Justice League of America Pilot

If you want to see a textbook example of an ill-conceived adaptation, check out this 1997 pilot for a Justice League of America television series (that the network mercifully passed on) currently available on YouTube. I'd like to thank Jeff for emailing me the link to this video, assuring me of a productivity-free morning. Until today I'd only seen still photos of this fiasco.

Trust me, watching this will actually make you nostalgic for the superior Flash TV series from the '90s. For one thing, the Flash is probably the character most egregiously defamed here. Barry Allen is depicted as an aimless loser who can neither get a life nor keep a job. Yet they acknowledge that his superpowers come from a lab accident. I guess the chemical explosion in the crime lab where Barry Allen worked as a police scientist gave him brain damage in addition to super speed.

Particularly lacking in logic is the format of the pilot. The members of the Justice League appear in their civilian identies in documentary-style video clips that break up the main story. As if they're being videotaped for a VH1 "Behind the Music" episode, they casually discuss a variety of topics such as how they acquired super powers and how their responsibilities as superheroes complicate their everyday lives. Yet a primary theme of the pilot is how crucial it is for them to maintain their secret identities in order to protect their friends and families. So who exactly is this documentary being produced for? I almost expected one of them to say, "Boy, I hope the Legion of Doom never sees this."

Not that anyone who is the slightest bit observant would need help recognizing these individuals in their costumes and masks. Seriously, some of these characters' "disguises" (Fire's in particular) make Superman's Clark-Kent-eyeglasses look plausible.

The plot is dependent upon Ice accidentally discovering the villain's weather-control device, accidentally short-circuiting it (thereby getting endowed with ice powers), and then putting it back where she found it and mentioning it to no one for days so that it can be used to threaten the city again in the climax.

I have no idea who the Green Lantern was supposed to be based on. He had Guy Gardner's name, Hal Jordan's origin, and, for all I know, Kyle Rayner's personality. In order to fly he had to make a helicopter propeller with his ring. And his girlfriend is more gullible than Lois Lane.

The Atom shrinks down so that he can rescue a cat under hiding under an old lady's porch. Ice "saves" a guy from drowning by freezing the lake he's in solid (don't worry, he suffered no ill effects). And the one character that you would expect to be the most preposterous, the Martian Manhunter as played by M*A*S*H veteran David Ogden Stiers, was one of the only aspects of this debacle I thought almost worked. (Stiers, by the way, went on to voice Solivar on the Justice League Unlimited cartoon).

There were a couple of things in it I found entertaining, beyond the train-wreck quality of the entire enterprise. One was obviously intentional, the other definitely not...

The first was the computer password that Ray Palmer hacked in order to gain access to the supervillain's database: RED SKY, clearly a reference to the red skies phenomenon from the original Crisis on Infinite Earths mini-series. This is the only thing in the pilot that made me think the writers might actually have read a comic book starring the JLA.

The second was a bit of dialogue between the Atom and Ice. You'll notice in the screencap above, Ice is the only one in civilian clothes. That's because she gains her ice powers during the course of the pilot and only joins the League at the end. After she accepts her invitation, Ice asks the Atom, "What would you have done if I'd said no? I mean, I know who you all are." His response? "Don't ask."

I couldn't help laughing at this ominous foreshadowing of Identity Crisis. Since she doesn't appear in the pilot, I suppose we can just assume that Zatanna is a reserve member of the League, and that she is called upon whenever her services are required.