With “Big” the short focusing on the Wonder Woman of Gods and Monsters, the New God Bekka, Justice League: Gods and Monsters Chronicles season 1 comes to an end. The second season will be 10 episodes debuting sometime in 2016, no word yet on if they will be more substantial in length or shift to a more serialized structure.
In my thoughts on “Twisted” I mentioned how Batman, and really any long running piece of transmedia IP, exist in a nexus of symbolic understanding. This is part of the reasons we get post-modern art, like the work of Quentin Tarantino or Grant Morrison. We see the patterns and sometimes use that to speak to the art being created. To a degree all the episodes of Chronicles featured this. “Twisted” sees Batman transformed into a vampire as his name but places him still in the detective role. “Bomb” features a Superman, in a classic Superman plot with contemporary references to Akira (amongst others) but instead of subverting expectation as in “Twisted”, shows the universality of the moniker.
“Big” features references to two other pieces of DC animation. From a scenario perspective, “Big” is a lot like the teaser from Batman the Brave and the Bold Season 3 Episode 4 “Scorn of the Star Sapphire”, wherein Wonder Woman jumps into save Batman and Steve Trevor from Baroness Paula Von Gunther. Sadly “Big” does not feature an awesome Wonder Woman theme song. Also the egg (or maybe it’s a transport rocket) Giganta bursts out of is the same design of Owlman’s bomb in Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths.
As far as character, “Big” features a Wonder Woman in a flirtatious relationship with Steve Trevor that also plays into the BDSM subtext of the original Wonder Woman comics by Charles Moulton. Remarking in the midst of battle that she realizes that he likes to think he’s in charge. This Wonder Woman lacks a lasso to subdue her foes (or friends if they want) with, instead she knowingly waits for Steve Trevor to ask for her help in combating the Giganta robot. And no, just because Steve Trevor asks for Wonder Woman’s help he isn’t damseled. He was shown being rather physically capable and self reliant prior, killing various henchmen (KOBRA ones?), before picking a fight with a gigantic gynoid. Sometimes you need help when taking on gigantic killer robots.
On the depiction of violence, “Big” might be the most Justice League like of these shorts. There isn’t an emphasis on blood, I think there is some squib effects when henchmen are shot in the background. Wonder Woman impales the leader with her sword but he does not start to bleed out. As far as barriers to distribution on television the obvious flirtatious elements and perhaps the Wonder Woman costume design would be a bigger barrier than the depiction of violence.
With all of these now released I again come around to wondering how “Twisted” just turned out so terribly. Depiction of Harley Quinn aside, though that is a major limiting factor, it lacked the same quality of “Bomb” and “Big”. The other two episodes also featured more speaking roles, where “Twisted” dialog is dominated by the babbling of Harley Quinn. All of them though do speak to the kind of quintessential scenarios these figures have faced.
So did Chronicles shock us into forgetting all we know about the DC Trinity? Not really. I think all they’ve done is reaffirm the universality of these characters. “Twisted” was the most shocking but it is still wrapped in the Batman visual and narrative grammar.
I am Michael Mazzacane you can follow me on Twitter and at ComicWeek.org
Log in to comment