Justice League (TV Series) Episode: Legends, Part I

{{DC Database:Episode Template
 * Title              = Justice League
 * Image              =
 * Season             = 1
 * Episode            = 16
 * Year               = 2002
 * Month              = April
 * Date               =


 * Director           = Dan Riba


 * PreviousEpisode    = Justice League Episode: Fury
 * NextEpisode        = Justice League Episode: A Knight Of Shadows


 * Quotation          =
 * Speaker            =


 * StoryTitle1        = Legends
 * Synopsis1          =

Teaser
The Justice League fight off a giant robot being remotely-controlled by Lex Luthor in the middle of a city. Superman manages to rip a hole in the back of the robot, exposing its reactor core, and Batman flings a Batarang straight into the core, causing it to overload. As the robot falls on top of Hawkgirl, Green Lantern, and Martian Manhunter, the Flash creates a whirlwind to keep it from crushing them. Suddenly the robot explodes and takes out a chunk of some nearby buildings. The four Justice League members are gone.

Part 1
They appear in a totally different city, unable to communicate with Superman or Batman. Martian Manhunter tries to use his telepathy, but he ends up receiving painful images of a nuclear destruction. The four of them decide to investigate the city they are in, and discover that it strangely resembles the type of city one would find in the 1960s, complete with an ice-cream truck with a friendly driver. Flash wonders if they have been transported to the past when they see a criminal escaping from a music store with a prized violin. He uses an accordion that projects powerfully repellent sonic waves when played. He tries to take off in a vehicle resembling a clarinet when Green Lantern stops him. The criminal calls him Green Guardsman and blasts Green Lantern away with his accordion playing. He takes off in his vehicle, but Green Lantern uses his ring to snag the violin out of the criminal's hands, passing it onto the Flash who wonders why Green Lantern was called Green Guardsman.

Then suddenly a bold heroic voice says, "Here in Seaboard City, crime doesn't pay!" They look and see a man wearing a turbine-powered belt standing on top of a building. He activates the belt and is charged with electricity. He jumps down and gives Flash a powerful punch that knocks him into the park. Green Lantern pulls the turbine belt from the man's waist, but he is soon joined a man in a black cat-like bodysuit and a blonde-haired woman in a mask wearing a swimsuit and nylons. She jumps out of the motorcycle's sidecar and delivers Green Lantern a kick, with the man in the cat suit giving a few licks of his own. Hawkgirl and J'onn J'onnz offer Green Lantern an assist, but are soon shaken up by a jackhammer made of green energy. It is a superhero that makes Green Lantern say, "It can't be." He tells the "villains" to surrender, but Hawkgirl charges at him, only to be encased in a green energy cage. Flash sees Hawkgirl caged and tries to race to her rescue, but a similar red-clad speedster wearing a racing helmets gets in his way and knocks him out. Meanwhile, a young boy across the street jumps with joy at the action unfolding before him, cheering, "Go, Streak, go!"

As the fighting between the heroes continues, the turbine-belted man knocks Martian Manhunter into a nearby building, letting loose some debris that falls upon the boy. Flash sees this and zooms off to save the boy from the debris. The other speedster notices the rescue and tells the other heroes to stand down, saying that the two teams should have a talk. As the Justice League members enter the headquarters of the other team, the host team introduce themselves as the Justice Guild, its members being Catman, Black Siren, Green Guardsman, Tom Turbine, and the Streak. After the Justice League members introduce themselves, they see that the young boy rescued was a Junior Guildsman member named Ray Thompson, who wants to be a crimefighter just like his idols. Then suddenly Martian Manhunter starts to feel a little dizziness, which the Streak dismisses as "something a tall cold glass of milk won't cure". Black Siren offers to serve some fresh-baked cookies and invites Hawkgirl to come into the kitchen with her. Hawkgirl refuses until Green Lantern secretly tells her it's best to play along, and so she departs into the kitchen with Black Siren, asking how she manages to fight crime and bake cookies.

Green Lantern has a private conversation with the Flash, telling him that the Justice Guild were comic book characters he used to read about as a boy, and as corny as it sounds, they inspired him by teaching him what it means to be a hero. Soon Hawkgirl emerges from the kitchen, carrying a tray of cookies and milk to serve to the male heroes. She tells the Flash, "one word, and you'll be the fastest man alive with a limp!"

In a hideout on top of a rocky cliff near the ocean, the musical villain tells other villains -- a magician with a turban, a scientist wearing a doctor's examining headband, and a masked man wearing a sports uniform -- about new heroes in Seaboard City with the same incredible powers as the Justice Guild. Three of the villains turn against each other until the magician stops the squabbling, suggesting that they should a contest, a wager with each other, with the villain able to pull off the most spectacular crime to be the one who will devise a plan to destroy the Justice Guild and their new allies.

At the Justice Guild headquarters, Tom Turbine shows that he has been at work creating a trans-dimensional gateway, hypothesizing that he has studied the possibility of infinite dimensions each with its own planet Earth, occupying the same space but vibrating at a different speed. He suggests that the Flash has somehow managed to match the vibrational rate of the Justice Guild's Earth with his super-speed, creating a tear between the two worlds. As for how the history of the Justice Guild on this Earth wound up as a comic book story on the Justice League Earth, J'onn J'onnz suggests that the creators of the comic book had a psychic link to the Justice Guild Earth. Unfortunately, the gateway doesn't have a power source yet, which means the Justice League members will be stuck on the Justice Guild Earth for a while. Tom Turbine says he will work night and day in the promise of getting the Justice League team back to their home.

Soon the Justice Guild is greeted by the local Seaboard City police with a message from the Injustice Guild (the group of villains seen earlier) proclaiming that they're preparing a crime spree based on the four known elements of the ancient world. The Streak, upon reading the message, call upon the Justice League members to help them defeat these criminals. Green Lantern speaks for his team, saying the Justice Guild can count on them. Ray Thompson goes to a bookcase and pulls out a box from a hidden compartment that held Justice Guild membership rings. The Streak says they are now made honorary Justice Guild members. Soon the Justice League members are each paired off with a Justice Guild member, with Tom Turbine staying behind to work on the trans-dimensional gateway.

The Streak and Green Lantern head for the museum, where the "fire" clue leads them to believe that the fabled Flame of Rasputin will be stolen. The turbaned magician called Sir Swami is already there and takes the valuable gem with ease, but is greeted outside by the two heroes that he manages to hold off until he disappears inside a telephone booth. The musical villain called the Music Master breaks the glass roof of the Museum of Flying and takes off with an experimental historic biplane, with Green Guardsman and Hawkgirl in hot pursuit. Hawkgirl tries a frontal assault which the Guardsman blocks, telling her not to damage what is an irreplaceable part of their history. However, as they continue pursuit of the Music Master in the air, the biplane rips the cords from a window-washer's scaffold, causing two workers to dangle precariously from it. Hawkgirl tells the Guardsman to steady the scaffold, but he tells her that his power ring doesn't work against aluminum, so Hawkgirl simply grabs one of the window washers while Guardsman catches the other from falling. Hawkgirl goes after the biplane alone, but is knocked out of the sky by the Music Master's accordion, landing safely on a hill.

Outside the city hall, the Mayor cuts the ribbon in the inauguration ceremony to a new dolphin-sculptured water fountain which Mr. Blizzard, the frozen scientist villain, freezes over with his headband. The Flash and Black Siren contend with him, with the Flash managing to snag the headband from the villain's head. However, he is soon distracted by a truck full of explosives headed for a collision with a bus full of nuns. The Flash zips in and gets into the driver's seat of the remotely-controlled truck, diverting its course and ducking out of there just barely to escape its explosion as it collides with a building. Black Siren checks to see if the fallen Flash is all right, but Dr. Blizzard uses his recovered headband to freeze both heroes in a block of ice.

The baseball uniformed Sportsman, in the meantime, drives off with the Seaboard City Clay Court Tennis Championship trophy after tying its owner to a tree, but is soon followed by Catman and J'onn J'onnz. Catman turns control of his motorcycle over to Ray Thompson while he leaps on board the truck. The villain uses an explosive badmitton birdie to try throwing his pursuers off. J'onn easily avoids it by turning intangible, but it shakes Catman off the roof of the truck, using his claws to try hanging on. As the heroes and Sportsman approach the city, J'onn reels in agony as he is hit with a powerful mental image of the entire city engulfed in a nuclear explosion. Catman sees that J'onn has fallen and jumps back onto the motorcycle to retrieve him.

Hawkgirl comes to and finds herself on a hill next to some grave markers. She removes the vines from one of them and recoils as she discovers it is the grave marker of Scott Mason, the Green Guardsman.

Part 2
Hawkgirl talks with Green Lantern outside the Justice Guild headquarters and tries to tell him what she found, implying that the Justice Guild members inside the building aren't who they say they are. Green Lantern flies off in disbelief, and Hawkgirl follows him to the same hillside, where he sees the grave markers of all five Justice Guild members, indicating that they are all dead. Green Lantern decides it is time to find some answers. He stops the driver of the ice cream truck seen earlier and asks him about the grave markers on the hill. The driver seems rather reluctant to tell Green Lantern anything about them, saying that he has deliveries to make and ice cream to sell. Green Lantern tells him that he hasn't seen the driver make any stops to sell ice cream. The driver squirms him way out of the conversation, saying "he might hear us", and drives onward, leaving Green Lantern and Hawkgirl wondering.

At the Injustice Guild hideout, three of its members boast about their spectacular heists and notice that one of them, Dr. Blizzard, hasn't shown up with his prize catch. Then he shows up riding into the hideout down an incline with his catch -- two prisoners, Black Siren and the Flash -- saying that this entitles him to be the winner in their nefarious context. The Flash asks if Dr. Blizzard plans to turn him and Black Siren into "snow cones". Dr. Blizzard simply answers that he has much bigger plans than that.

At the Justice Guild headquarters, the four Justice Guild members pace around in their meeting room, hoping to hear word of Black Siren and the Flash, when they receive a phone call from the police, saying that the Injustice Guild has robbed the Seaboard City Mint and are escaping by blimp. The Justice Guild decide to go into action and stop the Injustice Guild, with the Martian Manhunter and Ray Thompson joining them.

Green Lantern and Hawkgirl enter the Seaboard City Library and look through its books, only to find its pages totally empty of any printing. They decide to go downstairs to find the newspaper archives, but the door to the basement is blocked by a brick wall which Hawkgirl breaks through with her mace. Behind the wall, though, they find an abandoned subway station that looks like it had been through a war. Green Lantern stumbles upon an old newspaper lying on the ground with headlines that read PEACE TALKS BREAK DOWN and WAR NEAR. He notices that the date on that newspaper is from 40 years ago, which is the same date as the last Justice Guild comic book published.

The Justice Guild, meanwhile, arrive at the scene where they see a blimp carrying Black Siren and the Flash tied up and carried on its side. Green Guardsman, Tom Turbine, and J'onn J'onnz attempt to fly at the blimp in a frontal assault, but the Music Master blasts J'onn away with his accordion while the Sportsman uses an explosive golf ball to knock Tom Turbine out of the sky. The Streak creates a cyclone to catch J'onn while the Green Guardsman rescues Tom Turbine with his energy ring. Sir Swami ensnares the two heroes by causing a television antenna to come to life. Catman ejects the motorcycle's sidecar and rides the bike unto the roof of a nearby building, using it to jump onto the blimp and then rappel himself down into its cab section to take down the villains. As the Streak is busy freeing Green Guardsman and Tom Turbine, the Flash decides to use his lightning-bolt head ornaments to puncture a hole in the blimp, causing it to lose air. Soon the loss of air causes the blimp's passengers to be jolted to one side, with Sir Swami falling out through the door, only to be caught by J'onn J'onnz. The Flash catches Black Siren from a fall, and Tom Turbine leaps over to carry the two heroes to safety. Catman tosses the villains out of the blimp as it continues to descend into the street, being caught and carried away by the Green Guardsman, who deliver the Injustice Guild to the authorities.

As the Justice Guild return to their headquarters with the Flash, Martian Manhunter, and Ray Thompson, the last of whom just goes on talking about the exciting adventure that he had personally seen, Green Lantern and Hawkgirl greet them with some serious news: that the Justice Guild is not actually the Justice Guild. They provide proof of this charge by presenting a newspaper from 1962, headlining JGA KILLED IN BATTLE. Green Lantern says that the real version of the Justice Guild died. The Streak finds this hard to believe, but soon they are interrupted by a phone call from the police department, saying that a giant robot is now tearing up the city. The Justice Guild head toward the door, but Green Lantern blocks their exit, saying they still have unfinished business to take care of. He says that none of what they have experienced makes any sense: library books with blank pages, ice cream trucks that never stop, and dangers that spring up whenever someone gets too close to the truth that the Justice Guild world is an illusion, a recreation of a world that was destroyed long ago when the Justice Guild gave their lives for it. This, Green Lantern says, was also why the Justice Guild comic books had stopped being published on the Justice League world.

Tom Turbine asks who would be behind his world being an illusion, and the Martian Manhunter suggests that it is Ray Thompson, sensing him to be the center of it all. With his mental abilities, J'onn J'onnz probes into the boy's mind, and soon Ray recoils as he is transformed from an innocent normal-looking boy into a hideous-looking mutant with an enlarged cranium. He hisses, "you've ruined everything," and uses his powers against the Justice League members while the Justice Guild contend with the giant robot that now shows up outside their headquarters.

Green Guardsman pauses in his effort to fight the giant robot when he sees the mutant Ray Thompson torturing Green Lantern after having taken down the other Justice League members and says that they need the Justice Guild's help. Tom Turbine stops him, saying that if what Green Lantern says is true, their world will cease to exist, as will they themselves, if they defeat Ray. The Streak, after looking at the scene with their fallen comrades under Ray's powerful control, says the Justice Guild died once to save their world, and they can do it again. They suddenly charge toward Ray and pummel him with an attack that causes such a great strain on his mental abilities that he collapses on the ground, possibly near death. As Ray collapses, Green Lantern watches sadly as his heroes vanish, and the once picturesque landscape of Seaboard City is replaced by ruins. However, some of its citizens, such as the ice cream truck driver and the policemen, turn out to be real people who were trapped in this virtual reality created by Ray's mental abilities for 40 years. They feel as though they have been awakened from a nightmare, and now they can start rebuilding a world that they themselves have destroyed.

But that still leaves the question of how the Justice League members will get back home to their world. Green Lantern has an idea and digs their way into the basement of the destroyed Justice Guild headquarters, finding the real Tom Turbine's trans-dimensional gateway still intact. He then powers up the device using his power ring, causing a portal to open within its archway. He tells the other members to get through it quickly, as he has no idea how long he can keep the gateway powered up. Green Lantern is the last to enter as the portal closes up behind them.

Back at the Justice League Watchtower, as the Flash talks to Superman and Batman about what he had experienced on the Justice Guild world with their heroes and villains, Hawkgirl joins Green Lantern looking out of a window, brooding. He says he feels stupid mourning for people that weren't even real. Hawkgirl tells him that those people gave their lives for the Justice League, and that is real enough for her.
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Featured Characters:
 * Appearing1 =
 * Justice League
 * Batman
 * Flash
 * Green Lantern
 * Hawkgirl
 * Martian Manhunter
 * Superman

Supporting Characters:
 * Justice Guild of America
 * Black Siren
 * Catman
 * Green Guardsman
 * Streak
 * Tom Turbine

Villains:
 * Injustice Guild
 * Dr. Blizzard
 * Music Master
 * Sir Swami
 * Sportsman

Other Characters: Locations: Items: Vehicles: }}
 * Lex Luthor
 * Ray Thompson
 * Seaboard City (Earth-Justice Guild)
 * Watchtower (Earth-Justice League)
 * Trans-Dimensional Gateway
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 * Notes              =
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