Power Outage

"**Power Outage**" is the second episode of Justice League Action. It is also the second part of the Shazam Slam series premiere.

## Summary

Calythos, a djinn, intends to obliterate the Earth's surface, and the Justice League members must respond even though he can steal their powers.

## Story

At Stryker's Island prison, the warden leads a flying Superman along a gangway towards a cell where the inmate is said to be "absorbing cockroaches". Superman goes in and is attacked by the power-stealing Parasite with his long feelers. Superman dodges them and blows the predator out of the door where he is ensnared in Wonder Woman's lasso and forced to submit.

Later, outside, as Parasite is loaded into a prison truck while the superheroes look on, reporter Jimmy Olsen arrives on his moped and starts to film the whole operation. Suddenly, a flaming meteorite appears in the sky and descends at speed to strike and destroy the prison vehicle. The superheroes reflect on the demise of Parasite until Superman hears a heartbeat coming from the impact crater. A monstrous crouching black figure with glowing, red features stands and announces that, "nothing will stop Calythos now," before prodigiously jumping into the air and away into the distance.

While Superman attends to damage caused to the prison, Wonder Woman goes in pursuit of Calythos. The latter lands in a park in Metropolis and plants his flaming sword in some open ground which causes lava to erupt and form a mound. Wonder Woman arrives and proceeds to knock the interloper about while Jimmy continues to film. But she finds it increasingly difficult to weaken him and decides to lasso him instead. Calythos blurts out that he is one of the Brothers Djinn and intends to cover the Earth in magma to restore it to it's primaeval state. He then easily shakes off the superheroine but is intercepted by Superman who now takes his turn at punching Calythos around. But he too finds it progressively harder to get the better of his opponent. Wonder Woman throws the sword out to sea, but Calythos follows it and raises a new mound of lava there that becomes a volcano.

The two superheroes now realise that they are losing their powers and Jimmy arrives to confirm their fears by showing them his video of Calythos absorbing Parasite at the prison. The superheroes decide they need more help and then leap (they cannot fly) over to the volcano. They engage the Djinn in combat but, as he has absorbed their powers, he triumphs and they fall back defeated. Then Calythos hears someone talking to him but cannot see anyone until the Martian Manhunter makes himself visible. The latter is strangely confident that the Djinn will be defeated. In a new fight, the Martian's powers are absorbed too, but, when Calythos picks up his flaming scimitar, he collapses in agony. The three superheroes explain to him that he has absorbed the Manhunter's vulnerability to fire, and to make it stop he ejects Parasite from his body, causing the Justice League members to regain their powers.

Later, while Superman blows on the volcano to seal it with ice, the two villains are taken aboard Justice One piloted by Batman. There, the Martian Manhunter cracks a corny joke, but Batman fails to see the humor and flies off towards Metropolis.

## Notes

* The 'power outage' referred to in the title is obviously the heroes' loss of super-powers and not a cut in electricity supply.
* Calythos' defeat in this episode is similar to the defeat of Parasite during his first battle with Superman in Superman: The Animated Series. Both involved the villain who can absorb powers absorbing a weakness of the hero, although there is the small twist of the villain absorbing his own element.
* Superman's line saying he can *not* leap tall buildings in a single bound is a reference to the 1940s Fleischer Superman cartoons.
* One of the storyboard artists, Jay Baker, has posted images and animated clips with sound from an early production stage of this episode.