Day One Hundred and Twenty-four - Justice League: Fury, "And Woman Shall Inherit the Earth."

Is it weird that I watch so much animation?

I mean I consume everything from Anime to My Little Pony to Adult Swim, as I think is typical for my particular demographic of geekdom, but sometimes I think I spend too much time with cartoons and not enough watching real people perform jests and fakeries and dramas.

Then again, it's getting painful watching BONES.

Today's animated entry is the two-parter Justice League tale entitled Fury, in which an Amazon unleashes an allergen on the world that incapacitates all men... ALL men, everywhere it spreads. She does this to empower womankind to reclaim the earth from their barbaric brothers.

Granted, Aresia (the vengeful adopted Amazon) has no qualms using men to further her agenda, taking quite a few male villains into her gang to join Star Sapphire and Tsukuri. Well, until she unleashes her MacGuffin toxin that drops them cold.

As I mentioned in my previous viewings of Justice League, these episodes in the first two seasons before JLU are just terrible. Even though they're extra long, spanning multiple half-hour blocks, they are decidedly lacking in plot cohesion, character development, and emotional range.

Seriously, the closest that Fury gets is a weird moment where Sister Power is displayed by all the female firefighters and paramedics who are helping round up the comatose wounded and mitigate the damage they've unwittingly created. It's supposed to be a "women are just as awesome as men" moment that falls entirely flat.

Especially when one considers that half the planet's population has just dropped into comas.

Even with the sterling efforts of all the women professionals, hospitals, police, et al, would still be drastically overwhelmed by the crisis.

Then there's the weird pseudo-moralizing where Wonder Woman speculates that a world without men wouldn't be so bad and Hawkgirl defends the male gender with the barest of innuendos.

Really, there's no actual argument as to why men have to be destroyed or saved. Aresia never goes on any monologues about the men who destroyed her life and neither Wonder Woman, Hawkgirl, or Hippolyta ever discuss exactly why it's wrong, just that it is.

I want to think that the executives and censors were responsible for watering down the story, but I think it's really the fault of the writers. These seasons just have no teeth. The jokes are puerile, the action and adventure just one step up from Superfriends levels of terribad. Really, the only redeeming grace is that the voice actors are intact from the Batman:TAS/Superman eras of the DCAU.

For my part, I feel that Justice League is the same level of wrongness that the first season of the new Dr.Who is. Painful and only worth watching to get to the good stuff later (JLU and Tennat/Smith respectively).

If you're looking for a much more realistic take on this type of story, I suggest reading Y:The Last Man. It's a much more thorough, emotive, and believable take on "Women Inheriting the Earth" than this ever could be.

Until tomorrow, Potatoes~