Last part I promise!

Okay, I’m finally getting back to Owlman and his bomb the QED.

So Owlman had never intended to use the bomb to threaten the earth, but he actually wishes to kill everyone. And I do mean everyone. He tells Batman “everyone who ever lived, who ever will live.” His logic is that with every choice we make we literally create a world where we have made the opposite choice. (I don’t know how he knows this but we’ll have to take his word for it.) So, in short, the only real choice he could make would be to end it all. One might ask him why he thinks he has the right to do that. He didn’t make the universe, why should he get to end it. But someone evil enough to want to destroy everything will not care about rights. In his words “Does it really matter? No, nothing matters.”

In the final showdown between Batman and Owlman, his evil twin, Batman gives a puzzling explanation to t he difference between them. “We both looked into the abyss, but when it looked back at us, you blinked.” I honestly had very little idea what that meant of if it meant anything until I stumbled across this other quote:

Just remember, a man looks into the abyss, there’s nothing staring back at him. At that moment a man finds his character. And that is what keeps him out of the abyss–Lou Mannheim to Bud Fox

I think Batman is tweaking this quote to say that Owlman blinked and missed his character and so he fell. Even after this point Owlman is unmoved and still concludes “It doesn’t matter.”

Gosh, I’ve wondered myself why certain things matter, why anything does. That is because my world can shrink so small when it is focused only on me. I have wondered why I matter. It is not enough to know why we failed, and how we failed, or if we failed, we want to know why it matters. Who cares except us and why should we care ourselves?

The truth is, no one does matter unless they are loved. Think about it, what besides love can give anything its meaning? Can you buy the worth of a thing? Can you sell it? How can you sell something no one wants?

This is why so many people who feel unwanted also feel worthless. In Owlman’s warped mind, everyone is worthless because no one is constant, there is always a split, an opposite way they could go, and do, if you go to the right alternate world. But just because someone could go bad, or will go bad even, does that mean their choices don’t matter?

Owlman never stopped to think that maybe good and evil stand apart from mere circumstance. Maybe no matter who is good or who is evil, good and evil remain what they are. Maybe what really doesn’t matter is what we think about it, we don’t get to create our own brand of morality. Owlman could not allow for God.

I understand that this is a DC movie and religion is not welcome. But with such high stakes, it ought to be at least given a mention. Because depend upon it, if ever the whole universe was in jeopardy, people would turn to God for answers, there would literally be no one else. It’s funny that men can be do delusional about how much power they have. Does Owlman really think his one choice can altar all time. That he can blow up everyone who ever lived? I say this because it is important for us to know our powers are so limited. Yet we are of so much worth.

If we are not loved, then why are we here? People who hate good also end up hating love. Because otherwise why would they want to disbelieve in God? Why would they want to, not whether they should believe in him or not.

Why would someone like Owlman want to destroy everything if he could? Because he does not care. He does not care because he does not even care if he survives or not. Why should he, he figures, if he is as replaceable as simply going to the universe next door? Batman is not even able to tell him otherwise, because Batman believes it too.

Even if that was the case, I figure everything has to exist for a reason, even in this bizarre fictional story.

There is one thing that goes against Owlman’s theory and it is just this: Johnny. He is the evil Flash if you’ll remember. When Owlman disappears to the prime earth that will destroy all reality when it is destroyed, the League’s only hope is to piggyback on his transmitter device. (What takes him from one world to the next.) But Batman tells Flash he is not fast enough to vibrate at the speed necessary to catch him. Johnny says he is. When Flash protests Johnny says “He’s talking about blowing up my world too, and I’m not letting that happen.” Well he successfully catches up to Owlman. And keeps going the whole time Batman is fighting him. When Johnny finally stops, he is worn out and looks old and withered. He tells Batman “You knew this would happen.” Batman does not deny it. But Johnny shrugs and says “Good one mate.” Then he dies. (Sorry.) But I would like to point out that Johnny ceased to be a villain and became a hero, he had one shred of nobility left in him. Now I’d like to find an alternate version of this. Let’s see, was there a version of this in which the universe was destroyed and no one stopped it? That makes no sense.

Okay, so it doesn’t take much to find the hole in this theory, but that’s just it, Owlman was wrong. There is another real choice. A good real choice. Batman tells Owlman (who is his opposite but with some similarities you’ll remember,) “If we’re really alike than you know this is wrong.” “Does it really matter?” Owlman replies coldly. Um, yes. If it’s wrong then it must matter.

To sum up, the most hard choices, the ones that least profit ourselves, are the ones that will matter, and they matter no matter how much someone tries to gloss over it.

Until next post–Natasha.

Now to finally tackle the League themselves in this series.

I want to take a look at their motivation in this story because I think it’s the main thing that sets them apart.

The League is actually a little hesitant to help Luthor when he first applies to them. They bring up points like not being sure they can trust him, or an alternate universe being beyond their jurisdiction, and not even having enough manpower to protect their earth properly. All good points. I mean, it’s a highly unusual situation. But at last Wonder Woman says “I can’t believe we’re even having this discussion, of course we’re going to help.” (Favorite superhero anyone?) “She’s right” says Superman “That’s what we do.” He says later on that with millions of people, they can’t just turn their backs. After all, we as the viewer can conclude, Luthor did say they were his world’s last hope, and if he crossed dimensions to get them, he at least must believe that.

But the League has to face more dilemmas like this when they get to the alternate earth. First there’s the matter of how to fight the Syndicate. They go about it differently than Luthor anticipated. But with moderate success. They attack in teams of two. I should here explain that in addition to the five main Syndicate members, each member runs a “family” of made men who are more trusted people who work under them, and they give these people superpowers scientifically. So the League had to deal with these made men as well as the family heads. They are outnumbered, but they use strategy and the element of surprise and win several small victories. But the President is not happy, as I said in the last posts, and tells them to stop. Now Superman is very patriotic, but he refuses, he also refuses to kill the Syndicate members. They offer to keep them alive until they can stand trial. But the President does not go for this idea. The League however, does not listen to him and goes on with their plans “Now that they have a chance of winning.” I guess the question here is whether that was the right thing to do. They have the right reason, they want to deliver these people from their oppressors. But should they disobey the president?

Well, if I may be pardoned for saying so, the president is doing none of the things he should be. His own family isn’t even safe from Ultraman and his cronies. The country certainly isn’t. And he is ungrateful to Luthor for his while league perishing trying to stop these criminals. Who is the real irresponsible person here?

I guess it also raises the question, do you need anyone’s permission to do the right thing? And does it matter whether it’s under your authority or not? Most of the League are aliens, how is one earth more their jurisdiction than another? The bottom line is, they want to save lives, and freedom, and would themselves rather die than submit to evil people like the syndicate. Often the heroes of history are people who dared to try to do for their country what the ordinary people dared not try to do for themselves. Like Joan of Arc, or Martin Luther King Jr. Even our founding fathers in America, who did not have the majority on their side. America has given millions of people a new life, and rights they would not have had otherwise. Or rather the opportunity to use those rights.

It would seem that someone can be so sure of what is right, that they will not care what the majority chooses. If they let the majority decide, then I doubt anything would ever get better.

It’s funny, at the end of the movie, Superman asks Ultraman “What’s wrong with you? We almost lost everything!”(More on that later, sorry that I keep saying that.) What is wrong with Ultraman? To Superman, the good of the people comes first. To Ultraman only his good comes first. Somewhere along the line he made a different choice. Which is the point of the story in a way: That the Syndicate all made the opposite choice, and so became what they are. Every best thing about the Justice League became the worst thing about the Syndicate. I don’t think it had to be that way, In fact, I know it didn’t, for as I’ll show in  part, there was another option. For now I’ll leave you with the thought of being motivated by the right thing. Superman won’t kill Ultraman, so he uses less power, but he still wins. He wins in a different way then by just conquering. Superman wins by saving. That’s my final thought.

But my next post will cover the climax, and part of the story that I’ve most thought about and digested because it’s difficult to ferret out. Until then–Natasha.

My previous post was about Rose, in this one I want to talk a little more about Lex Luthor, the good.

I don’t know if this is boring anybody, (judging from how many likes I got on the last post, II have reason to hope not,) but I love digging deep into this material. Lex loses his last friend in the beginning of the movie. his whole League is gone. It looks as though he doesn’t stand a chance against the syndicate Instead of giving up, he goes for outside help. to a  planet where he knows he’ll be suspected by everyone because of his “evil twin.” That takes guts. Lex puts up with a lot of suspicion and keeps his cool.(Not that he does it all perfectly. He does violate their privacy and do some edgy things to get their attention. but I suppose he feels he has no choice and I still think he’s pretty cool on the whole.)

Even more remarkably, once back home, Lex tells Superman to let him take on Ultraman. “If it’s going to mean anything after you leave, it has to be me.” Which is true. There’s no quick fix for the problem, and people need to know they can trust the guardians of their world, not just philanthropic aliens. Lex does take him on, and tells him “When you do wrong there are more and more of us who aren’t afraid to set it right.”

I hope that is true. For as Superman tells the president, when the president is telling them not to keep fighting the syndicate; “We have a saying on my earth. ‘The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.'” (Quoting Edmund Burke by the way.) Like I quoted in my previous post “The wicked flee when no one pursues.” Really, If good people were always doing good, evil men would never get away with anything, would hardly dare try.

I remember what the wrong mother in Madeline L’Engle’s  A Swiftly Tilting Planet tells little Madog (only in Madoc’s vision,) “It is an evil world, little Madog.” And Madog is the one who will bring WWIII, in the story. Ultraman wants to be the government. He says the bomb will leave them with only one choice “Bow down to us, or die.” Why is it that evil men always seem to believe the world is cruel and evil as well? Jesus called the Pharisees blind. God said of Israel when they were wicked that they had eyes that never saw, ears that never hear, and hearts that do not understand. When someone is corrupt, it corrupts even their perception of other people. We all tend to diagnose the problems we see in ourselves. Which can be funny when it is only with our health and no one takes it seriously. It’s not so funny when someone has come to power and in their mind it does not matter how evil they are, for everyone else is just as bad. I’ll get in to more of that later. For not I want to address the question of why they view the world as evil. All of it is not is it?

My epiphany of yesterday was that good is not the absence of evil.

Think about it. Good is not the absence of evil. Well, health is not merely the absence of disease is it? Food is not the absence of hunger. Actually in L’Engle’s philosophy, emptiness itself is an evil, there must be a filling of goodness.

Intelligence is not the absence of stupid thoughts, but the production of smart ones. Hello, everyone has thoughts, the difference between smart people and stupid people is how useful their thoughts are. (I say this because I’m sick of stupid being portrayed as someone who just doesn’t ever think, not about anything. They focus their thinking on pointless stuff. That is not the same.)

You may wonder what my point is. It is simply that Good Men are good because they do good, not because they do not do evil. I would not call the president in the movie I’m talking about a good man, for he does nothing. I would call Luthor good, even though he makes mistakes, because he is trying to do something, and he has the guts to try.

Maybe a scene from the movie would best make this point. The League is speaking with the President for the first time, and Lex has just defeated Ultraman, much to the delight of several of the citizens of the city. The President chews them out for doing this. He then tells them that they work hard to “maintain a delicate balance with the Syndicate. It’s the only way the American people can live in relative safety.”

Very political.

Well Luthor tells him “That’s a load of crap.” And it is. Though I might go even farther and call it delusional and misleading the people. Compromise is not an option with villains who will not be satisfied with anything but it all. As Luthor knows, Owlman has invented a bomb (they call it the Q.E.D.) that is capable of blowing up an entire planet. (I might point out that they can’t use it, they live on the moon, without the earth the moon would be pretty useless to them.  But I guess aliens don’t feel bound to one planet, at any rate the good guys believe they’ll use it. Which is really all they need isn’t it?)

I think the real change in this movie is that the Justice League’s arrival wakes people up to how desperate things are, and gives them hope that things can still be reversed. There’s no corny speech about how if the people will do their job the League can do theirs. that’s not necessary. Lex Luthor is determined to see The Syndicate go down, whether the President or the people help him or not. And the League backs him up. As does Rose.

So, to sum it up, acting upon our conviction is the only way to preserve what we believe in and stand for. I can’t wait to get further into this, but at over 1,ooo words I’d better end this part. Until next time–Natasha.