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Following in Aquaman's footsteps, We bring back another guest star that has appeared before in one of the previous shows, namely Etrigan the Demon. Etrigan showed up previously in a Batman: the Animated Series episode, and the writers of this episode decided to bring him back and explore his origins, which brings us all the way back to the Arthurian knights and Camelot. We get a pretty cool cold opening which saw Jason Blood, a knight in Arthur's Court, betray the castle to the forces of evil sorceress Morgaine Le Fay and her psychotic spoiled brat of a son, Mordred, before being cursed by the wizard Merlin be bound forevermore with a demon. It's a great show that shows how Etrigan was double-crossed by the woman he thinks loved him, and is cast out by the forces he once served.
Flash-forward to the present day and we get another rather surreal plot where the immortal Morgaine le Fay is searching for the Philosopher's Stone to resurrect Camelot or gain power or something so her son can sit on the throne. While Etrigan himself of course gets a fair amount of screentime and great dialogue, and being buddies with Batman means that the Dark Knight himself gets an ample amount of screentime, the true star of this particular episode is J'onn J'onzz. They could've just had the episode be a fun madcap run as the heroes try their best to defeat an immortal witch and it would be entertaining enough, but no, we need to have J'onn's drama.
J'onn has been shown to be the heart of the team, stoic and deadpan as he may be, and this is one of th best J'onn episodes as we explore how Morgaine Le Fay gave J'onn an illusion which allows him to see his family again, and manipulates J'onn's hopes to be stuck in that illusion in order to obtain her price. J'onn's blissful lines and the expressions on his face when he found himself on the illusory Mars is very fuzz-inducing, and it's equally sad when J'onn lashes out at Etrigan when the latter tries to break him out of the illusion. Even up until the end when J'onn finally refuses to allow himself to be corrupted by Le Fay's illusions, the scene of his wife and daughters being sucked into a vortex begging J'onn to save him is heartbreaking.
The fact that this characterization ties in very well to Etrigan/Jason Blood's own character problems is excellent work, the parallels behind both J'onn and Jason's possible betrayals to Morgaine being evident. Where Jason Blood succumbs to his desires and wishes and causes the fall of Camelot, J'onn is stronger and manages to resist the temptations of illusory happiness (or even the promised resurrection) for the greater good. While Etrigan loses all faith in J'onn and just dismisses the Martian as corrupted goods, we see Batman, Wonder Woman and Flash all stand by their comrade. Etrigan is a great, great foil for both Batman and J'onn. It's such a shame that he doesn't rhyme at all in this incarnation.
J'onn also gets so many good lines, with his line 'sometimes I believe I would do anything to see my loved ones again. You can't imagine how that feels' being a highlight. Spoken after his hesitation caused Batman's injury and Morgaine Le Fay's escape, Batman, normally the most paranoid and the first to lash out against any form of weakness and incompetence, merely looks down. It went unspoken, and Batman's still too much of a cool dude to open up with mushy stuff, but his silence and continued trust in J'onn speaks volumes at how much Batman considers J'onn a comrade.
Flash and Wonder Woman are paired up in one of the most hilarious moments ever, where their search for the Philosopher's Stone takes them to the costume party held by adult magazine (it's not explicitly said, but Flash's 'I only read it for the articles' line all but confirms it) overlord Hugh Hefner Herv Hickman, who's been using the stone to get good sales. We get a very, very hilarious moment where Herv tries in unsubtle ways to get Diana to his bed, while Diana is mostly clueless until she realizes what's going on and pretends to play along to 'see [his] stone'. There's nothing overtly sexual about Diana's lines, and it was kind of odd that Herv Hickman decides to talk all about the magical stone that gives his business empire its success to some random one night stand, but Herv gets transformed into a giant worm monster for his problems.
And the actions sequences are amazing. The big spotlight is Batman and Etrigan fighting against an army of reanimated armour, with the Dark Knight wielding a sword. Flash and Etrigan likewise has a pretty excellent moment in the climax with freezing the demon minions and then creating a cyclone that crushes them. But the highlight, definitely, is J'onn fighting against Etrigan when J'onn is hellbent to 'save' his family while Etrigan just about had it with what he perceives as weakness. Etrigan's hellfire blasts and strength just pales in J'onn's full power, as we see him just fluidly transform into metal, turning into a fluid and attacking Etrigan both physically and mentally. It's a good thing that J'onn is on the side of good, that's what I'm saying.
Oh, and Batman fights a living chair. That was hilarious.
It's a bit of a shame that despite all the great character moments for J'onn, the pacing suffers a little due to some logic leaps that the episode makes. Why not give the Stone to Flash, who would run away the fastest, while Etrigan and Wonder Woman, the magically-empowered heroes, takes on Le Fay and Mordred? Le Fay has this Etrigan-detecting amulet that detects Etrigan and Batman's arrival long enough for her to vamoose and set up a trap with the animated armour... that doesn't work at all when Etrigan ambushes her at the archaeologist's home. I also don't like Mordred at all, and he felt more of an annoyance instead of an actual threat.
But still, the bad parts of this episode are definitely outshone by the good parts. So yeah. I think one of my favourite episodes of season one, which is surprising because as a kid I found Morgaine Le Fay a silly, ineffective villain, but here she felt just so much more sinister, playing with J'onn's feelings and desire to be reunited with his dead family, a far more personal villain than just the silly time-displaced witch I remembered her to be.
(Attendance count: Superman, Hawkgirl and Green Lantern are absent.)
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