Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths Review

(While I am not a comic otaku, I will make an attempt to reflect on the relation of this film to the comics in their varied forms so as to show my respect to such people as Linkara. Thank you.)

I’ve been a fan of the Justice League in one form or another since I watched the show by the same name that debuted in 2001. While not consistent with older depictions, it did introduce me to the idea of a united group of DC heroes fighting against the evildoers in the world. Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths is derived primarily from a title JLA: Earth 2 where parallel universe are posited with the existence of reversed states of affairs: the Justice League are the villains and vice versa with the Legion of Super Villains. This film is similar, but not identical, creating its own narrative within the general idea of infinite parallel realities in DC. So without further ado, onto plot synopsis.

We begin with the parallel versions of Lex Luthor and Joker, called Alexander Luthor and Jester, breaking into a facility where they steal a “quantum trigger” which apparently gives them an edge against the evil versions of the Justice League. And as they acquire the device, Hawkgirl and Martian Manhunter’s parallels begin to track the two. They escape through a grate in the floor and Alexander gets out. The Jester stays behind, wanting to get serious in fighting the villains. He pretty much gets killed, but in his death throes, he pulls out his last trick, a mini nuke, which subsequently kills both him and the two baddies. Alexander is confronted by the rest of the Crime Syndicate, but manages to escape the parallel dimension. Meanwhile the Justice League in the original universe is building their Watchtower and finishing installation of the teleportation module. Alex Luthor then appears in the city and proceeds to contact the Justice League through the police. He explains the situation (while naked) which, with Superman’s x ray vision, is proven to be the case (reversed positions of organs and all). At the Watchtower, Alexander explains further about the situation. He’s the only surviving member of the Justice Syndicate (which I’ll coin for now) that countered the Crime Syndicate, the parallel versions of the Justice League, the roles reversed in Alexander’s dimension. While the Justice League deliberates as to whether they’ll help him (they accept, of course, except stubborn old Batman), Alexander hides the quantum trigger in the Watchtower. Meanwhile, in Earth-Two (they never actually label either, but for simplicity’s sake, the original earth with the Justice League is Earth 1 and the Crime Syndicate earth is Earth 2) Owlman and Superwoman (parallels to Batman and Wonder Woman/Mary Marvel) along with other Syndicate members search the ruins of the destroyed facility and are preparing to leave when Alexander and the Justice League (sans Batman) appear in the middle of the room. A fight ensues and all the Syndicate members are defeated or temporarily delayed. With Alexander’s advice, Superman leads the group outside, where it turns out it’s a floating fortress. Superwoman’s three Made Men (underlings, three guys in yellow and black spandex who are supposed to be parallels to members of the Marvel family) fight against the Justice League while Wonder Woman steals Owlman’s plane and with a little help from parallel Lex, they escape with a cloaking generator. After their escape, the other top ranking members of the Crime Syndicate convene for an important meeting. They decide to divide the duties that were in J’edd J’arkus’ (Martian Manhunter parallel with four arms) division amongst themselves. And Owlman brings up his newest invention, the Quantum Eigenstate Device, which would allow them to threaten to destroy any point in the world that they wanted (life and death power, as he terms it). This is to counter the only threat the world government has against the Crime Syndicate now, nuclear weapons. We see a protest by the President’s daughter (who will be important to one character later) and move on to parallel Lex bringing the Justice League to Jester’s hideout. He explains the basic structure, with Ultraman (Superman parallel) at the very top, with Superwoman, Owlman, Johnny Quick (Flash parallel) and Power Ring (Green Lantern parallel) ruling over other divisions of the world with 7-8 Made Men under them that they grant superpowers to based on rank. Alexander proposes they make a series of attacks in a group of 6, but Superman suggests they do multiple attacks with groups of 2. Lex acquiesces and the attacks begin in earnest. Elsewhere, Owlman reveals to Superwoman that he has created a device that allows him to travel to any other alternate earth just as Alexander Luthor had done in the beginning of the film. Superwoman is ecstatic at first and Owlman implies that he has a bigger plan in store. The attacks progress, with a concluding fight at Ultraman’s building. Alex Luthor brings out Ultraman’s weakness, blue kryptonite, and the battle turns positive, with Ultraman going to jail, for all the good that’ll do. The Justice League and parallel Lex are called to the President’s office. The President (Deathstroke, otherwise known as Slade Wilson to Teen Titans fans) complains that the group is putting the earth at risk, but the group, along with his daughter, argues that they’re doing the right thing and that even if someone is tougher than you, it’s better to fight them head on instead of submitting to them. J’onn J’onzz (Martian Manhunter’s real name) gets involved with the President’s daughter (Ravager parallel) in a subplot that will continue later. The Crime Syndicate continues to build the QED, while Owlman lectures Superwoman on the futility of her plans to try to conquer other worlds. He notes that with every choice we make there is a parallel universe where the choice wasn’t made or the opposite choice was made. In this way, the very existence they have is relative to the series of events that occurred. His goal is to eliminate all existence by destroying the original Earth, what he terms Earth-Prime. Superwoman assents to his plan and we move to the White House, where Ultraman threatens the life of Rose Wilson (Slade’s daughter) and with the threat of a nuke, Ultraman replies that they’re building their own bomb. Meanwhile, Owlman has discovered the location of the quantum trigger and sends Superwoman on an errand to get it. Batman realizes that security has been compromised and after fighting on his own (in a mecha no less), he summons backup to fight against Superwoman’s Made Men, while Batman seeks out Superwoman, who manages to find the quantum trigger and they escape, though Batman manages to travel back with them. We shift to Rose protesting and she is saved from an assassination attempt by J’onn disguising himself as a secret service agent. He gets the Archer (Green Arrow parallel) arrested. Superwoman pushes Batman into a corner, but Batman as usual tricks her into inhaling a cloud of anesthetic and promptly escapes, Superman binding her when the rest of the group returns. Batman inquires about what parallel Lex hid on the Watchtower and he notes that they have to change their strategy. Owlman gets the quantum trigger from Superwoman’s remaining lackey and is expectedly overjoyed (as much as he can be). Elsewhere, J’onn finds that he is attuned to Rose (mentally synchronized) and mind melds with her (I guess) and they become truly one. This is the last we see of the subplot until the end. Rose says that her father knows where the headquarters of the Crime Syndicate is located. At said headquarters, the finishing touches are being put on the QED. The Justice League and parallel Lex infiltrate the hideout. The Crime Syndicate threatens to use the QED, but their bluff is called since they’re on the moon and can’t use it on Earth. A fight ensues between all the Justice League members and Crime Syndicate doubles, eventually ending with Batman the only member to be soundly defeated, Owlman escaping with the QED to Earth Prime. The group discovers Owlman’s plan and devises a way to follow him using Johnny Quick’s supposedly superior speed. Batman goes in to fight Owlman, no one able to follow him without the transmitter device. Batman confronts Owlman and they discuss the chaotic implications of the choices of humanity that result from the origin point of Earth Prime. Owlman concludes as before that the only real choice he can make is to destroy all existence, corrupted by humanity as it is. Batman fights Owlman to stop him, but is almost completely overwhelmed as before, Owlman repeating his mantra that nothing really matters. Batman is beaten up more before distracting Owlman with a bat-bomb to the face. He adjusts the coordinates of Owlman’s transmitter and after outthinking his counterpart, stealing the transmitter and getting him tied to his machine, he sends him to an uninhabited earth, where Owlman then accepts his loss, though he could’ve stopped the QED’s detonation. Back in Earth 2, Johnny Quick stops vibrating and is revealed to have rapidly aged and subsequently dies. The other members then insist on fighting the Justice League despite being outnumbered, but then Martian Manhunter comes in with the Marines and President Slade with nukes, guaranteeing the Crime Syndicate has lost. Back at the White House, everything’s going very smoothly, except that Rose Wilson and Martian Manhunter are in love. But J’onn makes the difficult decision to leave her behind so he can truly protect his home Earth. The group returns and discovers that Batman has been thinking of expanding the League with the 5 members that he brought before. And the story progresses to unknown futures.

The characters are depicted well for each counterpart, though there are distinctions I’ll point out quickly. The Justice League depicted is the older Justice League from the 50s and 60s (roughly). John Stewart isn’t the Green Lantern, Hal Jordan is. Pretty much everyone else is the same. And there’s no Hawkman or Hawkgirl (guess they came in later). The Earth-2 counterparts are somewhat different from the anti-matter universe Crime Syndicates in the comics. Owlman had an enhanced cerebral cortex that allowed him to read minds. Ultraman was not weak to any Kryptonite, but in fact got more powers from each Kryptonite he was exposed to. He was also dependent on Anti Kryptonite, which he needed to consume on a regular basis to maintain his powers. J’edd J’arkus is seemingly original to this parallel earth, since most Crime Syndicates didn’t have one, or the parallel was called the White Martian. The parallel earth Made Men are nice counterparts to their Justice League originals, like Black Canary and Green Arrow among others. Parallel Lex Luthor and Joker are nice characters, actually making one curious about other parallel villains in this universe and what they would be called or what they would do to fight crime (there are more noted in the anti-matter universe, I believe, like Riddler and Gorilla Grodd). Slade Wilson as President is only evident if you automatically associated a guy with an eyepatch with Deathstroke and all. His daughter’s a nice character to maintain the conflict of Martian Manhunter’s emotions and such, not to mention the irony that he’s right in saying her counterpart is evil (Ravager).

The only themes to really speak of are related to the Justice League on the one hand and the Crime Syndicate on the other. The Justice League’s interaction with President Slade emphasizes their desire to protect justice in the world. The Crime Syndicate’s personalities and general behavior are a subtheme of this in the consideration of alternate universes that the film posits to us through Owlman’s explanations. This leads to the strong theme from the Crime Syndicate, mostly Owlman. As noted before, he’s a very strong ontological nihilist, that is, he believes every decision we make is meaningless (he says this at one point verbatim, I believe). And his persistent belief leads him to the conclusion that he must destroy everything through destruction of Earth Prime. Though in hindsight, he realizes right before the bomb explodes that it wouldn’t matter even if he did detonate the bomb on Earth prime, because by his own multiverse logic, his choice to do that would’ve still made a divergence between two Earth primes, one where he made the choice and one where he didn’t. This theme is a mind-twister even if you don’t have any philosophical background. The very fact that it makes you think so much on your choices and what might happen with a series of decisions you make on one world as opposed to another is evidence of the centrality of this idea.

This film is great, all things considered. It deviates from the original source it drew from, but made a very compelling story all on its own, even if there wasn’t a previous premise to draw from. The very notion of a parallel universe where the bad guys are the good guys and vice versa makes me want there to be a future project where such a universe is developed more clearly and without the Justice Syndicate/Guild or whatever it’s called in Earth-2 getting killed off, but still having the challenge. This definitely gets a 5 out of 5 and probably a 90% recommendation, the only thing really killing it for any viewer would be the obvious logical conclusion that the whole film is pointless since it wouldn’t have mattered either way, since even if Owlman detonated the bomb, there still would’ve been the alternate universe where the outcome of the film as it is came to be (where he was thwarted). Until next time, Namaste and Aloha.