After a five star outing last week for the second season premiere, Justice League takes a few steps back this week with “Only a Dream.”
Prison inmate John Dee dreams of life outside of jail fighting alongside his heroes, The Injustice Gang. He dreams about it so much he’s volunteered as a test subject for a secret project the prison is working on that gives people ESP (Metropolis really knows how to spend its tax dollars).
After failing to make parole and getting dumped by his wife, John risks everything during a prison riot and subjects himself to an overloaded blast of the ESP machine’s energy. Before long he’s wearing a cape, looks like a skeleton and calls himself Doctor Destiny.
John’s new powers revolve around the world of dreams. Similar to Freddie Krueger, he is able to take over the dreams of anyone sleeping and trap them in their nightmares. If left too long in the dream state, the victims die. After the Justice League round up the escaped convicts in a very cool sequence, they begin looking for John and discover his ex-wife screaming in her sleep. Soon, most of the Justice League is trapped inside their worst nightmare.
Doctor Destiny is creepy at times and definitely the scariest villain we’ve ever seen on Justice League. His face melts off, he looks like Skeletor from He-Man, and he calls himself a Doctor despite the fact that he has no medical training. That’s truly the stuff nightmares are made of.
Dream episodes are always tricky. On one hand, they are very cool. It’s always interesting to see the psyche of our favorite super heroes. What does Hawkgirl have nightmares about? What is Superman’s greatest fear? These are intriguing questions, perhaps, but we’ve seen the answers.
Hawkgirl has nightmares about being buried alive which makes sense if you look at DC continuity and count the number of times she has died. Superman lives in fear of being too powerful and accidentally hurting the people he cares about (the writers set up nice continuity cameos with appearances by Perry White, Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen looking like they did in Superman: The Animated Series.)
Their nightmares are not overly clever and are probably what you’d imagine they were if you were asked. The writers are smart enough, however, to recognize that we don’t need to see Batman or Martian Manhunter’s nightmares. We already know that MM has lived through his nightmare of watching his race die and Batman’s nightmares were given their own half hour show back during the run of Batman: The Animated Series. Wonder Woman isn’t in the episode this week, presumably because her nightmare involves falling out of her top and they just can’t show that on Cartoon Network.
Justice League is moving further away from being a kid’s show and catering more towards the young adult audience. For the second week in a row, a character has died and the beginning of Flash’s nightmare involves little kids with sharp teeth. Also for the second week in a row, Flash got the stuffing knocked out of him by the bad guys and had to rely on his team for help. Does Bruce Timm seriously hate Flash? He has some of the best one liners in the show but if he’s just there for comic relief, replace him with Plastic Man.
I’ll take it all back if this all leads up to a Flash episode where he turns evil and beats everyone up.
Despite a lackluster main villain, “Only a Dream” did feature a baker’s dozen of cool cameos. Most of the Injustice Gang was featured during the prison break, as well as villains from previous Justice League episodes. Solomon Grundy was the most fun as he battled Superman and Martian Manhunter. Someone at Warner Brothers has been playing the Hulk video game, because all of Solomon Grundy’s moves during the fight were straight from it. I know because I’m in the middle of the game and I love doing that Gamma Radiation slap.
Firefly and Volcana made an interesting duo as they tried to outdo each other’s fire abilities. Volcana was playing hard to get but I think she’s hot for him. Volcana: “That’s your flamethrower?” Firefly: “Wait till you see how I use it.”
Even with the cameos and funny one liners this week, the main plot wasn’t as good as last week. That’s the double edged sword of having a great opener.
Derek’s Continuity Corner: The Hawkgirl in the show actually hasn’t died over and over — she’s a pureblood Thanagarian, not the eternally reincarnated Egyptian warrior woman. But I wouldn’t put it past Timm and company to be setting such a thing up…
Dr. Destiny plagued the Justice League many times, though originally without the skull face. His tapping into dreams re-launched both the current JLA series at DC and Neil Gaiman’s Sandman, where his more homicidal tendencies first came into play.
And boy, I’d love to see Plastic Man join this show.
Next Week: “Maid of Honor” Wonder Woman befriends a jet-setting Kasnian princess. (Sexually?)
