Based on a couple of different comic story lines, Justice League Doom covers the "nightmare scenario" of a group of supervillains (a "Legion of Doom" if you will) getting their hands on Batman's files and weaponising them against the Justice League. Whilst I tend to feel that this idea has been done altogether too often, Justice League Doom is one of the better takes, even with the limitation of the animated films. Much of the cast of Justice League Unlimited returns, so even with Hal Jordan in the Green Lantern spot and Cyborg joining the team, it has that nice feel of being familiar. As I've discussed at-length previously, as much as I detest the "Versus" culture around superheroes, I do enjoy the "wargaming" of who could take on various teams and characters and how, so characters like Taskmaster and Prometheus are something I enjoy. I also quite like Vandal Savage, who is the primary antagonist of Justice League Doom, gathering Mirror Master, Bane, Star Sapphire, Cheetah, Metallo and Ma'alefa'ak to strike back against their matched foes.
First up, I love that it's Bane against Batman, not Joker, because Savage is smart enough to find the sane mercenary who has defeated Batman in the past, rather than just picking Joker because reasons. Like, I can believe that Bane can defeat Batman with skill, guile and materiel, rather than just hoping Joker does it properly this time around. To counter that, however, who the hell is Ma'alefa'ak? He doesn't even have a Heroclix as far as I can tell. Yes, Martian Manhunter doesn't really have a lot of "iconic" villains, but an evil take on the same character just feels lazy. For that matter, I'm not huge on Star Sapphire either, but she is one of the more "grounded" Hal Jordan villains and at least isn't as goofy as Hector Hammond or Major Disaster. Why am I not discussing the story of Justice League Doom? Well, it's not really all that important. This is a fight story, with cool battles strung together with a loose narrative, just the kind of thing ensemble pieces like this excel at. As much as I love stories where big teams deal with important issues, having all these powerful characters in the room and not occasionally "smashing the action figures together" is just a missed opportunity.
Ok, so I do actually like the idea that Batman has plans to take down other heroes if they go rogue, it's a very Batman thing to do and creates some much-needed friction in the Justice League, something which Justice League Doom covers well. However, much like any good idea about Batman, this too has been amplified to absurd proportions, and now the fandom insists that Batman can defeat any other hero with ease. I'm willing to assume that Batman somehow finds the time to compile these files, with everything else he's supposed to be doing, but if we're buying into the "hyper competent" Batman myth, surely he stops at some stage? I can't imagine that Batman has a plan to take out a rogue Booster Gold, for example, because only his ability to travel through time is any real threat and Rip Hunter is better suited to deal with that, surely? Finally, I'm not a fan of Cyborg in the Justice League, he's not that interesting and there are far better characters that could add the much-needed diversity to the team.
