Disappointment Unlimited

I love our local library. I've been able to catch up on quite a bit of comic book reading (Ultimate Spider-Man) and read some that I've always wanted to but never had the chance (Watchmen, V for Vendetta). I've also been able to watch a few shows that I wanted to see (Lost). I've also been a bit disappointed. I'm a really big believer in being truthful in advertising. If you say that your product does something, or is something, I would greatly prefer that your product does or is that thing. That's why I was mildly frustrated with the people who produced the show that I borrowed from the library: Justice League Unlimited.

I've always been more of a Marvel guy than a D.C. guy. I'm sure that it's partially because the first comic that I started buying on a regular basis was the Amazing Spider-Man. From there, I went on to the the Incredible Hulk, the Uncanny X-Men, and Wolverine, among others. It's only been in more recent years that I've started getting more of an appreciation for the "Distinguished Competition." Mainly in the form of liking to read Batman, but also reading some of the Superman, Flash, Green Lantern, and Justice League stories. When I saw a disk that was labeled "Justice League Unlimited, Season 1," I was excited to see the Justice League crew in cartoon form and able to see it from the beginning. Boy was I wrong.

The animation was in a style that we've come to expect from the WB/D.C. studios that started with the animated series for Batman. The voice work was top-notch. We had Kevin and Jason from the Wonder Years. We had Nathan Fillion, Adam Baldwin, and Gina Torres from Firefly. The characters were many and diverse. We had the heavy-hitters (Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern), the mystic (Dr. Fate, Zatana) and the lesser-known (Hawk, Dove) characters. The stories were interesting and mostly self-contained, but with an over-arching story that carried with it clues to where the show was heading. Unfortunately, that also included some information (or lack thereof) about from where the show had come.

You see, this wasn't what I would call a "pure" season one of the show. It had continuity that it had carried over from a previous show. There was some whole thing with Hawkgirl so that she was hanging out in some pocket dimension with Dr. Fate along with the fact that there seemed to be some unrequited love thing between her and Green Lantern. To top it all off, one of my favorite characters in the D.C. universe, the Flash, who is one of the major, flag-ship characters of the entire comics line along with being a founding member of the Justice League (Well, really, it was his predecessor, Barry Allen, who was one of the founding members, at least in the comics, but that's not important right now. Well, to you it's not important; to me it's a detail that they missed. Where was I? Oh, yeah: the Flash) doesn't even make a single appearance in the series besides the opening credits until the seventh episode of the series. How does this make sense?

So, to sum it all up: If you're looking for the Flash, expect to be disappointed until mid-way through the first season, and please don't mind the fact that they said it's a first season, but really it's not, and they don't completely explain the stuff that they figure you should already know because, after all, you watched the previous series that wasn't actually named Justice League Unlimited, right? I mean, why would you be watching this series if you didn't watch the first one? It's not like they said that this was the first season of a brand new series, right? Oh wait! They did. (Deep breath.)

My name is Jeff Kamp, and I approve this rant.