Headscratchers / Justice League Unlimited S 3 E 13 Destroyer

• Okay, we all remember Superman's "cardboard" speech, and yes it was awesome. But there, he claims to be going all out against Darkseid for the first time. Then why didn't he mop the floor with Darkseid in "Twilight"? It was obvious he was going to kill Darkseid if Batman hadn't interfered, so why didn't he use his true power there?
  • Because he didn't think he needed it. Darkseid in the final episode was, as he mentioned, more powerful than he had been before, and previous to Twilight, Superman had already beaten him in a one-on-one fight (See his own series finale), so it stands to reason Supes would've believed he could still beat him at 'normal' in Twilight. So the progression goes: Legacy [Superman fighting at normal to beat Darkseid]—> Twilight [Superman fighting at normal, perhaps a bit above, to kill Darkseid]—> Destroyer [Superman going all out]
  • However, the Legacy fight gave the impression that Supes was going all out and was barely holding his own until he figured out how to turn the Omega Beams back on Darkseid. Maybe Supes just absorbed more yellow sunlight and got more powerful himself (I honestly have no idea if that works out, but it was the first thing that sprang to mind)?
    • Plausible. In the future setting of Kingdom Come, it's been stated that decades of yellow sun radiation have turbocharged Superman's physiology to the point that even kryptonite poses little threat to him.
  • Actually, the yellow sunlight thing makes sense. In the episode with Dr. Destiny, in his nightmare Superman remarks about how he started out with no power and how he keeps getting more and more. This would seem to imply that the longer he stays under a yellow sun the more powerful he becomes. So, there could indeed be a significant power differential in Superman's levels between the two fights.
    • The fact that Superman gets more and more powerful is indeed pretty much confirmed in-universe : for instance, in the first STAS episode, he struggles really hard to catch a falling plane, letting it cause much destruction before stopping it ; by contrast, in the JLU episode where he fights Captain Marvel, he catches a (bigger-looking) falling plane without breaking a sweat, even having no problem chatting with the Martian Manhunter at the same time.
  • There's also something to be said for Superman's fighting style (or lack thereof). In basically every fight Superman starts out holding back and only uses "real" force only after taking a serious beating. After two rounds with Darkseid already, Superman just decided to come out of the gate swinging rather than wait until he's bloody and disoriented. Hence the awesome speech.
    • Thing is he let himself get pounded up to that point even though he already knew he'd need all his strength. The idea supes holds back explains most of his smack downs but not all. The battle against Doomsday for example.
• There's a huge war against the forces of Darkseid. Where are Mr. Miracle, Big Barda, and Orion? They've appeared previously on JLU, why not here?
  • I would assume they were off-planet at the time and didn't know about Darkseid's invasion of Earth. The battle seemed to take place over a short enough time that the New Gods may not have found out about it until it was already over.
    • Orion is present, much to the chagrin of the producers. At the end of Alive, when Luthor arrives and mentions that they have a problem Orion is standing right behind Superman in plain view...and then he disappears from the exact same shot and scene in Destroyer. DVD commentary clears it up: The writers knew that if Orion had been present it would have had to come down to a fight between him and Darkseid. Their conflict has been one of the driving forces of the New Gods story going back to S:TAS, if he had been here there would have been no excuse to not have him be at least the warm-up fight, and the writers didn't want that. Their goal was for this episode, and particular those scenes, to be about the primary League members and, especially, Superman vs Darkseid. They made this realization after making Alive (Where Orion appeared) so they just had him vanish from the scene in Destroyer. As for the absence of Big Barda and Mr. Miracle, technically they were never in the League at all. Flimsy, I know, especially since we got a scene of Hawkman and he was also never in the League, but for that I don't know of any Word of God.
    • Point of fact, Hawkman may not have been a full member, but he was an auxilliary member, as mentioned in one of his spotlight episodes.
    • Actually, no he wasn't. He was an independent hero who sometimes crossed paths with the League. This was made fairly clear in the second episode he appears in, he shows up pursuing Gentleman Ghost who Lantern was also pursuing(and fighting him alone, initially), then aids Lantern(who was not expecting his aid), then departs separately once the fight is over while telling GL to "Tell Shayera I said hello". GL then complains to Shayera on the Watchtower that "I ran into your boyfriend again". Then if you notice in Destroyer, every JL member who was shown on earth is shown suiting up, then being teleported to the battle sites, including flyers like Fire, Stargirl and Stripe. Yet when it shows Hawkman, it shows him ing up then flying off under his own power(with no battle visible outside the window he left from), and never being picked up via teleporter. I assume he was shown either because one of the creative team was a Hawkman fan and wanted to get him into the episode, or because it was a deliberate effort on their part to show that even NON-League heroes (Hawkman and Huntress being 2 we see in universe) were fighting as well.
• When Darkseid was holding Superman by the neck during their battle, they were looking each other in the eyes. Why didn't Superman just use his heat vision to melt out Darkseid's eyes? I'd love to see the Tiger-Force of the universe try to vaporize anyone when he can't even see.
  • Aside from being far too gory, even pissed off "will absolutely murder you" Superman is a far cry from the unhinged Lord Superman. Mongul, who Superman was willing to attack in such a fashion, got a burn somewhere it wouldn't be immediately fatal. Darkseid is a step up on the list, but Superman is still going to wince about frying the dude's eyeballs.
    • Real Superman tried it against Doomsday in 'The Doomsday Sanction'. So clearly he's not entirely above it. Though Doomsday was beating him like a ragdoll while Doomsday was still mostly gloating and Superman clearly had far more left in the tank here. But Darkseid is ultimately a much bigger threat to the world and universe than Doomsday. Darkseid has armies and will conquer worlds (plural) and will actively hunt and enslave people. Doomsday has no way to leave Earth and doesn't seem smart or patient enough to force someone to build him a ship. His only purpose is to kill Superman so even if he went on killing after finishing off Superman instead of wandering out into the desert with no purpose at all he's still more like a hurricane that may strike your town at any time and kill hundreds, maybe thousands of people than Darksied who is deliberately malicious.
  • A better question would be why Darkseid didn't do it to Superman. Superman may not cruel enough, but Darkseid sure as hell is.
• Right before Superman's infamous World of Cardboard Speech, Batman tackles Darkseid from behind... and Darkseid is knocked slightly off balance. Why? If Darksied is so strong that it takes Superman going all out to stop him, shouldn't Batman have just bounced off Darksied's back?
  • Because weight and inertia are still things. Darkseid is strong, but we don't know what his actual mass is. If Batman can catch Superman off-guard and judo toss him across the room, then Darkseid can be knocked slightly off balance when something he wasn't expecting leaps onto his back.