COMICS-TV stuff: Justice League: "Between Two Armies"
Mercury has Weapons of Mass Destruction!
Intro/What the Heck??!!
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| Tastes bests with cinnamon or sour cream
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Before they were warped by Hanna-Barbera and the 70's "SuperFriends" franchise,
DC Comics' Justice League of America appeared in animated form in the late 60's.
As part of the Superman/Aquaman series, animated shorts of Hawkman, Green Lantern, the Atom
and the Flash were created. Thus, it seemed natural to slap 'em all together
in a "Justice League of America" short (Funny to note that
Aquaman was NOT included). Unlike the SuperFriends or the modern
Justice League cartoon, this League didn't operate out of a headquarters or include
any firm organization. They would just hook up whenever a giant robot, mutant
platypus or hungry man-eating alien threatened the good people of the world.
Would you Please Shut The Hell Up and Get Things Started?!!
This story opens with an intergalactic chase between the Rock Men and the Crystal Men.
They've been warring for years and the conflict has now spilled over to Earth. In an effort
to trump the Crystal Men, the Rock Men bore into the earth and create a magentic weapon.
The weapon begins attracting all sorts of comets, meteors and other space junk to
the earth. Superman, Green Lantern and Hawkman all fly into space to divert the junk.
The Crystal Men slip through and try boring into the earth as well. Flash and the Atom
are waiting and manage to subdue them.
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| "Dude... Flash's got a HEMI!"
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| GL vs. Mercury's WMD
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| The 1968 Star City High Swimteam
Yearbook Photo
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The Crystal Men are fairly agreeable and clue Flash and Atom in on their war with the
Rock Men. With their new subterranean weapon, the Rock Men plan to zap the Crystal
Men's native Mercury, which has.. gasp,
a nuclear core! Essentially a Weapon of Mass Destruction,
the core could blow apart the enire solar system if detonated.
You know it's serious, because the heroes all take turns gasping!
Superman and the others arrive, and split up to stop the Rock Men's
scheme. Superman burrows into their base, but it's too late-- the Rock Men have
already fired their weapon. Supes beats the crap out of their generator for good measure.
Hawkman and his mascot Skreel take off in their Hawkship.
Hawkman gets off a "lucky shot" from the ship, that happens to
intercept the Rock Men's beam.
Green Lantern, meanwhile,
has flown to the Crystal Men's command center on Mercury to disable the nuclear core.
The Crystal Men fire their fiery bazookas at him, but Lantern's ring deflects the blast
right into the core. The core starts overheating until Lantern contains it.
The Justice Leaguers all meet back on Earth, where the Rock Men and Crystal Men agree to
a peaceful treaty. Being of good manners, the superheroes make sure to wave goodbye as
everyone departs. Yeah, the story's full of all kinds of stupid, but you have to
suspend your disbelief for old superhero cartoons.
Overview/Dumb Comments
The action's not too exciting, but the novelty of this show was seeing all
the heroes work together. Atom always rides on Flash's shoulder, making you
wonder if he ever puked on his partner while hitching
along on a superspeed dash. Hawkman's not as worthless as you may think. He
has a nifty electro-claw thingie that shoots from his left hand. He also has Skreel...
who could dive-bomb the car hoods of evildoers. Superman's sort of
the unofficial leader as he tells everyone what to do before flying off and
pounding stuff. Like Hawkman, Green Lantern is the other interstellar member,
getting to do alot of the heavy lifting in outer space. Since this was primarily
an outer space flick, Atom and Flash took a backseat. Flash basically just ran to the
Crystal Men's ship...Atom shrunk, jumped inside and HIT BUTTONS! Regardless, it was
a worthy effort to keep them involved.
The aliens are pretty comical. Both sides wear full bodysuits, making them look
like scuba divers or the wrestling Super Destroyers. The Rock Men are more
rotund and look like sweet potatoes. The designs of both aliens were
used again throughout various Superman and Aquaman catoons. The animators
simply changed the color of their bodysuits. For example, I think the
Rock Men returned under a different name, trying to "burn the ocean"
in an episode of Aquaman.
Since it ran on the backside of the Superman/Aquaman show,
only 3 "Justice League of America" episodes were produced. In all 3, the heroes
were closer to the Defenders-- a loosely-organized team that only came together when
the need arose. The only thing that identified them as a team was their radioes.
But hell, we're talking about 3 fricking episodes here, so it's not like a trend
was established.
Hawkman, Flash, Green Lantern and Atom each had
3 episodes of their own, so when you add it all up, there's a good amount
of early Justice League footage out there. It's worth noting that
the script never mentions the "of America" part... I guess the prodcuers
didn't want to alienate themselves from possible Canadian syndication.
While this show was Superman's tie-in to the other heroes, Aquaman actually had one as well--
Aqualad teamed up with Speedy, Wonder Girl and Kid Flash in 3
"Teen Titans" cartoons. And, yes, those shows will be showing up on this website eventually.
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| Harvey Hawkman: Attorney at Law
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DC's animated cartoons of the 60's, 70's and 80's didn't have an official
canon. But it's fun to think of "Justice League of America"
as the prequel to Superfriends. Hawkman was about as worthless as
a Jello pool cue in the 70's, but he really seemed formidable in the 60's.
During his downtime from TV, Hawkman also managed to sneak off and bag Hawkgirl.
The guy was busy. Green Lantern, Atom and Flash returned to TV in the 70's...still
dateless.
Despite the 60's plot threads and music,
you can leapfrog the 70's and 80's to see similarities between
this and the modern "Justice League" cartoon. If you've only
hooked onto the JLA with the Cartoon Network show, you might want to track
these down for curiousity's sake.
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