Superman on Television
Justice League: Episode Reviews
Season 5 - Episode 12: "Alive!"
Reviewed by: Barry M. Freiman"JLU" Struggles to Stay "Alive!" - And for Screen Time
Superman and the rest of the "JLU" have what can, at best, be called a cameo appearance in their own penultimate episode, Alive!, which instead focuses on Lex Luthor's quest for pieces of Brainiac.
The Lex Luthor portrayed in "Alive!" seemed, at times, unfamiliar. Lex shows genuine frustration, paranoia, obsession, and he seems more than a few bricks shy of a chimney. In the opening scenes between Luthor and Tala, Lex is so angry and out of control that it often seems that someone other than Clancy Brown is voicing him. Then it dawns on me that we've never seen Lex Luthor wound so tight and so terrifyingly out of control.
Some viewers will undoubtedly love to see Lex unleashed - nobody ever said evil geniuses were sane. I think Lex's Brainiac obsession seems out of character, which is likely the point for the writers and Brown. But short of Darkseid mentally having compelled Luthor's unhealthy obsession with the living computer, I think it will be difficult to rationalize away Lex's behavior as the crumbling into craziness of a once-respected giant of business and scientific whiz kid. Guess we'll see next week in the series-ending "Destroyer".
Peace out for the second-to-last time.
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