As Season 3 rolls on, we get Booster, Super-Friends, and creepy robots.
- Booster Gold (Tom Everett Scott) stars in "The Greatest Story Never Told"
- Booster is a glory hound from the future with some "borrowed" weaponry. He also has a robotic assistant called Skeets (played by BIlly West). He wants to be a hero, but his reputation precedes him. J'onn won't put him on any major duties.
- Despite his flaws, I've always enjoyed Booster. When the chips are down, he is a hero.
- Mordru is attacking Metropolis, so the heroes are called out. J'onn calls for Aztek (had his own title for a short time, was in the JLA comic, then sacrificed himself during a meaningless crossover event) before he reluctantly includes Booster.
- Booster ends up doing crowd control for the "real" heroes. Elongated Man (Jeremy Piven) gets the same job (Batman says Plastic Man's already on the job, and "they don't need two stretchy guys").
- Mordru's spells are taking a toll--at one point, we see a half-Superman / half-Batman with Wonder Women's voice (a nod to a wacky 60's villain, the Composite Superman--another one of my favorites).
- A kid asks Booster for help--unfortunately, he only saves an ant farm from a fire. The kid's response: "Thanks, Green Lantern!"
- He runs into a lab and finds an actual crisis--an experiment out of control, creating an artificial black hole inside a scientist.
- After several fights and events (including a childbirth), Booster manages to stop the black hole and save the lady scientist (Lori Laughlin). The League never learns about what really happened.
- The League has a rival hero team in "Ultimatum"
- The Ultimen (Juice, Wind Dragon, Long Shadow, Downpour and Shifter) are pastiches of heroes created for the Super-Friends Saturday morning cartoon (Black Vulcan, Samurai, Apache Chief, and the Wonder Twins).
- They help out the League against some monsters, then stand for photos and spout platitudes about the environment--even Superman calls them "corny". Their leader/press agent is Maxwell Lord (Tim Matheson). In the comics, he created Justice League International, then became a big time baddie.
- The Ultimen even have their own action figures, seen in their quasi-Hall of Justice
- It turns out the Ultimen were created in a lab run by Amanda Waller (CCH Pounder). The team decides to find out what's going on for themselves--and find other versions of themselves in vats. They are only a year old, with fake memories.
- We get a fleeting shot of a WhirlyBat--a weird solo copter Batman used in the 50's
- Apparently, Aquaman is in the League now--I thought he hated the idea
- The Ultimen go nuts (they're dying, and want to be remembered) and attack the League before they finally surrender--to Cadmus. Waller infers she knows Batman's identity!
- The Atom (John C. McGinley) takes on alien nanotech in "Dark Heart"
- Finally, an original enemy not directly related to a DC character! It's written by Warren Ellis, a longtime comic book writer with credits such as The Authority, Transmetropolitan, Planetary, and Red. He also did some JL writing.
- An alien ship lands on Earth and starts eating all matter to make lots of creepy robots
- The whole team is called out, but has little luck. I'm wondering why non-powered heroes like Huntress are involved--attacking an alien armada with a stick?
- Classic Batman, after he drops "thermionic gas" missiles on the ship: Diana: "Why would you have something like that on board?" Bruce: "I needed to freeze the Gotham River once--long story."
- To slow down the robots, J'onn transforms the Watchtower into "big fusion gun" mode, burning a huge trench around it. But as Daffy Duck once said: "I can only do it once".
- Classic Batman II, after the Batplane is taken out by robots: "I could use some air support--since I can't fly--at all. Now would be good."
- Clark brings in The Atom, who's working on his own nanotech. McGinley's Dr. Cox character from Scrubs comes out from time to time.
- Diana manages to get him to the alien ship (in her bustier), and he gives the "heart" of the ship a heart attack
- The army is none too pleased about the JL having a "weapon of mass destruction" orbiting the Earth.
- While the whole team is there, only a few of them actually speak. I guess they had to save on voice actor costs in order to cover all the CGI in this episode.
If you would like to play along, the DVD box set is available on Amazon.