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Justice League of America, in later years shortened to simply Justice League, is one of DC Comics’ flagship titles. The Justice League first appeared in 1960, gaining their own comic-book Justice League of America in 1961. The idea was to bring together all the resident superheroes that were under DC’s roof. The idea hit off in a big way and inspired numerous other superhero teams, including the Legion of Superheroes, Teen Titans and Marvel’s Fantastic Four, X-Men and The Avengers. The complement of the Justice League has changed about over the years with many characters leaving, joining or being killed off, but the title remains one of DC’s most popular. In the 00s, there has been the persistently announced idea of a live-action Justice League feature film.
The Justice League of America pilot was made not long after the hit of tv’s Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman (1993-7), which enjoyed success in construing the basics of the Superman comic-book into an awkward relationship comedy that had Superman vying between being a superhero on one hand up against the difficulties of maintaining a secret identity as Clark Kent and his attraction to Lois Lane on the other. In fact, Justice League of America gives the appearance of network executives having gone away and ordered scriptwriters to create something in a similar vein to Lois and Clark.
As a result, while the comic-book Justice League of America was about all the superheroes that were under DC’s roof being brought together to defeat giant-sized menaces, the Justice League of America pilot seems to be about a group of twentysomethings with superpowers who must come together to tackle superheroic menaces while balancing this with the comically awkward problems in their private lives – The Flash may be the fastest man in the world but is unable to hold down a job; Fire is a struggling actress; Guy Gardner is a womaniser who is trying to propose and then reconcile with his girlfriend but is constantly being interrupted by having to go and save the world, although is unable to tell her this; Ray Palmer is a cliched bespectacled nerd who pines after female scientist Tori Olafsdotter. All of the superheroes’ identities have been rewritten as characters in their twenties who live in the same apartment. What we have now is in fact not the Justice League, it is Lois and Clark reconceived as a variant on Friends (1994-2004).
Almost all of the characters and their origins are changed. One must also note that many of the big-name members of the comic-book Justice League – such as Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman – are absent due to their copyright being held elsewhere and the show focused on lesser-known heroes. Indeed, out of the characters present, only The Flash had appeared in any media form before with tv series The Flash (1990-1), although both The Atom and Green Lantern had appeared in occasional episodes of The Superman/Aquaman Hour of Adventure (1967) and Super Friends (1973-86). For some reason, the Green Lantern we have here is Guy Gardner rather than test pilot Hal Jordan, whereas according to the comic-books Guy Gardner was Abin Sur’s back-up choice as the wearer of the ring who has become increasingly unstable in comic-book developments. There is also no explanation of the ring’s origin or powers with Green Lantern now being someone who, for all apparent purposes, simply has a magic ring. Fire was originally Beatrix Bonilla Da Costa, the president of the Brazilian division of Wayne Enterprises and in other versions a model/Brazilian secret agent, but here becomes an African-American character who is relegated to being a would-be actress stalked by an over-enthusiastic David Krumholtz. In the comic-books, Ray Palmer/The Atom is a scientist who develops a lens that allows him to shrink his size, whereas here it is due to an all-purpose radioactive space rock he finds in the desert. In the comic-books, Ice is a princess of a lost Norse kingdom of ice people; here she is a regular American girl who works as a meteorologist and gains her powers after a lab accident, although for some reason also maintains her original Norse name. The Justice League’s headquarters The Watchtower has also gone from a space station in orbit (a base on The Moon in other incarnations) to a submarine at the bottom of the local harbour that is reached via an elevator hidden in the struts of a bridge.
Maybe the most ridiculous part is just how badly the characters’ costumes have been depicted on the screen. Green Lantern’s tight black-and-green one piece bodysuit and mask is turned into a set of tights, a thick aquamarine vest jacket and a pair of large green oddly-shaped goggles. The Flash comes in his familiar red spandex with Mercury-like little wings on his mask and is perhaps the most faithful to the original source – although the then-recent The Flash tv series conducted a much snappier incarnation of the costume. The Atom is a guy with a dumpy build who is outfitted in an awkwardly over-padded red and blue outfit that makes him look like a cartoon character. Fire looks quite sexy in her green outfit but the silliest part is where the only difference between her in costume and day guise is a single streak of green makeup underlining her eyes and the piling of her hair up to one side – despite which stalker David Krumholtz only manages to recognise her because he sees Fire wearing the earrings he gave her. The worst of these is J’onn J’onnz who comes out as reasonably closely resembling his comic-book original in look (although here for some reason is minus his Martian Manhunter sobriquet, his Detective John Jones human identity and any explanation about coming from Mars). The worst part is how the role is cast with an overweight David Odgen Stiers who gives us a J’onn J’onnz with a stomach bulge beneath his costume and a pudgy jowly face.
The results are not that far different from another disastrous misconstrual of a superheroic property that came out the same year – Joel Schumacher’s Batman & Robin (1997) abomination. The characters come out with lines that make you wince: “You gotta fix the tv set – we’ll miss Touched by an Angel [1994-2003]” says Matthew Settle as a shrunken John Kassir is seen disappearing into the innards of the box. There is a groan-inducing scene where John Kassir’s Atom shrinks down to get under a laser security grid and starts to do an impromptu limbo dance as he slides underneath the beam that simply shows that people weren’t taking things seriously. Instead of any Earth-threatening menaces, the Justice League seem to be operating in a single city, while the resident menace of the pilot is Miguel Ferrer as a non-costumed villain who would appear to be loosely based on the regular Flash nemesis The Weather Wizard. There is a frustrating low-level of imagination gone into their superheroics where the Justice League are involved in actions such as rescuing a cat trapped under a house, a wall falling on workmen, putting out a fire, or combining forces to break into a facility during a cocktail party.
The Justice League was far more successfully incarnated as the animated Justice League/Justice League Unlimited (2001-6) from producer Bruce W. Timm who had a number of noted successes adapting DC superhero properties to the small screen throughout the 1990s and 00s. Timm’s Justice League has also been spun off in three animated films with Justice League: The New Frontier (2008), Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths (2010) and Justice League: Doom (2012).
(Winner in this site’s Worst Films of 1997 list).
Entire film is available online here, follow link for successive parts:-