Monday, January 18, 2010

B:TB&TB -- "The Golden Age of Justice!"


After the teaser, which involves the Dark Knight Detective solving a theft with the help of Detective Chimp, the story proper begins with a newsreel of the Justice Society of America in action in World War II.  We cut to the modern day where a JSA appreciation day is taking place at their museum.  Batman and Black Canary are present, and Dinah resents how the old timers treat Batman like an equal, but still treat her like a little girl.  We see some flashbacks to their time being trained, but soon the nostalgia is cut short when Nazi mad scientist Professor Z frees the evil Per Degaton, and gives him his Spear of Destiny.  A pitched fight ensues, where the "old soldiers" of the Society must make one last stand against a foe from the past!

I have already swallowed the hook on this show, but this episode ranks as one of my favorites.  Just seeing the classics all up there, fighting Nazis and then still kicking it in the present, was tremendous.  We've seen Wildcat a few times but it was really nice to see a good amount of time given to the classic versions of Hawkman, Flash, Hourman, and Dr. Mid-Nite, as well as a call-out to the Golden Age Black Canary.  And Per Degaton, with his army of Nazi robots (who were juuuust shy of being emblazoned with the SS logo!) made for the perfect bad guy.

Now, for the Hawk-related miscellania.  In the newsreel, as seen above, Hawkman is sporting a Golden Age style helm, with the beak, but in the modern day, his helmet has morphed to the more familiar style, as can be seen here.  He wields his mace effectively, bashing through plenty of robotic goons.  No mention is made of his origin, or how his wing harness works, but none of the Society get that in this episode, so that is not surprising.  Hopefully, Hawkman can nab a starring guest star role in the future and more of these questions can be explored.

Ultimately this was an excellent episode of TB&TB, further evidence that the Society has held on as long as they have because of the solid conceptual strength of its members, including Hawkman.

Image: Screencapture from "The Golden Age of Justice!", 2010, image retrieved from World's Finest Online.

1 comment:

Scott Bryan said...

Great review. I hope he gets a main guest spot, too. I'd like to see Hawkgirl and something to de-age him.