Day Eighty-One: The Quick And The Dead

Now, I know I've banged on about the Justice League Unlimited cartoon before. It strikes me, though, that some of you might not actually have seen it. To remedy this tragic and preventable situation, here's a clip from the episode Divided We Fall, showing the greatness of the Flash, the League's resident speed demon.

The story so far is as follows. In a parallel universe, baldy baddy Lex Luthor managed to kill the Flash. In retaliation, that universe's version of Superman used his heat vision to kill Luthor, who was President of the USA at the time. With Luthor dead, the parallel version of the Justice League set themselves up as the Justice Lords, and conquered the Earth with the intention of keeping it safe under their totalitarian rule. They outlawed free speech, democracy and a bunch of other things the Justice League were supposed to be big into. Superman was the worst off, having reached a state of total emotional and moral flatline.

Our Lex Luthor learned of this, and sought to make it happen. He made a bargain with the alien computer intelligence known as Brainiac, and gained power through merging bodily with him. Now the Justice League have engaged Luthor/Brainiac and fought him to a standstill. The Flash, though, is badly beaten, and is about to face his end at the hands of the Justice League's greatest enemy.

Of all the characters in Justice League/Justice League Unlimited, the Flash was absolutely one of the best. The show's writers had the simultaneously cocky and good-natured, dumb as a stick but loyal and brave character of Wally West down perfectly, and it's a shame that the character featured less as the show went on, due to voice actor Michael Rosenbaum being quite busy with his other acting job (playing, ironically in light of the clip which features below, Lex Luthor in Smallville). Thankfully, he made a strong comeback toward the end of the show's run, and was one of the key players in the show's finale.

Now sit back and enjoy four minutes of fine cartooning goodness (ignore the little guy who capers around in the corner of the screen about two minutes in, he's a hangover from the broadcast version of the episode that this is taken from). Of particular note is the part about two and a half/three minutes in, when Martian Manhunter and Hawkgirl do their best impressions of Derek Acorah and Yvette Fielding.