CASE FILES - Justice League's "The Enemy Below"

NOTE:  This article obviously contains SPOILERS.  Proceed at your own risk!

Episode Details

• Writer:  Kevin Hopps

• Director:  Dan Riba

• Animation Studio:  CNK International (formerly Koko Enterprises Ltd.)

• Original Airdate:  December 3, 2001 (Part One), December 10, 2001 (Part Two)

Official Summary

When Superman convinces Aquaman, the King of Atlantis, to come to the surface world and negotiate a peace treaty on behalf of his people, Aquaman’s evil half-brother Orm takes advantage of Aquaman’s absence to seize control of Atlantis. Turning to the Justice League for help, Aquaman must reclaim his throne before Orm can launch an all-out war against humanity.

My Summary

Following an international incident involving an Atlantean warship attacking a U.S. nuclear submarine, Aquaman goes before the World Assembly in an attempt to broker a treaty but is attacked by a costumed assassin.  Grasping his opportunity, Aquaman’s half-brother Orm, backed by a faction of the Atlantean military, seizes the throne of Atlantis.  Now, the Justice League must help their ally reclaim his kingdom before Orm declares war upon the surface world … and kills the monarch’s infant son.

Voice Cast

• George Newburn as Superman, Atlantean Soldier (Uncredited)

• Kevin Conroy as Batman

• Susan Eisenberg as Wonder Woman, U.S.S. Defiant Communications Officer (Uncredited)

• Phil LaMarr as Green Lantern, Atlantean Soldier (Uncredited), Atlantean Surgeon (Uncredited)

• Carl Lumbly as J’onn J’onzz

• Scott Rummell as Aquaman

• Kristen Bauer as Mera

• Richard Green as Orm

• Xander Berkeley as General Brak, Atlantean Soldier (Uncredited)

• Michael Rosenbaum as Deadshot, Surfer (Uncredited)

• Richard Doyle as Assembly Leader

• Chad Einbinder as Captain

• Jason Marsden as Snapper Carr, Atlantean Soldier (Uncredited)

Background

As previously discussed, production of the first season of Justice League coincided with massive budget cuts at Warner Bros. Animation that, among other things, reduced the writers’ room from six full-time staff to only two:  Rich Fogel and Stan Berkowitz.  Fortunately, they did have enough budget to hire freelance writers for certain episodes, which is how television veteran Kevin Hopps found himself writing “The Enemy Below.”  In the November 14, 2023 installment of the Justice League Revisited podcast, Hopps discussed how he came to be hired for this episode:

KEVIN HOPPS:  You know, for a long time, I wrote mostly comedy stuff, and I […] felt like I wanted a change [from Disney], so my agent reached out to Warner Bros., and [then-President of Warner Bros. Animation] Jean MacCurdy and [producer of Batman: The Animated Series] Tom Ruegger brought me over there.  And I wanted to do action, and I kept going to Alan Burnett—“I want to do action.”  “Yeah, yeah, we’ll do it.”  They never did.  I mean, part of it was, you know, they had their own cliques in this business.

Anyway, I kept trying for the longest time, but nothing was happening.  I actually ended up writing some spec television drama stuff that got me into the Warner Bros. drama workshop, you know, while I was working in animation, and I think maybe that started to say, like, “Oh, he can do some drama!”  But I knew Rich Fogel because, actually, my very first job in animation was on The Smurfs, and Rich Fogel and Mark Seidenberg were the story editors.  I worked on and off on different things with Rich—working something for me, for him—and so Rich called me one day and asked if I would have lunch with him and Stan Berkowitz.  So, I went to lunch with them, and they said—they wanted to know if I wanted to do a story, and I said, “Of course!  I’ve been wanting to do an action story for a while!”  So, they said they had this story—I don’t remember if they said, “here’s a story we want you to do; this Aquaman thing,” or they said, “pick between a couple.”  I didn’t pitch the idea; they already had the idea of—this was the episode [where] Aquaman’s gonna cut off his hand.

SUSAN EISENBERG:  Right.  [LAUGHS.]

JAMES ENSTALL:  Which was right out of the comics at the time.  That was cool to see.

KEVIN HOPPS:  Yeah, they didn’t know—you know, how or why yet.  And I think they also knew there was gonna be a thing between Aquaman and the world—and his brother betraying him.  […]  And that’s pretty much how it went. (qtd. in Eisenberg and Enstall)

As for the plot itself, the seeds of the idea came from Producer and Story Editor Rich Fogel, who discussed the episode’s genesis in a May 2021 interview with the Watchtower Database:

In the Superman series, we gave him the classic Aquaman look, but layered this sort of, you know, more serious personality on.  And then, by the time we got to Justice League, since we were going to be really spending time down in Atlantis, we needed to sort of build the world in terms of what the aesthetic of the costumes and the characters and stuff like that.  Bruce was saying, you know, [Aquaman’s] like Kull the Conqueror, […] that’s what he wanted him to look like.

And then, we had the discussion about [the] hook hand, which was, again, what was going on in the comics, and Bruce was very much “the hook hand is stupid; we’re not doing the hook hand […] it’s dumb!”  And I was sitting there listening to him, going, “Yeah, yeah, you’re right.  It’s dumb; it makes no sense … unless we can cut it off during the episode and have it have a really good reason for him to do that.”  And Bruce sat up […], and he was like, “We can do that?”  And I was like, “Yeah, I don’t see why not.”  I’ve been pushing this story that I saw as sort of like a Shakespearean tragedy / Macbeth kind of form and the son and all that, and so we tried to really build it into the story so that it had some impact and some meaning.

And that sort of goes to the core of what we tried to do in all of the stories—we would try and scrape off all the barnacles from the comic book and sort of get back to the core of what those characters were originally inspired to be and say, “Okay, who is Aquaman?” and tell the best version of Aquaman that we could. (qtd. in “Aquaman”)

Recognizing early on how the absence of Aquaman from the Justice League’s roster was a point of contention among viewers, the creative team went out of their way to emphasize how this episode was all about the King of Atlantis.  In an October 31, 2001 interview with Comics Continuum, Fogel promoted the two-parter:

“The Enemy Below” is our big Aquaman story.  We felt that it was important to do this one early in the series because so many people wanted to know why Aquaman isn’t part of our Justice League.  I believe this will answer that question. Aquaman is a tremendously rich character, and we wanted to build a story that matches his unique stature in the DC Universe.  He’s a proud king, a fierce warrior, and a man who loves his family.  It was fun telling a big, sprawling court intrigue story with Aquaman at the center.  The themes are almost Shakespearean, and [they] have a real resonance in these troubled times. (qtd. in Allstetter, “Justice”)

Producer and Story Editor Stan Berkowitz also discussed the strong points of Part Two of the episode in a December 10, 2001 interview with Anime Superhero (formerly Toon Zone), saying how, “[i]t’s got some of the best and most elaborate animation I’ve ever seen, so—if it’s possible—try to see it on the largest TV you can find.  Also, a caution:  this probably isn’t the right episode for the very young children to see, if you know any who might try to see it” (qtd. in Harvey, “Tonight’s”).  He then doubled down, adding, “[t]his is one of the most intense half-hours ever to come from Warners Animation.  I’m not kidding” (qtd. in Harvey).  Collectively, it was an interesting way to celebrate being able to put Aquaman’s son in danger in the story—something that they could never, ever do during the Kids’ WB! days—but he wasn’t wrong, either.

Above left: Aquaman as seen in the Season One episode “The Enemy Below.” Above right: Aquaman as seen in the Season Two episode “The Terror Beyond.”

As for Producer Bruce Timm, during a 2004 interview with Retrovision CD-Rom Magazine, he later discussed the pros and cons of the episode:

My complaints are mostly in the look of it.  We had switched over to a digital palette, because we’d switched over to doing digital ink and paint and camera work, and that’s something that plagued us all the way through Season One.  Basically, we took our old cartoon color acrylic paint palette and transferred it to a digital format, and something got lost in the process.  The colors got too bright; they print actually a little bit milkier and brighter than they did when it was actual ink and paint.  We had so many other things to be aware of that it wasn’t something we really focused on until quite late in the first season, when it was too late to do anything about it.  So, that show is too bright to me.  I think it needs to be much darker and richer visually.

The story, I thought was pretty good.  The dialogue—and this plagued us in that first year—sounds like place holder dialogue to me; an over-reliance on superhero cliché speak.  That kind of really jumps out at me when I watch that show.  But the story itself is strong. I like the new badass, barbarian version of Aquaman.  When we broke the story, we knew the scene where he cut off his hand was going to be one of those classic moments that everybody was going to be buzzing about.  Technically, I wish I could go back and do my special edition of it and pump it up just a little bit in terms of the animation.  But it’s still really strong.  Fortunately, that was the show where the composers really started finding their groove as to what the music of Justice League should sound like. (qtd. in Gross 9-11)

While flawed, the episode succeeded in providing a strong introduction for Aquaman into the series, as well as for Deadshot, who would go on to play a pivotal role in the Justice League Unlimited (JLU) episode “Task Force X.” And, finally, it is worth noting one additional commendation for this episode, as—according to Kevin Hopps in the aforementioned interview with the Justice League Revisited podcast—Bruce Timm apparently provided the script as a template when the series hired another freelance writer for Season One:

I was once at a Comic-Con—I was just wandering the floor—[and] Dwayne McDuffie came just—I never met Dwayne McDuffie; I don’t know if he just saw my name tag or someone pointed me out to him.  So, I was just at somebody’s booth or whatever, and he came up and introduced himself and said he had just started on staff or something at Warner Bros., and that Bruce Timm had given him a copy of that script and said, “This is the kinda script we want to do.”  So, I was really—‘cause nobody told me that!  [LAUGHS.]  They just say, “Thanks, you know, here’s your money.  Go.”  So, that was nice to hear, sort of, the compliment passed down from Dwayne. (qtd. in Eisenberg and Enstall)

Though he would rapidly become the MVP of Justice League and JLU—becoming story editor in Season Two of Justice League, a producer for Unlimited, and author of some of the best episodes of both series—it is easy to forget that, in Season One, McDuffie started out as a freelancer brought in to write the teleplay for “The Brave and the Bold.” It says something about the quality of Hopps’ script that it was used as an example for new hires, and it says more that it indirectly played a part in helping Dwayne McDuffie’s animation career soar to new heights.

Commentary

When the Justice League creative team decided on the roster for the initial seven, long-time member Aquaman was the odd man out, which was unusual, considering his previous legacy in animation.  After all, he co-headlined a series with the Man of Steel in The Superman / Aquaman Hour of Adventure (1967-1968), and he was a regular player on the long-running Super Friends animated shows (1973-1985) where, in the initial series, he was paired with major headliners like Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, and Robin.  Unfortunately, it was on the latter series that he became a subject of ridicule, as recounted by Vanity Fair contributor Laura Bradley, who wrote of the phenomenon in a 2018 article:

The image of the superhero riding on a chariot made of fish—sporting that classic orange top and green pants—sealed the depths-dweller in public memory as a doofy champion, despite defenders who insist there’s more to Aquaman than talking to fish and riding them places.  […]  While later depictions of the character emphasized his serious side, Aquaman jokes abounded especially in the ’90s and 2000s—largely thanks to a school of young male animators, including Seth MacFarlane and South Park’s Matt Stone and Trey Parker, who couldn’t help but poke fun at Aquaman’s ineffectual reputation. (Bradley)

Suddenly, thanks to Super Friends, he found himself the punching bag of popular culture and mocked on T.V. shows such as Family Guy (see here), South Park (see here), SpongeBob SquarePants (see here), Robot Chicken (see here), The Big Bang Theory (see here), and even The Aquaman & Friends Action Hour, the 2003 Adult Swim series that only aired on Cartoon Network’s Latin America channels (see here and here). It is largely for this reason that he was passed over in favor of Hawkgirl, with Producer Bruce Timm revealing in a January 2002 Starlog interview that “Aquaman didn’t make the cut, and yeah, that probably goes back to Super Friends.  It became a joke, Aquaman saying, ‘There’s no water here on the Moon, so what am I doing here?’” (qtd. in Jankiewicz 33); later adding, in a 2004 interview with Modern Masters, how “[i]t’s in the pop culture zeitgeist now that Aquaman is the lame one.  […]  Obviously, we didn’t want to fall into that trap” (qtd. in Nolen-Weathington 74). Eventually, this [fish] stink would dissipate following Jason Momoa’s notable performance in the 2018 feature film, but for a many years this was the final word on Aquaman, as far as the general public was concerned.

Of course, to those familiar with the character from the comic books, he is hardly the punchline others made him out to be. Among his attributes, Aquaman has enhanced strength, stamina, and senses, including perfect night vision (as he admitted in JLA #34 [October 1999], his eyes “are adapted to see at six thousand fathoms” [Morrison]). A member of an amphibious race, he can breathe both underwater and on land, and he can withstand the pressures of the deepest ocean depths, making him incredibly durable and capable of taking a lot of damage. And as for his much-mocked marine telepathy, Aquaman doesn’t so much talk to aquatic life, as he actually commands it—in Aquaman #1 (November 2011), he reveals how “[f]ish don’t talk. Their brains are too primitive to carry on a conversation. I reach into their midbrains and telepathically push them to help me out” (Johns). Now, this may not sound like much at first, but once you consider the presence of sharks, whales, dolphins, octopi, schools of jellyfish, giant squids, and the incredible amount of enormous kaiju that comic book universes tend to have hiding under the ocean waves, that’s pretty impressive. As Grant Morrison revealed in a 1998 Wizard interview, he’s actually a great character once you get past his undeserved reputation:

Aquaman, I didn’t like him at all, until I figured him out.  And now, I really enjoy doing the character.  I just couldn’t figure out how to use a sea-based superhero in other types of situations.  I just had to kind of rein my head away from thinking of Aquaman as the King of the Seas and just thinking of him as a superhero who comes from the sea but can do a lot of other things. (qtd. in Kardon 8)

Like Morrison before him, Bruce Timm’s challenge for “The Enemy Below” was designing an Aquaman that fit into the world of Justice League while, at the same time, avoiding the pitfalls that turned him into a joke on Super Friends.

Of course, perhaps “redesigning” would be a better term, as the King of Atlantis had already appeared previously in the Superman: The Animated Series (STAS) episode “A Fish Story” and, in adapting the character, the creative team needed to make a choice. You see, back in the early 1990s—the same era when Superman was killed by Doomsday, Batman had his back broken by Bane, and Green Lantern Hal Jordan became a the supervillain Parallax—DC Comics was looking for a way to shake up Aquaman as well, and they did so by hiring the late Peter David, a writer who had transformed Marvel Comics’ Incredible Hulk into a powerful character study whose story elements eventually found their way into the MCU. He succeeded, to a lesser degree, with Aquaman, but he certainly succeeded in replacing the Super Friends version with a darker, grittier figure with a harpoon replacing his left hand, which he lost in a battle with a supervillain named Charybdis. This change occurred at roughly the same time the STAS episode was being developed and, as Timm recounted in a 2003 interview for the Justice League: Justice on Trial DVD, the creative team was resistant to change:

When we first introduced Aquaman on the old Superman show that we had done, DC Comics had done a major revamp of the character, where they changed him from the nice, family man Aquaman—with the short, blond hair and the orange shirt and the seahorse and all that—they had taken him and made him a much stronger, more outwardly vicious-looking character, with the long hair and the beard and the big hook on the hand.  And a lot of us, we’re like any other fans—we’re very traditionalist ourselves, you know—so, when we used Aquaman, we said, “Oh, we’re not going to use the one with the hook, and that’s just silly and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah!”  So, we kind of used the old Aquaman look in Superman. (qtd. in “Episode Introduction to ‘The Enemy Below, Part 1’”)

(It is worth noting that there was apparently one member of the team who pushed for the new Aquaman design: storyboard artist and character designer Tommy Tejeda. In a January 2007 blog entry, he posted the above left photo, presumably created during production of “A Fish Story,” and wrote how “I was laughed at by other artists at work, and I was told the idea of Aquaman with a hook hand was terrible.  Eventually, the same artists / producers that gave me a hard time were responsible for the Aquaman episode on the Justice League show that features the origin of where he [loses] his hand” [Tejeda].)

Like the patchwork Green Lantern that contained elements of both Hal Jordan and Kyle Rayner that appeared months prior, the STAS version of Aquaman was also a mishmash of old and new, with Bruce Timm acknowledging in a in a 1998 Wizard article how “[i]t’s the old Aquaman costume, but he’s got the new Aquaman attitude.  I don’t want to say he’s Namor-like, but he’s definitely not quite the old, benign Aquaman.  He’s got the attitude, but he doesn’t have the beard and the hook.  He’s more like the classic Aquaman” (qtd. in Brick 23). He later followed up, in a January 15, 2021 Anime Superhero message board post, with how “we had followed the old, ’classic’ Aquaman design from the comics but made him tougher and meaner” (b.t.). In the end, it was serviceable portrayal for the winding down of the Kids’ WB! era but, when the time came for Justice League, Timm decided that a new approach was necessary.

Though they initially pined for the classic Aquaman, the more aggressive, ’90s version grew on the creative team during the interim, as Timm discussed in the aforementioned 2003 interview for the Justice League: Justice on Trial DVD:

I guess, between that time [on STAS] and when we worked on Justice League, the hook and the long hair kind of grew on us.  The more we thought about it, we thought, “Well, you know, it’s kind of interesting.  It kind of ties him into mythology—he’s kind of like Neptune, you know, with the trident and the long hair.”  It seemed to be kind of be a good way to go with the character, for better or worse.  These are a little bit more sophisticated, tougher times, so having a tougher Aquaman, we thought, would be a kind of a good way to go. (qtd. in “Episode Introduction to ‘The Enemy Below, Part 1’”)

As shown in the production art posted above, the new design both embraced elements of the ’90s Aquaman design and distanced itself from the previous STAS version. When questioned about the differences between the two DCAU designs, Timm made the following statement during the DVD commentary for “The Enemy Below, Part Two”:

I don’t think we ever really wanted to get into why he looks different; you know, whether he’s older or whether he’s more bitter or whatever.  It’s just, like … you know what, we did the same on Batman:  The Animated Series when we did the revamp episodes.  We, you know, didn’t feel like explaining why suddenly Penguin, you know, doesn’t have webbed fingers anymore.  It’s the same thing with Aquaman; like, he’s the same character; he looks different.  But, you know, that’s the way it goes. (qtd. in “Commentary”)

In adapting Aquaman for Justice League, the creative team also heavily drew influences from two additional characters, the first of which being Namor, the Sub-Mariner, from Marvel Comics. In a May 2021 interview with the Watchtower Database, Rich Fogel admitted that the creative team “just made him Namor. At the time, DC was playing Aquaman a little bit more along [that] direction.  We just sort of went with that interpretation of his character” (qtd. in “Aquaman”). A recurring subject of Bruce Timm’s artwork (as shown above), Timm frequently fluctuated between referring to their Aquaman as more than “Namor with blond hair” (qtd. in Allstetter, “Bruce”; qtd. in Davis; qtd. in Moro 62) and admitting that “he’s much more of a badass.  He’s a lot like Marvel’s Namor in that way, but even more so” (qtd. in Cotton 81) during the initial 2001 press tour for the series. Of course, this is no surprise, considering how the STAS Aquaman already possessed Namor’s attitude, as well as his familiar widow’s peak. Finally, it is also worth mentioning that Timm has always been a sucker for looking towards Marvel characters when adapting their DC counterparts, as Fogel admitted in another May 2021 interview with the Watchtower Database (“ZETA”).

In addition to the Marvel Comics mainstay, Aquaman’s look and attitude also made extensive use of elements from Conan the Barbarian, another favorite of Bruce Timm, with the long mullet, the gauntlets on his wrists, and the medallions worn across his bare chest obviously being nods to the Cimmerian warrior. Timm also frequently referred to Aquaman as “Conan of the Sea” (qtd. in Allstetter, “Bruce”; qtd. in Davis; qtd. in Jankiewicz 33; qtd. in Moro 62) during the aforementioned press tour, as well as “a barbarian king” (qtd. in Davis) whose “long hair makes him more of a barbarian” (qtd. in Nolen-Weathington 74). Needless to say, this incarnation of the sea king owes a Hyborian-sized debt to Robert E. Howard.

Of course, despite his influences, he is still Aquaman, and the creative team made sure to keep the elements that made the king of the seas distinctive, which was his family. Married to Mera in Aquaman #18 (December 1964)—beating the Fantastic Four’s wedding of Mr. Fantastic and the Invisible Woman by eleven months—Aquaman was the first major superhero to take a wife and, later, become a father. Bruce Timm recognized the importance of this, noting how Aquaman “is literally a family man.  I mean, Mera and his son are in the big Aquaman spotlight show.  And that actually plays a real pivotal part in that story—his whole family life—even though he is a barbarian” (qtd. in Davis). It is this dichotomy—ferocious in battle, tender with his infant son—that fuels this incarnation of the character, as well as the episode itself.

At its core, “The Enemy Below” serves as both a tribute and a highlight reel for the character, celebrating what is great and unique about Aquaman while jettisoning what made him look foolish. Far from the white elephant hero of Super Friends, this King Arthur is a fierce combatant, an astute leader, and a faithful protector of his family and his people. And while he would later join the Justice League during Unlimited, it initially made sense for him to surrender his spot to Hawkgirl. As Bruce Timm reflected in the aforementioned January 2002 Starlog interview, “[o]ur interpretation of Aquaman is that he’s the King and protector of Atlantis, so it doesn’t make sense for him to go out and fight evil with these other guys.  It’s outside his jurisdiction” (qtd. in Jankiewicz 33). Serving as the sovereign of Atlantis, he had little time to battle injustice unless the fate of his kingdom was at stake, so while his presence on the Watchtower may have been missed by fans, his absence was for a greater purpose, and it made his few appearances on the series all the more special.

Stray Observations

• The title of the episode, “The Enemy Below,” was possibly inspired by the 1957 war film starring Robert Mitchum and Curt Jürgens. In fact, the initial scene with the Atlantean warship sinking the U.S.S. Defiant at the beginning of the episode was probably a reference to the plot of the film as well, which featured an American Destroyer escort fighting a German U-boat during World War II.

• While not directly based on any particular storyline, this episode features plot elements from Aquaman’s comic book history, such as his half-brother Orm’s multiple attempts to seize the throne of Atlantis, the death of his infant son (in Aquaman #60; March 1978), and the loss of his hand in battle (in Aquaman #2; September 1994).

• A high-ranking leader in the Atlantean military, General Brak is very outspoken regarding his contempt for the “surface dwellers,” encouraging King Arthur to deploy the Doomsday Thermal Reactor even before Orm’s attempted power grab. Later, allied with Orm, he would attempt to seize control through a military coup.

• Though it may be a coincidence, the use of the name “Brak” may be a reference to Brak (above right), the villain from the Hanna-Barbera animated series Space Ghost (1966-1967) and, later, the comedic character from the Adult Swim series Space Ghost: Coast to Coast (1994-2004, 2006-2008) and The Brak Show (2001-2003).

• First appearing in More Fun Comics #73 (November 1941), Aquaman makes his first appearance in the DCAU since the STAS episode “A Fish Story.” As with Superman and Flash, the sea king’s voice actor was also recast for Justice League, with Scott Rummell replacing Miguel Ferrer.

• Before we continue, it is worth noting that the name “Aquaman” is only used by people from the surface, like the Justice League. In Atlantis, they would simply refer to him by his proper name, King Arthur.

• In addition to its uses for air and space travel, “The Enemy Below” establishes that the Javelin-7 can be used for underwater travel as well.

• When watching this scene, I couldn’t help but remember one from the Futurama episode “The Deep South,” where the Planet Express ship is dragged underwater by a Colossal Mouth Bass. When informed how the ship was experiencing 150 atmospheres of pressure at 5,000 feet below sea level, Fry asked the Professor how many atmospheres it was designed to handle, to which the Professor replied, “Well, it’s a space ship, so I’d say anywhere between zero and one.”

• Following their game of cat-and-mouse with an Atlantean warship, the Justice League find themselves confronted by two more and, in response, they elect to leave the Javelin-7 and fight these vessels only with their super powers (like in “In Blackest Night,” but it makes more sense here, considering the size of the opposing ships). However, since Flash isn’t here to crash the ship around (since he doesn’t “know how to fly this thing!”), the team literally abandons the ship mid-fight, allowing it to crash onto the sea bed, potentially causing damage. Do you mean to tell me that this ship doesn’t have an autopilot feature? I hope Batman sat them all down after the episode ended and gave them a lecture on how to take care of their “wonderful toys.”

• During the Justice League’s fight with the Atlantean military, Green Lantern is notable for using his power ring to literally buzzsaw the warships apart. Granted, the soldiers inside are amphibious, able to breathe both air and water (we see them swimming to safety in the third panel), but is John Stewart certain that he’s only cutting through the ship’s hull and not bifurcating the troops themselves? On one hand, considering his line in “Maid of Honor” about how military officers “know the risks” of combat, it’s not surprising that Green Lantern, a former Marine, would be willing to sacrifice enemy troops to save his own. However, considering the events of “In Blackest Night,” where he was falsely accused of committing genocide due to a misdirected energy blast, one might think he would be careful not to risk catastrophe again.

• That said, at the time in the Green Lantern comics, the energies of the Green Lantern power rings were only able to be used for nonlethal purposes; this would later be removed in Green Lantern #25 (against Sinestro Corps members; January 2008) and Green Lantern #28 (against all combatants; April 2008).

• During his initial confrontation with the Justice League, Aquaman wields the Trident of Poseidon, created by the ancient sorcerer King Poseidon as a weapon to banish Great Icthultu and the Old Ones from Earth (as seen in “The Terror Beyond”). Orm later takes possession of it when he seizes power in Aquaman’s absence.

• After negotiating with Aquaman, the Justice League is able to rescue to military officers trapped on the downed submarine, but they are forced to leave the U.S.S. Defiant where it lay. It is worth noting that nations sometimes keep captured enemy ships as trophies following a failed incursion, such as the U.S.S. Pueblo, an American intelligence vessel that was captured by North Korea in 1968. Claiming that it had entered their territorial waters, North Korean forces overpowered the ship and forced it to return with them to the port city of Wonsan. Though the officers on board were eventually freed, the Pueblo itself remained in their custody, and today it is used as a museum ship at the Victorious War Museum in Pyongyang.

• According to the DVD commentary for “The Enemy Below, Part Two,” the designs for Atlantis were created by background and character designer Dave Johnson (“Commentary”; Rossen 48), who is better known as the artist for Robert Kirkman’s comic book, Invincible. Added Director Dan Riba in a November 2005 ToyFare interview: “We wanted it to feel futuristic and primitive at the same time” (qtd. in Rossen 48).

• Also, in the aforementioned DVD commentary, Bruce Timm discussed the decision to have the Atlanteans be amphibious, able to breath both air and under water, saying how “we kind of had to do that because we didn’t want to animate everybody’s floating [in Atlantis], and we didn’t want to have the Justice League wearing, like, stupid air bubbles on their heads” (qtd. in “Commentary”).

• Making his debut in Aquaman #29 (October 1966), Arthur’s brother (half-brother in the comics) Orm is better known to comic book fans as the Ocean Master. Considered to be one of Aquaman’s primary adversaries, it is his jealousy of his brother’s station that is the crux of “The Enemy Below.” In a 2003 interview for the Justice League: Justice on Trial DVD, Bruce Timm discussed the difficulties in adapting Orm for Justice League:

As comic book fans know, Orm was Aquaman’s brother in the comics and, at a certain point, he became a supervillain called the Ocean Master.  And for simplicity’s sake—for people who don’t know a lot of the complicated backstory from the comics—we decided to make, you know, Orm’s betrayal of Aquaman the main thrust of the story.

We toyed with the idea of actually turning him into Ocean Master at a certain point, [but] it ultimately came down to a visual.  We tried designing his character in a number of ways, and the Ocean Master design just … we just hit a brick wall; we just couldn’t figure out a way to actually make it look really interesting and cool.  So, we incorporated a little bit of that fish motif in the helmet that he wears when he usurps the throne from Aquaman, but he doesn’t really ever really become Ocean Master.  You can’t even say the name “Ocean Master,” you know, it just sounds kind of goofy, so that’s why we played him a little bit straighter. (qtd. in “Episode Introduction to ‘The Enemy Below, Part 2’”)

• The initial scene in the throne room—where General Brak aggressively asserts the need for action with King Arthur, but backs down when “Lord Orm” commands him to—foreshadows the alliance between Orm and the Atlantean military.

• Queen of Atlantis and wife of Aquaman, Mera first appeared in Aquaman #11 (October 1963). Her comic book backstory—being queen of an aquatic kingdom in a parallel dimension and possessing hydrokinetic powers—was either omitted or not mentioned in the episode, presumably for simplicity’s sake.

• Mera was voiced by Kristen Bauer, an actor who—according to the DVD commentary for “The Enemy Below, Part Two”—originally auditioned for Wonder Woman. Remembering the auditions, Bruce Timm went on to say how “we […] thought she wasn’t quite right for Wonder Woman, but she had a really interesting voice quality; reminded us all of Michelle Pfeiffer, so when we came to cast this episode, we said, ‘Oh, hey, let’s bring that Michelle Pfeiffery lady in.’  And she was really good” (qtd. in “Commentary”).

• Unbeknownst to his teammates, Green Lantern returned to the U.S.S. Defiant in secret to retrieve the plutonium, only to find that it was stripped for parts. As Arthur ordered his men to leave the ship where it lay, it’s obvious that the Atlantean military, under General Brak’s orders, retrieved it to power the Doomsday Thermal Reactor in Part Two. Wait, so does this mean that Atlantis doesn’t have access to their own plutonium?

• Aquaman’s plan—to swim alone to Metropolis and made demands at the World Assembly (the DCAU’s fictional equivalent for the United Nations)—is both short-sighted and stupid. Instead of calling ahead and making arrangements for an official meeting and bringing a delegation complete with senior advisors and diplomats “like a king” would, he arrives alone and bursts in making demands, like a common costumed supervillain.

• It is worth noting that, in the post-2012 Aquaman comics, there are a number of undersea kingdoms besides Atlantis, such as Xebel, the Fishermen, and the Brine. It is unknown if there are other similar nations in the DCAU, but if not, it might explain why the xenophobic Atlantis apparently have no diplomats, as they never needed to establish political alliances before now.

• Finally, it is also worth noting that this is the second time Aquaman travelled alone to the surface world to attempt negotiation. In the aforementioned STAS episode “A Fish Story,” Aquaman arrived in Metropolis in an attempt to stop LexCorp from testing explosives off the East Coast, causing damage to Atlantis. For his troubles, he was abducted, held in captivity, and nearly killed by Luthor’s forces.

• Apparently hired by Orm, the “mystery assassin” (i.e. Deadshot) takes his shot at Aquaman by using what appears to be a customized rocket launcher (apparently recognizing how regular bullets won’t penetrate his metahuman skin).

• Like Superman at the beginning of the Batman Beyond episode “The Call,” there is no in-story reason for Deadshot to wear a disguise here except to do a “dramatic reveal” to the audience later in the episode. It doesn’t matter whether there’s a regular-looking guy on the roof with a gun or a costumed assassin on the roof with a gun … because the gun itself is the problem.

• Arriving in the Atlantean War Room wearing Arthur’s crown and wielding the Trident of Poseidon, Orm makes his play for the throne of Atlantis in the confusion following his brother’s assassination attempt. To his credit, General Brak attempts to challenge the usurper, but they later come to an understanding when Brak realizes that, if Orm gets the throne, he will get his war.

• Unfamiliar with Atlantean physiology and unable to penetrate his invulnerable skin to attach an intravenous line, the doctors at Metropolis Medical Center were initially unable to help Aquaman. In retrospect, he might have had better luck had Superman taken him to S.T.A.R. Labs, who successfully performed surgery on Supergirl in the STAS episode “Legacy,” but it may not have been an option, considering the strained relationship between the Man of Steel and its general director, Professor Emil Hamilton.

• Fortunately for the warrior king, salvation would come in the form of a familiar, caped figure…

• Hey, I know that guy!

• In the DVD commentary for “The Enemy Below, Part Two,” Producers Bruce Timm and James Tucker discussed the Dark Knight’s involvement with the Justice League during Season One:

JAMES TUCKER:  Well, this first season, we really played Batman like he really didn’t have a lot to do with the League unless he absolutely had to.

BRUCE TIMM:  Yeah, I guess so.

JAMES TUCKER:  Yeah, he’s supposed to not officially be a joiner, but…

BRUCE TIMM:  Yeah, well, he always kept saying that.  It’s like, “I’m just a part-timer, remember?”  Yeah, you’re in every other episode; you’re in more episodes than anybody else!  Some part-timer. (qtd. in “Commentary”)

• To save the life of a being who lives in the ocean, Batman’s brilliant plan was to … put him in salt water. That said, this painfully obvious plot point probably had more to do with finding a way to insert Batman into the story, as he had not appeared since “Secret Origins.” In the November 14, 2023 installment of the Justice League Revisited podcast, Kevin Hopps revealed how “I’m pretty sure that wasn’t my idea.  I’m pretty sure somebody probably told me ‘and then we want Batman to be the one who comes in with the idea.’  And I didn’t ask why.  […] Stan and Rich and those guys, you know, they know what they’re doing” (qtd. in Eisenberg and Enstall).

• This is the second time Aquaman has been in a tube, having been imprisoned in one previously by Lex Luthor in the STAS episode “A Fish Story.”

• Batman’s plan—to flush out the assassin by staging Aquaman’s transfer to another facility—paid off, allowing the creative team to provide one of the first surprise appearances in the Justice League series…

• Often referred to as the “World’s Greatest Marksman,” Deadshot made his first appearance in Batman #59 (June 1950). Initially a minor member of Batman’s Rogues’ Gallery, he would later achieve fame as part of the Suicide Squad franchise. In a 2003 interview for the Justice League: Justice on Trial DVD, Bruce Timm discussed the inclusion of Floyd Lawton into the Justice League series:

It's tricky to do a character like Deadshot in the animated world because Deadshot’s whole thing is that he’s, like, “The World’s Greatest Assassin.”  Well, in children’s programming, we can’t really ever kill anybody, so you have a guy who’s “The World’s Greatest Assassin,” and yet he’s never allowed to do what he does best.  [Still], we thought, “Well, it would be kind of neat—kind of like the Kanjar Ro thing in ‘In Blackest Night’—we thought it would be kind of neat, well, if we’re gonna use an assassin, let’s make it Deadshot.”   That was kind of an obvious nod to the comic book fans—it’s like, okay, you’re expecting an assassin, and it turns out to be Deadshot; it’s like, “Wow, that’s kind of neat!”  And he had kind of an interesting costume in the comics, so that gave him a much more interesting visual than if he had just been a hired thug.

Voice-wise, Michael Rosenbaum, who plays the Flash for us, he’s—you know, when we’re just goofing around in between takes when we’re recording—he’s constantly doing impressions and goofing around, and earlier he had done a Christopher Walken impression while he was goofing around one day.  And we thought, “Wow, that’s really great; that’s really funny impression … let’s use that someday!”  So, we ended up having him do the Christopher Walken voice in Return of the Joker.  And one of the other goofy voices he had done was a really dead-on Kevin Spacey voice, so we remembered that, and we thought, “Wow, it would be really cool if the Kevin Spacey voice was Deadshot’s voice!”  It worked out really great. (qtd. in “Episode Introduction to ‘The Enemy Below, Part 2’”)

• Expanding on the difficulties utilizing assassins in American animation, Timm continued his discussion on the topic in an April 20, 2004 message board post on the Anime Superhero (formerly Toon Zone) message boards:

[K]illers in general are hard to portray convincingly in American TV animation [because] the censors are very sensitive about death, period.  We’ve gone through phases when they’ve asked us to not even say the words “death” or “kill” out loud (hence the overuse of euphemisms like “waste” and “destroy”).  [For example], I loved Curaré as a character as a concept, but the fact that she was never, ever allowed to kill anyone on the show ultimately rendered her about as menacing as a wet firecracker.  Not only were we not allowed even to imply that she killed anyone, or discreetly kill her victims off-stage, but we had to make sure that the audience knew that her victims were only put into comas.  We literally had to spell that point out with dialogue.  The “World’s Greatest Assassin” became the “World’s Greatest Coma-Putter-Inner.” (b.t.)

• According to Director Dan Riba, from a November 2005 ToyFare interview, the original script featured longtime Aquaman enemy Black Manta (above left) rather than Deadshot, but “[i]t didn’t seem appropriate for him to be there as an assassin” (qtd. in Rossen 48). Of course, this was years before the debut of Black Manta analogue Devil Ray (above right), who first appeared in the JLU episode “To Another Shore.” Based on his appearances both there and in “Dead Reckoning,” he would have been perfect as an assassin.

• During Deadshot’s second regicide attempt, a character strongly resembling Summer Gleeson, from Batman: The Animated Series (BTAS), can be seen in the background.

• Deadshot’s attempted escape from the Justice League was an action-packed chase through the Metropolis sewers and city streets, but according to writer Kevin Hopps, it almost went another way:

I do remember another thing that was a suggestion from Rich [Fogel]—I don’t know why this stands out in my mind—but when the assassin was getting away, I might have had it in the outline more straightforward, like, he’s being chased down, and they grab him and punch him, and he gets away, and they grab him—whatever; that type of a chase.  And Rich’s suggestion was, “Let the guy have a plan.”  He has this—he knows how he’s gonna sneak out, you know?  And I don’t know if he gave me the specifics, but he probably just said that, and it’s like, “Oh, okay.  That’s a good idea.”  The point being they want to make sure that it’s a villain that seems, like, competent. (qtd. in Eisenberg and Enstall)

• Unfortunately, while making Deadshot appear competent, it also made the Justice League look inept by comparison, seeing as how it took four superheroes and several thousand dollars worth of street and sewer damage to catch him. It could have been easy—J’onn J’onzz transforming into a wall, Wonder Woman using her lasso as a tripwire, etc.—but this scene, while exciting, was needlessly complicated.

• The scene where Batman interrogates Deadshot is a memorable one, with the Dark Knight whispering something to Lawton that no one else, save Superman, could hear. In the aforementioned November 14, 2023 installment of the Justice League Revisited podcast, Kevin Hopps discussed the scene’s background with hosts Susan Eisenberg and James Enstall:

KEVIN HOPPS:  On the rooftop scene when they capture the assassin [NOTE: it appears that Hopps is either misremembering the scene or remembering an earlier version], and he won’t say who hired him, I think I had Batman, like, grab him and hang him over the building.  I might be wrong, but I think so, but I’m pretty sure I didn’t come up with that he just whispers in his ear.  And that’s one of those things it’s, like, it worked to me, and I found it funny, and that it worked, but that’s one of those things that if I wrote it, I would just be thinking, “There’s no way they’re gonna let me get away with that!”

JAMES ENSTALL:  So, fun fact about that scene:  Kevin Conroy, during one of his interviews on stage—I can’t remember which convention it was—he was talking about that particular episode, and he said that, in the mic, he whispered, “I know where you live, Floyd,” as Batman to Floyd Lawton / Deadshot, and Deadshot’s like, “Okay, okay!”  So, that was Kevin’s actual line that […] obviously [did] not make it into the episode, but that’s what he whispered into the mic, which I thought was brilliant.  Very, very Batman-like.

KEVIN HOPPS:  It’s kinda funny, though, when I watched it—totally forgot what happened, actually.  So, I’m going along, just like everybody else, and when he said he won’t talk—when Wonder Woman asked him, “Tell us, why’d you do it?,” I kept thinking, “Oh, she’s gonna take her lasso,” and then it didn’t happen!  I’m going, oh, I wonder why we didn’t do that.

JAMES ENSTALL:  I was wondering—either Wonder Woman’s Lasso of Truth or J’onn could have just mind said, “Okay, here’s what we—,” you know, ‘cause I was wondering […] I didn’t know if that was to—‘cause Batman didn’t get as much screen time in these episodes, so I was wondering if maybe that was just to give him more to do.

KEVIN HOPPS:  Sometimes, I think that—I’m pretty sure that probably I was told “let this person be the hero of this part.” (qtd. in Eisenberg and Enstall)

• While it is true that J’onn J’onzz could have used telepathy to pull the information from Deadshot‘s mind, it is worth noting that Wonder Woman did not officially have the Lasso of Truth until the JLU episode “The Balance,” where Queen Hippolyta unlocked the full extent of her abilities.

• Of course, Batman would later go on to dangle a Michael Rosenbaum-voiced supervillain off a building as part of an interrogation in the JLU episode “The Once and Future Thing: Time, Warped.”

• Unaware of the coup d’état, Aquaman returns to find that Orm has seized power with the help of a faction of the Atlantean military. Accusing him of conspiring with the enemy, Aquaman is arrested in secret, as Orm intends to kill him to maintain the illusion that he had died during the assassination attempt on the surface.

• Arriving moments late to see her husband dragged away, Mera soon learns that Orm has also taken her baby into “his protection,” where he will remain as long as Mera “cooperates.”

• Based on scenes like the ones reproduced above, one can infer that Orm covets Mera and, with Arthur dead, he would most likely attempt take her as his wife. During the press for this episode, Rich Fogel frequently referred to the plot as “Shakespearean“ (qtd. in Allstetter, “Justice”; qtd. in “Inside”), and this is no surprise, as Orm’s plan is very similar to Claudius’ in William Shakespeare’s classic play Hamlet—murder the king, and then take his wife and kingdom. The only difference, as we will see later in Part Two, is Orm has no intention of letting Arthur’s son grow up to challenge his rule in adulthood, as Hamlet did.

  
  

• Returning to Atlantis to warn Aquaman of the coup, the Justice League once again fights the Atlantean military in a battle very similar to the one that occurred in Part One. This time, however, they are taken captive.

• Rewatching this scene right now, it occurs to me that the characters are all speaking normally, despite the fact that they are surrounded by water and near the bottom of the ocean. And while it’s possible that Superman and Wonder Woman have some sort of radio transmitter in their breathing masks (and Green Lantern can probably communicate normally with his ring), but J’onn J’onzz—and Aquaman, in Part One—have nothing. While sound does carry in water, what we would hear would be more muffled and distorted compared to sound carrying through the air. Ideally, in the real world, an Atlantean people would be bilingual, using speech in Atlantis (which is domed) and, when under water, using some form of sign language. Anyway, for more on how sound travels underwater, here is a link to a page hosted by the University of Rhode Island.

• Taken prisoner by Orm, the Justice League are shackled and forced to wear power inhibiter devices that prevent them from using their super powers. In the DVD commentary for “The Enemy Below, Part Two,” Bruce Timm discussed the need for such devices as a plot point:

One of the tricky things that we came up against all the time in this season, or in this series, is—you know—how do you imprison Superman, you know?  It’s hard enough to like, you know, restrain Green Lantern, but how do you come up with a restraint that’s gonna imprison both Superman and Wonder Woman and Green Lantern, […] so we came up with, like, all kinds of, you know, kind of bogus pseudoscience—they’ve got these little headgear things on that negates their powers.  It’s like, “Okay, I guess that’ll work,” but it’s tough, you know, it’s tough coming up with, you know, credible threats to these guys. (qtd. in “Commentary”)

• Sentenced to death, the Atlanteans place Superman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, and J’onn J’onzz in a drowning chamber, an odd choice for capital punishment in a nation where everyone can breathe underwater. Even Bruce Timm recognized the absurdity of this, saying in the aforementioned DVD commentary that “this doesn’t make any sense—people who live under water, they would have this drowning chamber but, you know, it’s cool” (qtd. in “Commentary”).

• Even with the power inhibiter, Director Dan Riba recognizes that Superman would be difficult to drown, saying how “[o]ur Superman can drown, though it would probably take him a lot longer.  He doesn’t breathe underwater; he doesn’t breathe in space.  He could probably hold his breath for weeks, though.  It’s something we established on the old Superman show” (qtd. in Rossen 48).

• Fortunately, Mera—who overheard the League referring to an Atlantean plot to overthrow King Arthur earlier—elected to rescue the them from the chamber.

• Chained to a rock formation overlooking a volcanic fissure, Aquaman here resembles Prometheus, bound and awaiting Zeus’ punishment.

• Recognizing that the line of succession would make Arthur’s son the new king, Orm decides to murder both father and son by incinerating them both in the volcanic fissure. I’d like to hear exactly how the “surface dwellers” made it down to Atlantis to kill the child, as Orm says he would utilize in his eventual cover story, but here we are.

• As stated above, the so-called “baby deathtrap” scene, with Orm’s attempted murder of Aquaman’s son, is something that Standards & Practices on Fox Kids and Kids’ WB! would never have let them done back in the old days (qtd. in Harvey, “Bruce”). Wanting “the audience to feel Aquaman’s desperate love for his son, his willingness to do anything to save him” (qtd. in Harvey, “Bruce”), Bruce Timm elaborated on the gravity and horror of this sequence in the DVD commentary for “The Enemy Below, Part Two”:

So, there’s a big, famous scene here—there’s a little squalling baby.  This was a real fun sequence to mess around with.  I know it was a real challenge for Mike McQuistion, who did the music for it.  I mean, I had some real specific ideas of what I wanted him to do with the music throughout the sequence.  I told him; I said, “You know, it’s automatically going to be very harrowing to see a baby in jeopardy like this, but beyond just making it suspenseful, I wanted to have, you know, nobility and honor.  I wanted to play the emotion of the scene, and I think Mike did a really, really good job of making this not just exciting, but it’s a real heroic thing that Aquaman does.  I mean, the music is really emotion-filled.

What’s interesting about it is the theme that plays here in a second [listed as “The Ultimate Sacrifice” on the soundtrack] … right there, that bit, is actually a reprise of a theme that he created in Part One, which is the Aquaman family theme [listed as “Offer to Negotiate / Destiny of Atlantis” on the soundtrack].  There’s a scene in Part One where he’s talking about, you know, his responsibility to his son and to his family and, like, “What kind of a world am I making for my son?”  And it plays really soft and beautifully throughout that sequence, and then here, he played it really big and grand and heroic, and it’s really awesome.  I think he did a great job. (qtd. in “Commentary”)

• A quick aside: as previously stated, Aquaman originally lost his hand in battle with the villain Charybdis in Aquaman #2 (September 1994). Among his skill set, the criminal had the power to hijack the super powers of others, allowing him to not only steal Aquaman’s ability to command aquatic life, but also to direct a school of piranha to devour Aquaman’s left hand while he was unable to stop them. Later, in Aquaman #0 (October 1994), he replaced his damaged hand with a harpoon.

• As previously stated (see “Background” above), Bruce Timm was originally against the idea of Aquaman having the hook hand until Rich Fogel suggested it become a key plot point in the development of the story (in this case, sacrificing it to save his infant son; “Aquaman”). Afterwards, Timm was all about using the hook hand in “The Enemy Below” (“Commentary”). In a 2003 interview for the Justice League: Justice on Trial DVD, Timm discussed the logic of adapting the Aquaman story that he initially fought doing since the STAS days:

We had to figure out, you know, “Why does he have a hook you know; how are we going to give him the hook, and what can we get away with in giving him the hook?”  And so, we changed the origin of the hook quite a bit from the comics, [where] his hand went away by piranhas, which never really made sense to me.  Here’s a man who could command fish, and, you know, piranhas ate his hand, and, “Oh, damn, I could have just told them don’t eat my hand!  I forgot!”  So, we came up with a more dramatic reason, we think, on how he loses his hand, and it’s certainly one of the highlights of the show, I think.  It’s not just for [shock value] because it goes right to the heart of the character, in a way.  He is still the old, family man Aquaman, and that’s still a real strong part of him but, at the same time, he is a guy who will do whatever it takes to accomplish his goals. (qtd. in “Episode Introduction to ‘The Enemy Below, Part 1’”)

• Also, as previously stated (again, see “Background” above), writer Kevin Hopps revealed during his November 14, 2023 interview with the Justice League Revisited podcast that, initially, the creative team knew that they wanted the hook hand to be a pivotal scene, but they were unsure as to how it would come about:

One thing that I remember, […] it seemed to my mind that Wonder Woman was the—I paired her off more against Aquaman so that, you know, you think everybody gets along, but they have this sort of, like, break up.  In the first version, I had it that Aquaman is chained underwater, and so is Wonder Woman.  And so, in that version, I had—I felt like, “Oh, well, here Aquaman has to make a big choice.”  Clearly, he’s not gonna drown, [but] he knows Wonder Woman will, so he makes a sacrifice to cut off his hand to save Wonder Woman … which I still like because that’s a real choice.  He wasn’t gonna die, he didn’t need to save her, but he did.  And that would tell you something about this character.  But for whatever reason—I don’t know why, I didn’t argue ‘cause it still works—they wanted to do the baby.

My objection is that it—I like to have a […] tougher choice, so it makes—and, in that version, […] Aquaman has no choice.  He has to cut off his hand!  Otherwise, not only is his baby going to die, he’s going to die […] because they put the volcano thing in there.  To me, it’s not quite the same choice, but it ties up nicely at the end, you know, with the baby.  So, I don’t know how that came in.  It might have been something that Bruce had in the back of his head the whole time that he wanted to do with the baby, but it worked. (qtd. in Eisenberg and Enstall)

• Based on this information, it is possible that, in an earlier draft, it was Wonder Woman who was initially openly hostile and critical of Aquaman, rather than Green Lantern. And, as for John Stewart’s characterization in “The Enemy Below,” Timm later admitted in the DVD commentary for “The Enemy Below, Part Two” that he came off “a little rougher than we intended to,” but “his beef with Aquaman, I think, is motivated by character, you know, because he is a military guy.  He would certainly be not exactly all that trustworthy of, you know, foreign kings and stuff” (qtd. in “Commentary”).

• According to the aforementioned DVD commentary for “The Enemy Below, Part Two,” Timm—obviously seeking to avoid network notes about blood and gore—made sure that the baby’s blanket was a dark red so that, when Aquaman later used it as a tourniquet, it would not show bloodstains:

“This was a tricky thing […] how do we show that he’s cut off his hand because, obviously, we weren’t going to be able to allow to show blood, so we came up with the trick of making the kid’s blanket red so that, you know, even though he’s bleeding profusely into that blanket, you can’t see it because it was already red” (qtd. in “Commentary”).

• I like how, after Superman and J’onn J’onzz return claiming how they “searched the entire palace,” Aquaman just walks in moments later. Great job, guys.

• I also like how everybody’s just hanging out inside the operating room, watching Arthur have a hook prosthesis attached. Don’t doctors need to maintain a sterile environment for the surgery? I can imagine the surgeon’s initial reaction: “Oh, they want to come in? Sure, sure, let’s let six people—including a baby—get their germs all over the king’s open wounds. He’s just survived two assassination attempts, so I’m sure a potential infection won’t stop him either.”

• Frankly, the whole affair looks pretty low-key, considering the type of operation being performed here. You’d think Aquaman was just going in for his annual dental visit.

• During Aquaman’s surgical procedure, Batman—y’all forgot he was in this episode, didn’t you?—alerts the Justice League that the temperatures are rapidly increasing at the North Pole, causing the ice caps to melt at an accelerated rate thanks to the Doomsday Thermal Reactor. According to Rich Fogel, this was a plot point that Kevin Hopps brought to the table in his script (“Commentary”) but, hey, this can’t happen in real life, right?

• Considering how Superman has his Fortress of Solitude in the Arctic, I can’t help but wonder if Batman’s call to him was a way of asking if he left anything on when he was last there.

• In the aforementioned DVD commentary for “The Enemy Below, Part Two,” Timm discussed how the fight scene between the Justice League, Aquaman, and the Atlantean military was “one of the biggest scale action-adventure set pieces that we had done up until this point” (qtd. in “Commentary”):

When I look at it now, I think, “Yeah, we do stuff like this in our sleep,” but I remember at the time this was a real challenge for us.  Especially the water battle was like, you know, we never really staged anything that had that many players in motion at the same time before, and we didn’t know if the overseas animators were gonna be able to do it.  But, you know, they pulled it off, and so that encouraged us to go crazier. (qtd. in “Commentary”)

• During the scene where Aquaman jumps into the water at the beginning of the battle, an animation error gives him a left hand again.

• Referred to in the DVD commentary as “the Free Willy bit,” Rich Fogel was excited for the scene where Aquaman calls for assistance from a killer whale, saying how “I thought it was hilarious because, throughout the whole show, we’re waiting for Aquaman to do an Aquaman-y thing, you know?” (qtd. in “Commentary”).

• According to Rich Fogel, Voice Director Andrea Romano commented on how the scene featuring Aquaman’s duel with his brother, Orm, “had so much testosterone in it” (qtd. in “Commentary”).

• The Jack Kirbyesque dot energy effect featured on the Doomsday Thermal Reactor is reused animation from Desaad’s Scream Machine, from the STAS episode “Father’s Day” (“Commentary”).

• Batman and Green Lantern’s joint efforts to disarm the device was discussed in Bruce Timm’s January 2002 Starlog interview, where he talked about how “[f]or some episodes, we put Batman in situations you haven’t seen him in before.  In one, he and Green Lantern are at the North Pole, trying to stop a radioactive device from melting the polar ice caps.  I like seeing him in different environments” (qtd. in Jankiewicz 32).

• Rather than show Aquaman kill his brother in retaliation for attempting to kill him, kill his son, and usurp the throne of Atlantis, Orm is felled by the very climate change his orders caused, as the weakened ice bridge he stood on gave way, allowing the true king of Atlantis to passively watch as he fell to his death. If this isn’t some kind of commentary on our current climate policy, I don’t know what is.

• The look on Orm’s face as he loses his grip and falls into the chasm is reminiscent of Hans Gruber’s death in the 1988 action movie Die Hard.

• Towards the end of the aforementioned DVD commentary for “The Enemy Below, Part Two,” Producers James Tucker and Bruce Timm discussed their plans had Orm returned:

JAMES TUCKER:  We talked about bringing Orm back; I don’t know why we didn’t, but—

BRUCE TIMM:  Well, we weren’t—I don’t think we were going to bring him back as Ocean Master, were we?

JAMES TUCKER:  We talked about it.  I did some designs on it.

BRUCE TIMM:  Did we?  You know, the tricky thing is that the name “Ocean Master” just—it’s one of those things that looks good in a comic, and you don’t think about it until you say it out loud, and it’s like, “He’s going to call himself ‘Ocean Master?’”

JAMES TUCKER:  I assumed he’d just be Orm, but he—because he’s probably disfigured now.

BRUCE TIMM:  True […] but, you know, then the other part is, like, even his visuals [are] kind of really goofy, you know?  He had that really weird … what, it was like a squid head or something?  A helmet?

JAMES TUCKER:  I would probably just modify it; make it a Phantom of the Opera kind of thing. (qtd. in “Commentary”)

• With Orm defeated and King Arthur back on the throne, all that is left is to punish the conspirators. Sorry, Brak, but the old “I was only following orders” line didn’t work for the Nazis at the Nuremberg trials, and it won’t work for you here.

• In his superhero capacity as Aquaman, King Arthur would return in Season Two’s “The Terror Beyond,” and he would fully join the Justice League during the Justice League Unlimited era, having prominent roles in “Ultimatum” and “Wake the Dead.” Unfortunately, like the loss of the Batman-related characters in the so-called “Bat Embargo,” Aquaman and his related characters became unusable when plans were developed for a Smallville-like dramatic series for The WB network. While only a pilot was made, it tied up Aquaman’s rights for the remainder of the show.

• While the countries of the world do not officially recognize the nation-state of Atlantis in this episode, this does change, as it appears to be a member of the World Assembly in the JLU episode “To Another Shore” … just in time to withdraw from it over the issue of climate change. I’m sensing a trend here.

• Finally, Arthur, Jr. (otherwise known as Aquababy) first appeared in Aquaman #23 (October 1965). Sadly, he was murdered by Black Manta in Adventure Comics #452 (August 1977), an event that eventually drove a wedge between Arthur and Mera and, eventually, led to their separation. By comparison, I’m glad that Aquaman was able to save him in the DCAU.

Works Cited

Allstetter, Rob.  “Bruce Timm Talks Animated Aquaman.”  Comics Continuum.  Comics Continuum.  23 Nov. 2001.  <http://www.comicscontinuum.com/stories/0111/23/index.htm>.  Accessed 22 Dec. 2022.

---.  “Justice League’s The Enemy Below.”  Comics Continuum.  Comics Continuum.  31 Oct. 2001.  <http://www.comicscontinuum.com/stories/0110/31/index.htm>.  Accessed 22 Dec. 2022.

“Aquaman, Creeper, and … a LADY FIREFLY? Oh My! (Writer Rich Fogel).” YouTube. Uploaded by Watchtower Database. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDoY8tCg0Ag>. Accessed 26 May 2025.

Bradley, Laura. “A Brief History of Pop Culture Dumping on Aquaman.” Vanity Fair. Condé Nast. 12 Dec. 2018. <https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2018/12/aquaman-jokes-family-guy-big-bang-theory-south-park>. Accessed 29 Jul. 2025.

Brick, Scott.  “Tooned Out?”  Wizard JLA Special.  1998:  20-23.  Print.

b.t.  Comment on “Should More Violent Criminals Be Introduced to the Cartoons?”  Anime Superhero.  XenForo Ltd.  20 Apr. 2004.  <https://animesuperhero.com/forums/threads/should-more-violent-criminals-be-introduced-to-the-cartoons.3608661/#post-53151011>.  Accessed 19 Jan 2023.

---.  Comment on “Vintage Interviews with the Makers of the DCAU.”  Anime Superhero.  XenForo Ltd.  15 Jan. 2021.  <https://animesuperhero.com/forums/threads/vintage-interviews-with-the-makers-of-the-dcau.5787503/page-3#post-87747342>.  Accessed 8 Oct. 2023.

“Commentary on ‘The Enemy Below—Part Two.’”  Justice League:  Season One.  Warner Bros. Animation, 2006.

Cotton, Mike.  “Leading the ‘League.’”  Wizard Magazine.  August 2001:  80-81.  Print.

Davis, Joseph. “The Justice League Panel at 2001 San Diego Comic-Con.” Aglets Are Sinister. 26 Apr. 2025. <https://www.agletsaresinister.com/post/the-justice-league-panel-at-2ool-san-diego-comic-con>. Accessed 26 Apr. 2025.

Eisenberg, Susan and James Enstall, hosts.  “The Enemy Below.”  Justice League Revisited, featuring Kevin Hopps.  Apple Podcasts, 14 Nov. 2023.  <https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-enemy-below-writer-kevin-hopps-justice-league/id1709910091?i=1000634763682>. Accessed 27 Jul. 2025.

“Episode Introduction to ‘The Enemy Below, Part 1.’”  Justice League:  Justice on Trial.  Warner Bros. Animation, 2003.

“Episode Introduction to ‘The Enemy Below, Part 2.’”  Justice League:  Justice on Trial.  Warner Bros. Animation, 2003.

Gross, Edward.  “Justice League:  The Making of the DC Tooniverse.”  RetroVision CD-ROM Magazine.  N.p.  Dec. 2004.

Harvey, Jim.  “Bruce Timm:  Return of the Q&A, The.”  The World’s Finest.  The World’s Finest.  n.d.  <https://dcanimated.com/WF/sections/backstage/interview/bt/thesequel.php>.  Accessed 2 Jul. 2024.

---.  “Tonight’s Justice League:  Big & Intense!”  Anime Superhero.  XenForo Ltd.  10 Dec. 2001.  <https://animesuperhero.com/forums/threads/tonights-justice-league-big-intense.2866911/>.  Accessed 23 Dec. 2022.

“Inside Justice League.”  Justice League:  Season One.  Warner Bros. Animation, 2006.

Jankiewicz, Pat. “Justice League: Superman, Batman & Their Super Friends Get Animated for the 21st Century.” Starlog. Jan. 2002: 28-33. Print.

Johns, Geoff.  “The Trench.”  Aquaman, Vol. 1:  The Trench.  Illustrated by Ivan Reis.  DC Comics.  2012.

Kardon, Andrew.  “Killer Instinct.”  Wizard JLA Special.  1998:  6-13.  Print.

Moro, Eric.  “Roll Call!”  Cinescape.  Dec. 2001:  62.  Print.

Morrison, Grant.  “The Ant and the Avalanche.”  JLA, Vol. 4.  Illustrated by Howard Porter.  DC Comics.  2014.

Nolen-Weathington, Eric.  Modern Masters, Volume Three:  Bruce Timm.  Raleigh:  ToMorrows Publishing, 2004.  Print.

Rossen, Jake.  “An Extraordinary League.”  ToyFare Magazine.  Nov. 2005:  46-64.  Print.

Tejeda, Tommy.  “Aquaman.”  Vibrational Frequencies:  The Art of Tommy Tejeda.  Blogger.  25 Jan. 2007.  <https://tommytejeda.blogspot.com/2007/01/blog-post_727.html>.  Accessed 28 Jul. 2025.

“ZETA vs BATMAN and How Warner Bros. Almost Killed JUSTICE LEAGUE (Writer Rich Fogel).” YouTube. Uploaded by Watchtower Database. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvH0oq7YIjw&t=633s>. Accessed 15 Jun. 2025.

Images courtesy of Warner Bros. Discovery, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment, Warner Bros. Animation, DC Comics, The Walt Disney Company, Marvel Comics, and the estate of Robert E. Howard. YouTube video courtesy of the CatraDhtem channel.