Justice League
Cartoon Network

Cartoon Network's newest show, Justice League, is pretty awesome. But, at the same time, it kinda bites.

Visually and aurally, JL is pretty fly. Drawn by the same artists doing JL who did Batman: The Animated Series and spinoffs, voice-acted by familiar voices (particularly Batman and, if I'm not mistaken, Superman). Its production value is high.

The dialogue has its moments, particularly whenever The Flash opens his mouth. Otherwise, its standard Four-Color dialogue: cheesy upbeat speeches by Superman, Green Lantern getting anal and testy, The Last Martian lamenting and being a general downer - what you would expect from these characters. They are pretty one-dimensional, but that's part of the genre.

The main problem I have with the series is that every episode is at least an hour long, but there's only a half-hour slot. So we're getting half as much story as, say, Samuari Jack, because it takes two episodes to resolve one idea.

The other main point to remember, this is the Four-Color superhero genre. There's not the angst or darkside here that you might find in heros of other stories. Nor is there a tragic hero or anti-hero angle. There is a hint of those elements in today's JL, but its so watered down with the way JL works as a show - an awkward marriage of old school and today's hero genres. So this might not appeal to as wide an audience as SuperFriends did back in the day.

JL is young, and with it's fractured storytelling scheme it's starting to be a bit boring. As of yet, there are no serial villians like the Legion of Doom, but the show format does not easily support such blantant villiany like the LoD.

In spite of all the negative I've stated, I still think that Justice League isn't at all a bad way to end your Monday grind. Here's hoping it will pick up soon.