Jefimus Top 20 Justice League Episodes

I'm Jefimus and this is the top 10 Justice League Episodes, for this list I'm ranker my favorite episodes of Justice League and it's revamped season Justice League unlimited, and as for multi parters I will rank them as one whole episode.

20. Injustice for all: The song “Money makes the world go around” certainly comes to mind when viewing Injustice for All. It is at the least a story surrounded and very much driven by the money aspect. Well, on to what worked, what didn’t, and anything else in between. In one of the best call backs to the Super Friends cartoon  Lex Luthor discovers that he has contracted an incurable case of Kryptonite poisoning, he blames the Man of Steel. Using his vast personal fortune, Luthor hires a team of the world's most powerful super-villains to destroy Superman and the Justice League. With The Joker, The Ultra-Humanite, Solomon Grundy, Shade, Star Sapphire, Cheetah and Copperhead to assist him, Luthor begins to strengthen his diabolical efforts. The entire Justice League must assemble to face their greatest challenge yet. Batman attempt to sneak into their hideout and gets captured and the league needs to find Luthor and his cronies to save him. It was interesting to see how imposing Superman was towards Batman, and his look of surprise of actually being able to get away with it. Yet the following scene had to be another one of the weak ones. Obviously here was a chance to show some deep interaction with J’onn and Batman, but all it came off as was J’onn spouting seemingly pointless dribble about Batman’s lack of superpowers. My favorite sceane was in part 2 with the The tête-à-tête between Cheetah and Batman is quite enjoyable. Batman’s voice seems to change quite a bit through this episode, especially at this point. The “Try me” line is downright disturbing. Each Injustice gang is suppose serves as a counterpart to a member of the Justice League mainly Lex Luthor the Joker Cheetah and Star Sapphire cause they where the enemies of Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman and Green Lantern, but what are Soloman Grundy The Shade and Copperhead doing? But aside a few things that bug me, it's an average episode.


19. The Enemy Below: Anyone who only remembers Aquaman from Super Friends doesn't know jack spit until they see this episode. I mean HE'S THE FREAKING KING THE SEAS, and he's a telepathic badass, If you enrage him he would feed you to a dozen sharks. This episode is a perfect example of how much of a cool character Aquaman can be you know without those stupid talk to fish jokes. He ends up being the target of an assassin named Deadshot while on the surface world attempting to make peace. Not only that but Aquaman discovers who was behind the attempted assassination, his own jealous and warmongoring brother Orm schemes to overthrow Aquaman to lead the army of Atlantis to war against the surface and now he fights for his life, as well as his son's, which he wins by chopping off his hand. Now Aquaman decides to help the Justice League stop Orm just to get revenge for his brother's treachery. I didn't notice any "weak" points in the story at all, aside from the obvious fact that it took the four League members (Batman, Martian Manhunter, Superman, Wonder Woman and Lantern) to take down a single assassin. While it certainly showcased what each member was capable of, seeing Batman take Deadshot aside and "talk" to him was definitely the biggest treat this episode had to offer (if you were a Batman fan, that is). All and all it's a great to show how much of a powerful character Aquaman can be even at times he can be pigheaded.

18. Comfort and Joy: Next is the Christmas Episode, and the only episode that's not a multi-parter. After saving a distant planet, the Justice League returns to Earth just in time for Christmas Eve. While Flash plays Santa for some orphans even going as to enlist Ultra-Humanite, Superman invites J'onn home to celebrate the holidays in Smallville, with his adopted family. Meanwhile, Green Lantern and Hawkgirl share their favorite holiday traditions with each other from starting a snow ball fight to initiating an intergalactic barroom brawl. The individual segments interweave fluidly and the pacing is nicely handled. The story is about people and interaction: Nothing massive happens, no damsels in distress, and, most importantly, no cheap Christmas gags. This is an intelligent and well handled episode which I found both emotional and entertaining -- something I’m unused to seeing in Christmas specials. Technically, I found the animation above average and the score was gentle and unobtrusive. All in all, this is an excellent episode of a caliber that was missing last season but is rapidly becoming expected of this one. My only question is: Just what is Batman doing in the Watchtower? And where is Wonder Woman? I think I’ll duck my head down and let the fan speculation run off on its own....

17. A Better World: Long before Injustice showed us what happens when Superman loses his spit and becomes a big government tyrant It provides an honest view of the negative implications of super powers and vigilantism without losing the idealism of the DC universe.  Seeing Superman as a dictator, the importance of Flash to the team and especially Batman fighting his alternate self are all fascinating.  Justice Lords Batman convinces our Batman to change by arguing they've created a world where, "no eight year old kid will ever lose his parents to some punk with a gun."  Just completely fascinating.

16. Legends:Both a gripping elseworld mystery along with a touching tribute to industry legend Gardner Fox, who co-created the Justice League and Justice Society of America. Teleported to a picturesque world, Green Lantern and company encounter heroes straight out of the Silver and Golden Age of comics. Naturally, not everything is as happy-go-lucky as it seems, and soon it’s revealed that this world of yesteryear is nothing more than a grim illusion brought about by suffering and trauma. Goes to show that despite their corny exterior, the classics of the genre can still hit just as hard as they did back then.


15.The Doomsday Sanction: I love being surprised. I love walking into an episode with some pre-conceived notion from the quick episode log that it’s going to be another run-of-the-mill Justice League Unlimited episode and then have it be one hell of a “blockbuster” episode. While Superman battles Doomsday in the heart of a Volcano, Batman discovers an elaborate conspiracy to destroy the Justice League. First up is the continuity. A large array of references were in this one: Dr. Hugo Strange (BTAS “Strange Secret of Bruce Wayne”), Dr. Langstrom (BTAS “On Leather Wings” / “Terror in the Sky”), Dr. Milo (BTAS “Moon of the Wolf” / “Cat Scratch Fever”), Phantom Zone projector (STAS “Blast to the Past”), Volcana (STAS “Where Theres Smoke”), Justice Lords / Doomsday / Luthor’s interest in politics (JL “A Better World”), Galatea (JLU “Fearful Symmetry”), Cloning (JLU “Ultimatum”), General Eding / Watchtower laser (JLU “Dark Heart”) and Batman’s kryptonite (JL “Tabula Rasa”). All directly referenced (sans Volcana, who was more of mentioned in passing about Luthor funding Hardcastle’s past meta-human experiments), make for one giant continuity sandwich with a side order of fries. in other words the mintue I watched this episode I got a feeling Cadimus and Amanda Waller are planning something and they believe it's for "the greater good" Doomsday’s intro is soon shown and then the big lava-brawl starts. As brutal as Superman’s fight with Mongul in “For The Man Who Has Everything”, this fight took Superman’s “limits” to a new level; attempting to lobotomize Doomsday and then tossing him into a volcano, it seemed he was willing to kill Doomsday and sacrifice himself in the process. While this goes on, Batman handles a nuclear missile headed for the exploding island, fired by General Eding in an attempt to kill Doomsday, along with Superman and the islanders (with the included drug-trafficking ring, it was “killing three birds” as Eding put it). Just after ranking both "Moon of the Wolf" and "Cat Scratch Fever" on my top 10 Worst Batman:The animated series I got a sense of satifaction seeing Doomsday kill Professor Milo, but The writers have a point giving the choice of a reality of a supervillain like Lex Luthor being president or the reality of Superman losing his cool you gotta choose the lesser of two evils.


14. Twilight of the Gods:  The Opener of Season 2 and Cartoon Network decided to air it after a Superman: the Animated Series Mini Marathon. When Brainiac threatens to destroy Apokolips, Darkseid turns to the Justice League for help. But because they had a history, Superman does not trust his old foe, but his fellow superheroes convince the Man of Steel to come to Darkseid's defense. Meanwhile, Darkseid's longtime enemies on neighboring planet New Genesis, High Father and Orion, believe Supes is right and Darkseid may be fooling the Justice League. Much of the excitement that I received from "Twilight" came from the strong attention paid to continuity. Continuity with the previous shows supplemented and supported the episode without overpowering it. The events that had transpired in "Legacy" and "Apokolips...Now" were certainly not forgotten, but the plot simply used them as a device to further the tale rather than dwelling on it excessively. The references to the previous episodes were skillfully handled, with small exchanges and bits of dialogue explaining previous events in the context of the current ones so everything could be explained without getting boring or redundant for those who had the fortune of seeing some of the other episodes featuring Kirby's Fourth World from Superman: The Animated Series. Airing "Apokolops...Now!" and "Legacy" was a stroke of genius, and I'm glad that the folks at Cartoon Network capitalized on those episodes to make an event out of it. The cameos of Steppenwolf, Orion, (Now voiced by Ron Perlmen), Lightray (Voiced by Rob Paulsen) and Highfather at the beginning of the episode were not only very cool but meshed well to convey a sense of the scope of the large intergalactic conflict that the League was flung into. Thankfully, neither Darkseid nor Braniac were diminished as a result of their previous defeats (or possibly just setbacks) and Darkseid was his same old menacing self, largely due to the voice talents of Michael Ironside who reprised the role. My favorite scene was in part 1 where Once Darkseid shows his replusive face at the watchtower Superman go ape-spit and attacks and it taqke Wonder woman and Martian Manhunter to restrain him, I also like how in the end (Spoiler Alert) when Darksied smiles evilly and then calls Superman a loser before he seemingly perishes in an explosion that destroys Brainiac's base. 

13. Secret Society: As much as I love Injustice for all this only blows it out of the water, and is handle a bit better. Gorilla Grodd forms his own Legion of Doom but unlike Lex Luthor who hired the team to be his henchmen, Grodd enlists a new team out of revenge. Yup and Grodd wants revenge on Flash for his defeat in "The Brave and The Bold" and recruited Parasite for his experience fighting Superman, Sinestro since he hates the Green Lantern Corps, The Shade for his experience fighting the Justice League under Luthor's employment, Giganta cause she owes him a debt and cause she was on of Wonder Woman's enemies in the comics Killer Frost cause she's psychotic and I guess they needed someone angry enough to tussle with Hawkgirl and finally he recruits Clayface since he fought Batman, I think Justice League Doom had the right idea with their hero/villian rivalries. He pulls a divide and conquer tactic by using his new found telepathy to cause the league to argue over strategies, until they eventually break up, and then take them out one by one. It's a nice touch with conflicts among the team hero vs villain fights, drama, tension, and comedy, My two favorite moments from this episode where when Flash tries to interrogate a criminal and a throwback to the Challenge of the Super Friends, where the Justice League and the Secret Society  face off in a final battle in a football stadium during halftime. It's no secret why this episode is awesome

12. Task Force X: In season 3 err the second half of season 1 of Jlu if you follow the DVD box set and Netflixs, we're introduced to a overarching story-arc featuring project cadmius, a group loosely in league with the government to be a solution to the possibility of the Justice League going rouge. At first they don't really pose much of a threat but will as the season prgresses. Under orders from Amanda Waller Col. Rick Flagg recruits four incarcerated supervillains The Clock King, Deadshot, Plastique, and Captain Boomerang  under the code name Task Force X AKA The Suicide Squad promising them a suspended sentence he orders them to assist him with a dangerous mission.  Steal the annihilator armor from The Watchtower. What makes the episode work is that it's one of those episodes in action cartoons where the villains are the focus, placing the viewers in the shoes of Flagg's team, these are normal yet dangerous people risking their lives to infiltrate a base occupied by super-powered gods. Plus it acutally a victory for Cadmius as it helps show they and their intentions  mean serious business. Task Force X a rare opportunity to want to root for the bad guys. 

11. Secret Origins: Ah yes the first episode The very pilot, that Batman the Animated Series, Superman: The Animated Series and to a lesser extent Batman Beyond and in someways Static Shock had been building up to As Batman tracks down hostile aliens tampering with deep-space monitors, Superman is disarming the world's missiles. Aliens invade the Earth and wreak havoc in many major cities, and neither Batman or Superman are able to stop them. They later discover and free the imprisoned J'onn J'onzz, but are confronted by an alien army disguised as solders. But J'onn did just recruit Supes and Bats alone he also enlists the like of The Flash Wonder Woman, Green Lantern John Stewart and Hawkgirl, The seven Justice Leaguers come together for the first time in an attempt to repel the alien invaders in a fight that would lead them to form the Justice League. It sure is nice to finally have a Justice League show done by Bruce Timm and staff. Very solid story and great character interaction were it's high points. The animation was very good except for some inconsistent shot of Superman and Batman and the music needs some work but it is a very good start to a great series.

10. Dark Heart:Yeah after Starcrossed ended the show's second season Warner Bros. Re branded Justice League into Justice League Unlimited the show was gonna go through a complete overhaul. There's some new javelins, a new Watchtower and you've gone from seven members to dozens. And even though "The Return" shows the full force of the Justice League but it falls flat due to the team getting tossed around by a supped up god like android.  Here The Team is called into action to fight an alien nano tech device arrives on earth and spreads like a plague. What really sells the episode is seeing all the members of Justice League working like a military task force similar to the Autobots, the Masters of the Universe and even G.I. Joe only with superpowers and not being lead by a cross between a big rig and a gundam or lead by a cross between Conan the Barbarian and Prince Valiant. The League throws everything at their enemy even their most dangerous weapon The Watchtower's binary fusion generator.  The highlight of this episode is easily The Atom. His character has a very dry sense of humor that the episode and the situation really needed. John C. McGinley performed his one-liners magnificently especially when he was fighting the snake at the sub molecular level. He had some of the best one-liners in DCU history “…personally, I blame you” and “I’m going to lay here for a while, Katie. I’m old now and I get tired” are the stuff of legends. The ending was interesting and The Atom raised a good point. It’s pretty self-explanatory. All in all, it's weird but it was  a delightfully weird episode, made better by sharp wit from The Atom. John C. McGinley is absolutely perfect for this character.

9. This Little Piggy: In the funniest JLU episode ever Batman and Wonder Woman confront Circe an old enemy of Hippolita and Wondy is magical transformed into a pig. Now Batman and Zatanna must race against time to find The sorceress and save their teammate from a fate worst then death. It is a weird plot, yes, but the whole story was pretty much ludicrous to watch from beginning to watch. It did entertain me for the entire twenty-two minutes I watched it (and did so again the other twenty-two minutes again when I re-watched it), so I can’t really say too much bad about it. I’m sure plenty of fans hated the episode for the drastic departure from the serious tone of the show—“Kid Stuff” aside—but it’s hard for me to understand how anyone can have such hatred for a show that was obviously written to be funny. Plus (Spoiler warning) Batman manages to convice Circe to reverse her spell by singing, Yeah You heard.

8. Kid Stuff:  Leave it to Justice League to take a premise that should at its best be boring and at its worst downright irritating, and turn it into a macabre magical journey that even succeeds in splashing some great humor. A burst of childish rebellion leads Mordred to defy his sorceress mother and remove adults from the world. In order to counter this, Batman, Wonder Woman, Superman and Green Lantern are turned into kids, and have to go about stopping the pint-sized conjurer with substantially reduced powers. On one side, you’ve got the adorable interactions between BatBoy and Wonder Girl. Then on the other you’ve got Mordred’s horrendous fate for going against mother dearest. Yikes.


7. “Hereafter:”What would happen if Superman were to die? After supposedly being vaporized, the Justice League mourns the death of their most valued member. Heck, even Lex Luthor is sad he’s gone. We get an especially touching scene with Batman as he says goodbye in his own way, showing just how much he respected him. Of course, not all is as it seems, as Superman has actually been sent 30,000 years into the future. Now without his powers due to an absence of a yellow sun, he has to find a way back to his own time and prevent such a dismal end. The icing on the cake? We get an appearance by the main man himself, Lobo!


6. Epilogue: Epilogue" was technically the finale for Batman Beyond that we never got before that series ended, but it also tied together plot points from Justice League Unlimited and served as a final act for the DC Animated Universe in general, even though it didn't end up being the final episode before JLU ended (and was replaced with the far inferior The Batman). In this episode, Terry McGinnis discovers that he's Batman's genetic son, When I first saw this scene my head exploded thanks to a secret project by government operative Amanda Waller, who had decided over time that the world always needed a Batman. It was fate, however, that eventually led Terry to actually come under Bruce's wing and become the next Batman. After Waller advises Terry to take care of the people that love him, something Bruce didn't always succeed in, Terry proposes to his long-time girlfriend and shares a moment of understanding with Bruce, before flying off to meet Superman. As he whizzes by, airborne Gotham City cops glance him and wonder what they just saw, mirroring the first scene from Batman: The Animated Series and therefore bringing things full circle. The ending just felt right.

5. For the Man who has everything: Justice League Unlimited was not in the business of direct adaptation. Rarely did they reach into their longboxes and pull out a classic comic, but the result was golden when they did. “For the Man Who Has Everything” is based on Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons‘ Superman Annual #11.  what starts as a simple birthday visit to the Fortress of Solitude takes a dark turn when Batman and Wonder Woman discover Mongul has infected Superman with a plant that traps him in an illusion built on his heart’s greatest desire. The camaraderie and bond between all three of DC’s greatest heroes is beautifully explored, From Superman struggling to turn away and face the grim reality outside his body, to Batman, being a master of accepting tragedy as truth and dunking a bucket of cold water on his friend, and the two emerge to put down the alien baddie giving Wonder Woman so much trouble each rises above not only a powerful enemy, but their own selfish wants to do what’s right. No one bests the Big Three!


4. The Greatest Story Never Told: Booster Gold just gets no respect. The League always puts him on crowd control duty and everyone in the public seems to think he's Green Lantern (despite not having a spot of green on his costume). Even worse, he was a loser in the far future and came back to the 21st Century with his robot buddy Skeets (voiced by Billy West) in the hopes of being somebody and making a fortune, but he isn't doing any better. This episode chronicles his hilarious mishaps and, finally, his success in saving the entire planet (and the girl) from a miniature black hole all on his own. The only disappointment is that, most likely due to rights issues, Booster's buddy from the comics, Blue Beetle, couldn't appear with him. But we did get to see Elongated Man, who was upset that he was also on crowd control because Plastic Man was in the vicinity of a crisis and they didn't need "two stretchy guys."

3. Starcrossed: The plot twists, the scale, the characterization.  This show was capable of anything.  Hawkgirl did not start off as a popular character.  She replaced Aquaman in the main lineup and did not have a huge fanbase from the comics.  But the show really had a strong grasp on her.  The volatile warrior from another planet had great relationships with the team, especially Flash and Lantern.  There was a mystery surrounding the character that you never realized until things went down in the finale of the first series. Hawkgirl makes some moral comprises while continuing to be a sympathetic character.  Her betrayals and loyalties create some incredible moral dilemmas for the team and the audience that are difficult to deal with.  The Thanagarian invasion was not just an adventure the heroes had, it changed everything.  All of the characters were developed in this tightly plotted, exciting three-parter.

2. Question Authority/Flashpoint/Panic in the Sky/Divided we Fall: I couldn't pick just one episode.  The Cadmus arc makes up most of the episodes of the first season of JLU, but four of the last episodes of the season are a perfectly escalating story arc.  The Question and Amanda Waller both come close to stealing the show and Lex Luthor has never been better.  Flash, Green Arrow, Supergirl and Batman all have great moments.  And the struggles and worries about Superman are a practical evolution of the story.  The reveal of the true big bad at the end of Panic in the Sky and the surprising way in which he is defeated in Divided We Fall are terrific surprises.  I cannot remember being more excited while watching a TV show.  Every week during these episodes something changed and I didn't know what would happen.


1. Alive/Destroyer:  At no.1 is the final two episodes of Justice League Unlimited As I forgot to mention in the wake of the Cadmius arc the Final Season of JLU attempted to up the anti by building a big badder Legion of Doom While the preceding episode Alive! may be a more consistent episode (and one of the best villain centric stories I have ever seen) this season finale has some nice touches that leaves an impact.  It still had an overarching plot line, but the episodes were allowed to be their own separate entities. Originally lead by Grodd until Luthor overthrew him. Now Lex makes his big play as he attempts to reconstitute Brainiac but Grodd escape leading to all out villain war  between Luthor and his followers and Grodd and his goons. eventually Luthor's team won and right when he's about to get what he wants some goes horribly and and you know who is back from the dead. Leading the the episode that would have taken the spot alone they earned this finale for the series, a knockdown drag out battle between the combined might of the League and the Legion of Doom, against Darkseid and his armies for the fate of the Earth.  Yeah there wasn’t much in the way of depth in this episode, but it didn’t matter, the action was intense and each of the Big Seven had their own chance to shine.  But the crowning moment of this episode comes in the form of this brilliantly written monologue from Superman as he’s beating the snot out of Darkseid.There were some other great moments such as Batman and Lex Luthor fighting side by side against Parademons Martian Manhunter returning and Not only do they end the show but the countdown as well. Wall-to-wall kick ass superhero action, What more can you ask for.

JL Honorable Mentions



Wild Cards

The Savage Time

Only A Dream

Paradise Lost


JLU Honorable Mention

The Return

Dead Reckoning
 
Shadow of a Hawk

Grudge Match

The Great Brain Robbery

Alive