Patriot Act

In honor of the 4th of July, our review today will be of the JLU episode, Patriot Act. It’s not the 4th of July, I know. But we’re just honoring it. Not celebrating it.

However, in celebration of this review, I will be unconstitutionally monitoring your phone calls all day.

The episode opens with a scene from 1944, in black and white, to let you know that it is old. Some German scientists are going to pump a German guy full of serum (teehee!), and they let us all know that they’re German by saying stuff like “Herr” and “Der Fuehrer” and such. Just as I’m ready for them to start discussing bratwurst, the Spy Smasher shows up! He is either a spy who smashes things, or someone who smashes spies. It is unclear as he is not really dressed like a spy, but also does not smash any spies. He retrieves the serum and makes sure everyone else dies in a massive explosion. Fuck those guys.

And oh ho ho, who is reading this file, but General Eiling! And he has a thoughtful look in his eye…

Most likely he was pondering his impending date with the sexy Miss Waller:

He’s all complaining about how the Cadmus stuff ended, or as we in the business call it “recapping angrily.” He declares that something needs to be done about something!

Up on the Watchtower, the League is spread thin enough to be in one of those squishy wall rooms and not die until it was squished all the way in. Vigilante and Shining Knight discuss a little Clint Eastwood and the remaining forces gather around Mr. Terrific for their assignment. Green Arrow questions the league’s thinness, suggesting they have a few protien shakes perhaps. Mr. Terrific snaps back, “Did you second guess the martian?”

First off. He has a name. God. Secondly, I don’t think anyone would second guess J’onn ever, for fear of an arm through your chest, or him making you really sad, so sad that you pass out from the sheer sadness contained within you.

The last few Leaguers are sent to hang out in a parade since Superman is too busy for parades. A marching band walks by, in a haphazard order, and a couple guys are playing flutes on the opposite side somehow.

S.T.R.I.P.E. (heretoforth known as just STRIPE because I am too lazy for the period key) is waving his giant robot arm. I wonder if he has a button in there that says “WAVE” and he just hits that and takes a nap. That seems like a useful button while at the same time also seeming completely useless.

A bunch of people, including an old lady complain about the lack of Superman, and I want to yell “THERE IS A FLYING HORSE LADY. A GODDAMN FLYING HORSE. UNLESS YOU LIVE ON A FLYING HORSE FARM OR SOMETHING, THAT IS PRETTY FUCKING COOL.”

Back at Cadmus, or whatever it’s called now, the general is making a poor excuse to get into a locked room. You forgot your reading glasses? Fucking seriously? Couldn’t you have at least said you forgot something important?

He swipes the serum from the prologue, which you might recall from earlier in this very review. It’s just hanging out, still in a syringe, and like a total moron, he jabs it into his forearm with the accuracy of heroin addict.

The serum turns him into a horrible monster, which is different from my expectation that he would be turned into a pretty lady.

Here’s something weird, for those who like weird things. This episode originally aired in February of 2006. However! The general, in this horrible monster form, appears in the March 2005 issue of the JLU comic! It is very odd!

At the parade, Vigilante is working the crowd, which includes my second favorite bystander, Carless Joe!

I should maybe explain the Bystander League more thoroughly at some point.

Around this time the general shows up to attack Superman.

That’s just a balloon, dummy!

Some kids are being a pain in the ass, suprising no one, and Vigilante suggests they work crowd control, which they manage to do about as well as Booster Gold did back in Greatest Story Never Told.

While the General pounds away on STRIPE, one of the kids who is well versed in wrecking ball operation, gives Eiling a giant ball to his midsection, who then proceeds to knock over the thing that controls the wrecking ball, whatever that’s called, to sate his appetite for killing children. Maybe it’s a part of Army training I wasn’t aware of?

Vigilante sends his motorcycle flying at Eiling and blows it up with a couple gun shots to the button hidden inside his motorcycle that says “blow up,” while I ponder how many motorcycles he goes through.

Green Arrow has called for reinforcements and he’s greeted by Crimson Avenger and Speedy. Woohoo! Does Mr. Terrific just not have any idea what’s going on down there? “Hey here’s a couple more possible casualities, I thought you guys might enjoy them.”

It comes down to Eiling and Shining Knight duking it out, while Eiling rants about some God Bless America type of crap To be honest, I always sort of zone out here. There’s some stuff about eggs? Something about killing children for his country? Jesus, it’s so trite that I even zoned out just now writing this paragraph, staring into the alluring blue light on my speakers.

Ah, ok. So Eiling, as he beats Shining Knight right out of his bullet-shaped helmet, asks why he doesn’t just give up.

“Why don’t you?” responds Sir Justin (that’s Shining Knight’s real name!)
“Because I’m winning, what the fuck.”

Just as he’s about to finish off Sir Justin and his dreamy blond locks, an old lady steps in to save the day. Her soft skin and kind, yet brutal honesty reminds him of his love, Miss Waller, and the connection with her that he felt at their dinner earlier.

He gives a truly anti-climatic speech, and leaps off to tell his sweetie how he really feels, now that there’s no way in hell she’d be attracted to him. Seriously.

“Oh how I love the way your teeth stick out like that.”

As an ambulance picks up the injured Leaguers because it’s not like there’s a damn infirmary in the Watchtower, the kids learn to be slightly less assholey.

Slightly.