COMICS-(JUSTICE LEAGUE: "War World" two-parter)
I have a great idea for a TV show. Premiere a highly-anticipated show during November.
Make sure it's covered by various websites, magazines and TV stations. Now here's
the kicker: have it run at the SAME WEEKLY TIMESLOT for at least two months to establish
an audience. It might also be helpful to show NO RE-RUNS during this two month period.
Cartoon Network was off to a good start when they premiered "Justice League" back in
November. The good start lasted approximately three weeks. By December they were
intent on re-running the first six episodes, continually. Each episode is a two-parter,
so essentially only THREE entire stories were shown. Why tune in each week if you'll
see the same thing you saw three weeks ago? It's been over four months, and
FIVE entire stories have been shown on "Justice League". Consider that 3 of those five were shown
within ONE month of November, and you wonder why the hell I've been wasting my time with this
garbage for the last four months.
A few weeks ago, Cartoon Network starting fucking around with their timeslots, too. "Justice League"
was being heavily promoted as being on every Monday night at 10:30 MST. But if the re-runs didn't
turn the audience away, Cartoon Network decided to remove "Justice League" from its
"regular" timeslot. Tune in at 10:30 and you'd see the typical Cartoon Netwrork bullshit:
Dexter's Lavoratory, Cow N' Chicken, Samurai's Crack and 18 other shitty shows that strive to rip-off
Ren N' Stimpy. Oh yeah, and throw some fucking Scooby Doo in there, too. Thus, to find
out WHEN "Justice League" is on, you'd have to sit through some of this junk. Of course, when
you finally find out the new time, you can tune in and see...re-runs! Frick! Who runs this
damn channel, Ted Turner?!
Finally, after sifting through all the fluff and frootloops, I was able to track down a
"new" episode of Justice League. This one's called "War World" and deals with Superman's
buddy Mongul. A space traveling story, the roll call features Superman, Martian Manhunter,
Green Lantern and Hawkgirl. It wasn't a spectacular story, but after all the re-runs and shuffling,
an episode spotlighting Superman doing the laundry would seem welcome.
Superman and Martian Manhunter are out diverting a large asteroid from crashing into the Earth.
The explosives they were planting eruppted a hydrogen pocket inside the asteroid- knocking out
Supes, J'onn and demolishing their ship. Hawkgirl was monitoring the whole thing at the JL
Watchtower and recruits Green Lantern to help her recover the guys. Before Hawkgirl and Green Lantern
can arrive, J'onn and Supes are captured by scavengers from War World. The two are taken to
Mongul's dungeons, where Superman is to fight in gladiator games and J'onn is to be fed
to a mutant alligator. Superman saves a weakened J'onn from the alligator and helps
him escape. Superman's not so lucky and is taken before Mongul to fight the champion of
War World- a craggy dude named Draaga.
With the exlusion of the other JL members in this story, Mongul and War World are rendered quite faithfully to
their comic book counterparts. Mongul first popped up to face Superman, sometime in the 70's. He
didn't do much and came off like a cheap version of Darkseid, only with yellow skin. In the late
80's/early 90's he received more exposure in the Superman books, during Superman's "Exiled"
storyline. Basically, Superman thought he was too dangerous for the Earth and exiled
himself to outer space. That's when his travels brought him to Mongul, War World and
even Draaga. Draaga was thought to be a simple one-issue thug, but the writers
decided to grab ahold of him and fleshed him out a bit. After the "Exiled" gig, Mongul,
Draaga and War World returned in the "Fire in the Sky" storyline, circa 1991. With the
War World/gladiator gig, Mongul became a more distinctive villain.
The cartoon version of War World plays out rather predictably. Superman
refuses to kill Draaga and in the process earns his respect and Mongul's disdain.
Draaga is exiled to a garbage world (sorta like that awful Kurt Russell movie
"Soldier"), where Hawkgirl and Green Lantern meet up with him. Meanwhile,
Superman is booked into a fight with Mongul while J'onn watches from the stands in
the typical hooded robe. Old movie trick... sneak into the public gathering by wearing
a filthy robe and reamining quiet. (see: "Braveheart", any "Robin Hood", "Gladiator" or
even "Kenny Rogers as the Gambler").
Hawkgirl, Green Lantern and Draaga arrive on War World. Draaga teleports
to the arena to fight Superman and Mongul. Turns out Draaga once tried to
oppose Mongul, but the yellow booger threatened to wipe out his home planet with a
big ol' gun. Hawkgirl, Green Lantern and J'onn disable the gun, while
Superman beats Mongul to a pulp. Draaga then wants to resume his fight with
Superman, who has "shamed him" with a defeat. Superman gets him to reconsider
and, with Mongul overthrown, offers Draaga the opportunity to rebuild
War World.
Straight forward story, but still entertaining. That's the thing I always liked about
Superman's stories- he's probably the only hero who can pull of all this
cosmic stuff and make it somewhat believeable. It's easy to understand why Batman,
Flash and Wonder Woman were not included in this episode.
The only thing that bugged me was the actual War World arena. The opponents are introduced
in front of the crowd at a massive stadium. Then, they're teleported away
to a remote planet to do the actual fighting. People watch the whole match on
a big TV screen...so why did the stadium have a field?? It's like going to
a football stadium to watch the JumboTron...or, if you're a pro wrestling fan,
you can empathize with having to watch all those screwy backstage skits at the arena.
I'd mention the new timeslot of the show, but I'm not sure how long it will last.
You can check Cartoon Network's website, but even that has mixed results. Maybe it's
just a Mountain Time Zone thing, but the website schedule is a good three hours off for what's
actually on my TV. Hey, if you have hours to search the internet and
watch cable TV, then you are my personal hero and inspiration. I wanted to do weekly recaps of this show, but the fiddly fucks running the show
have other ideas. "Justice League" is a great show...when you can find it.
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