Justice League Unlimited

This episode starts right off with an elaborate dream sequence that gives a good indication of exactly how goofy and childlike the Flash is - that makes the children turning against him a fairly subtle touch. The actual "speeding up past everyone" seems a bit much - the Flash doesn't seem that fast that he'd worry about this kind of thing.



The Superman sequence seemed a bit short, although it was interesting to see him get back to Smallville. And the cameos by Lois and Jimmy were fun.



Hawkgirl's was way too short and unelaborate. You'd think being an alien and all, she might dream...well, differently. Also, unlike the others, she needs help to get out of the dream (even Flash - Flash! - manages to find his "power within" or whatever) which kinda weakens the character.



Green Lantern's was a bit more elaborate, although the first part doesn't really convey what was being pushed in the second part - that he's an extension of his ring. What does that have to do with not being able to read?



With those four and their dream sequences taken care of, that brings us to the main focus of the story - Batman and J'onn. This is the first story since Injustice for All that gives us Batman in an appropriate setting. The heck with fighting mystical undead warriors and New Gods with his exploding batarangs - this is Batman doing detective work and scaring a bad guy with mind games. In the end it's Batman using mental discipline to defeat Destiny - there's no indication defeating Dee in the Leaguers' dreams would have beat him for good.



J'onn doesn't have a lot to do - he's the rallying point and all but he functions more as a plot device to free the Leaguers then showing bits of character like in the preceding Tabula Rasa.



Dr. Destiny himself is pretty impressive, and having him kill someone (his girlfriend) ups the ante a bit. Actual absolute death on this show was pretty rare last year, but we seem to be getting a lot of it this year - interesting if a little unusual for a "kids" show. Destiny does appear to know all the Leaguers' secret identities now, which might pose a problem if he ever returns.



Overall, between the surreal dream sequences and Batman strutting his stuff, this episode ranks among the best in the series up to this time.

Every now and then a villain comes along in JLU that is really neat. Dr. Destiny is definitely one of those villains. First of all, he is human so didn't start off with any powers that would give him an easy advantage. Then the mind controlling powers he got was a reward of his own doing, not a "horrible accident" or something of the like. And mind control is almost always really cool to begin with, so that helps too. He spoke in a creepy way and wore that creepy cape, and best of all he had a crazy skeleton face (yeah I know it's just random, but it's still cool)! Definitely an awesome villain. Just the fact that he was the featured villain made the episode pretty good in itself, but then the plot was also quite interesting.



J'onn's trip into the minds of the other JL'ers was really different. Their altered worlds were visited and the rules of a normal battle didn't have to be followed. Superman's trip to Smallville was really neat, and so was Green Lantern's trip back to his home town. Hawk Girl being buried was freaky, but her dream should have been elaborated a lot more. Flash's dream was funny at the beginning with the kid, but then it got random with all the people freezing.



Batman's trek to stop Dr. Destiny was pretty exciting. He said he hadn't slept for days, and the combination of that and Dr. Destiny's increasing power as he got closer to him was a pretty tough obstacle to overcome. But it was one that Batman was best suited for, which made it so much better. Batman was fighting a villain that could easily have been one from the Batman universe. There was no disadvantage for Batman due to super powers of the villain, so Batman got to use his smarts and defeat Dr. Destiny. On a side note, I really liked the reference to the MC Escher drawing.



Overall a very intriguing episode that seemed to me to be very well-thought-out and unique (with an awesome villain).

I really enjoyed this episode becasue it introduced a cool new villain that, if you ask me, was underexploited.

Anyway, it was really nice to see the heroes having to fight their fears and failing miserably. This episode just goes to show that soemtimes super powers aren't as important as a clever mind.

Dr. Destiny is also a celver villain, having a taste for revenge on people with powers, and he looks a bit like Skeletor from Masters of the Universe.

In addition, the ending was really nicely made, showing Dr. Destiny humming a song endlessly and Batman finally getting a good night's sleep.

All in all, a good episode and a great villain.

I personally liked this episode a lot. It had somewhat of a creepy feeling, because although you know that the Leaguers aren\'t in real physical danger, they are facing danger in their minds. It adds suspense...will they wake up in time, or will their nightmares consume them?



The parts with Batman were great. I loved the actor\'s voice when he was humming..the deep tonal character of the hum struck me as being totally in character. His line..\"My brain\'s not a nice place\" was great!



As for the preious review, GL wasn\'t having nightmares about not being able to read...he was having nightmare\'s of being alien to his own home, due to all his time in space and dealing with other civilizations from being a Green Lantern.