YMMV / Justice League S2 E11 and 12 "A Better World"

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• Crosses the Line Twice: Seeing Arkham Asylum's patients with heat vision-induced lobotomies, some of them staffing the asylum? Horrifying. Seeing that between the Ventriloquist and his dummy, Scarface is the one with the two holes in his head? Hilarious.
• Evil Is Cool: It's generally agreed upon that the Justice Lords have really cool outfits compared to their mainline versions.
• Fridge Brilliance: Everyone knows that Batman's will to be a superhero came from watching his parents' murder. So it makes sense that, of the Justice Lords, Lord Batman would be the one who was the least likely to kill, and the one who'd take the loss of a teammate the hardest. Hence his obvious fondness for the Flash (even if he knows it isn't his Flash), the fact that Lord Batman locks up the League instead of outright killing them, and why he made sure to send League Hawkgirl to Arkham for medical care.
• Genius Bonus: The conversation that the two versions of Batman have about enforcing small laws to make citizens respect bigger laws is based upon the broken windows theory of law enforcement, which suggests that large amounts of petty crimes (broken windows in a house) shows that the local government and law enforcement agencies don’t care about the rest of society (the house itself). Targeting petty crimes creates a feeling of order and peace throughout the community, making it more difficult for criminals to get away with larger crimes.
• Magnificent Bastard: The Bruce Wayne of the Justice Lords is one of the most instrumental members of the Lords' rise to power. Discovering the Justice League's world and desiring to "save" it from itself, this version of Batman participates in luring the League into a trap, engaging his own counterpart once he escapes and managing to defeat him with the knowledge of their shared experiences coupled with the Justice Lords' Batman's desire to create a world where no child will ever lose his parents to "some punk with a gun." When his League counterpart convinces him of the immorality of the Lords' world, Justice Lord Batman ends up helping him lure the Lords into a trap to overthrow them and give his world a new chance.
• Moral Event Horizon:
  • Most of the Justice Lords cross this when they try to kill their counterparts.
  • Flash tries pointing out that actually killing him would be the one thing the Justice Lord Superman wouldn't do, with his status as The Heart (or "the last piece of your conscience", as he puts it) and the concern shown to him by Lord Batman earlier. Superman considers this... and concludes that he's had to do a lot of nasty things over the years, so one more wouldn't hurt.
• Nightmare Fuel: Just seeing how far the Justice Lords have fallen in respect to their own morality, especially Superman (complete with a Slasher Smile and ominous music after he kills Luthor). Unsurprisingly, this unlikely encounter would haunt the Justice League for years to come. In fact, Unlimited made it clear that this episode was the reason behind recruiting the likes of Green Arrow and Question.
• Tear Jerker: The fact that the Justice Lords' Flash was killed, possibly by Lex Luthor. It clearly hurt the League hard if it was enough to begin the evil Superman's Start of Darkness. The other Batman shows it the most in how he takes a minute to just stare at Flash in prison, insists that the imprisonment is for his own good, and utterly panics when he thinks that Flash has gone into cardiac arrest.
  • Doubles as Heartwarming (in a weird way) in that the Lords were unwilling to outright kill the League because losing one teammate hurt them all (even if they are other versions). They even get Hawkgirl medical care after she's hurt (which Lord Batman outright says was an accident).

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