Justice League of America (TV movie)

Justice League of America was a 1997 television movie made as a Live Action Adaptation of the Justice League of America comic book.

The Justice League is a superhero team composed of The Atom, Fire, The Flash and Green Lantern, all led by the Martian Manhunter. When Tori Olafsdotter acquires ice-related powers and finds her boss is using a weather machine against the city, she helps the team against him and ends joining them as Ice.

The TV movie never aired in the United States, despite being commissioned and produced by CBS as a Pilot Movie for an eventual television series. However, it was shown in other countries (notably Channel 5 in the United Kingdom), which is why bootlegs circulate at conventions. Many claim it's So Bad It's Good.

The film was reviewed by Linkara and Nash from That Guy With The Glasses here.


 * Adaptation Distillation: Averted. The Justice League has been around for decades and featured numerous characters and storyarcs but this pilot focused on just one period. Word of God stated that the series was meant to reflect the J.M. DeMatties and Keith Giffen run from the late 80's and early 90's due to its trademark comedy. This in evident in the fact that the series' tone and the team lineup is almost identical to the Giffen/DeMatties era. While their run was very popular with fans, it was long gone by the time the pilot was filmed.
 * Adaptation Dye Job: Ice has light brown hair, while she was a White-Haired Pretty Girl in the comics. Fire is a brunette, but the example is arguable since the comicbook one, despite having green hair, it was dyed green on her natural brown hair.
 * Bad Boss:
 * Canon Foreigner: Aside from the love interests for the heroes, the Big Bad of the pilot was called the Weather Man, who is not a known DC Comics villain. However, this character might have been an Expy of the Weather Wizard, an old Flash rogue.
 * Composite Character: The movie's Green Lantern has the name Guy Gardner, yet he's a close friend of Barry "The Flash" Allen (like Hal Jordan) and his costume includes Kyle Rayner's GL insigna and mask (the rest of the costume is closer to Gardner's). His personality seemed very Hal-like in his hero guise but he still had the Guy Gardner edge as seen in the scene where he creates a chainsaw to threaten the villain. His civilian identity seems based on Kyle Rayner as well since it often involves him trying to juggle his superheroics with his lovelife; a trait more common with Rayner.
 * Cultural Translation: Both Fire and Ice become American, and their names reflect this. Beatriz becomes B.B. and Tora becomes Tori.
 * Da Chief: Martian Manhunter
 * Identity Impersonator: The Martian Manhunter does this for Fire.
 * Naive Newcomer: Ice
 * New Powers as the Plot Demands: J'onn, the Martian Manhunter, only uses his powers a few times but each time, it's a completely different power that just so happens to help the plot along. This is not completely unlike his comic counterpart, however, who has many abilities.
 * Mundane Utility: The Flash makes breakfast at superspeed, the Green Lantern brings his power ring on a date, and the Martian Manhunter uses his powers to fix Fire's love life.
 * No Endor Holocaust: There are no negative effects of the entire harbor, and later, most of the ocean being frozen solid.
 * Race Lift: Fire goes from a light skinned Brazilian to an African-American.
 * Strong as They Need to Be: The League seem to be as powerful as they need to be for any given situation. The Big Bad was creating intense weather that was threatening to destroy the city. Each time, a single member would casually negate the storm effects despite the scope of the storms or the limits of their powers shown in previous scenes with No Ontological Inertia. For instance, at the beginning, the Flash simply runs around a city-sized hurricane to reverse it. A blizzard and mud slide are quickly negated by Fire blasting them. At the end, Ice casually freezes an entire tidal wave despite gaining her powers a few days earlier and going through many How Do I Shot Web? moments.
 * Super-Hero Origin: Ice gets hers in the movie. It's a Freak Lab Accident rather than her origin as part of an ice-people race as in the comics. The other members briefly gloss over their origins in one scene. Chances are, if the series had been picked up, it would have elaborated on their backstories a lot more.
 * Weather Control Machine: This is how the Weather Man controls the weather
 * Weather Dissonance: See above.
 * Western Terrorist: The Weather Man looks and sounds like a generic terrorist. He threatens the city via video wearing a bandana and shades, often spouting vaguely anarchistic slogans such as "I will upset the status quo!".
 * What Kind of Lame Power Is Heart, Anyway?: The Atom suffers from an inferiority complex since he can simply shrink while the other members have grander abilities. Case in point: at the beginning of the pilot, while the rest of the League are saving people from a hurricane, he simply shrinks down to save an old woman's cat.
 * The Flash has a similarly dim view of his own powers. According to him, he's only really good for running fast, and not any of the other hundred-or-so alternative uses for super-speed that he usually has in comics.
 * X Meets Y: Justice League of America meets Friends.