Destroyer
An appropriate title for the final episode of the final season.
This episode is all out war. There is very little preamble. There is a brief explanation for what happened at the end of last episode and how the villains survived and made it back to Earth so quickly. Before the Justice League has time to consider what Luthor is telling them Darkseid attacks. Although Superman balks at the idea at first, the Justice League teams up with the super-villains to battle the forces of Apokolips.
There are lots of cameos in the battle scenes from heroes who have not been seen before or only seen rarely in the past. Most of the battle scenes are dialogue free. One thing that I noticed after the fact is that the invading forces consist of just Darkseid and hordes of parademons. In the last episode, when Darkseid returns to Apokolips he encountered many of his followers. None of them show up in this episode, which is a little disappointing.
The battles between the hero/villain groups and the forces of Apokolips occur in various places around the Earth including Tokyo, Metropolis, Paris, Washington DC, and the Great Wall of China.
Luthor joins Superman and Batman in attacking Darkseid's flagship just over Metropolis. Superman takes on Darkseid more or less on his own. The Daily Planet building becomes their battleground and is more or less destroyed in the process of the fight. Batman and Luthor get a few hits in on Darkseid but for the most part he sees them as an annoyance. Superman is Darkseid's number one target.
The battle between Superman and Darksied leads to a great monologue by Superman about how he usually has to restrain himself for fear of killing others but Darkseid is strong enough that Superman won't have to be careful. So he punches Darkseid through a few buildings. Darkseid isn't hurt badly but it's very possible that someone else might have been. Funny how the collateral damage is ignored at moments like this one and the one where the Daily Planet building was destroyed.
Wonder Woman, Shining Knight, and Star Sapphire team-up to battle parademons along the Great Wall of China. It is there that they encounter a former member of the League who left earlier in the season. They don't recognize him at first because he doesn't look like he used to.
Metron shows up in the midst of the battle in Metropolis. Luthor asks him for help. Metron takes Luthor to the Source Wall but warns him that only a 12th level intellect has a hope of surviving the Source Wall. Luthor is not impressed and dives through it. This whole sequence from the time Metron showed up in this episode reminded me a bit of the part of the original Galactus trilogy when the Watcher told the Human Torch about the Ultimate Nullifier and how to get his hands on it.
Luthor emerges from the Source Wall with the Anti-Life Equation and uses it to save the day. Admittedly it is a deus ex machina but there's something appropriate about it, not just the fact that it proves to be Darkseid's undoing but that it is Luthor that retrieves it and that is also seems to be his undoing too.
In some ways this episode reminds me a lot of Starcrossed, the 3-part finale to season 2 of Justice League. Once again there is an alien invasion that threatens to destroy the planet and the League needs all the help they can get to defeat the forces of Apokolips.
I wish this story had been a little longer. I would have liked to have seen more of some of the ancillary heroes battling the forces of Apokolips. It would have been nice to see the heroes and villains of Earth going toe to toe with some of Darkseid'd non-parademon henchmen and women. I wanted the scene where Luthor enters the Source Wall to last longer and show more than it did.
What is left hanging at the end is what happened to Luthor and Darkseid. They vanish but what happened to them. Are they dead? Will they ever return? The should, probably, but this is the series finale so that's it. This episode aired in 2006 but the JLU comic book continued until 2008. Based on the covers it looks unlikely that there was any followup in the comic book.
There was a lot here that I didn't remember. I enjoyed the very ending which was just a parade of heroes, some of whom had not appeared before. The parade ends with the Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman.
Overall Season 3 lived up to my memories of it. I didn't like every episode but I loved the story that ran through most of them and this two-part series finale.
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