Review Rating: 8

The Legion of Doom, formed on a plan run by villain Vandal Savage, squares off against the Justice League!

So, for anyone who may not know, Vandal Savage (Phil Morris) is a bad old man. Really old, truth be told. And being old and rich and nasty, Savage has a plan to rearrange the world in his own image. First, we take out the entire Justice League so they can’t prevent what’s about to happen next. Then, in theory, a solar flare that Savage is enhancing in his major villain-like way will destroy we’ll say a good third of the Earth’s population. And then, Savage and the Legion will be free to divide up what’s left into their own little fiefdoms, lorded over by Savage himself, forever! But, how to accomplish taking out the JL first? By sending in Mirrormaster (Alexis Denisof) to infiltrate Batman’s computer systems and stealing all the pertinent files on the JL members, that’s how. And then, all hell breaks loose.

Each member of the Justice League gets a fight or confrontation with their Legion of Doom counterpart. Wonder Woman (Susan Eisenberg) fights Cheetah (Claudia Black), who dopes our lasso heroine with something that makes her see her opponent everywhere, including in the faces of innocent bystanders and policemen. The Martian Manhunter (Carl Lumbly) while in his guise as John Jones, gets dosed by a guised Ma’alefa’ak (one of the few other Martians left alive) and gets his unique physiology set aflame. Not wanting to harm anyone else, John has to figure out how to either put himself out or take himself out. Flash (Michael Rosenbaum) gets led to a mistaken train robbery, where he has to deal with a clever bomb that Mirrormaster managed to get attached to his wrist. Slow or stop, and Flash goes BOOM. Green Lantern (Nathan Fillion) has to deal with a hostage situation in a mine shaft, where he gets to enjoy what he thinks are several deaths of onlookers and a confrontation with a villain from his past, Star Sapphire (Olivia d’Abo). Superman (Tim Daly) gets lured to the roof of the Daily Planet to stop an apparent suicide attempt, only to get himself shot with a kryptonite bullet after he thought he had talked the guy down. And finally, the bodies of Batman’s own parents have gone missing, so he’s a bit distracted when the confrontation with Bane (Carlos Alazraqui) comes. After extracting himself from his own personal nightmare, Batman (Kevin Conroy) grabs Cyborg for help and begins trying to put things back in order.

I get to say it, I have to say it, at least once. Meanwhile, at the Legion of Doom!

Because it turns out, well…These plans that the Legion of Doom is actually using, the fact that all these individual challenges against the Justice League are working, however temporarily, yeah, they came from Batman’s own head. In case the JL ever went the way of the Legion, Batman had a plan to figure out how to incapacitate each individual JL hero, all save his own self, of course. So even after all the Justice League heroes are saved from their individual challenges, I won’t say how just recommend watching the show already, they still have to deal with what’s left of the Legion and Savage’s solar flare plan. Even if the entire JL isn’t thrilled with Batman’s hero-turned-bad contingency plans, noone can fault him really for having them – someone needs to think of everything. And as far as Batman not having a contingency plan for himself, if he ever does go too far into the shadows, that’s simply not true, he does – the Justice League itself. Which is awesome.