Gosh, Marvel is
kicking DC in the pants where the movies are concerned, aren’t they? But DC
seems to have it all over Marvel on the small screen! You’ve got the Berlantiverse
on the WB and CBS, Gotham, iZombie…is
that show Lucifer still around? And
people really had a hard-on for Constantine,
I continue to see small internet campaigns to get the show picked up by
increasingly irrelevant cable channels. My point is, people are digging DC on
TV, but it wasn’t always that way, as Chris Sheehan from the thrilling comics
review blog chrisisoninfiniteearths.blogspot.com takes us through the pilot
episode of a show ordered but not picked up by CBS in 1997: Justice League of America!
Before DC Comics hit
it big with television series like Smallville and more
recently with Arrow, Flash, Gotham and
the rest, there was an unsuccessful attempt at a television series featuring
the Justice League of America. In 1997, CBS commissioned a movie-length
television pilot featuring many of the JLA characters in an amazingly odd
patchwork version of the League.
One of the interesting
narrative tools utilized are confessional-style interview segments in which we
learn about each individual character. As we open we are immediately
thrown into one featuring Tora (Tori... really?) Olafsdotter (because she's
Olaf's daughter, natch) better known to us as Ice. She has taken a
position at a meteorological facility where she works for Miguel Ferrer, who I
know best from Twin Peaks... and frankly, I'm shocked he's a part
of this.
Following the credits
segment, we meet the Fastest (Unemployed) Man on Earth... the Flash, Wal...
nope, even during his heyday, Wally gets the shaft. Let's meet Barry
Allen.
The outta work jerk is
getting evicted from his apartment, when he gets a ringy-dingy in his earpiece
which tells him the League needs him... at least somebody does.
We then pop over and
meet Hal... no, Kyle... no... wait... this is Guy Gardner??? Software
salesman??? You gotta be kidding me. He laments that while Barry's
life is easy and clear-cut, this two-fisted man of floppy-disks lives a life
most complex. This is made completely obvious as we watch him... set a
table for a romantic dinner.
Back with Ice, she's
tracking a storm that's headed directly for New Metro, which so far as I can
tell is right across the bridge from New Goth. This would be the first
hurricane in New Metro history, and as such she brings it to the attention of
Mssr. Ferrer. She then shows him a televised rant of some loon who has
foretold of this storms pending arrival. Miguel tells her she'd best
track this thing "outside".
Let's rejoin Guy... as
he sings opera to his date. This Earth's Guy is apparently something of a
virtuoso. He learned an entire opera, just to make it up to his ginger
goddess (Hell, she resembles Guy Gardner more than this clown) for his recent
disappearances. Wouldn’tcha know it, just as soon as he promises to always
be around...duty calls.
We now meet
"B.B." Da Costa. Can't really sweat the B.B. here, as her full
name is Beatriz Bonilla Da Costa. She's a struggling actress and we watch
her audition for the part of a banana in a fruit commecial. After having
a bit of an awkward meet-up with a potential beau, her Justice League
communicator starts beeping... so this banana's gotta split (urgh).
Ray Palmer is an
excited though under appreciated science teacher. As he lectures his
class, the students are far too interested in the amazing weather phenomena
occurring outside the window. I don't want to shock you, but Ray's JLA
communicator goes off as well. He dutifully puts some late-90's slacker
stereotype in charge of the class and jams.
Ice and Miguel climb
up to the top of their lab, and observe a tornado just about to hit the city (I
thought they said it was a hurricane? eh, maybe it's both). We then
jump to a scene where Guy in full Green Lantern regalia saves a child from a
falling power line. Fire rescues a team of workers from a fallen piece
of... what looks like sheet rock, actually. While this is happening, the
Atom... rescues a cat, and our oddly chubby Flash slows the wind by running in
counterclockwise circles.
The day (and New
Metro) is saved, thanks in no small part to the Justice League.
Ladies and gentlemen,
proudly I present... your Justice League of America... in all it's awkward,
operatic, and unemployed glory.
This is only the first segment
of this relic. We still have well over an hour of this awesomeness ahead
of us!
You can read a new DC comic book review each and every day
on chrisisoninfiniteearths.blogspot.com, and follow him on Twitter @AceComics!
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