"Flashpoint"

"Flashpoint" is the tenth episode of the second season of Justice League Unlimited. It originally aired on July 2, 2005. It is the second episode of the four-part finale of the Cadmus story arc.

Plot

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Inside Project Cadmus, Captain Atom attacks Superman. In addition to his super-strength, Atom can produce red sun energy blasts that weaken Superman. Huntress takes Question out of the building and calls the Watchtower for an emergency teleport.

File:Captain Atom fights Superman.jpg

Captain Atom gives it everything he's got, but is no match for Superman's strength, and Superman is forced to give him a severe beating, coming dangerously close to cracking his containment suit, before Atom finally stays down. But when Cadmus doctors arrive to see to Atom, Superman tells them to back off – Captain Atom is one of the League. No one tries to interfere as Superman carries him out and back to the Watchtower.

Superman visits Question in the infirmary, who confesses that he was afraid Superman was coming close to killing Luthor. Superman insists that that would be impossible, but Question reminds him that Luthor and Cadmus have been remarkably effective in bringing out his worst side.

Superman tells Kara the truth about Hamilton, and together they storm up to the bridge, looking to assemble a team to go down and smash Cadmus before they make another move against the League. J'onn J'onzz and Green Arrow remind them exactly why they can't do that – because they are committed to upholding the law, and Cadmus may actually be a legitimate, albeit secret, branch of the government, which on its own commits several legal crimes. Furthermore, such action is precisely why ordinary humans fear the League. Superman is still not convinced.

Working in his laboratory at Lexcorp, Lex Luthor receives a call from Amanda Waller about the break-out. She warns him that if Question has gotten evidence to implicate Luthor, Cadmus will cut him loose. Seeming unconcerned, Luthor strides to a targeting computer in his lab that has just beeped ready, and presses "Enter".

The debate aboard the Watchtower is interrupted when the computer announces that the binary fusion cannon is preparing to fire. Horrified, J'onn tries to override the system, but he is locked out; as a last resort he tears the circuitry out of the control panel, but the system re-routes. Superman hurtles out of the station and to the mouth of the cannon, but is a split second too late: the laser fires down at the Earth's surface.

Down below, people are going about their daily lives, but pause when they see the sky light up: the beam lances down and hits an abandoned building marked "Condemned". The building is vaporized, and a massive shock wave ripples out, hitting the surrounding city with the force of an earthquake.

Aboard the Watchtower, the discharge has drained the station's power for a whole hour. Even without sensors or communications, J'onn can tell that the League has fired on Cadmus's headquarters.

Several things happen at once: J'onn receives an angry call from The President of the United States on a special hotline, but swears that the League was not responsible for the blast. At the same time, Flash leads a rescue team down to the surface to help those caught in the shockwave. Meanwhile, the President receives a call from Waller, who reveals that the facility that was destroyed was empty – they'd evacuated an hour earlier because of the break-in by Superman.

Waller advises The President in the strongest terms to order retaliation: in her eyes, the blast was clearly retribution for taking Question, and the League and the government are officially at war. The President is reluctant to order retaliation, and tells Waller to stand by.

The League is at its best on the ground, rescuing people trapped by the devastation. But things turn ugly as rumors start to fly that the League fired the cannon at the ground.

At Cadmus's new facility, Waller becomes tired of waiting, convinced that they need to act. She orders Galatea to take command of an army of Ultimen clones.

Continuity

The episode picks up directly from the events of "Question Authority".
In the infirmary, Question makes a joking reference to a goading remark Huntress made to him in "Double Date".
In that same episode J'onn J'onzz fired Huntress from the League for insubordination and attempted lethal methods. Because of her dismissal, J'onn refuses to comply to her teleportation request until he hears the situation.
When Question reminds Superman that Waller and Luthor have been scheming to enrage him, he is referring, indirectly, to the events of "Clash" and, to a lesser extent, of "Question Authority".
Green Arrow reminds Superman that, according to Batman in "Initiation", his job is to keep the League honest.
As far as the series shows, the fusion cannon was last fired in "Dark Heart".
J'onn makes reference to the events of Justice League, "Starcrossed" stating that the reason the fusion cannon was installed on the second Watchtower was to prevent another crisis of the kind that happened during the Thanagarian invasion – to wit, the first Watchtower having no weapons, Batman had to destroy the Thanagarians' planet-side weapon by taking the tower out of orbit and piloting it on a suicide course.
The Ultimen have been ever expanded into an army since their first appearance in "Ultimatum".

Background information

Home video releases

Production inconsistencies

When Superman punches Captain Atom unconscious into a wall, the Captain falls off the wall face down, his head towards Superman, his feet towards the wall. However when the Cadmus personnel appears, Captain Atom is resting in a sideways position.
In the infirmary, the Question's overcoat appears out of nowhere after he tells the Huntress to reach for the aerosol can in the pocket.
When Waller goes up to Galatea, the water bottle towel change positions between shots.
Galatea's eyes are blue, but in "Fearful Symmetry" they were green. In spite of that, this is consistent with the fact that Galatea is Supergirl's clone, who has blue eyes.
In all previous episodes, Superman always needed some sort of breathing apparatus to be in outer space, but in this episode he is able to fly through space without one while he was trying to stop the fusion beam. Superman also yells out in space upon catching some of the blast, which shouldn't be possible.

Trivia

The scenes immediately preceding the impact of the laser blast pays tribute to the ending of Sidney Lumet's 1964 film Fail-Safe, which likewise ends with scenes of everyday life, interrupted by a rumble that precedes a nuclear explosion.
There is also a possible tribute to the controversial "Daisy ad" which was aired during the 1964 U.S. Presidential election campaign, and showed a child picking flowers before the blast.
Second and last time Question's face is seen.
J'onn's security code is revealed to be 004.
The Flash's paraphrases Gandhi's maxim, "An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind".
At the end of the episode, Galatea throws a red towel over her shoulder when exiting the gym. This is a nod to the partial red cape worn by Power Girl, who Galatea is designed after.
This episode was featured as a bonus episode on the Blu-ray version of Superman/Batman: Public Enemies.

Cast

Actor	Role
Carl Lumbly	J'onn J'onzz
George Newbern	Superman
Michael Rosenbaum	Flash Secretary (uncredited)
Amy Acker	Huntress
Clancy Brown	Lex Luthor
Jeffrey Combs	The Question
Chris Cox	Captain Atom Watchtower personnel (uncredited)
Dana Delany	Lois Lane
Robert Forster	The President
CCH Pounder	Amanda Waller
Kin Shriner	Green Arrow
Nicholle Tom	Supergirl Galatea Watchtower computer (uncredited)

Uncredited appearances

Quotes

The Question: You were right. I am the ugliest guy of all time.
Huntress: Not in my eyes.

Superman: What happened, Question? How did Cadmus get ahold of you?
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.
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.
Question: Carry on, then. If you're wrong, it's not like it's the end of the world, right?

Green Arrow: Batman said I was supposed to keep you guys honest.
Superman: Do I look like Batman to you?
Flash: Actually, you kinda do. Especially when you're all scowly like that.

Green Arrow: Hey, I'm the only guy in the room who doesn't have superpowers, and let me tell you; you guys scare me. But if you do decide to go marching down there, "taking care of" whoever you think is guilty, who could stop you? Me?
Supergirl: So you want the government to have a bunch of superhuman weapons just to keep us in check?
Green Arrow: No! I don't know... Yeah! Look, I'm an old lefty. The government must do for people what people can't do for themselves. The people sure can't protect themselves from the likes of us.

Previous episode:
"Question Authority"

Cadmus Story Arc

Next episode:
"Panic in the Sky"

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