a popular group of young heroes who are about to discover their own horrifying secret origins.

Review by Stu
Media by Bird Boy, Jim Harvey

Voices:
Kevin Conroy as Batman
Susan Eisenberg as Wonder Woman
George Newbern as Superman
Scott Rummell as Aquaman
James Sie as Wind Dragon
Greg Rainwater as Long Shadow
Tim Matheson as Max Lord
Grey Gelisle as Downpour/Shifter
C.C.H. Pounder as Amanda Waller
Jennifer Hale as Giganta
Robert Foxworth as Professor Hamilton

No VA’s for Juice or Bizarro were listed.

Let me begin this review by saying that the ending of this episode whoops ass. It’s just behind “Only a Dream” as the coolest ending to a Justice
League episode ever.

In the past, DCU shows have avoided the big story arcs and instead concentrated on stand alone episodes, or ‘mini movies’ as some refer them as. While both types of storytelling work for animation, I personally prefer the longer arcs, as it gives you something more to look forward to on each viewing, and requires you to pay more attention to the show your watching. I don’t expect something like 24 to happen on Justice League, but when done correctly, season long arcs can be awesome, as such shows as
Angel and the aforementioned 24. However, when they are done poorly, a show can become very tedious to watch, as a lot of shows, such as
Buffy fall victim to simply wasting episodes to build up to a massive fight in the finale.

The Government conspiracy theory is an interesting one, which has me eagerly anticipating its conclusion. The sheer amount of guesses as to what could happen so far has been entertaining, even if a lot of them are really, really stupid.

The Superfriends tributes went completely over my head as I’ve never seen
Superfriends before in my life. It’s one of those circumstances were some people will absolutely love it, whilst others watch the scenes ignorantly unaware that a parody/tribute is taking place but doesn’t take away from their enjoyment of the episode.

As characters, The Ultimen weren’t really interesting. The twins were pretty annoying, and the rest of them seemed to be pretty bland. As their ultimate purpose was to die anyway, it doesn’t really matter, but it was a little awkward how quickly they turned on the Justice League, after claiming that they wanted to be heroes. It’s a similar plot taken from Batman Beyond’s
“Heroes” only that episode had some hella cool fanboy nods to The Fantastic
Four.

The main JL members were used nicely. Batman got the most bad ass lines
“Mine are bigger than yours” and “Light out, old chum” being the highlights, but Aquaman wasn’t far behind. Superman and Wonder Woman provided the fight sequences and helped move the story along nicely.

Overall, it was an enjoyable episode with some intriguing developments. Oh yeah, the ending was bad ass too.