It’s Green Lantern week on Cartoon Network! After an hilarious appearance on Duck Dodgers, the Green Lantern Corps show up for a galactic butt kicking on Justice League. Too bad it’s their butts that end up getting kicked.
“Hearts and Minds” is a timeless tale of a disfigured outcast, Despero, driven from his town for being generally ugly and looking too much like the three-eyed child of the Savage Dragon and Barney the Dinosaur. While wandering around on his planet he is attacked by thieves, but the life force of his planet comes to his rescue. The meeting moves Despero spiritually and he ends up believing that he is the new messiah of his people. Many of the townspeople believe him (it helps to have a glowing third eye in these situations), but over time a resistance develops.
Soon Despero and his Desperites are getting into trouble with the Green Lantern Corps. The show begins with Kilowog, Katma Tui, Tomar-Re and a handful of other GLs fighting Despero’s army. A few Green Lanterns are killed and Katma sacrifices herself to give her green compadres a chance to retreat.
Kilowog shows up at the Justice League watchtower looking for help. John Stewart rushes off into the heat of battle because he used to knock boots with Katma Tui (she was his “mentor”), leaving Hawkgirl, Martian Manhunter, Flash and Kilowog to do all the clean up work. Before too long, John finds himself defeated before Despero and a traitorous Katma. On the plus side, she traded in her Green Lantern outfit for a hot Return of the Jedi like metal bikini.
This was my first exposure to Despero (that I can recall since I have a poor memory for such things). He didn’t seem so tough. Apart from the energy blasts from his third eye, there was not really all that much to him. He was just a guy that misinterpreted words from his god. Haven’t we all been there?
The strength of season two of Justice League thus far has been that even the episodes that are not home runs are still packed with entertaining and interesting parts.
Batman, Wonder Woman and Superman all got the week off, but the other four members managed to hold their own. Batman and Wonder Woman were presumably off consummating their partnership from last week’s episode and Superman was probably left out because he would have cleaned Despero’s clock in two minutes.
If you didn’t get enough sexual tension last week between Batman and Wonder Woman, Hawkgirl and Green Lantern traded goo goo eyes this week. With everyone pairing off, and a rising weekly death toll, Justice League moves closer and closer to being The Authority each week. How long before Flash is a heroin addict (not just a heroine addict) and Martian Manhunter is sharing a bed with Superman?
Back to the episode — Katma made a quick reference to perhaps needing to “recall Rayner.” Long time Bruce Timm fans know that Kyle Rayner showed up in an episode of Superman: The Animated Series, but no explanation has yet been given as to why John Stewart is the current GL. At least now we know that they know and they know that we know.
Flash continued his streak of looking like an idiot in “Hearts and Minds.” This week he was beat over the head by an old Asian woman with a broom. You could argue that he was too much of a gentleman to fight back, but from personal experience, I honestly believe that she was too fast for him.
While Despero just didn’t do it for me as a villain, he was voiced by one of my favorite actors, Keith David (Gargoyles, Spawn, They Live.) “Hearts and Minds” was worth the sixty minutes of my life for his voice work alone. When you combine that with the Flash and Kilowog comedy show, this episode was at the very least satisfying.
The one thing that did bother me was that on last week’s episode “Maid of Honor,” Flash crashed the Javelin-7 into Vandal Savage’s space gun. This week the Justice League is flying around in it again. What gives?
Did this episode take place before “Maid of Honor”? Were they flying the Javelin-8 this week? Is Javelin-7 just a name for the class of ship, like B-52 and there are hundreds of them? Enquiring minds want to know!
Derek’s Continuity Corner
While not the first villain to menace the League in comics (that honor goes to either those weird elemental star emperors or Starro The Conqueror, depending on which writer you believe), Despero definitely has long-time status. He started off as a red-skinned humanoid of average build and a scaly fin fanning out from his head, then mutated into something more gorilloid while his fin changed directions into something more like a mohawk, the version used in this episode.
His greatest crime, which most fans are willing to let slide, is killing Vibe.
Later, the Martian Manhunter destroyed Despero’s mind, and his body was possessed by the computer mind of Justice League ally L-Ron, previously a short robot now back to being a short robot in the pages of Formerly Known as the Justice League.
Also in regular DC continuity, Katma Tui didn’t just mentor John Stewart; she married him. Yes, the first in a line of alien loves for this most stoic of Green Lanterns (who, by the way, was shown up on Duck Dodgers — Daffy was far more creative).
In a move straight out of the comic book guide to quick pathos, she was murdered by The Predator, who turned out to be a male aspect of the Zamorran Queen, Star Sapphire.
Said queen was also merely a psychic construct of Carol Ferris, Hal Jordan’s longtime girlfriend — and the Zamorrans were later revealed to be the female counterparts to the all-male Oans. There’s another Star Sapphire, too, with the same look and powers but possessed of a French accent. Presumably, this is the one used in earlier Justice League episodes, except her accent is British on TV.
Is it any wonder that Timm and company completely ignore Hal in their animated adventures?
Next Week
“A Better World.” The team sets out to eliminate all crime from the world.
