Guardians of Justice (Netflix, 2022)
Posted: Sun Jan 29, 2023 5:20 pm
Rather surprised nobody brought this up yet - especially given that it features not only four very beautiful actresses in a superheroine theme,
but two legendary actresses from the 80s/90s and a horror icon.
Released nearly a year ago back in March 2022, "Guardians of Justice" is a heavily obsessed, anal-retentive parody of the Justice League.
Creator Adi Shankar purportedly spent *seven years* on this project before it was released.
Why he was so obsessed with it, I'm not sure, because there's nothing original about it, other than the pastiche approach whereby
it combines live-action sequences with animation (not the best animation, to be honest) and stock-footage clips. And I'm guessing that approach
may not be original, either, but I just haven't watched the kinds of shows that would do that.
The premise is "who killed one of the most famous members of the world's most powerful super team?". So that's been done in Watchmen, The Boys,
and Powers. If you count "who killed the whole superteam" it also includes Invincible, and "who killed the villain and violated the Code" it also brings in Jupiter's Legacy. All fun shows with lots of spandex, many of which occurred between the time Shankar conceived this project and its completion. Why did he continue making it?
Maybe because he felt such pride in being the first to cast a famous professional wrestler in one of the starring roles? (This seems to be a key reason
why anyone is watching this series, according to the comments on the Youtube trailer who are all fans of this gentleman Diamond Dallas Page, whom I have never heard of). But wait: Guardians of the Galaxy, Black Adam, Peacemaker.
So, I've got to be honest, I have no idea why Shankar kept on the road to making this series. I hope he at least got a decent payday from Netflix for it. It's not a bad watch, after the two episodes I've seen. It's just extremely derivative.
But there's not only the strain of utterly deriving all of the characters from all the major DC Comics characters (which Alan Moore and several others already covered, 40 years ago). There's also the whole "80s retro" vibe with the show taking place in 1987, but not using 1980s music or even trying to hire John Carpenter - instead, they use a 'synthwave" soundtrack composed by a modern artist named Oscillian. I'd never heard of him before (although if you listen to Gunship or world-famous Pittsburgh synth duos Arcade High and Zombi, you'll already know the general idea) and he seems to have some good tracks on Youtube. But again - what happened between the time Shankar conceived this show and executed it? Stranger Things, of course, and a bunch of other shows with 80s-retro vibes. So this series lives in the shadow of all that.
So why am I watching this? Well...because there's this casting director named Carmen Aiello, who seems like he was buddies with Shankar for the whole creative process of Guardians of Justice. And as part of the series' publicity, Aiello made a big deal out of the idea that 'diversity and inclusion' should be *mandated* in the entertainment industry to the point where if you don't want to go along with it, you should step down and retire, and make way for someone who does. I don't know exactly why this random Italian guy virtue-signalled so goddamn hard, but if you think I'm kidding about the intensity of his purpose, here's an interview with him on Medium:
But back to Carmen Aiello. His Diversity, Equity and Inclusion efforts were a major success and should be highly lauded. Remember how The Flash TV series barely starred Grant Gustin for the past few seasons, because every scene was taken up by women talking amongst each other to pass the Bechdel Test? And remember how you didn't mind that, because most of these women had superpowers, they were all quite beautiful, and looked great in their wardrobes? Like for example when they introduced the character Meena Dhawan (Fast Track) last season as a guest star, and she was a knockout in her tight shiny outfit?
It's exactly the same here. Because whatever preachery Aiello did on his Instagram account (and he did quite a lot), it resulted in four very beautiful women being cast in this series. Legendary screen hottie Denise Richards plays the Lois Lane counterpart*. Sexy black actress Tiffany Hines plays Black Bow (the gender-flipped Green Arrow). Gorgeous Indian supermodel Preeti Desai plays Golden Goddess (the ethno-flipped Wonder Woman). And Australian actress Sharni Vinson slips nicely into the tight shiny catsuit of Speed (the gender-flipped Flash).
Interestingly enough, with all of that brave talk, the casting for Guardians somehow also swings to the anti-diverse: the obvious counterpart to the Black Canary - Blue Scream - is just an ordinary-looking dude. Not sure why they did that, unless it was just really important to have a 50/50 team.
But there are some more legends involved: Jane Seymour plays Walker (a parody of Amanda Waller) and Brigitte Nielsen plays Queen Anubis (kind of a Madame Hydra figure). Also, the superhero Awesome Man is played by Derek Mears - who was Jason Voorhees in the 2009 F13 reboot, and was also in the Swamp Thing costume in the 2019 Swamp Thing TV show; Christopher Judge (Teal'c from Stargate) plays the President of the US; and yet another wrestler, John Hennigan, plays Red Talon (a gung-ho patriotic version of Nightwing/Red Hood). So yes, admittedly, another reason to watch this is all of the star power. Which makes it even weirder that I hadn't heard of it almost a year after it came out.
Unfortunately, the manner in which I watched this made it difficult to get unobstructed screen stills. So you'll have to settle for these photos below,
which should give you a good idea of what these heroines look like. You get what you get, and you don't get upset.
I'll have a wrap-up on the series' first season - it's only seven episodes total, so I should be able to finish it by sometime later tonight.
(*In fact, that was how I found out about this apparently very poorly advertised Netflix show in the first place: I was watching 'Undercover Brother' last night to revisit the incredible sexiness that both Denise Richards and the since gone-woke Aunjanue Ellis displayed within - has that fight scene with the catsuit-ripping and shower-inundation ever been discussed on this Forum??? - and I was looking to see what Richards has been doing lately, and Guardians came up.)
Guardians cartoon version.
Guardians live cast.
Black Bow tied up in a chair. This apparently happens in a later episode. Peril???
Speed close-up (I couldn't find any photo of her whole costume - see the above smaller photo).
Golden Goddess. Those shoulder pads are ridiculous but maybe that's part of the 80s vibe.
but two legendary actresses from the 80s/90s and a horror icon.
Released nearly a year ago back in March 2022, "Guardians of Justice" is a heavily obsessed, anal-retentive parody of the Justice League.
Creator Adi Shankar purportedly spent *seven years* on this project before it was released.
Why he was so obsessed with it, I'm not sure, because there's nothing original about it, other than the pastiche approach whereby
it combines live-action sequences with animation (not the best animation, to be honest) and stock-footage clips. And I'm guessing that approach
may not be original, either, but I just haven't watched the kinds of shows that would do that.
The premise is "who killed one of the most famous members of the world's most powerful super team?". So that's been done in Watchmen, The Boys,
and Powers. If you count "who killed the whole superteam" it also includes Invincible, and "who killed the villain and violated the Code" it also brings in Jupiter's Legacy. All fun shows with lots of spandex, many of which occurred between the time Shankar conceived this project and its completion. Why did he continue making it?
Maybe because he felt such pride in being the first to cast a famous professional wrestler in one of the starring roles? (This seems to be a key reason
why anyone is watching this series, according to the comments on the Youtube trailer who are all fans of this gentleman Diamond Dallas Page, whom I have never heard of). But wait: Guardians of the Galaxy, Black Adam, Peacemaker.
So, I've got to be honest, I have no idea why Shankar kept on the road to making this series. I hope he at least got a decent payday from Netflix for it. It's not a bad watch, after the two episodes I've seen. It's just extremely derivative.
But there's not only the strain of utterly deriving all of the characters from all the major DC Comics characters (which Alan Moore and several others already covered, 40 years ago). There's also the whole "80s retro" vibe with the show taking place in 1987, but not using 1980s music or even trying to hire John Carpenter - instead, they use a 'synthwave" soundtrack composed by a modern artist named Oscillian. I'd never heard of him before (although if you listen to Gunship or world-famous Pittsburgh synth duos Arcade High and Zombi, you'll already know the general idea) and he seems to have some good tracks on Youtube. But again - what happened between the time Shankar conceived this show and executed it? Stranger Things, of course, and a bunch of other shows with 80s-retro vibes. So this series lives in the shadow of all that.
So why am I watching this? Well...because there's this casting director named Carmen Aiello, who seems like he was buddies with Shankar for the whole creative process of Guardians of Justice. And as part of the series' publicity, Aiello made a big deal out of the idea that 'diversity and inclusion' should be *mandated* in the entertainment industry to the point where if you don't want to go along with it, you should step down and retire, and make way for someone who does. I don't know exactly why this random Italian guy virtue-signalled so goddamn hard, but if you think I'm kidding about the intensity of his purpose, here's an interview with him on Medium:
But back to Carmen Aiello. His Diversity, Equity and Inclusion efforts were a major success and should be highly lauded. Remember how The Flash TV series barely starred Grant Gustin for the past few seasons, because every scene was taken up by women talking amongst each other to pass the Bechdel Test? And remember how you didn't mind that, because most of these women had superpowers, they were all quite beautiful, and looked great in their wardrobes? Like for example when they introduced the character Meena Dhawan (Fast Track) last season as a guest star, and she was a knockout in her tight shiny outfit?
It's exactly the same here. Because whatever preachery Aiello did on his Instagram account (and he did quite a lot), it resulted in four very beautiful women being cast in this series. Legendary screen hottie Denise Richards plays the Lois Lane counterpart*. Sexy black actress Tiffany Hines plays Black Bow (the gender-flipped Green Arrow). Gorgeous Indian supermodel Preeti Desai plays Golden Goddess (the ethno-flipped Wonder Woman). And Australian actress Sharni Vinson slips nicely into the tight shiny catsuit of Speed (the gender-flipped Flash).
Interestingly enough, with all of that brave talk, the casting for Guardians somehow also swings to the anti-diverse: the obvious counterpart to the Black Canary - Blue Scream - is just an ordinary-looking dude. Not sure why they did that, unless it was just really important to have a 50/50 team.
But there are some more legends involved: Jane Seymour plays Walker (a parody of Amanda Waller) and Brigitte Nielsen plays Queen Anubis (kind of a Madame Hydra figure). Also, the superhero Awesome Man is played by Derek Mears - who was Jason Voorhees in the 2009 F13 reboot, and was also in the Swamp Thing costume in the 2019 Swamp Thing TV show; Christopher Judge (Teal'c from Stargate) plays the President of the US; and yet another wrestler, John Hennigan, plays Red Talon (a gung-ho patriotic version of Nightwing/Red Hood). So yes, admittedly, another reason to watch this is all of the star power. Which makes it even weirder that I hadn't heard of it almost a year after it came out.
Unfortunately, the manner in which I watched this made it difficult to get unobstructed screen stills. So you'll have to settle for these photos below,
which should give you a good idea of what these heroines look like. You get what you get, and you don't get upset.
I'll have a wrap-up on the series' first season - it's only seven episodes total, so I should be able to finish it by sometime later tonight.
(*In fact, that was how I found out about this apparently very poorly advertised Netflix show in the first place: I was watching 'Undercover Brother' last night to revisit the incredible sexiness that both Denise Richards and the since gone-woke Aunjanue Ellis displayed within - has that fight scene with the catsuit-ripping and shower-inundation ever been discussed on this Forum??? - and I was looking to see what Richards has been doing lately, and Guardians came up.)
Guardians cartoon version.
Guardians live cast.
Black Bow tied up in a chair. This apparently happens in a later episode. Peril???
Speed close-up (I couldn't find any photo of her whole costume - see the above smaller photo).
Golden Goddess. Those shoulder pads are ridiculous but maybe that's part of the 80s vibe.