Review of Justice League: Doom (2012) by Adam J — 21 Oct 2012

The first half of "Justice League: Doom" is the defeat of the Justice League using stratagems devised by Batman. Some ideas are obvious, like using a Kryptonite bullet to defeat Superman. The whole point of Kryptonite is to make defeating Superman not only possible, but easy. Thus, a Kryptonite bullet is just about the most obvious solution for defeating Superman that has ever existed in Superman's long comic history. (Superman should wear a Kryptonite proof costume). Some of the ideas are completely stupid, like injecting someone with nano-machines. If you can inject someone with nano-machines, you can inject them anything. Just being able to inject a super hero with something seems to be the real hurdle to overcome. None of the ideas seem particularly ingenious and at best are no better than any of the villainous plots we have seen in the last hundred years or so of superhero stories.

The draw of this movie, however, is not so much the superhero beatdowns themselves as it is the realization that Batman planned the superhero beatdowns. Batman struggles as the only ordinary human in the Justice League and perhaps we can empathize with his plight as a man among gods. In Gotham City, he is the most awesome superhero ever. In Metropolis, he is an accident waiting to happen. The movie hints at Batman's frustrations but it does not play up that angle. Instead we get the cold calculating Batman that always contrasts the rest of the Justice League. Despite the fact that most of the Justice League is composed of genius level intellects, including a Superman who can speak every language on earth, Batman is always shown as the smartest superhero in the DC Universe. Usually this means the other Justice League members have to be dumber. Batman has also become something of a "dark knight", which means Batman batman acts like big costumed jerk around his pleasant, easy going teammates. Having Batman devise methods of defeating his teammates shows us how much smarter and "darker" Batman is when compared to his teammates. Also for full fan service, Batman fans can now believe that Batman could defeat every other hero in the DC Universe without having to have Batman actually defeat them. (Reality check: Batman could never defeat the Justice League. DC Comics even put out a story where Wonder Woman defeats the other members of the Justice League, including Batman. So that settles it.) The fanservice for Batman fans does little for anyone who is still a fan of the other members of the Justice League (Judging by the box office returns of the "Green Lantern" and "Superman Returns" movies, there are very few of those non-Batman fans left).

Batman says he has to make doomsday plans for each member of the Justice League because he worries the other Justice League members might go rogue. Not one Justice League member wonders whether Batman made the plans out of his own feelings of inadequacy. As smart as Batman is supposed to be, he never wonders as much himself. Such a discussion of Batman's shortcomings would have been greatly entertaining. Regardless of Batman's reasons, if Batman was my super hero team-up partner and I found out he was using inside information to plan the defeat of his other team-up partners, I would stop teaming up with Batman. And Batman could forget about showing up at the next superhero social mixer.