Characters / Justice League Cadmus

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Project Cadmus

Project Cadmus

Departmental heads of Project Cadmus, sans Doctor Moon: (left to right) Emil Hamilton, Amanda Waller, Dr. Hugo Strange, General Wade Eiling, and Tala.

Batman: Project Cadmus is in the business of developing weapons, specifically to fight us.

J'onn J'onzz: They're worried we've grown too powerful, and they want to even the odds.

Project Cadmus, often referred to as simply Cadmus, was a secret division of the United States government dedicated to countering the power of metahumans in the world, particularly the members of the Justice League.

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• Cape Busters: The basic purpose of Cadmus is to create countermeasures should the metahumans of Earth, especially the Justice League, go rogue and present a danger to civilization.
• Cloak and Dagger: Cadmus is so secret that they're not even in the government budget — they're funded purely under the table, and primarily by Luthor. The President is the only government official who seems to know they exist and allows them to act with impunity until their acts prove too harmful to the US government.
• Composite Character: This version of Cadmus is a combination of the comics version, the Suicide Squad (which appeared in the series as its real name Task Force X in the comics) and Checkmate.
• Cosmopolitan Council: The high-ranking members, seen in the image above.
• Create Your Own Villain: Rather than focusing on preventive measures in case the League went too far — which was Cadmus' brief — they seem more interested in provoking an incident in order to "prove" that the League was a threat. This may be partially due to Luthor's initial influence as a controlling member.
  • It might also have to do with the fact that Cadmus projects are expensive and they would need indications that the League was Jumping Off the Slippery Slope to justify their existence and purpose. It's not that different from the many organizations that ran on government funding during the Cold War, many of them exaggerating the scale of the threat to justify their existence.
  • None of Cadmus' attempts to design superheroes utterly loyal to the government worked, at least not initially - instead they produced Volcana, the Royal Flush Gang, Doomsday and the rebellious generation of Ultimen. The closest they had to full success was Hamilton's creature Galatea - and even she went rogue when Waller tried to call her off.
• Gaslighting: What they and Luthor try and do to the League in general, and Superman in particular. Goad them into acting belligerently only to expose them to the world as acting irrationally, making them doubt their convictions and dividing them within. Luthor's scheme with Lexor City and forcing Superman and Captain Marvel into a Let's You and Him Fight situation was a masterful display and the Question notes that if Luthor becomes President, Superman and the League could follow their Justice Lord counterparts into becoming Knight Templars:
  The Question: I went to kill Luthor so that you wouldn't be able to.
  Superman: That's not how we do things.
  Question: How do we do things, Superman? Your counterpart killed Luthor, this Luthor is scheming to enrage you...
  Superman: Doing a pretty good job of it.
  The Question: Ruining your reputation, turning your friends and comrades against you, creating a superpowered arms race, but you cannot succumb!
  Superman: I can shut down Cadmus without killing Luthor.
  The Question: Carry on, then. If you're wrong, it's not like it's the end of the world, right?
• Gone Horribly Wrong: Absolutely NOTHING that Cadmus gets involved in goes right, especially if it's for the purpose of their mission to "counter the League should it go rogue."
• Greater-Scope Villain: According to former associate General Hardcastle, Cadmus has been the instigator of many metahuman conflicts across various Timm-verse series, from Superman rogues Volcana and Doomsday to the Joker's Royal Flush Gang in their bid to experiment with metahumans for power and profit.
• Hero Antagonist: Their motives are good intentioned, but it does not stop them for being no better than the super villains the Justice League defend their kind from.
  Superman: How can you work for these people? Do you know what they are?
  Emil Hamilton: Power brokers, politicians, criminals, and black-ops mercenaries with one thing in common. Besides, they're humanity's last hope against your kind.
• Hijacked by Ganon: For as much of a persistent antagonistic force they are to the Justice League, Cadmus winds up just being yet another group of pawns for Lex Luthor to easily manipulate in what is essentially yet another of his insane, high-concept career supervillain schemes.
• Hypocrite: Despite all its posturing on the threat of metahumans and the danger the Justice League presents, Cadmus callously creates metahuman monsters and threats far more dangerous than the Justice League as part of a self-centered plan to use alien and metahuman paraphernalia for national security and profit, and are willing to kill anyone who gets in their way.
• Improperly Paranoid: Played with: even with perfect evidence that a Justice League going wrong is a major threat in the Justice Lords, with characters trying to say that they may be right, Cadmus in the end is too prone at jumping at shadows and taking extremely stupid measures.
• Irony: Cadmus creates a team of cloned superheroes to combat the League in the event that they go rogue, but plots to have them killed and replaced by a new batch when they turn out to be unstable. What do the clones do when they find out? Yep, you guessed it: they go rogue, and the League has to save the day.
• Karma Houdini: The actions that Cadmus is directly and indirectly responsible for, which include illegal cloning, assassinations (of US governmental and military personnel no less), torturing the Question, seeding conflict between Superman and Captain Marvel, creating a Person of Mass Destruction like Doomsday with incompetent oversight, and unilaterally launching a nuclear warhead at an inhabited island, should have been enough to send them to lifetime imprisonment. Instead most of the surviving members walk away with the equivalent of a slap on the wrist. Lampshaded by Amanda Waller telling Eiling that they barely escaped from justified punishment as it is and he has no grounds to start acting like a Sore Loser.
• Muggle Power: The big reason Cadmus fears the League and stands against them is because the League is predominantly metahumans; in Cadmus' eyes, at least, they champion the non-meta members of humanity
• My Country, Right or Wrong: The basic principle of Cadmus is essentially "The US Government may have its flaws, may have its dirty laundry, but it is the best government we have and so it must be championed, strengthened and protected from anyone who would try to undermine or replace it — especially metahumans who think they can do it better."
• Necessarily Evil: They're willing to do morally dubious to outright illegal things if it's necessary to protect America against a League gone rogue.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: "Hero" used very loosely. Nice job keeping those Dark Heart robots (that nearly ate Earth) in storage instead of letting the League toss them into the Sun to prevent a repeat. Now Luthor/Braniac found themselves powerful upgrade materials.
• Not Helping Your Case: Cadmus seems to do a wonderful job of undermining their legitimacy whenever they appear, coming off as more dangerous than the League is. Yes, the League could conquer the world if they wanted. But Cadmus has:
  • Created Doomsday, an insane and deformed clone of Superman, who went on a mindless rampage of destruction.
  • Attempted to nuke an inhabited island with a Kryptonite-fueled atomic missile in order to get rid of Doomsday and Superman in one fell swoop.
  • Created Galatea, a clone of Supergirl, and used her as an assassin to further their own ends, including murdering US civilians and defense personnel, before she went rogue (due to going insane over being a clone) in turn.
  • Genetically engineered their own superhuman team, the Ultimen, who then went rogue and attacked Cadmus after learning that A: they were genetically unstable and going to die shortly, and B: Cadmus had decided it'd be more expedient to simply kill the first batch of Ultimen and replace them with a fresh batch of clones.
  • Employed a Suicide Squad of convicts to infiltrate the Watchtower and steal a dangerous piece of magical gear the League has locked up so that it can be kept away from people who might try to misuse it. And in the very next episode, that magical item has been...stolen from Cadmus by someone who misuses it, specifically by using it to take over the Underworld, and which throws the entire balance of the cosmos out of whack.
  • Working with Lex Luthor, who ultimately (and unsurprisingly) betrays and nearly murders all of them, and siphons tech from them that he almost successfully uses to become an invincible god.
  • Takes possession of The Dark Heart from the Justice League, only to have it stolen by Brainiac and Luthor later who nearly destroy the world with it.
• Properly Paranoid: Their fear the League might go rogue is not entirely unreasonable: after all Superman was temporarily brainwashed by Darkseid and then of course there are the Justice Lords in another world.
• Redemption Rejection: Cadmus members Eiling and Tala, following the organization's change of heart, could have just walked away and become the League's allies, like how Waller stopped going Inspector Javert after seeing the good in them, but instead Eiling continues to oppose them in "Patriot Act," even going so as far to turn into a metahuman himself, while Tala goes back to being a supervillainess by being a member of the Legion of Doom.
• Retool: They were formed after Superman was brainwashed by Darkseid, and their original mission was to combat Superman in case he ever went rogue again. When the government found out about the Justice Lords, Cadmus simply widen its scope to take out the other heroes as well.
• To Catch Heroes, Hire Villains: Project Cadmus is a government organisation aimed at creating pre-emptive measures should the Justice League go rogue. It is largely composed of supervillains and is funded by Lex Luthor.
• Turned Against Their Masters: Every. Single. Cadmus. Metahuman.
  • Doomsday does exactly what Cadmus wanted him to (try to kill Superman), but he got released early and tried to kill Superman while he was busy evacuating an island that suffered a volcanic eruption.
  • The Ultimen are the straightest example, going rogue after they realize how Cadmus has been using them.
  • Galatea stayed with them for a while, but eventually went rogue when Waller tried to call her off.
• Victorious Loser: Cadmus ended up failing its mission, compromising its goals and with most of its participants disgraced. Yet, in so far as Waller's goal was to serve as some check-and-balance against a N.G.O. Superpower, they did succeed in making the League aware of how powerful they had become, remind them of their Slave to PR responsibilities, and prove that dangerous technology like a BFG Kill Sat can be easily hacked by someone of sufficient motivation and skill (Luthor). In the end, after defeating Brainthor, Superman admits the League was guilty of hubris and that from then on they build a base on earth, allow a government liaison to review their work and limit and regulate their roster so that not everyone is on full-time duty.
• Villain Has a Point: The League does have tremendous power, being the primary gathering of metahumans on the planet, and could drastically alter the political and literal landscape if they were so inclined. Although Cadmus' methodology shoots itself in the foot time and time again with its choices in how to react, their underlying fears are grounded enough that at least two of the League's primary Badass Normal members, Batman and Green Arrow, both end up conceding Cadmus has legitimate concerns.
  Waller: We started to wonder what would happen if you took the same action that the Justice Lords did, so I had my people run some computer simulations. If the Justice League ever went rogue, what do you think would be the result?
  Batman: That's moot.
  Waller: Humor me. In every single scenario, you'd beat us. Badly. It only took seven of you to overthrow the government in an alternate universe. But that was before Cadmus; now we have the technology to defend ourselves.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: Theoretically, they mean well, and their fears are legitimate enough to warrant acknowledgement In-Universe and out, but the lengths they go to in order to achieve their goals are, well...
• Wrong Genre Savvy: Being operated by several Cold War veterans, Cadmus treats their dispute with the Justice League like they were in a cynical espionage thriller with an enemy just as underhanded as they are, who if goaded will reveal themselves as such. Its not until Luthor uses this paranoia against them that they —Waller especially— recognize the League wasn't the threat they believed them, or perhaps wanted them, to be.

Amanda Waller

Amanda Waller

Voiced by: C.C.H. Pounder

Appearances: Justice League Unlimited

"You know, the Lord's been a great comfort to me all these years. Try not to look so surprised. Yeah, I've got a lot to answer for when I meet Him, but I'd like to believe that for all the harm I've caused, I've also done some good. Maybe the angels need a sharp sword too."

Amanda Waller serves as the Director of Cadmus, with a direct line to the President of the United States.

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• Adaptational Nice Guy: Amanda Waller is very ruthless, but she's not unreasonable and certainly isn't as sociopathic as her comic book counterpart. In her autumn years, long after the closing of Cadmus, she declares that she openly admires Batman for his work and started Project Batman Beyond to ensure that the world would always have a Batman, which directly led Terry McGinnis to be Bruce Wayne's genetic son and later admits her faults in her decisions while encouraging Terry to live a more fulfilling life than Bruce. She became a bit nicer after the Cadmus arc and tried (unsuccessfully) to talk Eiling out of his extremism in "Patriot Act". Downplayed in that her comic book counterpart was generally a Jerk with a Heart of Gold during the classic run of the Suicide Squad comics, only become more sociopathic when other writers took over.
• Anti-Villain: Waller, being more antagonistic of the League, is a Type 3. She does some pretty shady things, but never truly crosses the line.
• The Atoner: She becomes this after realizing Luthor was manipulating her the whole time.
• Badass Boast: She personally goes to apprehend Lex Luthor after he betrays her, destroying his work with a BFG of his own design that she picked up along the way. When Lex sneeringly asks if she genuinely believes that she can take him down on her own, she gives a Blunt "Yes" and reveals that she brought the League—not to help, but as her backup. If not for the superpowers neither of them knew he had at the time, she'd have been right.
• Badass Normal: She doesn't have any superpowers of her own, and several members of Cadmus do—but she's clearly the boss, by virtue of her intelligence, strength, and grit. She's even willing to go toe-to-toe with the fusion of Lex Luthor and Brainiac, claiming that she only brought the League for backup.
• Black Boss Lady: And proud of it.
• Break Them by Talking: Batman confronts her in her bathroom and starts his usual intimidation tactics. This is her response...and Batman can't find a single hole in her logic. (They later disagree, very strongly, about acceptable means to the end.)
• Card-Carrying Villain: Deconstructed. She's not deluded of her own unethical actions and doesn't even try to deny them, outright stating that she'll have a lot to account for when she meets God at her final judgment. She's also firmly aware that she's a Well-Intentioned Extremist, often saying "I Did What I Had to Do". Ultimately, Waller possesses the self-awareness of a Card Carrying Villain without delighting in her own villainy.
• Cool Old Lady: She is this in "Epilogue". Terry is a little surprised to discover this, to say the least.
• Crazy-Prepared: Waller is always in control, largely because she comes prepared for anything. She has contingency plans for every given situation, even showing a willingness to sacrifice herself if it means defeating a particularly strong villain. It's also demonstrated in "The Doomsday Sanction," where her first action upon waking up in the morning is to immediately check the bank of security cameras she has playing in her bedroom—before she gets out from under the covers.
• Create Your Own Hero: An Anti-Villain invoked version. Having come to respect Batman and knowing that his twilight years were fast approaching, she conspired to have Warren McGinnis' reproductive DNA replaced with Bruce Wayne's so he could conceive Wayne's son, and then ordered him and his wife assassinated in order to recreate the sequence of events that turned Wayne into Batman. It would ultimately be subverted and then downplayed when the assassin got cold feet out of respect for Batman's legacy, but cruel fate saw Warren murdered years later and Terry become Batman anyway.
• Everyone Has Standards: Even during her time as an antagonist to the League she had lines she wouldn't cross. She was notably horrified when she learned that Eiling had fired a missile with a Kryptonite-powered nuclear warhead at an island intending to kill Superman and Doomsday along with wiping out the drug trade on the island, collateral civilian damage be damned.
• Foil: To Batman, which is likely why they share the most screen time. Both lack powers but make up for it with sheer determination and spine; Bruce Wayne was born into great wealth and lost his parents at a young age, while Waller was born into abject poverty and (if this incarnation has the same history as her comic counterpart) lost her husband and children as an adult; Bruce is a muscular white man, and Amanda is a fat Black woman; Bruce has developed secret failsafes against all the other League members, while Waller also distrusts the League and works against them; Bruce insists on working outside the law as Batman but relies on the police for aid, while Waller represents the law while leaning on illegal activities and funding.
• General Ripper: She disobeys a direct order from the President and launches a full-fledged assault on the Watch Tower.
• Genre Blindness: Though she's savvy enough to know Luthor is a snake not to be trusted, she misjudges his motives and doesn't scrutinize him too hard.
• Graceful Loser: When Project Cadmus is disbanded, she (unlike General Eiling) takes it well, realizing that Cadmus screwed up big time and they were lucky to not all get arrested.
• Heel–Faith Turn: Although it isn't clear if Waller was always religious, but upon old age she begins to show faith in God and admits that her faith helped her through her later years. Part of her argument to console Terry is to tell him that God gave him free will, and that for better or worse he is the one that gets to decide his path.
• Heel Realization:
  • While she doesn't entirely change her beliefs about the necessities of Cadmus' purpose, she does admit that she exaggerated the League as a threat and she tries to convince Wade Eiling that they were mistaken about the League:
    "Our enemies are never as evil as we imagine, and maybe we're never quite as good."
  • She also has this upon the failure of Project Batman Beyond, she ordered an assassin to kill the parents of Terry McGinnis and set him up to take the role of Batman completely. It is only when the assassin has a change of heart does Waller realize that having Terry's parents killed intentionally would violate everything that Batman stood for.
• Hero Antagonist: Well, more like Anti-Hero Antagonist given her methods, but she believes in by putting the League under her watchful eye would benefit in helping humanity for protection.
• Horrible Judge of Character: Aside from the Genre Blindness above, there's also the fact that her organization includes a nut who decided to use a special nuclear missile to kill Superman and Doomsday along with the rest of the island's population. She's not pleased to hear this.
  • Lampshaded by Waller herself after Batman warns her to not trust Luthor. "I knew he was a snake and I still let him bite me."
• I Did What I Had to Do: This is how she justifies a good deal of her actions with Cadmus—someone had to hold the League accountable, and she was willing to do it, even if it meant bending the law, developing a league of supervillains, or outright ordering murders.
• Inspector Javert: Initially towards the League, due to them being a threat to humanity. Waller is more of a Hero Antagonist in comparison to her other colleagues despite using underhanded methods.
• Iron Lady: So iron, she stands up to Superman, Wonder Woman, and Aquaman at the same time upon her first introduction, chews out the Goddamn Batman, and personally confronts Lex Luthor in his lair upon discovering his treachery.
• Irony: Waller fails to see any irony in any of the things she and the rest of Cadmus does, even though their actions constantly bite them in the ass.
• Karma Houdini: She planned to murder Terry's parents but doesn't face repercussions, not even from Terry, other than Andrea Beaumont ultimately telling her off to her face when she refuses to carry out the hit.
• Laser-Guided Karma: Being a Well-Intentioned Extremist, she was ruthless and funded Task Force X to have disposable supervillains to make the dirty work...when she retires, she is so Lonely at the Top she welcomes Terry McGinnis' intrusion into her own home as a distraction from her lonely life. She herself believes that she will have to answer to God for all she did.
• My God, What Have I Done?: While she still thinks Cadmus did some good in the end, eventually Waller feels almost nothing but guilt and shame over her actions with the organization.
• Never Hurt an Innocent: To a certain extent. While she's perfectly willing to treat the unwilling Ultimen flash clones as weapons more than people and has no problem treating just about anyone in Cadmus this way she draws the line at civilians - namely the people she's committed to protecting. She's aghast when she learns that Eiling ordered a missile strike at an island full of civilians so that he could kill Superman and Doomsday along with wiping out the local drug trade.
• Noble Demon: Though she's an Anti-Villain with no love for the League, she has a personal code of ethics that she won't bend. When she discovers that Luthor betrayed her, she immediately orders Galatea and the Ultimen to call off their attack on the Watchtower (Galatea refuses to do so because It's Personal to her). Later, when the League narrowly defeats the Luthor-Brainiac fusion, she calls someone in Washington, D.C. and tells them to have the President "call off the bombs"—meaning she arranged for an airstrike to destroy Brainthor and was perfectly willing to be there when it happened, sacrificing her own life to atone for her mistake.
• Not So Stoic: Despite maintaining an unflinching face against Batman as she explained her own motivations, Waller was clearly shaken after talking to him, though she held in her fear until he had left.
• Older and Wiser: In "Epilogue", she admits she's got a lot to answer for and gives Terry - a.k.a. Batman's direct successor - some sage advice on how to live a better life than Bruce did.
• Pet the Dog: Goes out of her way to commend Rick Flagg for Task Force X's successful mission and tells him his father would be proud.
• Reformed, but Not Tamed: By "Patriot Act," her anti-League sentiment has mellowed considerably, and she's more willing to admit that Cadmus isn't exactly saintly. But when Wade Eiling worries that she's gone soft—"Don't tell me the bleeding hearts in Congress got to you"—Waller smirks and says "I eat 'em for breakfast," showing that she's still the same hard-nosed person as before. And her newfound appreciation for Batman drove her to have two innocent parents killed just to make another child into Batman.
• Scary Black Woman: She's a sort of gender-flipped Nick Fury. But not as warm and fuzzy.
• Secret Secret-Keeper: She is aware of Batman's Secret Identity (and it's implied she probably knows the other heroes' identities too) and has mentioned that she could blow the whistle on him if she wanted. How she found out is never shown, but considering her job it probably involved government spies. And the fact that Cadmus includes Dr. Hugo Strange, who in an earlier episode of Batman: The Animated Series unearthed Batman's identity, Bruce discredited him in front of Gordon and fellow super-villains but Waller was obviously a more sympathetic ear.
• Smug Snake: Towards Batman initially and to the League overall, she taunted Batman over her knowledge of his secret identity and pointed out about the Justice Lords incident inspiring Cadmus to be formed. She also believed how Cadmus are better defenders then the Justice League and being Crazy-Prepared in case the metahumans go rogue, despite her attempts to prove her organization's might backfires, including trusting Luthor. She would later subvert this when she goes Badass Normal on Brainiac fused with Luthor.
• Surrounded by Idiots: She often expresses irritation and frustration at her supporters in Cadmus and you can make a pretty good case she's justified. Aside from her, there's Eiling, a General Ripper, frustrated ex-supervillains like Milo and Tala, with the only other remotely competent members being Hamilton and Rick Flagg. Most of Cadmus' more stupid actions came outside her direct orders, namely unleashing Doomsday and Eiling's nuke to the island. Of course, this is what happens when you form an organization of former supervillains with a grudge against the League. Batman for his part, deals solely with her and doesn't take anybody else in Cadmus seriously at all.
• Token Wholesome: One of the rare examples of a female comic book character who is not a Ms. Fanservice, Amanda is fairly overweight and dresses conservatively.
• Took a Level in Kindness: It says a lot about Waller when she comforts Terry about being Bruce's son. She tells him that despite the circumstances of his birth; Terry is not a clone but that he is Bruce's son; and that whatever circumstances life gives him he will always have the freedom to choose his path. The best part of this is that it allows Terry to move on past his doubts; and to continue being the Batman.
• Turn to Religion: The Batman Beyond future shows that she found religion sometime after retiring from her job as a government spook. She claims to find it comforting to believe that someone will eventually hold her accountable for the things she did as the head of Task Force X.
• Villain Has a Point: Occurs In-Universe in "The Doomsday Sanction." Batman challenges her anti-League stance, but Waller snaps that a group of incredibly powerful metahumans not beholden to any oversight and armed with a giant laser cannon in their planet-orbiting spaceship could destroy the entire planet if they ever go bad. She also rightfully reminds him that the Justice Lords, a Knight Templar Alternate Universe version of the League, were able to completely overpower the U.S. government and turn the world into a giant police state in a matter of days. It's notable that Batman himself can't come up with a counterargument to Waller's views, instead conceding her points (and, as later episodes show, adopting them himself to a degree) and leaving her without getting the last word—something he never does.
  Batman: Whatever you think you're doing, if you present a threat to the world, the Justice League will take you down.
  Waller: If we present a threat? You've got a space ship floating over our heads with a laser weapon pointing down! In another dimension, seven of you overthrew the government and assassinated the President! We're the good guys, protecting our country from a very real threat: you!
• Well-Intentioned Extremist:
  • Her motive is to give ordinary people a fighting chance if the League decides the world would be better off with them running it. Her methods are more...debatable. There's also the fact that Lex has his own nefarious purposes for backing Cadmus's activities, and is ready to betray Waller and the organization as soon as he no longer needs them.
  • She also decides many years after the events of JLU that Batman—who is slowly starting to show signs of aging—needs to continue protecting Gotham, so she takes it upon herself to partially-clone Bruce Wayne's DNA, find an unwitting surrogate mother to unknowingly carry it, and then manipulate circumstances to push the resultant child towards becoming a new Batman. She looks back with a few regrets, but not many:
    Waller (at age ninety): You know, the Lord's been a great comfort to me all these years. Yeah, I've got a lot to answer for when I meet Him, but I'd like to believe that for all the harm I've caused, I've also done some good. Maybe the angels need a sharp sword too.
• Worthy Opponent: Over the course of the conflict between the Justice League and Cadmus, she came to have a great deal of respect for Batman, who philosophically understood her points, while presenting his own valid ones to counter, as well as being an intellectual equal. Her respect became so great that of all the members of the Justice League, she felt that he, most of all, needed to have a successor to carry on his legacy.
• Would Hurt a Child: "Epilogue" shows that Waller made a specific order to kill Ace (a teenaged metahuman) and planned to psychologically traumatized a young Terry in hopes of making another Batman.

Wade Eiling

General Wade Eiling

Voiced by: J. K. Simmons

Appearances: Justice League Unlimited

Gen. Eiling serves as the military director of Cadmus. Since actual military operations are rare within the organization, he more generally appears as Amanda Waller's right hand man, aiming for practical matters that even surprise her. After the fall of Cadmus as it was, Eiling decides to be more hands on and turns himself into a metahuman to directly fight the League.

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• Adaptational Heroism: The original Eiling was a corrupt military general who performed the inhumane experiments that transformed Nathaniel Adams into Captain Atom before forcing Adams to go into hiding while Eiling married Adams' wife, and that was before he went off the deep end and became an outright supervillain. He's definitely a brutal Knight Templar here, but most of his worse actions were excised and he's portrayed as someone who truly believes he's a Well-Intentioned Extremist and has some Pet the Dog moments. Comic Eiling went insane when he became the Shaggy Man and turned into a bloodthirsty monster, but Animated Eiling, after his own transformation, remains lucid enough to not target his former soldiers and eventually has a Heel Realization and stops his rampage of his own accord.
• Bald of Evil: Doesn't qualify for this trope at first but as he becomes more evil bit by bit he begins to fall into it.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: He seemed like a Reasonable Authority Figure in his first appearance, but his confiscation of dangerous alien tech for military experimentation showed his true colors.
• Bait the Dog: Eiling's first appearance has him acting as a Frontline General who is willing to gracefully accept the Justice League's help to evacuate civilians and hold off a threat against his men. While he expresses frustration at finding out the League has a secret Kill Sat they never told anyone about, he voices relatively polite and reasonable reasons for this feeling. Then, at the end of the episode, Eiling takes custody of a dangerous alien weapon that he should really know better than to tinker with. His next appearance has him embracing the General Ripper and Fantastic Racism tropes.
• Deadpan Snarker: Especially after becoming the General. He spends most of his battle against the League's Badass Normals mocking them.
• Four-Star Badass: Aspires to be this.
• General Ripper: He's very committed to destroying the Justice League as a threat to America's national interests, though he's still more reasonable than his comic counterpart. He turned himself into a variant of the Shaggy Man (a creature that is almost completely invincible & monstrous) in order to protect America from the League and metahumans in general...and ends up only fighting members of the League without metahuman powers (though the heroes in question have some cool gear) and nearly killing dozens of Americans if not for the members of the League.
• He Who Fights Monsters: Eiling started out simply mistrusting the League, but eventually went to conspiracy-joining levels just like Hardcastle. Goes right into this after taking the Captain Nazi serum. In a variation, however, he stops his ensuing rampage when Metropolis' citizens point this out to him.
• Heel Realization: Has one in "Patriot Act", after his drive to protect humanity from the super powered heroes leads him to gaining super powers and thrashing several human heroes without powers. He even lampshades it:
  Eiling: Alright, I've become what I hate. I'll give you that.
• HULK MASH!-Up: He starts off as an Alternate Company Equivalent to Hulk supporting character "Thunderbolt" Ross. In the Unlimited episode "Patriot Act", he injects himself with an old Captain Nazi's Super-Soldier serum which transforms him into a Grey Hulk expy—a grey-skinned hulking beast that remains somewhat sane, lucid, and able to talk properly. This, in turn, makes him more of an Expy to Red Hulk.
• Hypocrite: He goes after the Justice League because he believes metahumans are dangerous to his country and the world and can't be trusted. He ends up breaking into Cadmus base while beating up and threatening staff members along the way, becoming a metahuman himself, and goes after a group of heroes who aren't, putting many civilians in danger, causing huge amounts of property damage, and nearly killing a child who tried to stop him in the process despite preaching how much the Justice League were a threat to humanity. When a nearby civilian points out that he's the only one at the site of the battle with powers, he concedes the kid's point and leaves, and is not seen again.
• Inspector Javert: Given his Adaptational Heroism, he still opposes the League in "Patriot Act", though its out of care of national security.
• Ink-Suit Actor: He looks different from his comic book counterpart. His appearance and mannerisms are a giveaway to his voice actor.
• Invincible Villain: After he turns into a monster, the League members present can barely slow him down. In the end, it's a Badass Bystander who gets him to go away by making him realize his own hypocrisy.
• Jerkass Has a Point: He's not comfortable with the League having a Wave-Motion Gun in their space station, that nobody knows about until they activate it.
• Karma Houdini: Played With. With Cadmus dissolved, Eiling is moved to a desk-based job but faces no real consequences for all of his actions including trying to nuke San Baquero. However, while many of Cadmus's other officials keep their heads down and move on, Eiling takes the super serum to continue his crusade against the League. Though he's never captured, Eiling essentially went rogue from the government giving up his job and all the legal protections that came with it and becoming a fugitive.
• Kicked Upstairs: He becomes a pencil pusher after Cadmus is disbanded. He doesn't take it well.
• Lightning Bruiser: Eiling becomes this after turning into a Hulk-like grey-skinned brute, with strength high enough to trounce whatever came his way and being fast enough to outmaneuver and quickly pace his enemies. He could also jump vast distances to travel.
• Might Makes Right: Eiling certainly believes this, decrying idealistic aspects of honor and consideration for lives as pointless in the name of dominance while saying any attempt at helping others has no significant value. He's also shown that he's more than willing to destroy innocents in the name of "acceptable losses" including heroes trying to help them.
  Eiling: In this world, power is the only thing that matters. You, and those other no-named heroes, you're just people. In the great scheme of things, nothing you do has the least bit of significance.
• No-Sell: This becomes his automatic mode after taking the Captain Nazi serum.
• Pet the Dog: After turning into a powerful monster, he holds one of the soldiers that was protecting the lab in his hands but lets him go, as he knows that said soldier was just doing his job.
  Soldier: Don't kill me!
  Eiling: I wouldn't kill you, soldier. You are just doing your job.
• Pragmatic Villainy: Tends to go for the most direct, ruthless, often military, solution to problems. He responds to Waller calling him out on nuking a populated island where Doomsday and Superman were fighting with "We have to sanction Doomsday, we were gonna get to Superman somewhere down the line, and we've been trying to stop drug traffic from San Baquero for years. The way I see it: three birds, one stone." As almost a saving grace, he doesn't even bother to point out Waller had already demanded he do anything needed to put an end to the situation.
• Put on a Bus: After he stops his rampage, following the aforementioned He Who Fights Monsters revelation, he's never seen again, despite emerging from that fight mostly unscathed and not being detained, arrested, or de-powered. He presumably came in very handy for America a short time later, when the world was being invaded by real superhuman villains.
• Shadow Archetype: To Amanda Waller. Both Eiling and Waller fear the power of the Justice League and want measures in place to fight them if they turn their power on the United States. However, Amanda Waller does recognize that the League members are well-intentioned, and is willing to work with them as long as they remain so. Eiling doesn’t care about intentions, as long as there is any power that can rival that of the United States, he wants it destroyed.
• Sociopathic Soldier: He tells Shining Knight that he was a lousy soldier for not following orders to slaughter a village. He generally has little concern for civilian life when defending his country.
• Super-Strength: After taking the Captain Nazi serum.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: Pretty much the same as Waller... except, while she's later willing to admit that she was wrong and take Cadmus's disbanding gracefully, he just gets more set in his extremist ways.
  Eiling: The Justice League is a bigger threat to us now than the Soviets ever were.
  Waller: (shortly after) It's a different world, General...learn to live in it.
• Would Hurt a Child: Tried to kill a child in rage for trying to stop him from killing one of the Justice League members. Not to mention for hitting him with a wrecking ball.
• Wrong Genre Savvy: General Eiling sees himself as the last hope against an army of tyrannical superhumans, and would fit perfectly in a much darker series that deconstructs of the concept of superheroes such as The Boys or The Authority. Unfortunately, he's stuck in a world where most heroes really are just as moral and righteous as they bill themselves.

Tala

Tala

Voiced by: Juliet Landau

Appearances: Justice League Unlimited

Tala serves as the Magic/Mysticism division head, and is the sole female division head. After the collapse of Cadmus, she becomes the right hand of the leader of the Secret Society, whomever that may be.

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• Adaptation Dye-Job: Tala has black hair in the comics. Here, her hair color is purple.
• Adaptational Heroism: She is still a villain, even moreso when she joins Grodd and the Secret Society, but in the comics she is the Arch-Enemy to The Phantom Stranger and a sadistic evil goddess who causes disasters and tries to corrupt people so that they will be damned to Hell, while here she's mostly just a mercenary mage with a poor taste in men.
• Adaptational Wimp: From evil goddess in the comics to every human level villain's girlfriend, rarely acting in her own right.
• Alas, Poor Villain: She gets betrayed repeatedly and then Lex essentially sacrifices her to try and resurrect Braniac. Her efforts to screw the Society over bring back Darkseid.
• All Girls Want Bad Boys: She's always hitting on the worst guy in the room.
• Ascended Extra: She went from being an insignificant character in the Cadmus Arc to The Dragon of the Legion of Doom.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: She's used as a Living Battery until she's disintegrated into nothing.
• Dark Action Girl: Physically weak but a very powerful sorceress.
• The Dragon: Her role in the Legion of Doom.
• Dying Curse: According to Word of God, she may have tampered with Luthor's attempt to revive Brainiac by having Darkseid revived instead as a final form of payback.
• Evil Sorcerer: Her greatest weapon was her knowledge of sorcery, which she could employ in various ways, including a vast knowledge of potion brewing and also but not limited to: teleportation, transmutation and telekinesis.
• Expy: As an amoral human sorceress working with Amanda Waller and supervillains, she has more in common with The Enchantress than the comic book Tala.
• Femme Fatale: She's always seen seducing men.
• Hazy-Feel Turn: Well, she was never a hero to begin with like fellow Cadmus members Drs. Hugo Strange and Milo, but she goes from being a member of a Hero Antagonist Cape Busters government agency to joining a traditional supervillain gang in the final season.
• Humiliation Conga: Things just keep going wrong for Tala. Her work for the government to revive the Annihilator results in her being tricked into being trapped inside a mirror forever. Being set free means she has to become a supervillain and, possibly against her will, winds up in a very weird bestiality-based relationship (remember, Grodd thinks of humans as an inferior species, so he's also having sex with an animal, from his viewpoint). Then her old "boyfriend" gets dumped and she winds up in an abusive relationship with a lunatic (Luthor). And finally she's used as a sacrifice in a bit of mad science-wizardry that annihilates her (and has terrible repercussions).
• Lady of Black Magic: A sultry, powerful sorceress knowledgeable enough in magic to be Division Head of mystical projects.
• Living Battery: Used as this by Lex Luthor to bring back Brainiac, killing her. In fact, Luthor was planning to dispose of her from the beginning.
• Ms. Fanservice: Supermodel Strut, Impossible Hourglass Figure, seductive persona, sexy sorceress, barefoot (if that's your thing), and of course the accent to top it all off.
• Not-So-Harmless Villain: Spends most of her time grovelling before more powerful villains but is deadly when she doesn't get her own way and is a very skilled sorceress.
• Power is Sexy: Why she's attracted to dangerous men.
• Really Gets Around: Felix Faust, Grodd, Luthor, somebody else in Luthor's body...well, okay, that last one wasn't her fault.
• Sensual Slavs: Speaks with a vaguely eastern-European accent. The sensual needs no further explaining.
• Smug Snake: Is easily manipulated and usually ends up failing in the face of more cunning villains or becoming their unwitting pawns.
• Sycophantic Servant: Shamelessly kisses up to Grodd or Luther, whoever is in charge at the moment.
• Underestimating Badassery: Frequently thinks little of her enemies. This usually comes back to haunt her.
• Unwitting Pawn: Her tenure at Cadmus is cut short when Faust uses her to get his hands on the Annihilator armor, trapping Tala in the same mirror he was in.
  • Lex reveals he always intended to use her as a sacrificial conduit for Braniac’s resurrection, even before she released Grodd.
• Woman Scorned: Betrays Luthor for not paying enough attention to her. Not her smartest move. She freed Darkseid instead of Brainiac as the final "screw you" to Lex.
• Wounded Gazelle Gambit: Did she really think claiming "I'm a sick person" was going to work on Luthor? As he puts it, moments before having her executed "I'm a sick person, too".

Emil Hamilton

Dr. Emil Hamilton

Voiced by: Victor Brandt, Robert Foxworth

Dr. Hamilton serves as the Genetics division head. After falling out with Superman due to the Man of Steel's terrible actions at the end of Superman: The Animated Series, Dr. Hamilton turns to a power that he believes can keep the League in check. Galatea is his most prized project, and they have a father-daughter type of relationship.

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See here for more info.

Milo

Dr. Milo

Voiced by: Treat Williams (Batman: The Animated Series), Armin Shimerman (Justice League)

Dr. Milo serves as the Splicing division head. His work was the least successful of each of the divisions. He was killed in his only featured episode after the beginning of the "Bat-Embargo", where characters more central to Batman stopped appearing in case they were to appear on The Batman.

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See here for more info.

Hugo Strange

Dr. Hugo Strange

Voiced by: Ray Buktenica

Dr. Strange serves as the first Psychology division head. He was also written out after the beginning of the "Bat-Embargo", where characters more central to Batman stopped appearing in case they were to appear on The Batman.

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See here for more info.

Dr. Moon

Dr. Moon

Voiced by: Jeffrey Combs (uncredited)

Appearances: Justice League Unlimited

Dr. Moon serves as the second Psychology division head, replacing Dr. Strange.

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• For the Evulz: Would continue to torture, even after receiving information, if it entertained him.
• Torture Technician: Used to attempt to force information out of The Question.

Maxwell Lord

Maxwell Lord

Voiced by: Tim Matheson

Appearances: Justice League Unlimited

Maxwell Lord serves as the manager and public face of the Ultimen, and is less involved with the gritty missions of Cadmus as compared to most officers and agents.

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• Adaptational Heroism: Retroactively. "Ultimatum" aired months before Countdown to Infinite Crisis saw print, and was hence based on his earlier characterization as a somewhat sleazy but at worst morally grey person, rather than his outright dyed-in-the-wool supervillain portrayal from IC onward. While he is complicit in the Ultimen operation, it's only as a team manager and PR consultant.
• Adaptational Wimp: The comic book version of Maxwell Lord was a powerful psychic — this version appears completely human.
• Informed Flaw: Batman claims to know Max Lord personally, and insists that the only thing he cares about is money. All of his actions in this episode seem to run contrary to this.
• Let Them Die Happy: He seems to have this attitude towards his charges, by buffering Cadmus' more sinister intentions towards them.
• Nice Guy: Actually seems to care about the Ultimen, despite knowing their artificial nature. Not that this saves him from their wrath when they turn on him.
• Not Worth Killing: Longshadow persuades the other Ultimen that he's not important enough to kill. "We want the big fish."

Rick Flagg

Colonel Rick Flagg, Jr.

Voiced by: Adam Baldwin

Appearances: Justice League Unlimited

"Some of us don't have to be blackmailed into serving their country."

Colonel Rick Flagg, Jr. is a patriotic officer of the U.S.A who serves as the leader of Task Force X. He is the only non-criminal on the team, a talented hand-to-hand combatant, and a gifted tactician with a profound sense of duty and patriotism.

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• Actor Allusion: This isn't the first time Adam Baldwin plays a high-ranking member of a shady government agency task force on otherworldly missions.
• Badass Normal: He has no powers, yet he can easily fight through the Watchtower. Unarmed.
• Blood Knight: Flagg seems to relish fighting the Justice League.
• Colonel Badass: Manages to go head-to-toe with the League.
• Everyone Has Standards: Despite expressing distaste for having to work with criminals, he nevertheless shows concern for them on the mission. He is especially disgusted when Deadshot sacrifices Plastique just so they can make their getaway.
• Hero Antagonist: Given he is the Token Good Teammate who was Just Following Orders out of patriotism for his country, Rick Flagg technically act as this towards the Justice League.
• Inspector Javert: He's a patriotic American military officer who's also a staunch Hero Antagonist towards the Justice League.
• Meaningful Name: Lampshaded by Deadshot.
• My Country, Right or Wrong: Will do anything to ensure the security of his country. This takes him to some dark places.
• Patriotic Fervor: When Deadshot asks what it is that Amanda Waller has on him that ensures his loyalty, he replies, "Not a thing. Some of us don't have to be blackmailed into serving their country."
• The Stoic: Never so much as cracks a smile in his only appearance.
• Token Good Teammate: To Task Force X. Relatively.
• Villain Protagonist: He is the main character of the Villain Episode Task Force X.

Galatea

Galatea

Voiced by: Nicholle Tom

Appearances: Justice League Unlimited

Dr. Hamilton's creation and surrogate daughter, Galatea is a clone of Supergirl, but far more ruthless. Her artificial status irks her to no end, and she picks a fight with Supergirl on several occasions.

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• Adaptational Villainy: While she's based on Power Girl, Galatea is an assassin for Waller, rather than a hero and member of the League.
• Amazonian Beauty: In her second appearance during the Cadmus arc, after Hamilton has her artifically aged to her prime, she stands taller and is more muscular than Supergirl.
• Artificial Family Member: She was treated like a daughter by Emil Hamilton who created her. Galatea was shown to reciprocate those family feelings as she called him daddy.
• Berserk Button: Supergirl's mere existence, because it reminds her she's just a clone, not the original.
  Supergirl: You know what? No matter how bad you beat me, I'm real, not a clone.
  Galatea: Shut up.
  Supergirl: Deep down, you know the truth: you're not a person. You're just a weapon! Grown out of one of Hamilton's petri dishes!
  Galatea: Shut up!
• Beware the Superman: A Flying Brick who was created for nefarious purposes and has the personality of a psychopath? Yeah, beware her indeed!
• Blood Knight: Only cares about fighting and proving herself superior to Supergirl, and defies Waller when she's told to stop.
• Cleavage Window: Naturally, given that she's an Expy of Power Girl.
• Clone Angst: She's a clone of Supergirl, but views herself as superior to the original...and has a rather obsessive desire to prove it.
• Composite Character: Has the looks of Power Girl, and her origin mirrors that of Superboy (Kon-El)'s first origin in the comics (which was the current version of Kon-El's origin at the time JL/JLU was produced), a clone of someone with Superman's powers engineered by Cadmus to work for their own agenda.
• Corrupted Character Copy: She's a ruthless and villainous version of Power Girl, so she’s this.
• Dark Action Girl: She is a strong and skilled fighter. And also a little bit of a sadist.
• Doppelganger Link: In the episode, "Fearful Symmetry", Supergirl relives the memories of Galatea in her dreams, and vice versa, Galatea relives Supergirl's memories in her dreams. Which is why she sets up a trap to try and kill Supergirl because she fears Supergirl's conscience is beginning to affect her, rendering her less effective as an assassin. Strangely enough, this doesn't come up again in her later appearances.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Shortly before she is sent with the Ultimen clones to attack the Watchtower, she has a moment with Hamilton after which she hugs him affectionately and says goodbye to her "daddy". Hamilton is startled, showing that even he did not see Galatea returning his paternal feelings for her.
• Evil Counterpart: To Supergirl. By the time of "Panic in the Sky", she gives only a mocking reference to fighting the Justice League because they're dangerous, and promptly admits she's in the fight to kill Supergirl.
• Eye Beams: Galatea seemed to favour heat vision as a primary offensive ability and used it with great skill and accuracy.
• Farmer's Daughter: In "Fearful Symmetry", The Question questions a reporter on the source of one of his stories. He mentions that he got it from a girl he was seeing, which turned out to be Galatea. He specifically describes her as "blonde hair, blue eyes, real farmer's daughter type".
• Flying Brick: As a clone of Supergirl, this is to be expected. The fact that she's been artificially aged to her prime means she's a bit more of a brick than the original.
• Impossible Hourglass Figure: She has a more voluptuous yet muscular body than Supergirl. Lampshaded by Green Arrow "Uh, a little more mature than you."
• Leitmotif: A warped Superman/Supergirl theme with shades of Ominous Latin Chanting.
• Leotard of Power: Makes sense, given who she's based on.
• Meaningful Name: There's a Greco-Roman myth (most famously chronicled in Ovid's The Metamorphoses) about a sculptor named Pygmalion who sculpts a statue of his ideal woman and falls in love with it, naming it "Galatea," and eventually marrying it after the Gods bring it to life; similarly, Hamilton artificially creates Galatea to be his ideal warrior woman, but eventually comes to see her as a surrogate daughter. Also, the Greek name "Galatea" literally translates to "She who is milky white," hence Galatea's pale complexion and all-white costume.
• Morality Pet: Seems to be one for Hamilton in spite of his Fantastic Racism towards Kryptonians. When she hugs him and calls him "daddy", Hamilton is both shocked and guilt-ridden by this gesture.
• Most Common Super Power: Naturally. Due to the fact that she is an Expy of Power Girl, Galatea has some very large breasts.
• Ms. Fanservice: No surprise considering that she is an Expy of Power Girl with the form-fitting white outfit, large breasts, and noticeably more "mature" physique than Supergirl.
• Muscles Are Meaningful: She's been aged to maturity and noticeably bulkier than Supergirl.
• Psychopathic Womanchild: Despite having her body artificially aged up to her prime, she still possesses the mentality of a teenage girl. This is best seen when she hugs Hamilton and calls him "daddy", not unlike how a young girl would address her father.
• Put on a Bus: The last we see of her, she's been shocked into a coma. According to The Other Wiki, she has been taken back to Cadmus to undergo medical training to help her remember basic motor skills.
• Story-Breaker Power: This is the real reason we don't see Galatea that much. As a clone of Supergirl, she is one of the most powerful beings on Earth. She knows it too.
• Superpower Lottery: She has all the powers of Supergirl: Eye Beams, Nigh-Invulnerable, Super-Strength and X-Ray Vision.
• Super-Strength: In her appearances during the Cadmus arc, she is physically stronger than her counterpart.
• Traumatic Haircut: Galatea's short bobcut gets burned to a crewcut after Supergirl electrocutes her with a giant live power cable.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: She's defeated with an enormous dose of electricity, but doesn't seem dead, and considering her superpowered biology it's not beyond belief that she'd make a full recovery, at least physically. She's not seen or mentioned ever again.
• Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: She's a super-powered assassin who can easily trounce her counterpart in a straight-up fight, but she is also a girl who suffers from a serious case of Clone Angst. See Berserk Button above.

Doomsday

Doomsday

Voiced by: Michael Jai White

Appearances: Justice League

"Superman. I'm here to kill you. Is this a bad time?"

A genetically modified and augmented clone of Superman, driven insane by brutal treatment intended to "condition" him into being focused on destroying Superman.

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• Adaptive Ability: Like the comics Doomsday, he has this ability, as seen when Superman desperately tries lobotomizing him like his Justice Lord counterpart did only for it not to work. As Doomsday taunts, he can't be beat the same way twice.
• Adaptational Intelligence: In the comics, he was introduced as feral and basically nonsentient, though that's changed a lot over time. Here, he's sentient enough to talk from the very beginning, and shows a decent amount of cunning: defeating the weaker League members THEN focusing on Lord Superman in his initial conflict, fooling Milo into releasing him, and aiming straight for Supe's eyes so he can't use his heat vision to kill him in their "rematch."
• Adaptation Species Change: Zig-Zagged. In the comics, he was originally an alien of unspecified origin, then eventually turned out to be an Ultimate Life Form made on Krypton. In the DCAU, he turns out to be a human-made organism... made from Kryptonian DNA.
• Badass Boast: In his first appearance, he gives two of these (well, almost two) to Lord Superman:
  • When asked about his motive:
  Doomsday: The same as you I imagine. Power. Control. I wanted to see the best this planet has to offer. I'm not impressed.
  • After shrugging off a city-shattering punch:
  Doomsday: You think that could hurt me? (Stomps Superman further into the ground, and lifts him into the air) My skin can withstand a nuclear explosion!
• Brainwashed and Crazy: To a degree. He has been brainwashed so effectively by Cadmus he is fixated on Superman. The crazy part comes in with just how little he cares about ANYTHING else.
• The Dog Bites Back: When he first appears and a viewer sees how he was "trained" to hate Superman — by being constantly tortured and made to associate Superman with the pain he suffered — it's a little hard not to think his lashing out at Cadmus is justified.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: His first appearance in "A Better World" sees him act basically like a completely different character from the one in "The Doomsday Sanction". See below for more on that.
• Evil Sounds Deep: In the tradition of previous DCAU villains such as Darkseid and Despero.
• For the Evulz: Michael Jai White's line to Superman when asked his motivation, "It's what I am. I don't care why."
• Godzilla Threshold: He was created to be Cadmus's final line of defense against Superman.
• Gone Horribly Right: He was designed and brainwashed to eliminate Superman. Yet was so uncontrollable that they decided to dispose of him in outer space. His fights with Superman (the Justice Lords and our own, respectively) both take place in heavily populated areas (Metropolis and San Verde) that would've resulted in thousands of casualties had Superman not figured out a way to stop him, and speculated far more by his own creators were he to succeed in killing him.
• Ignored Epiphany: Dr. Milo flat-out tells him he has no reason to hate Superman and shows him proof that Cadmus is his real enemy, but he's so far gone that he doesn't care.
• Laser-Guided Tyke-Bomb: He was created to kill Superman. Him being released by Professor Milo has him instantly charge towards Superman's current location, which just so happens to be a volcanic island.
• Leitmotif: During his first appearance, the soundtrack has a low reverberating music whenever he does anything awesome.
• Nigh-Invulnerability: Doomsday shrugs off everything the League throws at him, withstanding even Superman's punches. It takes a lobotomy in his first appearance and being hurled into a volcano in his second to only temporarily incapacitate him. In fact, by the end of their fight, Superman is the one covered in scars and bruises.
• No-Sell: The first half of his fight with Superman in "The Doomsday Sanction" takes place inside a volcano and he treats the molten hot magma no more seriously than water.
• Punch! Punch! Punch! Uh Oh...: The first time he shows up, everyone finds out the hard way that Superman's the only one who can actually hurt him.
• Retcon: The origin revealed in "The Doomsday Sanction" (that he is Superman's clone created by Cadmus, conditioned to hate Superman, and the 'meteorite' was the remains of the rocket Cadmus put him on when he proved uncontrollable) doesn't quite line up with his first appearance in the series ("A Better World"): Doomsday showed no specific enmity toward Superman, he just wanted to fight the strongest and talked as if he'd has plenty experience fighting on different planets.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: When he initially appears, he's lashing out blindly at the whole world due to having been tortured pretty much since birth by Cadmus.
• Shout-Out: His brutal fighting style borrows a lot from the Dragon Ball Z villain Broly, even incorporating Broly's famous Neck Lift by the head outright.
• Super-Strength: He is a failed clone of Superman, but has all the strength of the original, on top of being much more resilient.
• The Worf Effect: His first appearance uses him as a Worf to hype up the threat of the Justice Lords, particularly Justice Lord Superman.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Kills Dr. Milo after talking the disgruntled scientist into releasing him.

The Ultimen

The Ultimen

Voiced by: Gregg Rainwater (Long Shadow), James Sie (Wind Dragon), C.C.H. Pounder (Juice) Grey DeLisle (Shifter and Downpour)

Appearances: Justice League Unlimited

A set of five super-humans who initially appear allied with the US Government. Secretly engineered artificially by Cadmus bio-engineers, the process was unstable and so their lives were drastically shortened. Consist of Downpour, Juice, Longshadow, Shifter and Wind Dragon.

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• Adaptational Villainy: Just like Galatea to Power Girl, Wind Dragon, Juice, Shifter, and Downpour's collective Sanity Slippage is probably why they're not Samurai, Black Vulcan, and the Wonder Twins.
• Animorphism: Shifter has the ability to change into different animals.
• Anti-Villain: The original team do end up as villains, but they're just scared kids who've learned that they're considered expendable and are probably going to die soon.
• Ascended Fanboy: The first Longshadow really looked up to the Justice League. He eventually gets to join for the few weeks he has left.
• Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: Even though Shifter and Downpour get into petty arguments, the latter comforts the former when they find out that they and their team are clones.
• Blow You Away: Wind Dragon has the ability to control air, letting him project it with a enough concussive force to send a superhero through multiple walls. He can also use it to fly and reverse its flow to rip the air out of someone's lungs, letting him pose a threat to beings as powerful as Superman. However, his abilities come a distant second to Red Tornados, as three clones of Wind Dragon are effortlessly dispatched when they engage Tornado aboard the Watchtower.
• Clone Degeneration: The process that created them was unstable, and left them with lifespans of about two years at best.
• Composite Character: Their powers are based on the Super Friends, but their origins are similar to the Ultramarine Corp, a group of metahumans in the comics meant to be superhumans that answer to the American government who also find out their origin is a lie and their powers are synthesized and terminal. Even their name is similar.
• Curbstomp Battle: They are on the receiving end of this trope twice. The original Downpour attempts to drown Aquaman in "Ultimatum," while three copies of Wind Dragon are effortlessly neutralized by Red Tornado.
• Expy Coexistence: "Injustice for All" features the League fighting in a museum where they destroy statuettes of the original Super Friends Wonder Twins. Come the introduction of the Ultimen, Downpour and Shifter who are clearly homages of the Wonder Twins are featured.
• Fake Memories: The original team were implanted with these to create their identities and personalities. Longshadow remembers being raised by Good Parents and spending Thanksgiving with his father, but Maxwell Lord reveals that they were actors meant to keep up the ruse. This revelation devastates the team.
• Heel–Face Turn: Thanks to Wonder Woman's encouragement, the original Longshadow quits the Ultimen and joins the League for the few weeks he has to live before he wears out.
• Making a Splash: Downpour has the ability to change his body into different types of water.
• Missing Mom: Longshadow loves his parents and was at his mother's side when she died. But then it's subverted when the Ultimen's origin as genetically engineered superhumans implanted with Fake Memories is revealed, meaning that Longshadow never had a mother as he was grown in a vat.
• Mooks: Become this to Cadmus when a whole army of them launch an attack on the Watchtower. They're seen getting their asses kicked by pretty much every League member.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Wind Dragon attempts to murder Superman by ripping all the air out of his lungs until Longshadow tells him to look at what he's doing. A horrified Wind Dragon realizes that he just tried to kill his hero and he breaks down sobbing about how he just wanted to be like Superman.
• New Powers as the Plot Demands: Wind Dragon spontaneously develops freezing powers, and Longshadow develops super hearing. This actually becomes a plot point, cluing their overseers into their eventual degeneration.
• No-Sell: Poor Downpour's water blasts don't even phase Aquaman. To add insult to injury Aquaman then proceeds to knock Downpour out cold with a single backhand.
• Shock and Awe: Juice can control electricity.
• Sizeshifter: Longshadow can grow into a giant, then shrink back to his normal size.
• Too Dumb to Live: In addition to Downpour attempting to drown Aquaman, Shifter had the brilliant idea to transform into a T-Rex, an animal whose habitat is on land. To be fair to them, however, they had gone off the deep end due to learning the Awful Truth about their true nature.
• Trauma Conga Line: In the span of a few hours, the Ultimen learn that they're genetically engineered superheroes created to be loyal to the government. Worse still, their lives are entirely fabricated Fake Memories designed to mold their personalities into popular archetypes and their bodies are degenerating, giving them days or weeks to live before being replaced by identical clones. The Ultimen are understandably terrified and furious about these revelations, accelerating their Sanity Slippage enough to make them want to murder the Justice League in a desperate attempt to be remembered.
• What Measure Is a Non-Human?: The original team are treated humanely by the Justice League, but they have far less scruples about holding back against the mass-produced clones that later assault the Watchtower. Somewhat justified, since the Ultimen that attack the Watchtower are heavily implied to be blank slates coordinated by Galatea's mind link.
• With Us or Against Us: When Longshadow refuses to help the other Ultimen fight the Justice League, Wind Dragon invokes this trope word-for-word before Juice electrocutes Longshadow.

Task Force X

Task Force X

Appearances: Justice League Unlimited

A team of criminals who would receive pardons if they completed special ops missions on behalf of Cadmus, while keeping the hands of governments clean. Task Force X is effectively the Suicide Squad, but with a more censor-friendly name. Its members include: director Col. Rick Flagg, coordinator Clock King (a Batman rogue), Captain Boomerang (a Flash rogue), the hitman Deadshot, and explosives expert Plastique (in her first appearance).

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• Bowdlerize: This is the Suicide Squad in all but name, which had to be changed to make it appropriate for syndication.
• Boxed Crook: Collectively, except for Col. Flagg, above.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Flagg doesn't hide his contempt for the crooks that he's commanding; Clock King considers himself Surrounded by Idiots; Captain Boomerang makes himself unpopular with the others. And while Deadshot and Plastique flirt, their love was not meant to be.
  Deadshot: C'est la vie.

Plastique

Plastique (Bette Sans Souci)

Voiced by: Juliet Landau

A crook with a knack for explosives, recruited into Task Force X.

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• Adaptational Superpower Change: In the comics, she was a metahuman with the power to explode things. Here, she's just an explosives expert.
• Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Averted. Deadshot sets off the grenade she was holding to serve as a distraction for the rest of the team to escape, and Captain Atom is too late to pull her away before she takes the brunt of the explosion. We don't get to see her afterwards, but if Cap's reaction is any indication, it ain't pretty.
• Big "NO!": When one of the Watchtower's shield doors seemingly shuts on her and Deadshot. Fortunately for them, Captain Atom was there to save the day.
• Gory Discretion Shot: She's horribly disfigured by one of her own explosives, but she's covered by the bomb's smoke and we only see Captain Atom's horrified reaction to seeing her.
• Mythology Gag:
  • It's alluded to that she has some pretty hot pictures, referencing an incident in the comics where Firestorm burnt away her clothes in public.
  • Her interactions with Captain Atom are a nod to her being in his rogues gallery and his love interest.
• Ship Tease: She and Deadshot flirt throughout the episode...only for her to find out the hard way that he didn't mean any of it.
• The Smurfette Principle: The only woman in Task Force X.
• Uncertain Doom: The last we see of her is getting caught in the explosion of her own bomb and Captain Atom being horrified by her state afterwards. J'onn tells him to tend to her, but we never find out if she survived or not.

General Hardcastle

General Hardcastle

Voiced By: Charles Napier

A retired member of Cadmus with a hatred of Kryptonians.

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See here for more info.

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