2010-03-03 - CRISIS MANAGEMENT

Lord knows, I'm a sucker for a DC Crisis.

Those old-time summer events in the pages of JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA, usually involving umpteen multiple Earths and more superheroes than you can shake a stick at, were an annual highlight of my childhood comic-reading days. So naturally, you'd think I'd have been overjoyed at the most recent release from Warner Animation, JUSTICE LEAGUE: CRISIS ON TWO EARTHS.

And for the most part, you'd be right; let's get that out of the way up front. CRISIS tells the story of the Justice League's first encounter with the denizens of a parallel world where the JLA are world-conquering supervillains, and Lex Luthor is the planet's sole super-hero. It's got compelling action sequences, some fun, surprising cameo appearances, and extremely strong antagonists in Superwoman and Owlman, brought to life vocally by FIREFLY's Gina Torres and James Woods. Woods in particular delivers a great, understated performance as the nihilistic Owlman, wisely cranking down his usual over-the-top, James Woodsian affect in favor of an approach much more subtle and unnerving. CRISIS is a perfectly fine release, well-scripted and beautifully animated, a tense action thriller that hits all the right beats. It's good stuff, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with it.

And yet...

Here's the thing. It's extremely apparent that this film was originally intended to bridge the gap between the two JL animated series, JUSTICE LEAGUE and JUSTICE LEAGUE UNLIMITED. Not only does it explain a few factual issues, such as where the JLU got their shiny new headquarters and teleporter as evidenced at the beginning of the JLU series (not to mention Wonder Woman's invisible jet, revealed here as "spoils of war" from their battle with Owlman), it also clarifies the team's decision to hold their dramatic membership drive, which defined the second series. There's no doubt this film locks directly into the JLU continuity. This isn't merely conjecture; the creatives have admitted as such in interviews; saying that they weren't able to produce it at the time due to the time pressures of producing the second series, and merely dusted off the script and made some minor changes in order to use it as a direct-to-DVD film.

What I don't understand is why they felt any changes were necessary. Why not just release it as a JLU film? If the idea was that making it less dependent on JLU lore would make it more commercially viable, well, I don't think the final product bears that out. Replacing Green Lantern John Stewart with Hal Jordan might have made sense if Hal Jordan had any sort of integral role in the narrative, but he really doesn't. He's little more than a background character here, with the only difference being the giant green fists coming out of his power ring, a more fanciful detail the producers never felt appropriate to use with the tough-as-nails John Stewart character.

The other major difference that comes along with making this a "non-JLU" production lies in the casting: rather than use the established voices for Superman, Batman and Luthor, the producers elected to use "name" actors, as if bringing in Mark Harmon and William Baldwin to play Superman and Batman would really generate any extra sales. And it's not that their performances are bad; they just don't have anywhere near the gravitas that George Newbern and especially Kevin Conroy bring to the roles. (Mark Harmon in particular suffers in the Superman role – with his trademark habit of dropping his "g"s on words like "talking" and "thinking," you're never really able to accept him as Superman. Instead, all I hear is Gibbs from NCIS.) Of the new voices, the best is Chris Noth, replacing Clancy Brown as Luthor, but even he doesn't bring any real new dimension to the role. Rather, in the film's opening scene with Luthor and the parallel-world version of the Joker, once can't help but think of how much Brown and Mark Hamill might have brought to that moment.

Since these direct video releases are already aimed at a fairly niche audience to begin with, leaving this as the missing piece of JLU history it should have been wouldn't have hurt sales any, in my humble opinion. Like I said, it's definitely worth watching. Check it out and enjoy what might have been.

Scott Tipton particularly enjoyed the Firestorm cameo. If you have questions about the Justice League or comics in general, send 'em here.

Hey, are you reading Josh Jabcuga's SQUIB CENTRAL? If not, why not? Vheck out this week's installment, right here!

EMAIL THE AUTHOR | ARCHIVES