This is a good start to the arc.
We get a flashback establishing Jason Blood, and proceed to follow him as he tries to hunt down Morgan Le Fey to enact revenge on her as she tries to find the Philosopher's Stone.
We also get a bit more insight into how deeply J'onn misses Mars, and Jason (in demon form) damn near despises him for it.
It's a solid start with an intriguing plot hook.
[8.2/10] This is one of the handful of Justice League episodes I saw as a kid, which is to say I knew spoilers coming in. The good news is, that didn’t diminish my enjoyment of this one bit! The notion of Green Lantern, Hawkgirl, Flash, and J’onn transporting to an idyllic, 1940s-esque superhero town and dealing with their more, shall we say, traditional and four-color equivalents, makes for such a fun concept. It feels like a nice homage to the JSA/JLA team-ups of old.
“Legends pt. 1” does a nice job of poking fun at the conventions of 1940s and 1950s comics stories while also paying loving homage to them. The episode pokes fun at the base level of cheesiness of “crime never pays”-spouting heroes and villains who tip off the authorities. More to the point, it takes care to note that the Justice Guild expects Hawkgirl to help make cookies and considers Green Lantern a “credit to his people,” using both points for comedy but also to recognize some regressiveness that’s baked in here. And yet, it also has John lauding these heroes and the stories they appeared in during his youth for teaching him what justice is and inspiring him to become a hero. The episode has its cake and eats it to on that front, and it’s a lot of fun.
Likewise, I appreciate how the episode comes up with a plausible, appropriately Silver Age explanation for how the Leaguers got here and what exactly is up, while still planting some seeds of doubt before the big reveal. Flash vibrating at a frequency that sent them to a parallel universe while fighting the giant Lexbot is a neat and also out there idea. The notion of main universe comic book writers having a subconscious connection to the Justice Guild universe is a fun bit of nerd explain-ery. Even Tom Turbine building a gateway between dimensions feels of a piece with Superman’s experiments with Star Labs.
At the same time, the show does a great job at coming up with ersatz, lawyer-friendly versions of old D.C. comics characters. It’s not hard to draw lines between Catman and Batman, or Green Guardsman and Green Lantern, but the show imbues them with classic strengths, weaknesses, and attributes that make them fun counterpoints to our usual crew. The same goes for the villains, who have classic bits of gimmickry and themed crime sprees that make the match-ups with them tons of fun.
Of course, there’s the big reveal at the end, which ties nicely into J’onn’s psychic flashes of something terribly wrong. It fits into a genre I tend to like -- an idyllic place with hints of something dark underneath. (See also: Twin Peaks as the most famous version of this, but also something like Twilight Town in Kingdom Hearts 2). It’s a good setup for something wild storywise here, while paying tribute to the JSA-style adventures of the heroes of old.
Overall, this one is a real treat, with hints of something deeper and more substantive than just loving homage beneath the surface.
Shout by SoNickBlockedParent2022-02-23T20:00:20Z
I was almost ready to give up on the show when this one came on, but I'm glad I didn't! The video's injustice League is pretty great, and the surprise addition to the group near the end of the episode put an even bigger smile on my face.