Guardians of Justice

 The first impression of Guardians of Justice is that it is simply a very thinly veiled spoof of the DC Justice League comics / movie(s). But quickly we see that it is far from a light-hearted piece. This is dark; very dark; very, very dark.

In some ways this is what a lot of fans wanted when they complained that some of the Batman films were not dark enough. But darker than that. So, maybe, this is instead a spoof of what fans say they want... or rather an illustration of what the result might be if fans got what they asked for.

SPOILERS

Yet, as the episodes pass (there are only 7) the story is nicely coherent. There is a lot of violence, some of it clearly inspired by video games, other parts perhaps inspired by Scott Pilgrim, with no apparent reason behind the random switches. That was a bit grating sometimes. And it was sometimes a real effort to remember who had been killed, who was a suspect, who the good guys and the bad guys currently were.

I think The Speed was my favourite character, which turned out to be handy as she survived in play a lot longer than some of the other Guardians. I couldn't figure out who Awesome Man was for a long time and why he didn't do more... but that turns out to be for good reason later on!!!

Anyway, back to good guys versus bad guys. That is probably the whole point of the show. There are no good guys, really. Certainly by the end. The idealists who you might normally pick out as the good guys all get killed off. As do the fanatical bad guys. Leaving the pragmatic "all for the greater good" guys... who think of themselves as the good guys, but are not averse to killing anyone who gets in the way of their idea of a "peaceful world" where everyone behaves as they should!

Did I enjoy this? Probably a lot more than if they had taken shots at my favourite Marvel characters (was Sepia Spider a cross-over or a DC character I couldn't match?) as I always felt DC characters are inherently more ridiculous anyway (just my opinion). There were several "aha" moments that I definitely enjoyed. Overall, probably more "yuk" moments, and certain episodes dragged a bit in the middle.

On balance, definitely worth a watch; not as a superhero series but as a dark look at prejudice and authoritarian regimes... maybe a comentary on a direction that certain Western countries might be drifting if they are not careful.