Justice League Unlimited 'Question Authority'

[Proman1398]

The same argument is made by every drug pusher in existence, and also in reverse by every addict in existence. You can stop anytime you like, just after this one.

Not really the same thing, not exactly. You could say that a strength of Batman is that he won't take the easy way out and kill his villains, especially since unlike cops Batman isn't empowered by the state to take lives when necessary, so he isn't under the same supervision as they are, so he must restrict himself. Because he doesn't want that kind of power over lives.

But lets not equant killing people with taking drugs or pushing drugs, they're not. There are similarities sure but their superficial in nature.

Also the Under the Hood story always had a big problem with me. It likes to washover certain aspects of the original story that would enhance it. One, in particular, is that Batman did try to kill the Joker after Jason died, the only reason Joker is alive is that he couldn't find him after a copter crash. I just find it interesting writers are willing to ignore that.

Anyway, I actually do love this arc because of how nobly blind Cadmus are because there is nothing wrong with building plans and resources up in case of the Justice League going rogue, that in light of the Justice Lords is a reasonable concern. But the real problem is what they're willing to do.

Cloning beings, unethical experiments on living beings, creating whole new life forms with a small lifespan and basically using them as slaves, torture and other acts. It's their morals that are what really bring them into conflict with the Justice League or how willing they are to commit immoral actions is.

[CharlesPhipps]

The same argument is made by every drug pusher in existence, and also in reverse by every addict in existence. You can stop anytime you like, just after this one.

And in real life, when someone kills someone as a soldier or police officer, they don't continue on like the Punisher.

[FaxModem1]

Anyway, I actually do love this arc because of how nobly blind Cadmus are because there is nothing wrong with building plans and resources up in case of the Justice League going rogue, that in light of the Justice Lords is a reasonable concern. But the real problem is what they're willing to do.

Cloning beings, unethical experiments on living beings, creating whole new life forms with a small lifespan and basically using them as slaves, torture and other acts. It's their morals that are what really bring them into conflict with the Justice League or how willing they are to commit immoral actions is.

I think it's due to what the makeup of Cadmus is. For whatever reason, in the DC universe, there are superpowered people, via aliens, magic, superscience, etc. Cadmus seems to be made of the leftovers, with less than prosperous results. After all, if they had a better option for superpowered people, do you think that they would have been using Dr. Milo and his (combined with Dr. Langstrom's research) on splicing humans with animals?

That, and Cadmus seems to be an outgrowth of the really scary crap the US government in the DCAU is up to. It seems to be the same part of the US government that made Volcana, the Royal Flush Gang, and other things that didn't seem to pay off. It's their wheelhouse.

[RobbyB1982]

I think it's more a case that the writers wanted to tell a story questioning whether an organization like the Justice League should really be trusted with such vast power and no oversight, but realized that, in real life, the answer would be, "No, they shouldn't." Since that would kill the show, any of the proposed oversight that would curtail their power must be sufficiently corrupt that it's never a viable alternative to the League doing their usual superhero stuff.

That's pretty much the problem that plagued the Marvel Civil War comics as well. "Should all the vigilantie heroes be trained, monitored, held responsible for their actions.... but also be provided with backup and a paycheck (and merchandising rights!) for their work?" Absolutely, 1000%. That is entirely the correct answer and makes sense for the entire population of that world and all the civilians.

But that would mean giving up the rebel secret identity thing, so in order to make half the heroes right, everyone on the side of the government including Tony Stark and Reed Richards had to turn into full blown villains, using villains themselves to capture heroes, murdering folks, holding them in jail without trial, cloning, etc, and be so out of character the only explanation that made sense after their *decades* of working together was they had to be imposters. Except they actually weren't and it was a mess so their eventual way out of it was... to have a villain become president and corrupt the whole thing.


And, in the Cadmus Arc of JLU, they could have played it as Waller was right. But then they took the easy out and had her allied with Luthor, and had him just be straight up evil, because that then blankets the entire project as "evil" and you can swipe it under the rug with no more ambiguity and wrap it all up nicely with a bow. It's not that they had legitimate points, its that they were just misguided by one badguy. Lets never discuss the moral ambiguities again in the next season when Luthor just straight up makes a straight up superfriends Legion Of Doom, and don't have Cadmus be worried about *that* at all.

[Proman1398]

I think it's more a case that the writers wanted to tell a story questioning whether an organization like the Justice League should really be trusted with such vast power and no oversight, but realized that, in real life, the answer would be, "No, they shouldn't." Since that would kill the show, any of the proposed oversight that would curtail their power must be sufficiently corrupt that it's never a viable alternative to the League doing their usual superhero stuff.

That's pretty much the problem that plagued the Marvel Civil War comics as well. "Should all the vigilantie heroes be trained, monitored, held responsible for their actions.... but also be provided with backup and a paycheck (and merchandising rights!) for their work?" Absolutely, 1000%. That is entirely the correct answer and makes sense for the entire population of that world and all the civilians.

But that would mean giving up the rebel secret identity thing, so in order to make half the heroes right, everyone on the side of the government including Tony Stark and Reed Richards had to turn into full blown villains, using villains themselves to capture heroes, murdering folks, holding them in jail without trial, cloning, etc, and be so out of character the only explanation that made sense after their *decades* of working together was they had to be imposters. Except they actually weren't and it was a mess so their eventual way out of it was... to have a villain become president and corrupt the whole thing.


And, in the Cadmus Arc of JLU, they could have played it as Waller was right. But then they took the easy out and had her allied with Luthor, and had him just be straight up evil, because that then blankets the entire project as "evil" and you can swipe it under the rug with no more ambiguity and wrap it all up nicely with a bow. It's not that they had legitimate points, its that they were just misguided by one badguy. Lets never discuss the moral ambiguities again in the next season when Luthor just straight up makes a straight up superfriends Legion Of Doom, and don't have Cadmus be worried about *that* at all.

Nope, its eventually shown that in that universe that Cadmus created Doomsday, and guess what he shows up before Lex enters into a partnership with Cadmus. The real reason that Cadmus and League come to blows is that Cadmus goes too far in gathering forces to counter the Justice League. Torturing the Question, creating a clone of Supergirl to assassinate people, the Ultimen, besides the Question thing, these are actions that they did without any involvement from Luthor. All going too far to achieve their goals. It's not the Cadmus' goals that are wrong but their methods, after all, Superman gives Batman a Kryptonite ring, he understands failsafes in case of the worst scenario.

But also they didn't discredit Waller's opinion on the League, not fully, sure she shouldn't have allied with Luthor but this arc has several characters question how the League handles and how Cadmus is right to fear them. Lois brings some points, Captain Marvel and even Batman bring up these points. Something to consider here is that the League does change how it operates and it's not like Cadmus stops operating.

The Civil War arc in the other hand, well your not all wrong. There is a certain amount of truth to your statemate about out of character behavior but you're also ignoring that the US government in the Main Marvel Comics verse is kind of bad at everything. Like 90% of the time there if there is an issue its caused by them, remember they funded Robots to hunt down a certain amount of their population after all. Not a group that you can trust with power over an army of superhumans.

But also registration wouldn't have stopped what happened with Nitro, mainly because the New Warriors while not A-listers, have been around as a team for more than a decade, they had training and experience. Also, the main way to defeat Nitro up to that point is to blow him, over and over again until he loses his energy. It is how Iron Man has beaten him in the past.

Training and accountability while realistic, in real-life admittedly, wouldn't have stopped this issue because Nitro had a plot boost to his powers this arc, he had never been capable of doing before against other heroes. The worst thing about the Civil War arc was a lack of awareness on their part honestly because even with all those things you've listed Stark and Reed doing, they were meant to be the right side.

[Rocketboy1313]

But also registration wouldn't have stopped what happened with Nitro, mainly because the New Warriors while not A-listers, have been around as a team for more than a decade, they had training and experience. Also, the main way to defeat Nitro up to that point is to blow him, over and over again until he loses his energy. It is how Iron Man has beaten him in the past.

Training and accountability while realistic, in real-life admittedly, wouldn't have stopped this issue because Nitro had a plot boost to his powers this arc, he had never been capable of doing before against other heroes. The worst thing about the Civil War arc was a lack of awareness on their part honestly because even with all those things you've listed Stark and Reed doing, they were meant to be the right side.

Yeah, this is kind of analogous to mass shootings in the US.
The types of limited gun control proposed, like getting rid of bump stocks or having more stringent background checks would not impact mass shootings.

BUT,

Looking at gun control programs in Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, and Australia makes it clear that the MANY MANY instances of gun violence that happen everyday would be affected by sweeping changes in how the US manages guns and gun culture.

In other words, Registered heroes probably wouldn't have been any more capable of stopping Nitro, or similar bad guy who is behaving so radically different. But they would certainly be able to handle 99% of the other situations they get into (like say, not having your girlfriend's neck snap because you still hadn't mastered mitigating whiplash on the people you are catching).

[Madner Kami]

Also, the main way to defeat Nitro up to that point is to blow him, over and over again until he loses his energy.

[CharlesPhipps]

That's pretty much the problem that plagued the Marvel Civil War comics as well. "Should all the vigilantie heroes be trained, monitored, held responsible for their actions.... but also be provided with backup and a paycheck (and merchandising rights!) for their work?" Absolutely, 1000%. That is entirely the correct answer and makes sense for the entire population of that world and all the civilians.

I mean, the whole premise is basically, "What is 9/11's aftermath like in the MCU?" The Registration Act being the Patriot Act and *sarcasm mode* lord knows THAT wasn't abused by ignorant people who insisted every measure of it was entirely justified. *sarcasm mode*

Even if it wasn't a critique of the War on Terror's dramatic expansion of government powers, in the MCU, this is the government that has planned genocide of all superpowered beings multiple times. We also ALREADY HAVE multiple organizations for training and supporting superheroes.

The New Warriors, ironically, have saved the world multiple times too. They were just at a weak state and needed Nova or Vance Astro.

Given how Luke Cage (a black man) was treated for not signing up for the program, I can't help but think it would have ended up like the comic depicted.

[Proman1398]

In other words, Registered heroes probably wouldn't have been any more capable of stopping Nitro, or similar bad guy who is behaving so radically different. But they would certainly be able to handle 99% of the other situations they get into (like say, not having your girlfriend's neck snap because you still hadn't mastered mitigating whiplash on the people you are catching).

Ehh I feel like your thinking of something there that isn't because at that point Peter had been Spiderman for several years, this is the only time in the history of Spiderman up to that point that I can think of this happening. Really meta-wise if it hadn't happened that way the writers would have killed her in another way to progress the story in the way they want.

Still, you're also ignoring just how corrupt the Marvel US government is in the comics, over the years they have done horrible things to nearly every section of the populace. Hell, the create Sentinals, robots built with the sole purpose of hunting down Mutants, and they don't just make them once. We see constantly from Bishop that eventually the government heads the path of complete genocide, attempting to wipe out the entire Mutant Population.

Maybe you can trust the current(or the then-current or whatever) members of Government but don't think that someone that isn't responsible enough won't get into office and be handed the reigns over all those Super Human. Sooner or later someone will get into power that doesn't deserve it, that will miss use it. and Cable and Bishop of the X-Men prove that it will happen. The Truth is that the Marvel US Government.

Still, I'm not sure that this all that relevant to a Justice League Unlimted episode. On that point, when did the Cadmus/Luthor Alliance start?

[Jonathan101]

Every time I think of Civil War and the Superhuman Registration Act, I always remember that it takes place only a few years after the US Secretary of Defense was revealed to be the Red Skull in disguise, and one a few months after Norman Osborn took an entire church hostage and tied a little girl to the church bell with pumpkin bombs just to lure Spiderman out (Tony Stark- "That guy; that's who we need on our team").

Still, I'm not sure that this all that relevant to a Justice League Unlimted episode. On that point, when did the Cadmus/Luthor Alliance start?

They don't show us when it starts; we first learn about it at the end of the Captain Marvel episode as a twist. Possibly we can infer that Cadmus had a hand in getting Lex out of prison in the first place in return for his assistance, but it's speculative.