Cartoon Corner- Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths

Originally posted at the DL August 2015

This one is a bit of a review in two parts.


On paper this is an adaptation of Grant Morrison's JLA: Earth 2.  That comic is an odd duck, and not in the way all of Morrison's stuff is.  It mostly served the larger purpose of reintroducing the Multiverse to the post-Crisis DC Universe, and establishing a new setting for other authors to use.  Which it does an okay job at, but the actual story at hand is just a fluffy misadventure for the JLA in an alternate universe that runs on anti-logic wherein crime is good and the law is evil.  So the JLA's counterparts are the world's biggest criminals, but also heroes of the people.  And at the end everyone just kinda goes home to forget about it.

So Crisis on Two Earths is based on that story.  But not really.  It definitely has the Crime Syndicate and borrows heavily from the first few pages of that book re: Lex Luthor of the alternate earth, but otherwise it goes in a very different direction.  Production history plays some role: this is actually a mashup of JLA Earth 2 and a planned (but scrapped) inter-season film for the DCAU Justice League.  I bears more earmarks of that original concept than JLA Earth 2, and aside from a sorta superfluous subplot with J'onn it's probably better that way.  Morrison was writing a lead-in for other people to use the Multiverse, this is a movie trying to tell a complete story.

Anyway so it's pretty good.  A lot of credit to the voice crew in particular (James Woods playing everything so deadpan is especially amazing after being used to him from Hades or Family Guy appearances) for really giving the Crime Syndicate nuance with not a lot of lines.  Opening scene is also fantastic for setting the tone and letting you know right away what we're in for.  Being less of an anti-morality and more a world where the greatest of heroes and villains traded roles, but the everyday person just wants to live in peace like anywhere else, is a much better fit for a short story (Morrison's comic is arguably better as a comic setting, but for a one shot story it's wonky and a strange decision).  It was also a great showcase for Flash to steal the show, which of course makes perfect sense when you remember this is basically DCAU Wally West, not Barry Allen, although more just in terms of lines than showing off moments.  Wonder Woman probably fared the best there.  ... okay the Jester showed off the best but that's the awesome opening talking again.

I think I'm going to keep going in circles on this one.  It's good, though doesn't have huge amounts of substance so only so good.

Grade- 7/10.