DC Heroes United: Episode 3 Analysis

It’s time for part two of “Friend Or Foe”. Last time we looked at part one.

I wasn’t going to mention this until after the episode posting, allowing people to decide things for themselves. However, since I can’t think of a good opening, I’ll just ask why this is “Friend Or Foe”? In part one it made sense, since it was about trust issues. Outside of Clark and Lois, that’s not as much of a factor here. Unless the title refers to wondering what is going on in the tower. The theme here is more about destiny, secrets, and learning more about why Fate Tower is in downtown Gotham City.

Black Canary doesn’t show up until the last few seconds to just stand there, but Barbara Minerva and Cyborg get to do more, while the current Blue Beetle makes his debut. And before the episode is over we will meet the cause for the Tower’s appearance. Let’s watch the episode, see what I think of it, and then go over the one choice path for this episode and the various choices to ponder where this story is going and could have gone.

The opening sequence intrigues me. The idea of being forgotten by history certainly matches both of the predominant versions of Lex Luthor. Pre-Crisis he’s a mad scientist, out to prove his intellectual superiority. Post-Crisis, Lex forms his legacy through business that just happens to include scientific endeavors. In both cases his ego won’t allow him to be forgotten. How much of that we’ll see in Black Lex and whether this is his path to villainy, or (based on player choices) will be something he is redeemed from and seeks a better way will be an arc worth following. We do see that Black Lex retains the egos of his white counterparts but isn’t really out to conquer the world or commit criminal acts to build his money and power…that we’re aware of by this point in the story. He’s has elements of both predominant takes on Lex, as we see with his secret collection of artifacts, including the one Bane wants on behalf of his new…”employer”, the appropriately named “Fatebreaker”.

I do like the scene with Black Lex and Batman. This Lex Luthor isn’t quite the same as the typical. He actually does seem to want to help people, but it’s still in a way that boosts his own ego. Meanwhile Batman still thinks he knows best but he really does want to help Gotham in his own way. The discussion between them about how to help Gotham (Lex has always been about Metropolis so that’s just story convenience) is well done. It shows both sides, explores both characters and their approach to crime and improving the city, but the writing here never seems to take sides. Both have valid arguments but there is no clear “this is what the writers want you to think” moment. I side more with Batman but Lex does make a few points that Bruce in other continuities does realize, like putting criminals behind bars isn’t enough. That’s why he gives ex-cons jobs to boost their lives and decrease the available henchmen community. He does try to make the city better through charities as Bruce. We don’t know what Lex’s plans specifically are, and Batman we’re only guessing based on multiversal continuity, since Black Lex isn’t quite the same as the two general depictions.

Meanwhile we have an introduction of Jaime Reyes, the current DC Blue Beetle. Interesting that they want to pair him with Superman as a mentor, given that this is not the seasoned Superman we know. This is a rookie Superman among more experienced Wonder Woman and Batman, so he shouldn’t be teaching anybody yet. Jaime even notes that Superman isn’t that much older than he is in this version. I do expect the scarab to know more about the “blur” than most people, but how does it even know Clark Kent exists, nevermind that he’s Superman. Such an identity would not be worth his time. There’s just some odd decisions here I’m not a fan of, but it’s not a dealbreaking situation. If this goes anti-secret identity, I may change my mind. In that case, will Bruce get to keep his secret? We also see that this Clark is…really lousy at keeping his identity. That goes into the results of this episode’s lone branching path I’ll get to shortly. Even early Clark should have this down a lot better than this Kal-El does. The dude’s worse than I am at interacting with people. I don’t want Superman to be like me, and definitely not worse. I want to be like Superman, and seeing Superman more awkward that I am just makes me sad. Still, I do like the pairing. They have good friend chemistry, though given what we know about “Kaji Dah” (having just finished the pre-DC Blue Beetle run recently I’m still not convinced about this retcon of the scarab) that could be trouble in the future if the Reach ever show up in this continuity. Might make a good season two threat.

Before we get to the big bad of this season we reach the one branching path of this story. So far they’ve been more character moments than having an impact on the major events and the story at large. Will the players get to make bigger decisions later, or will these little decisions lead to a major change later, like the days when Bethesda knew what they were doing with the Mass Effect and Dragon Age stories? Let’s look at this decision:

How will Superman respond to Clark not being there when Lois interviews him?

• Admit he’s Superman: Our chosen path is not in Clark’s best interest considering what happened. I wonder if this was the players’ intention? Did they think this version of Lois, which lacks some of the military brat edge of more recent Lois Lanes, or the daredevil attitude of pre-Crisis Lois, would end the relationship? I get why this sounds like a good choice. When it comes to that stupid glasses debate (IT ISN’T JUST A PAIR OF GLASSES YOU IDIOTS, IT’S ONE PART OF THE LARGER WAY CLARK HIDES HIS IDENTITY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! PET PEEVE!) Lois usually gets it the worse not only because she sees him so often in both identities like the rest of the Daily Planet staff, but because she’s in love with him. Ignore how many Silver Age stories were about Lois trying to confirm her suspicion that they are the same guy because Silver Age Clark and Lois love to torture each other. This would be Superman being honest with his girlfriend, but you basically just saw another reason to maintain a secret identity. Perhaps if this Clark wasn’t so bad at it. It is the best path for Jaime’s comment “that looks like it hurts”, though.
• Stand up for Clark: To me this is the most Superman of choices, and what I would have gone with. It does lead to Lois potentially learning things on her own, when she notices that Superman mentions growing up in Smallville, which she would know to be Clark’s hometown. This leads me to wonder how Lois isn’t curious that he seems to know her and Clark. This is supposed to be her first encounter with “the blur” and yet he seems to know a lot about Clark. Maybe she would suspect that Clark and Superman know each other, which had been Clark’s explanation about how he could contact Superman, similar to when Tony Stark used to pretend Iron Man was his bodyguard and protector of Stark Industries as enemies kept trying to claim or destroy it as a threat to their plans to attack the US. I kind of wish this had won, but hopefully their relationship is still salvageable.
• Agree that Clark is at fault: Now I wonder if the choosers of this path suspected “Superman” would go this far to get on “Clark’s” case? It would come off as Superman trying to convince Lois to dump him(self) for him(self), especially with the flowers. Not sure why this is the path where he destroys them, but I like how “coward” is what sets Lois off to jump to Clark’s defense. It seems the less Superman of the choices even if we do get more about how Superman is not happy with himself and how he sees himself through Clark and how he’s treated Lois. If Clark were a separate person, Superman would defend him. Since they’re the same guy, he would have been lucky that Lois actually comes to Clark’s defense. This could have led to a STRONGER bond between them, so maybe when Lois found out the truth she’d accept it easier? Maybe not. Based on the winning choice she seems to share My Adventures Lois’ desire to not be lied to, which is explained in that show, but here Lois is one of the supporting characters, like Black Canary or Steve Trevor. We know next to nothing about them.

Now we get to the Tower and the “sacrifice”. Barbara should be careful. The princess in the legend had to reveal their greatest desire and her greatest fear…and she ended up with both. She gained immortality, but she also became forgotten. I’m not sure if this qualifies as “temping fate”, which would be a logical tie to the tower of Fate and home of Doctor Fate (we still don’t know what happened to him). Barbara’s desire is to be like Wonder Woman. We can guess as fans that this leads to the supernatural version of Cheetah of recent years, so prepare for furry Barbara Minerva. I also want to learn the reason why she wants the power. Is it because of her friend Diana or something else? Is she jealous or thinks she should be an equal?

And our big bad is revealed. Circe, one of Wonder Woman’s foes in the DC Multiverse, is out to control the mortal world. Of course she wants Diana in on it because of her narrow view of reality, your typical elitists. In other words, what we expect from the Olympian pantheon. Not much to say here, but she seems a fair choice for the villain of this story. We’ll see as the story goes on. Given Circe’s history with turning people into animals and half-animals in the DC multiverse, this might be what leads to Cheetah rather that the plant god…wait, why would a plant god create an animal avatar? She should be more like Botanica from Transformers: Beast Machines. Did Poison Ivy not want competition? Choose a cat god or goddess or something. That would make more sense.

As to who should be the one to reveal their deepest fear? All three are interesting choices but let’s go by what we know…or rather what we don’t. We don’t know a lot about Wonder Woman in this version. Batman is riding more on other versions than anything we see here. This Superman, especially if Lois manages to be there to hear it since I could see that affecting their relationship (maybe in some of the paths that would have been more possible), would be the most interesting. Nobody really has a backstory yet outside of Blue Beetle III and all we know there is “this thing stuck itself to my back”, which is still more than we know about Cyborg or Black Canary. Otherwise, Black Lex is the only one with enough development to be of any interest, though clearly the Tower is choosing the Trinity and there are three choices per branch to be made by the players.

What happens next? We’ll find out on Friday and analyze it on Tuesday because that’s when I have time to examine it given when it comes out. Tubi is really slow putting these on their site, with only the first two episodes up as of this writing. It’s keeping me and my dad at least a week behind on The Masked Singer and The Floor since the antenna wasn’t working right during one of the episodes and dad hasn’t been able to stay up for The Floor. Fix your scheduling, Tubi. So watch it Friday on YouTube and check back with me Tuesday.