Headscratchers / Justice League S 2 E 5 And 6 Only A Dream

• Why was Wonder Woman the only one not present? I know that, in the majority of the episodes, one or two members of the league are missing from action, but Dr. Destiny held a grudge against all of the League members because he was captured by them when they were investigating one of Luthor's schemes and was arrested for harboring weapons. He even stated to Batman that he had a problem with the others because their powers gave them such a huge advantage over those without them and that they ruin the lives of normal people without realizing it, so you'd think he'd definitely target her as well. Hell, when Batman was attempting to contact the others at the end of the first part, he made no attempt to contact Wonder Woman... So... Was she just not there when Dr. Destiny got caught and therefore he didn't think of her or what? Did he simply forget about her? Was she protected by the gods? I'm not all too familiar with Wonder Woman's story outside the JL/JLU, so, correct me if I'm wrong, but she has no reason to leave Earth or enter a different dimension, does she?
  • Maybe he tried to attack her but failed becaue she has no primal fear like the rest of them. Or maybe she was immune to his power because it was a lie and she had latent truth powers?
  • Or maybe, since her lasso/braclets/etc give her her powers, and this has been shown in-verse, he just didn't think to grab her, because she's relatively non-powered with her stuff?
    • She's still a Flying Brick without them though, right?
    • Yes, WW can fly and possesses super strength at a level just a bit below Superman, lasso and bracelets or not.
    • Her endurance (in this continuity) is nowhere near his though. I do remember an early episode of JLU where Superman is trapped in the Fortress of Solitude in a catatonic state thanks to some kind of parasitic plant sent by Mongul. His only hope to defend him from the advancing Mongul were Batman and Wonder Woman - and she gets possibly one of her worst beatings of the series; she couldn't even stand up under her own strength. Superman, once freed by Batman, had a ridiculously better fight than she did.
    • Batman's completely non-powered without his stuff, and Destiny went after him. Maybe it's just that her magical nature granted her resistance to the tech-based dream-invasion powers. Or Amazon training includes psychic defense techniques.
    • On multiple occasions Superman and GL were literally in another solar system. Maybe Wonder Woman was just "out of range" and Supes already knew about it.
• Another thing that bugs me about "Only A Dream" is that Dr. Destiny was able to locate the league members rather easily while J'onn experienced some serious problems in the two-part episode just before. Did Dr. Destiny just develop much better psychic abilities than J'onn?
  • Wasn't that the point? Dr. Destiny explicitly said, "You're good...but I'm better!"
  • Think of it more as Psychic Rock, Paper, Scissors. Destiny trumps J'onn, who trumps everyone else.
  • That is true, but while does seem that Dr. Destiny is more powerful than J'onn, the fact is that J'onn is a lot more experienced. Someone like Morgan Le Fey trumping him is fair enough, as she not only has vast magical abilities, but centuries of experience (and even then, he was able to overcome it), but some rube who's just got his hands on his powers? Unlikely!
  • Destiny's powers are not the same as J'onn's. J'onn has traditional telepathy. Destiny's specific power is to invade people's dreams while they sleep. So really, it's impossible to say which of the two is the more powerful psychic because their powers are fundamentally different.
    • Also recall that Destiny wasn't trying to find out where they were, physically. He didn't need to. Furthermore, remember that the ESP machine gave him some degree of remote perception or something the first time on-screen that he was under it. It's not implausible that he had that ability as well.
• Green Lantern outright questions why anyone would have an ESP-granting machine in a prison and the warden's only reply is 'where else would you get volunteers?' Did he ever consider anywhere else on Earth? There are still ESP experiments being performed today in real life long after mainstream science has given up on the idea, these people live in a world where telepaths are real and publicly known. The doctor could have set up shop anywhere and he probably would have had at least a dozen volunteers in a week. That's not even getting into how stupid it is to give a criminal psychic power. Even if the powers are supposed to be temporary and even if the prisoner is a model of rehabilitation, you generally don't want to give someone ideas about reading minds while surrounded by other criminals. Seems like they would just be surrounded by bad influences.
  • Enforced genre blindness. "Sinister prison experiments" are one of the standard supervillain origins.
  • The ESP experiments that are performed today are, "See if people actually have it." The machine in the prison was, "Mess around with your brain and try and give you ESP." People tend to get a little touchy about things that rearrange their brains.
    • If that was the stumbling point then why would the inmates agree to be part of the experiment? There's no mention of them being paid or the time spent in the program helping them at parole hearings. Just because they're in prison doesn't mean they're going to randomly sign up for an experiment that no one outside would consider. Heck, they could have just done it under military or intelligence auspices.
    • The comment 2 above has it, the ESP machine is a potentially dangerous technology that could possibly scramble a person's brain, no sane person would take the risk. The prisoners on the other hand have little to lose and I wouldn't doubt they're given incentives to participate.
    • Well, assuming that first response was correct they have nothing to lose except their minds and possibly lives. Also, we are never told of anything that would be an incentive, nor (assuming that these tests might be harmful to the human body) what ethics board would permit them. You can't just assume something exists.
    • Upwards of 70% of prisoners in real-world jails have nothing to do all day except three plates of food and an hour or two of work-out time. Things like books to read and paper for letter-writing are privileges that can be lost for bad behavior. Compared to that, prisoners participating in "ESP Research" would get probably get private cells, better food, something to fill the time, and a slim chance at superpowers. Many would do it just to relieve the boredom.
    • Also, Cadmus is implied to have been conceptualized after the events of Legacy, the idea that a force would be needed to stop a superhero gone rogue. It's possible this project had ties to Cadmus. Find out if it works and what damage it could potentially do to the subjects by using it on inmates, and if it works, then Cadmus could use it on their own people. After all, they weren't above taking children and raising them in training camps.