Justice League Unlimited: Season 4 Begins / by Mark

More heroes are introduced as well as a new major storyline...

  • Guess who stars in "The Cat and the Canary"?
    • The former is Wildcat (Dennis Farina), and the latter is Black Canary, who finally gets a voice via Morena Baccarin. He's a classic character from the days of the JSA, and she was trained by him. She also has a "sonic scream" in addition to fighting ability. Of course, Green Arrow (Kin Shriner) is along for the ride.
    • Wildcat's in a jam--he's involved in "meta-brawls"--think illegal MMA with super powers. It's run by Roulette (Virginia Madsen), who's got Wildcat wrapped around her finger. He's also concerned that he's been "put out to pasture" in the League, assigned to training others. Canary asks Arrow to help--without involving the rest of the League.
    • Wildcat fights Atomic Skull (a minor DC villain), but the other two try to shut down the event, along with some other minor league bad guys. Wildcat still won't leave, so Canary agrees to fight him to secure his freedom.
    • Arrow knocks her out with a gas arrow and steps in for her. He doesn't fare so well, but that's his plan. GA is left for dead, and that makes Wildcat reconsider his life. It was all a scam, of course. Canary takes out the arena with her scream, and ends up with Arrow (of course).
  • The series gets involved with the New Gods in "The Ties That Bind"
    • Mister Miracle (Ioan Gruffudd) is "The World's Greatest Escape Artist", trained while escaping from Apokolips. His girl Big Barda (Farrah Forke) was a "Female Fury" working for Darkseid before she left, and Oberon (Dick Miller) is his assistant/agent.
    • Granny Goodness (Edward Asner?) kidnaps Oberon so Miracle will do a job for her. There's a power vacuum since Darkseid disappeared, so she wants him to get Darkseid's son Kalibak (Michael Dorn) for her. Yeah, I know it's complicated--blame Jack Kirby.
    • We get some backstory about Miracle's early life on Apokolips
    • We also meet Virmin Vunderbar (Arte Johnson). The whole New Gods concept can get very silly--he even says "very interesting--but futile".
    • Hey, Flash (Michael Rosenbaum) is back! He's commiserating with Elongated Man (Jeremy Piven) about the League treating them like kids (while they're playing Rock'em Sock'em Robots).
    • The League (aka J'onn) refuses to help, but Flash offers his assistance. We get a lot of Flash mispronouncing names throughout.
    • They go through various deathtraps while Miracle has flashbacks.
    • In the end, J'onn shows up (in guise as Kalibak) and Oberon is saved. He also makes sure the balance of power in Apokolips isn't changed.
  • It's "The Doomsday Sanction" for both Superman and Batman
    • We get "a day in the life" of Amanda Waller (CCC Pounder). Batman interrupts her in the shower (?), saying it's time for a talk.
    • Cadmus has been created to stop the League "just in case". Superman had to tell them about the Justice Lords in order to get Luthor's pardon.
    • They argue about who the "good guys" actually are.
    • We then cut back and forth between JL and Cadmus meetings as they make plans. One of the Cadmus experiments involve Doomsday (Michael Jai White). He's based on Kryptonian DNA and bred with a hatred of Superman. But Waller is the one that caused all his pain. He escapes and ends up near the volcano the League is fighting.
    • This sets up a big fight between Supes and Doomsday inside the volcano.
    • The military activates "Operation Firewall"--a kryptonite-based nuclear missile. Batman is off to stop it, and Waller tells the army to stop it as well, but they can't. Batman stops it at the last minute, taking out another Javelin in the process.
    • Clark throws Doomsday into the volcano to trap him. In the end, he's thrown into the Phantom Zone. Bruce says this is what the Justice Lords would have done--ooh, burn!

If you would like to play along, the DVD box set is available on Amazon.