Justice League (animation)/YMMV

• Complete Monster: It is ostensibly a childrens show, but considering the lines that some of the characters cross...ugh. Even one-time villain John Dee murders his ex-wife in a truly horrific way, which is nothing compared to the tortures Darkseid or Mongul unleash on Superman (They do not just hurt him physically, they torture him, they drive him through things no human, or Kryptonian, should ever have to suffer). Then there is that guy that stole forty cakes. And That's Terrible.
  • Speaking of Darkseid, he deserves special mention as he continues his legacy as perhaps the biggest monster in the entire DCAU. One of the few villains that Superman actually wants to die which is really saying something.
• Crowning Music of Awesome: The remix of the Justice League theme in 1870s period music in "The Once and Future Thing".
  • Batman singing "Am I Blue?" in "This Little Piggy." As an added bonus, there's no singing actor for him, it's Kevin Conroy singing!
  • In the finally, Superman decided to show how powerful he really is to Darkseid, the Superman theme briefly and epically plays as he is flying straight at Darksied.
• Ensemble Darkhorse: Of the Big 7, Flash. Of the recurring characters, Green Arrow, Vigilante and the Question.
• Family-Unfriendly Aesop: Remember that General Ripper from the first episode? The one ranting and raving about how awful that messianic Senator's plans for unilateral nuclear disarmament are? Yeah, turns out he's right.
• Funny Aneurysm Moment: The heavily lampshaded episode about the destruction of innocent species habitats during offshore drilling became this after the Gulf oil spill.
• Growing the Beard - This trope is expressly discussed in the Season 2 DVD. The producers felt that season one of Justice League was a competent production, improving as it progressed, but that it was in season two that the show became what they always wanted it to be. Many of the changes came about from their own disapproval and from listening to fan complaints. Bruce Timm explained that much of Season 1 was just trying to get the series started and they ended up rushing things where they should have taken more time. Among other items discussed:
  • They made a policy decision to avoid "Super-wimp," which had a much larger effect on the first season than they had realized. They also wanted to increase the scale of the stories with larger backgrounds, more character models animated in critical scenes, bigger stakes, a visceral sense of physical contact and added emotional conflict even between the heroes. The rationale was "the show doesn't necessarily have to be dark, but it has to be intense" in order to make sure viewers were engrossed.
  • They reintroduced a lot of the continuity from BTAS and STAS, and some Call Forwards to Batman Beyond, that had not been included in season one. Originally they wanted JL to stand on its own merits, but understood fans are generally watching the show to see their favorite characters.
  • They began laying the groundwork for many future story arcs, while the first season had episodes largely self-contained. In particular, many hints about Hawkgirl's history would come to a head on "Starcrossed," the season finale.
  • Bruce Timm said that he was often spurred on by Mel Brooks advice to Ring the Bell; if a scene seemed like it might be too much and you were having second thoughts, do it anyway and make it bigger. It was the official mantra of the production team that "Good enough isn't good enough." The animators had specific instructions to work until a scene was good enough and then make it better.
• Harsher in Hindsight: Batman dodging Darkseid's Omega Beams. It didn't go so well in the comics.
  • Also, in "The Savage Time", after Vandal Savage managed to usurp the Nazis and took over the world, with him as the leader, Batman in the alternate reality is leading a resistance against Savage's regime. Several years later, Christian Bale, who portrays The Dark Knight Saga incarnation of Batman, later plays the resistance leader John Connor in a dystopian future where the machines practice what are essentially Nazi-based practices, including putting humans into extermination camps, in the film Terminator Salvation.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: This dialogue between Speedy and Green Arrow, in light of Young Justice.

Green Arrow: You wanted Superman? Now you've got--
[pauses to let the two teleport in.]
G.A.: [flat, disappointed] ...the Crimson Avenger and my ex-sidekick.
Speedy: [annoyed] Ex-partner.

G.A.: Speedy, we gotta do this now?

• • In "The Savage Time" Vandal Savage's plan to attack America with giant bombers is basically the same as Red Skull's plan in Captain America: The First Avenger.
• Holy Shit Quotient - "A Better World" Part 1, especially the teaser.
• Karma Houdini - Villainess Killer Frost, easily one of the few supervillains in the DCAU in it For the Evulz (she likes killing people. That sums her up), kills left and right, freezes the very people who sided with her in the Luthor/Grodd scuffle alive, and still manages to survive all the way to the end, never even being arrested. The worst she ever got was when J'onn forced her to use her ice powers to stop an avalanche that endangered people.
• Magnificent Bastard: In Twilight, Darkseid pulls off a positively brilliant Evil Plan, Playing Both Sides in the conflict between Superman and Brainiac. He does it in a way that forces both of them to acknowledge that they need his help (or need to help him), even though both distrust and fully expect (or know) that he will betray them. By the end, he's incapacitated Superman and has Brainiac under his control and about to have all of his plans come to fruition. The only thing that stops him is a last minute Big Damn Heroes moment by Wonder Woman, Batman, and Orion. Had they been another minute late, Darkseid would have won.
• Moral Event Horizon - Enforced by the writers in A Better World for the Justice Lords. When the Justice League has turned the tables on the Justice Lords, the two teams are placed in a replica of the original trap, but with their roles reversed. When League Hawkgirl starts to escape the trap in the beginning, Lord Lantern blasts her hard enough that she spends most of the rest of the episode in the hospital. Later, when Lord Hawkgirl escapes the same way, not only does League Lantern not blast her, but when Lord Green Lantern follows her out he immediately tries to stab League Lantern in the throat! DVD commentary reveals that the writers wanted it clear that, though they had good intentions and might have turned out differently if they had come from different circumstances, these are not tragic heroes or anti-heroes, they are well and truly bad people who deserve to be defeated and punished, as any other villain would be.
  • Amazo in The Return. An otherwise interesting character, Amazo breaks through all of Earth's lines of defense. He has thus far avoided killing anyone in particular, but when it comes to Red Tornado, he apparently decides since he's an android, it's okay, and blows him up. This is muddied by the fact that Amazo is also an android, and that Red Tornado is a sentient being, complete with a look of complete horror right before he explodes. Callous murder of superheroes is not a nice thing to do. Red Tornado appears in subsequent episodes, but his return is never explained.
    • Should it have to be? Amazo restored Oa, he restored Red Tornado off screen.
    • Red Tornado exploding is something of a Running Gag even in his own comics. He explodes, he comes back later because he's a robot so they can just put him back together.
• Motive Decay:
  • Sinestro appeared in Superman: The Animated Series and Justice League solely in pursuit of his vendetta against the Green Lantern Corps, and he only worked with other villains in pursuit of that goal. However, in season three of Unlimited he works for profit and world domination/saving alongside the Legion of Doom even when it has nothing to do with the Corps.
  • Bizarro in Superman: The Animated Series was a complicated character whose attempts to do good resulted in destruction because of crippling mental disabilities. In Unlimited, however, he transforms into his comic counterpart (One version of his comic counterpart, anyway) who simply has a bizarre tendency to reverse the intention of words and emotions, confusing "like" with "hate" and "good" with "bad."
    • It was implied in "Dead Reckoning" that Bizzaro had been forcibly reprogrammed into this state to make him serve the Legion of Doom.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: John Stewart was initially greeted with disdain from fans, who either instead wanted the more well-known Hal Jordan or (in a follow-up to "In Brightest Day") Kyle Rayner. Not helping was the creators admitting to adding him to the roster solely because of the color of his skin - making him look like merely a Token Minority. However, over the course of Season 1, Stewart received a good deal of Character Development - becoming a well-rounded character and a fan favorite.
• The Woobie: Ace of the Royal Flush Gang. Poor, poor Ace...