Headscratchers / Justice League Unlimited S 3 E 6 Dead Reckoning

• What on mighty Highfather made Grodd think that turning the entire planet into apes would have been a good thing?
  • Because that vast majority of Earth is designed to function for people with human proportions. Turning everyone into apes would plunge the world into easily exploited chaos while also providing a more appealing world to rule for Grodd.
  • I feel like Grodd's plan was meant to be intentionally played as a kind of cliche 'dumb' villian plot. It's the same as when a some 80s old school villain wants to destroy the world despite there being no obvious benefit for them because the show doesn't acknowledge the real world consequences or offer any real explanation. As for in-show reasons, I'm guessing Grodd just would prefer to rule apes rather than humans. I mean, he made Luthor steal the Spear of Longinus simply because he thought it would 'look good' in his office, so he's kinda flippant.
  • Grodd has also shown himself to be prejudiced against humans, considering gorillas superior in every way. There were traces of all of Gorilla City's population feeling that way in "The Brave and the Bold," with Solovar first calling Flash a "dirty human" and the other gorillas being surprised at the League being willing to help them out. As such, it makes sense that Grodd would want to rule over a planet full of the species he prefers.
• Why would Grodd's Devolution Device work on Superman? The device is explicitly stated to re-write human DNA, and Supes is of course an alien. (Wonder Woman, while a child of the gods, is still technically human.)
  • Superman has never been shown to possess any physiology different to regular humans in any media. His powers are a result of chemistry, not biology.
    • Kryptonians superficially resemble humans enough to pass for one on casual inspection, but pretty much every version acknowledges some profound physiological differences. At the very minimum, it's been suggested that they have denser, stronger muscles, bones and skin because Krypton had much higher gravity than earth. In more extreme variants, Kryptonian DNA doesn't even have the same basic structure as earth DNA. So Grodd's gizmo shouldn't work on Superman, or if it did then every organism (or at the least every animal) on earth should have been affected.

Morality

• It's apparently an absolutely horrible thing that at the end Deadman was forced to take a life to save Wonder Woman. Why? Was he expected to just stand there and watch? What would that have done to the monks' precious 'balance'? And if it's terrible that he used Batman's body to do it (which isn't what the monks and that goddess focus on) then again, what was he supposed to do? If the show wanted to send a message about how heroes shouldn't kill, then why did they force in a situation that was morally ambiguous at most?
  • Really. The Master even told Deadman it was his fate to avenge the Master's death. If killing was off the table he really should have made that a little clearer. Mystic wisdom is all well and good, but sometimes Poor Communication Kills, or at least really messes up your karma.
  • Might be a Space Whale Aesop: the dead should not kill the living. Would set a dangerous precedent.
  • Well he could have possessed Wonder Woman and parried the shot with those bracers of hers...
  • Might be tricky for someone without her skills and experience. I wouldn't want to try it for the first time against live ammo.
• Where is it ever said that it was an "absolutely horrible thing" that Deadman killed him? Batman didn't like it, but Batman is pathologically against killing and using guns in general, and it was his hand that did the killing, even if he wasn't in control. As for the monks and the goddess, well, they're supposed to be ideal pacifists. There were other things he could've done—had Batman shout a warning to the super-fast woman who can block it with her bracers, for instance.
  • The monks may believe in non-aggression but they're obviously not pacifists. They were willing to fight to defend their temple. Even if they didn't intend to kill, any sensible person should know there's never a guarantee that no one will die once the fighting starts.
• Is there any particular reason he couldn’t have just possessed Devil Ray?
  • The Legion included a sorceress capable of kicking Deadman out of the body he was possessing and binding him even as a ghost. For all he knew, she might have cast some kind of anti-possession spell on her remaining teammates.
• A bullet would kill Wonder Woman? Remember when she beat Superman in a fist fight. (Okay, he gave up after he realized they had been tricked into fighting but that was only after she hit him in a way that brought up his reflection. Would a handgun even hurt her?
  • Yes. She's ridiculously tough, but ordinary attacks can hurt her. She's even been shot (once).
  • There's a reason that she blocks incoming bullets with her bracelets instead of just tanking them.
  • Not to mention that Superman stopped fighting Wonder Woman long before "she hit him in a way that brought up his reflection". As soon as he realized his opponent was Diana, he stopped fighting back and tried to talk some sense into her to no avail.
  • Well, not a hit so much a hit as a choke hold. Seeing the two of them reflected in a fountain was what allowed Superman to recognize that the "demon" he was fighting was actually Wonder Woman. He then maneuvered her to where she could see him in a mirror and that's what broke the spell for her as well.
• Out of universe, the reason for that was probably so they could use Deadman again despite the episode implying he was about to get absolution. In universe, the league for one didn't know the context of the situation. They just assumed Deadman possessed Batman and killed in cold blooded revenge. And has said above, the spirits are absolute pacifists so his punishment is... maintaining the status quo so they could potentially use the character again.
  • That doesn't explain the goddess' reasoning.

---