Polite Dissent

The Teen Titans wrapped up the two part “Titans East” storyline with the Titans taking on a cyborg-ized Brother Blood and the brainwashed Titans East. Nice fight scenes, but the ending was a little too deus ex machina for my taste — though they did manage to explain most of it away at the end. I liked seeing the new Bublebee again, and Mas and Menos are new favorites as well. My main problem was that John DiMaggio, who voices Brother Blood, also voice Dr. Drakken on Kim Possible and they sound identical. I kept picturing the blue bufooinish mad scientist instead of Brother Blood.

Meanwhile, Justice League Unlimited was the first episode of a two-part story arc entitled “The Once and Future Thing”. The story involves Batman, Green Lantern, Wonder Woman and time travel. Hunting a petty thief with a time belt named David Clinton (which incidentally is Chronos’s real name), they end up back in Oklahoma in 1879. The name of this first “chapter”, Weird Western Tales, was apt because that was the comic that Bat Lash, Jonah Hex, Pow Wow Smith and El Diablo all starred in. These same characters co-star in this episode. Jonah Hex (voiced by Adam Baldwin), in particular, was hilarious because he kept referring to his travels in the future, so this must be the post-Crisis Hex. They are fighting Tobias Manning (who was Terra-Man in the pre-Crisis universe).The episode ended with the Justice League trio stranded in the future where they meet up with an older Static Shock, Batman Beyond and a Thanagarian-looking hero who calls GL “Dad.” Cue the ‘To Be Continued” sign. Overall, it was a nice episode with some good action, nice character moments, and a few in-jokes. I suspect Dwayne McDuffie had a gret time writing it and I look forward to the next chapter (for Batman Beyond, if nothing else).