Justice League
Cast & Key People
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Our Review
The Timmverse’s crowning achievement and the gold standard of superhero animation. Justice League (2001-2004) assembled Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Flash, Green Lantern, Hawkgirl, and Martian Manhunter in the WWF-era of the DC Animated Universe, and spent two seasons proving an ensemble superhero show could be both Saturday morning fun and genuine mythology. The three part premiere staged an alien invasion; the two part Starcrossed finale (Hawkgirl’s betrayal, the Thanagarian invasion, Batman nearly dying in the Watchtower crash) is one of the great TV finales of the decade.
Episodes like A Better World (the Justice Lords, the League’s fascist alternates, the single most influential DC story of the 2000s), Hereafter (Superman’s death and the world without him), and the time travel two parter are as good as network animation ever got. The writing trusted kids with moral complexity; Kevin Conroy’s Batman defined a generation’s Dark Knight.
Verdict: Watch it. The foundation of everything good about DC animation since.
