"The Enemy Below" is the sixth and seventh episodes of Justice League. It depicts the reappearance of Aquaman, and an increase in hostilities between Atlantis and the surface world, while at the same time a plot at home threatens Aquaman's life.
Plot
Part I
A U.S. Navy submarine is on patrol beneath the ocean, when it happens too close to an armada from Atlantis. The Atlantean ships attack, and the submarine sinks to the ocean floor. Aquaman, captaining the lead ship, coldly orders it abandoned.
The Justice League leads a rescue and retrieval team to the submarine before the crew suffocates, where they confront Aquaman and his troops. Aquaman grudgingly allows them to rescue the crew, but says that the submarine is now his property. Green Lantern angrily objects, saying that the submarine’s nuclear material is too dangerous, but Superman says that they have to rescue the crew before it is too late. He urges Aquaman to visit the surface world and air his grievances before an upcoming conference of world leaders. Aquaman is skeptical, but promises to consider the suggestion.
Back in Atlantis, he listens to the counsel of his brother, Orm, and the head of his military, General Brak, both of whom say that Atlantis has the technology and the manpower to wipe out the surface world. He refuses to listen to them. In private, he confers with his Queen, Mera, and looks fondly at his baby son. Above all, he wants to make a safe and prosperous kingdom for his son, but wonders whether there isn’t a peaceful way to do it.
Aquaman goes to the surface and visits the world conference. Unfortunately, his approach is less than diplomatic: he arrogantly insists that the surface nations must cease their intrusion into and pollution of the oceans. Outraged, the world’s leaders say he is being unreasonable, and he walks out in anger. Superman tries to convince him to stay and be more moderate. Aquaman continues to walk out. Just then, a sniper fires a bazooka rocket which hits the pavement in front of Aquaman, gravely injuring him.
Aquaman is rushed to the hospital in critical condition, where they are unsure how to treat him. Then Batman appears and orders that he should be moved into a saline water tank, which allows his natural healing abilities to work.
Back in Atlantis, word comes that Aquaman has been injured, possibly killed. Orm reassures Mera, and assumes the crown and royal trident in his brother’s absence.
The League decides to try a ruse to catch Aquaman’s would-be assassin. Putting the word out that they are moving Aquaman to a specialist facility, they wait for the assassin to try again, and he reveals himself: Deadshot. He realizes he has been fooled – the "Aquaman" on the gurney is J'onn in disguise – but has a well-prepared escape plan in place.
The real Aquaman decides that he’s recovered enough, and is returning to Atlantis immediately, over Lantern’s objections.
After a long, hard chase through the sewers, and then the streets, Deadshot is finally caught by Superman. He admits casually that someone hired him to kill Aquaman, but refuses to say who. Batman takes over the interrogation, and a few seconds later, Deadshot cracks. He doesn’t know the name of his employer, but he was paid in gold. They look at the gold: antique coins and crosses, obviously salvaged from a sunken ship.
Aquaman returns to Atlantis and is stunned to see Orm sitting on the throne. Orm says he is sick of Aquaman’s tolerance for the surface dwellers, and has decided to take matters into his own hands. Brak’s soldiers surround Aquaman and imprison him. Mera is told he is still missing, but begins to suspect Orm.
Part II
The Justice League hurries to Atlantis to warn Aquaman, but they are ambushed and taken prisoner by Brak’s soldiers. Orm says that he plans to destroy the surface world to keep Atlantis safe, and sentences them to death by drowning. They are held in a chamber filling with rising water, kept passive by headbands that make them unable to use their powers. Then Mera appears and knocks out their guards, and frees them. She says she suspects her husband is still alive, and asks for their help.
Elsewhere on the ocean floor, Aquaman is chained to the side of a rock outcropping, above a lava fissure. As he struggles to get free, Orm arrives and shows how he plans to ensure his succession to the throne: he has brought Aquaman’s baby son, and pins him to the rock beside Aquaman. With a mocking goodbye, he uses a blast from the trident to send the outcropping on a slide down the cliff face toward the lava.
Aquaman makes a sacrifice for his son.
Aquaman wrenches desperately at his chains, managing to free one arm, but the other is held fast. He grabs the sharp metal buckle from his belt and hacks at the chain, but without effect. As they draw nearer to the lava, and his son cries for help, Aquaman raises the buckle, and brings it down with a roar...
At the Royal Palace, the League reports that Aquaman is nowhere to be found. Then he returns, carrying their son. Mera embraces him, then gasps in horror: his left hand is gone.
While Aquaman is being fitted with a prosthetic, Batman calls from the surface and tells them that the temperature at the Arctic Circle is rising dramatically; if it continues, the ice cap could melt, causing catastrophic flooding all over the globe. Aquaman resurfaces from his operation and reveals the source of the trouble: the Doomsday Thermal Reactor. He admits that he had it built as a weapon of last resort, if it ever came to war with the surface world. But he never armed it; instead, Orm has done that, using the nuclear material from the submarine, and activated it. Aquaman swears to stop his brother, and the League insists on aiding him.
At the Arctic Circle, the League is joined by Batman in the Batwing, before clashing with Brak’s forces. The Atlantean soldiers manage to hold the League at bay, but Aquaman breaks through, as do Lantern and Batman.
In a glacier cavern, Aquaman reaches the reactor, and confronts Orm, who has the advantage, with two good hands and the royal trident. While Aquaman engages him in a brutal fight, Lantern and Batman try to shut down the reactor. In a break in the fighting, Orm sees them and destroys the controls with a blast from his trident. Batman will have to shut it down manually. Lantern creates a body shield with his ring, and Batman climbs inside the reactor.
Orm falls to his death.
As they fight, Orm loses the trident, but critically wounds his brother with a knife. Suddenly, the ice beneath them crumbles, and Orm is left dangling off a ledge, with Aquaman standing over him. Orm begs for his brother’s help, but Aquaman coldly picks up his trident. Orm loses his grip and falls with a scream into the abyss.
Batman closes the manual shutoff valve, and the reactor shuts down. The world is safe.
At Atlantis, Brak and his men plead that Orm forced them, and they would never have otherwise gone against their king. Aquaman coldly orders them locked up.
With the League present, Aquaman reflects on his mistakes, but resolves to go on working for peace between Atlantis and the surface world, for the sake of his son.
Continuity
- Aquaman does not appear again until "The Terror Beyond."
Background Information
Production Notes
- Bruce Timm insisted that the blanket in which Aquaman’s son was wrapped had to be colored red; that way, when Aquaman uses it to wrap his arm after severing his hand, the blanket disguises the obvious fact that he is bleeding into it.
Trivia
- Flash and Hawkgirl do not appear.
- First appearance of Deadshot.
- Right after Batman foils Deadshot's attempt to kill Aquaman (who is really J'onn is disguise) there is a woman reporter who looks a lot like Summer Gleeson.
- Orm is better known in the comics as Ocean Master. The producers’ commentary noted that he could have been brought back in the series had they wanted him to be.
- In the comics, Aquaman’s hand is lost to a sea creature, in another confrontation with Ocean Master. The prosthetic hand he adopts here is modeled on the one used in the comics.
- Aquaman’s appearance is revamped from the “classic” appearance used in his last appearance on Superman: The Animated Series, in "A Fish Story." Also, Scott Rummell replaces Miguel Ferrer as his voice actor.
- The episode shares its title with a classic 1957 film about submarine warfare during World War II.
- In Part II, Batman is shown alerting the rest of the League to the rising temperatures from the Batcave. On the commentary, the producers said that during the first season, the idea was for Batman to be spending most of his time in Gotham City and having little to do with the League. He is likewise shown "at home" in the Batcave in "Paradise Lost."
Cast
| Actor | Role |
|---|---|
| Kevin Conroy | Batman |
| Susan Eisenberg | Wonder Woman / Submarine Officer (uncredited) |
| Phil LaMarr | Green Lantern / Atlantean Surgeon (uncredited) |
| Carl Lumbly | J'onn J'onzz |
| George Newbern | Superman |
| Michael Rosenbaum | Deadshot |
| Scott Rummell | Aquaman |
| Kristin Bauer | Mera |
| Richard Green | Orm |
| Xander Berkeley | General Brak |
| Jason Marsden | Snapper Carr |
| Richard Doyle | Assembly Leader |
| Chad Einbinder | Captain |
Uncredited Appearances
- Aquaman's unnamed son
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