Current Events > Justice League vs The Fatal Five, a movie that LOOKS like the DCAU, but isn't.

(+) Yeah! (+)

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It is absolutely surreal to watch this movie, it looks like the DCAU, it sounds like the DCAU (hearing Kevin Conroy as Batman again v__v ) but it isn't quite the DCAU. There's straight up killing where they show the bullet wound of someone shot in the forehead, copious amounts of blood, and some cringey swearing that sounds off. It's like the censorship is what made the DCAU writers get creative with their plots, stories and dialogue.

But what I thought was interesting is... it features a DCAU take on Miss Martian, who was created for Young Justice. A different take than YJ for sure, but it definitely fits for the DCAU.

However, the movie is actually about this random Green Lantern called Jessica Cruz, and that's when the movie kinda lost me because I don't know anything about the Green Lanterns (nor particularly care) because it's the most sci-fi/star warsy type genre of superheroes with all the goofy alien designs and cereal box decoder rings. I only liked John Green Lantern in JLU because it's John, and they didn't really get into the Green Lantern stuff so it was more approachable.

It's also about the time travel guys the 31st century legion of superheroes which I feel the same as I do Green Lantern stuff, it's more "this is 50s era comic book goofiness that I'm not really into" rather than comic stories of the big 3.

That all being said it was damn nice seeing DCAU style again so I was here for it no matter the story or characters.

Its kind of also about being a superhero while dealing with mental illness. Jess has her anxiety and Star Boy is a schizophrenic who usually can keep it under control with the medication available to him in the 31st century but in our time hes SOL, so thats a pretty interesting angle.

saspa posted...

But what I thought was interesting is... it features a DCAU take on Miss Martian, who was created for Young Justice. A different take than YJ for sure, but it definitely fits for the DCAU.

Just a minor correction, Miss Martian was not created for YJ and was actually created by writer Geoff Johns and Artist Tony Daniel and introduced into the teen titans comics 4 years before young justice started airing specifically because DC told Geoff Johns he couldn't use Supergirl in his Teen Titans run so she was created as a replacement

Miss Martian was pretty much John's going "animated series Starfire is very popular, but comic Starfire is nothing like her animated counterpart. Let's make a new alien character with animated Starfire's personality".

After watching it, the movie is okay and I was interested in the beginning but it started to lose me near the middle and climax. I didn't understand what this Starboy's deal was at all, and I was like wait what nearly a year passed and he was just chilling in Arkham? And the bad guys were just chilling in that time machine? And the legion didn't send someone back? Or there was just one time machine and that's it.

They also introduced Jessica Cruz as this woman who had this rather horribly random traumatic moment where she's hiking in the woods with friends and stumble upon some bad guys who shoot her friend and she gets away, now living with both PTSD and survivor's guilt. And also is a green lantern.

When I saw Miss Martian on the poster I thought the movie would feature her more prominently but it's more about this Green Lantern so that was a surprise.

Overall, it was fine as a direct-to-video movie. But not sure why it exists, if it was meant to double as a pilot or attempt to revitalize interest in DCAU/a new IP (after all, Justice League Unlimited ended waay too soon, it was beyond ahead of its time and the large cast of characters meant there was an endless supply of stories to tell about all the comic characters we don't usually see outside of the main 7)

This movie introduced me to Jessica Cruz, and I love the idea of a Green Lantern dealing with PTSD and having to over come her fear, as well as deal with her own issues.

I think TC my have confused Miss Martian with Kaldur, as he was created for Young Justice.

Also while watching I felt like or there seemed like some character development for the movie was missing.

Felt like maybe an arc or something was missing because I was like... okay? Near the end there's a scene where the Green Lantern is forced to take the bad guys to a green lantern planet where they imprisoned the bad guys' most powerful member and possible leader, and the bad guys succeed and they maim or kill off a bunch of other green lanterns, and destroy jessica's ring and she's left for dead under a pile of rubble in her human form, no powers or anything. Then she wakes up, says some speech, the ring fixes itself, and she becomes super powerful and has a cool monocle looking lantern thing on her eye and teleports to earth to save the day (because the bad guys took down the Justice League)

This random green lantern is just powerful now and can singlehandedly take down all the baddies that Superman was once again jobbing to? Felt like something was missing Especially since the movie is literally only 77 minutes. Like not even the full 90 minutes. They definitely could have fleshed out some more stuff here and there.

Like throughout the movie Starboy was saying how Jessica Cruz is known as a legend in his time and known as Limelight, but they never show why or explain what made her special or powerful. Hell I got annoyed with Starboy because he seemed completely useless throughout the movie until the end when it was finally revealed what his role was and what he did and I was like um okay. I don't really care there was an emotional component missing so Jessica crying about him and then citing Martin Luther King Jr in his honor made me go "um"

isnt the fatal five the group from kung fu panda?

saspa posted...

This random green lantern is just powerful now and can singlehandedly take down all the baddies that Superman was once again jobbing to?

Ludicrous ppwerups are pretty in character for human Lanterns.

Hal going Parallax, Kyle becoming a White Lantern...

Guy doesn't get one but that's because Guy shouldn't be trusted with a pair of scissors, let alone a power ring.

let alone a RED power ring

McMarbles posted...

Its kind of also about being a superhero while dealing with mental illness. Jess has her anxiety and Star Boy is a schizophrenic who usually can keep it under control with the medication available to him in the 31st century but in our time hes SOL, so thats a pretty interesting angle.

That actually is an interesting angle, but the movie felt very undercooked with it. It's why I felt like it was maybe an introduction to something more, because the ideas it did present definitely intrigued me enough that I'd watch a show out of it.

Raiden2909 posted...

Just a minor correction, Miss Martian was not created for YJ and was actually created by writer Geoff Johns and Artist Tony Daniel and introduced into the teen titans comics 4 years before young justice started airing specifically because DC told Geoff Johns he couldn't use Supergirl in his Teen Titans run so she was created as a replacement

Oh my b thanks, I must have been thinking of something else. I associated MM with YJ for so long it's who I think like with BB and season 2 YJ.

Compsognathus posted...

Miss Martian was pretty much John's going "animated series Starfire is very popular, but comic Starfire is nothing like her animated counterpart. Let's make a new alien character with animated Starfire's personality".

Huh is that what it is. They definitely made her more upbeat and perky in this movie, like how MM started out in YJ s1 before the trauma reveal. I assumed for this movie she was a sub for regular martian manhunter but I didn't mind.

saspa posted...

Huh is that what it is. They definitely made her more upbeat and perky in this movie, like how MM started out in YJ s1 before the trauma reveal. I assumed for this movie she was a sub for regular martian manhunter but I didn't mind.

Yeah, the popularity of the animated series caused DC to relaunch the the Teen Titans comics. Because the show was so popular they made sure it's line-up was featured in the comics (even though half of them were adults at this point). The problem is that a lot of the show characters behave very different from their comic counterparts, especially Starfire, who's show personality has basically nothing in common with the comics. As a result they created Miss Martian so she could be the cute naive alien girl for the team.

You know what I was instantly reminded of? There was an episode of Justice League Unlimited like this with a very similar plot. It was the episode when they wrote off Supergirl to go live in the 31st century. Basically what happened is those same goofyass legion of superhero guys come to the past to stop an evil, and cite that Supergirl was known as this great hero in their time.

As someone who just dislikes time travel in general, reusing that premise for this movie made me smirk.

creativerealms posted...

This movie introduced me to Jessica Cruz, and I love the idea of a Green Lantern dealing with PTSD and having to over come her fear, as well as deal with her own issues.

I think TC my have confused Miss Martian with Kaldur, as he was created for Young Justice.

That must be it yeah Kaldur who I was thinking of.

I'm all for seeing this green lantern again in other stuff and I unironically like the domino mask design, I just don't know enough about green lantern to really get how the powers work and therefore how it fits in the context of a superhero story.

Oh also I just saw that Diane Guerrero voiced Jessica Cruz in this movie so as a fan of Doom Patrol that makes me like her even more, definitely potential there.

saspa posted...

I'm all for seeing this green lantern again in other stuff

Outside of comics:

https://ideas.fandom.com/wiki/Justice_League:_Rings_of_the_Force

That show probably has her in the most prominent role.

Random cameos by Harley, 2Face, "fake" Poison Ivy... feels like a love letter to those of us who grew up with the DCAU. Or it did up until they had Ivy snap a guard's neck and then I was like... :/

saspa posted...

As someone who just dislikes time travel in general, reusing that premise for this movie made me smirk.

They're also in an episode of Superman TAS, so the JLU one isn't even their first DCAU appearance.

It's a better fake DCAU film then Batman/Harley Quinn anyway.

I think what bothered me about the whole "this is for adults now with blood and swearing" thing is that they still made Superman job, which was tolerated in JL/JLU to an extent because it was at its heart a kids show but just comes across frustrating here. Super Speed and super strength should make him solo most villains at once...

Somehow, I read this as "Justice League vs The Fast Five."

One of the characters in the movie is a guy called mr terrific. I thought that was a nifty coincidence because the other month I was wondering why Cyborg was chosen to be a founding member of the Justice League when they rebooted DC (btw is he still a founding member?) even though John Stewart was the one I grew up watching in DCAU. Then apparently new 52 came along and iirc the founding members didn't even have a GL (nor Martian Manhunter for that matter) it was just Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Flash, Aquaman and Cyborg.

And someone said that they had Cyborg because they wanted a tech guy on the team as a founding member, and then suggested that instead of Cyborg, they could have used this mr terrific. I remember the character from JLU even though he had like 3 lines of dialogue, and would have been happy to see more episodes with him. So it's kinda cool that they featured him in this movie

Brykner posted...

If you want your mind blown, it <u>is</u> canon to the DCAU, Bruce Timm has said so himself. It's supposed to take place after JLU, but he realizes it causes some continuity errors so he leaves it up to the fans to work out in their heads how the canon works or to just make it non-canon in their head canon.

Oh wow. It was going to look like those DC original movies they were pumping out last decade, and then at the last minute decided on the DCAU art style. I would have loved it if even more movies got the DCAU art style.

creativerealms posted...

It's a better fake DCAU film then Batman/Harley Quinn anyway.

Yeah that wasn't great, and it came right after bruce timm's horrible adaptation of killing joke, so not a great track record there. But by comparison this movie is a step in a better direction