Justice League of America: Save the World

Episode 3: Kids' Stuff

00:01: Floating woman with giant magenta sleeves and a gold mask goes drifting through an extremely dark ruin on some random planet somewhere. Or it could be under the ocean. There's no way to tell. She is accompanied by her son, who looks about 10 and is dressed like Little Lord Fauntleroy in blue. The kid complains about his Mom not letting him grow up, and she says it's because she wants him to be young when she gives him his kingdom.

00:47: "It's the Amulet of First Magic, the source of all earthly sorcery!"

That's almost as creative a name as the Sports Bar. Looks like they have to take the glowing pink amulet from the Lovecraftian statue. Little Lord Fauntleroy climbs up to retrieve it as Mom makes the statue open its fist; the kid's name seems to be Mordred.

1:19: Mordred is reluctant to give up the amulet. Mom tries to take it by force, and the little tyke zaps himself into more appropriate villainous armor and headdress and easily fights her off. He then announces he doesn't want to see anyone older than him ever again. Mom vanishes in a puff of black dust as a pink dome of magic expands outwards. Oh, no. This isn't going to be like that one Star Trek: TNG episode, is it?

02:59: Small mercies. Adults all over the world vanish. Kids rejoice immediately at the absence of nagging folks. The fate of small babies who will now be uncared for is not explored.

02:45: Meanwhile, Superman and Wonder Woman are fighting a beasty-type guy and a leopard woman who is definitely naked and has a freaky chest that is lighter than the rest of her body. Batman and Green Lantern take down a monocled cyborg and a lizard man, and Lantern announces, "That's a wrap!" as the subdued villains are tied up. This joke never seems to get old for cartoon writers. I suppose that arguably their target audience won't have heard it nearly as many times as I have. The Pink Wave takes out heroes and villains alike, and it's commercial/theme song time.

05:00: All the grownups are on floating rocks against a flat white background with red and white swirls. Looks like they are trapped in some misbegotten Jackson Pollock/Salvador Dali collaboration. The heroes and villains are marooned together. Beasty-guy is sucking his thumb while Mr. Monocle is taking it stoically. Green Lantern admonishes the panicky lizard man to "calm down - we're probably just in another dimension." Morgan Le Fay, the floating mask woman, comes along to confirm this and provide the other necessary expositional bits regarding the amulet, Mordred, how she used to bathe him, etc. Superman looks appalled in the background.

06:30: Darn it, it IS going to be like the Star Trek episode. Morgan says that the only way to get back into the world and stop Mordred is to not be adults. The heroes reluctantly agree, and Morgan says some magic words that the cop-out subtitles refuse to render. Sounds like "Manoogu sitharoth kibboth tanaboo... Kathuta!" Seriously, it's just that awkward. Wasn't it Marvel that came up with that Shazam character?

07:30: Mordred shows up to terrorize some kiddies at a theme park and turn everything into Spiky Goth Land. Morgan's going to regret letting him listen to grownup music all those millenia. The kiddie heroes appear behind the group he's leading off toward his throne. I agree heartily with Batman when he says, "This better be temporary." Green Lantern makes himself some truly dorky-looking glasses, since "I wore glasses as a kid. Guess I need them again." I wish I'd had the kind of nearsightedness that goes away over time.

08:30: Aww, MiniBat is the only one who can't fly.

08:40: Mordred is granting wishes by handing out robot toys and a live cow. I know that's what I always wished for when I was seven. Not ponies or turning into a fairy/ballerina or anything. Live cows.

09:10: "What are YOU laughing at, precious?" growls MiniBat. He doesn't like Mordred calling them Justice Babies. Mordred turns the robot toys gigantic. Fight scene ensues. The JLA does the same thing as usual, only somewhat shorter; Wonder Woman can even deflect giant robot spears with those wrist bands. Someday someone is going to be smart enough to pry those off her and the tight shiny boot will be on the other foot.

11:27: Mordred finally freezes our heroes and drops them into a pit with a force field over it. MiniSupes demonstrates that he can't get through it,+ and then a big portcullis on one side of their dark stone cell starts to open. In my head I hear C-3PO saying, "Oh, no! The Rancor!"

11:59: It's not the Rancor. It's a chibi Etrigan. Absolutely hilarious. In contrast to the others, he appears to be a toddler. He manages to beat down MiniSupes - lot of that going around - and climb out of the energy playpen Green Lantern makes for him, only to be foiled by MiniWonderWoman speaking in a firm voice. "Bad, bad Etrigan!" She holds the baby demon and burps him.

13:06: Dirty diaper joke. I'd say that gets old, too, but judging by film content in certain genres, apparently it doesn't.

13:31: Now the kids are playing with wooden swords, putting a suit of armor through the guillotine, and playing tag. How terrifyingly delinquent they've become. "That's what I call fun!" Mordred gloats. Apparently his mother never let him have a PSP.

13:48: "I'm the kid with laser beams coming out of his eyes." It's entirely possible that line will never be surpassed. I am left to wonder if it's some sort of Army of Darkness reference that the target audience can't possibly be expected to understand.

14:22: MiniWonderWoman cows all the kids into leaving Spiky Goth Land by threatening to tell their Moms. For some reason it works, although if the show is contemporary, their parents are Baby Boomers and the worst they're probably looking at is an "I'm very disappointed" lecture and brief revocation of TV privileges. Maybe nagging is a new super power she has.

15:20: MiniWW likes MiniBat. Awww. MiniSupes doesn't get it, and MiniGL twits him for being dense. This doesn't strike me as all that different from their adult behavior, really.

16:10: Attempt to snitch the amulet from sleeping Mordred fails, of course, since we're only 16 or so minutes into the episode. Ensuing violence is somewhat more disturbing when it's being done by child versions of the characters. MiniSupes is taking an odd amount of punishment. Maybe I was too hard on SuperBimbo in Episode I and both their powers have been revised downwards to keep them from being so, hm, super.

16:36: Unexpected guitar chords as MiniGL makes a hoverboard with his ring. Because fighting off a giant warlock with eyeball lasers may be cool, but glowing green hoverboards are really cool.

16:46: Now-giant Mordred has the Warcraft III priest eye thing going on. Only pink. Why'd they choose that color for the amulet, anyway? Now he's brought some dragon statues to life to chase after our heroes, who have faced numerous supervillains, world-eating giants, etc., but are frightened by giant flying lizards. Okay, then.

17:14: Guitargasm goes on through fairly boring airborne chase/fight scene.

17:29: And now there are synthesizers. Back, back to the eighties again! At least it's not like the new X-men cartoons, where they try to indicate coolness by using things that went out back in the nineties and tired gangster jokes.

17:43: The miniJLA manages to lock giant Mordred out of his own spiky castle. MiniGL announces that he has a plan, confirming that even when they are tiny he is the only one with any critical thinking skills.

18:06: Lantern has made a giant green robot for himself. Mordred comes up with some armor that is spiky but still makes him look even more like a girl. He can't win.

18:52: Baby Etrigan saves the day by taking a chomp out of the now-giant amulet.

19:25: Amulet's gone, but now Mordred claims he has absorbed "too much of the amulet's power" for that to work. Suuuure. He does generate a pretty neat-looking sword, though.

19:53: The MiniJLA expresses scorn and manages to keep their arms folded while still being held upside down, presumably by Mordred's telekinesis. Heh.

19:20: "Face it, Precious." Okay, it's starting to disturb me that miniBat calls him that. Really. It seems to bother Mordred, too. It works, though - Mordred tries to turn himself into an adult while Baby Etrigan looks on and claps his little demon paws with glee. He's not bothered one bit by the whole upside-down thing.

20:34: Grownup Mordred looks even girlier than he did as a kid, despite his bulging pectorals. This of course shoots him right back into Pollock/Dali land with all the other grownups. Morgan chides him as the world returns to normal, then returns the JLA to their normal sizes.

21:38: Which means Wonder Woman finds herself holding a grownup Etrigan. "Mommy," leers the yellow demon. Probably the only laugh I've gotten out of this one that was intended by the writers.

21:50: "My spell gave him eternal youth, but now that he's broken it, all he has is eternal life." And gee, we all know how terrible that would be compared to being stuck as a child for all eternity. There's an actual poignant moment as Batman watches the children with their parents and remarks that he hasn't been a kid since he was eight. Etrigan seems oddly short. I'm guessing Jason Blood is going to be very embarrassed when he gets out again.

22:30: Oh, I get it. Mordred gets to be old for all eternity. Now he's a drooling semi-corpse. Gross. I wonder what Morgan looks like under that mask?

Well, that concludes my viewing of all three episodes on this disc. See, this is why I never do Mutant Viewings - it took me around four hours cumulative to do sixty-six minutes of content. At this rate it would take me approximately until the end of time to do something like the LOTR trilogy, assuming I didn't do the extended version and never stopped for snacks. And a Mutant cannot live without snacks. It can't be done.