Headscratchers / Justice League S 1 E 4 And 5 In Blackest Night

• The whole, "if a lawyer will lose the case, he will share his client's fate” thing. Why? Why somebody has to suffer or be killed for trying to make sure that innocent person will not be punished for somebody's else crime? I just don't get it, I don't see any reason for this law to exist.
  • I think it was a dark joke about how lawyers are viewed as corrupt and willing to represent anyone for the right price. It's been awhile since I've seen it but don't the judges say they fixed their lawyer problem? Getting killed with your client would prevent most lawyers from trying to profit since the risk would be so high.
  • I guess the logic is that no one would ever choose to defend a guilty person because they wouldn't want to risk sharing their client's fate. Ideally this means that guilty people are more likely to get convicted because they won't have a lawyer to help them exploit legal loopholes and technicalities. To the judges' minds this equals a fair justice system. To anyone else, not so much. In real-life this would mean that anyone who wasn't able to get legal representation would be instantly perceived as guilty and anyone who could get representation would be instantly perceived as innocent. You could be innocent as a newborn babe but get shafted because you couldn't afford a lawyer, or be guilty as sin and get off scott free because you were blind stinking rich and you offered enough money to tempt even the most craven attorney into defending you.
    • It wasn't just a joke on the cynicism of lawyers in general but also lawyers who represent clients charged with high-profile crimes like terrorism or mass-murder: the idea being that most defendants charged with such crimes are guilty, therefore any attorney who takes their case must be especially amoral and rely on underhanded tactics and dirty tricks to get their client off.
• "In Blackest Night" had a much, much bigger problem than Adjuris 5's legal system. The villains trick everyone into thinking that Green Lantern accidentally destroyed Adjuris 4 by projecting a holographic illusion of a rubble field over the planet's location. We are told that three billion sentient beings were on Adjuris 4 when it was "destroyed." Did no one think to search for survivors? Did no one try to call one of these three billion sentient beings on the radio, to see if they survived? Did none of the these three billion sentient beings try to call anybody on Adjuris 5 to ask "Hey, what's this big hologram doing in our sky?" Even if the inhabitants of Adjuris 4 were blissfully unaware of the ruse being perpetrated upon them, did none of them have friends or family or business associates on Adjuris 5 that they called on a regular basis, or have an off-planet vacation trip scheduled?
  • Another problem is the fact that the first two people who noticed that there is something wrong with the whole scenario due to the fact that the moon of Adjuris 4 continued to revolve in its current orbit is Superman and Martian Manhunter. While it does made both of them look smart it raises an important question. Are there no physicist in space or did the people have no concept of gravity despite being a space-faring civilization that no one noticed anything wrong with that prior to the Justice League investigating it?
  • And for that matter, why was John even considered at fault in the first place? He was just doing his duty as a protector of the universe—admittedly as a vigilante in the eyes of the inhabitants of Adjuris 4 since, presumably, they were unaware of the Guardians or didn't acknowledge them—and had all but apprehended the pirate used against him as a witness when the guy's allies showed up and attacked him, unprovoked, and John simply defended himself: it's not his fault that his beam attack bounced off one of the ships and apparently hit the planet, destroying it. The pirates should be the ones being prosecuted, not John, since the whole thing wouldn't have happened at all if they hadn't attacked him. Granted, it was a massive conspiracy by the Manhunters, but still—was the entire "legal" system of Adjuris 4 in on it?! Why even go through with their kangaroo court if that were the case!?
• A real problem was the Green Lanterns, John included. First they act as though he's Sinestro due to an accident that occurs during his duties. Then they, with the exception of Kilowog, bad mouth him for doing his job! And here's where John comes in, when he's found innocent he's angry with them for not supporting him when he himself thought he was guilty! Not a lot loyalty in the ranks.
  • I think the idea there was that John realized how much the League went through to prove that he was innocent; it kind of woke him up and helped him see who his real friends were and who didn't have his back. So accordingly, he was angry with the Green Lanterns for abandoning him; whereas even while he was down on himself, the League never stopped trusting in him.
    • That doesn't seem like a great condemnation of the Green Lanterns. Admittedly their investigation was so pathetic that in the U.S. a lawyer could probably rip the case apart based purely on that, but any law enforcement agency should not be operating under an assumption that a member couldn't have committed a crime. That attitude encourages them to see anyone making accusations as the enemy.
• Here's another one. Planets exist several light-minutes apart. Even a signal between the Earth and the Moon takes a few seconds. There's no time-lag when Hawkgirl smashes the illusion generator. Though it would have been funny watching the bailiffs trying to 'remove' Superman and J'onn during that time lag.
• Why did Superman and the others wait until Superman arrived at the court and yelled "John's innocent!" to destroy the illusion generator? And he arrived just in the nick of time, imagine if he had arrived a minute later. John and the Flash would died just because they needlessly delayed the reveal!
• My big question is why John seemed so resigned to the whole thing. John seems completely convinced that he's guilty of blowing up a planet. He doesn't describe the events himself from his perspective or do anything to defend himself at all. As far as I can tell, John seems to look up at the remains of the planet and go "the planet is gone, that means I did it" rather than "I admit I accidentally shot the planet and blew it up." Did they actually somehow manage to trick him into thinking he blew up a planet? If they had, why wouldn't someone like John have turned himself in rather than waiting for the Manhunters to show up?
  • I always saw it as John feeling so immensely guilty for what he did that he didn’t even bother to question it. Think about it from his perspective, you’re a former Marine given a tool of near godlike power for the sake of defending peace and Justice across the Galaxy, if not the universe. As a result of YOUR actions, a planet full of innocent people, 3 BILLION people, is destroyed because you were too careless with your immensely powerful weapon. It’s likely that he was in such shock and despair that he didn’t even question it, and the guilt from that destruction and death made him want to face punishment, not to mention his own belief that the guilty should be brought to Justice. As for why he was walking in his home neighborhood rather than turn himself in, I always saw it as him spending his last days home before he’s taken to face his fate.