The Guardians of Justice on Netflix is a masterpiece of awesomeness

The Guardians of Justice has dropped on Netflix, the streamer’s answer to the raunchy, gory, and dark-humored super-teams on The Boys and Peacemaker. Does this new league of misfit champions have what it takes to stand out amid the throng of superhero shows out there? Let’s get into it.

First, a summary: The Guardians of Justice are a team of heroes once led by Marvelous Man, an indestructible titan who saved the world from eternal war. When he dies suddenly, the Earth is thrown into chaos. Governments point fingers and nukes, nefarious shadow groups scheme, and the threat of doomsday rears its head. The Guardians of Justice are all that remain to hold the peace together. However, will their unity be in jeopardy when they suspect each other of Marvelous Man’s murder?

I’ll be honest with you, I was dragging my feet this morning to get started on this show. After Peacemaker and Doom Patrol, I’d been feeling like I’d had my fill of the superhero genre. I was fearing the same old same old: a team of wise crackers, semi-evil goofy villains, bouts of drama, bits of action. And indeed, I did get all those things. However, the show’s approach was so inventive, creative, and fast-paced that it breathed new life into my body and reawakened my interest in ripped men and women in spandex.

The Guardians of Justice has style and bite

One of the things that appeals to me about the show is the style. The Guardians of Justice uses a blend of animation (of all sorts; comic book panels, 8-bit cutscenes, etc) and live action. And while the set design is clearly limited, the series makes up for it not just with the incorporation of Scott Pilgrim-esque cartoon visuals, but also interesting angles and lighting. Every episode is a visual treat, a beautiful collage of different mediums.

Another thing that keeps The Guardians of Justice engaging is its quick, snappy editing. Again I want to compare it to Edgar Wright; the show is committed to telling the story with as little dialogue as possible. For instance, there is a Batman-esque character named Knight Hawk who is investigating the circumstances of Marvelous Man’s death. At one point, he begins to suspect his own teammates. Where another show might convey this with a line of dialogue or a close-up on Knight Hawk’s suspicious face pair with a group photo or something, here we get a minute-long animated sequence where Night Hawk’s imagines how the other Guardians could have done it. I just love that. The Guardians of Justice is constantly asking itself, “what is the most fun and clever way to communicate this story beat?” And it delivers some great answers.

The Guardians of Justice never drags itself down with long, dialogue heavy scenes. In a way, the plot is very simple, or rather, easy to grasp. The line between heroes and villains is very well drawn (or at least, there isn’t as much ambiguity as there is in, say, The Boys). But there are still lots of moving pieces to keep things interesting. You have the Guardians, you have a capitalist agent who works for corporations to keep the economy of this unstable world stable, there’s a terrorist supergroup named Anubis, an ultra-badass gun-happy American president, his Soviet counterpart, and more. There are just so many characters, and the show hops between them all without missing a beat.

The final thing I want to talk about is the show’s biting political commentary. One of its gimmicks is hopping between a variety of news outlets and internet commentators who talk about current events, which is both funny and useful to catch us up on plot details. It also accurately reflects our our fragmented information age, where the kind of information you get can depend on where you get it. When you set your story in a world on the brink of chaos, the doomer Gen Z-er in me can’t help but nod my head and go, “truth.” The show takes lots of these sorts of jabs at modern culture, and hot dog if all of them don’t make me laugh.

So those are my first impressions of The Guardians of Justice, a loving and gritty homage to classic superhero stories that still manages to shake up the formula. Beautiful art, hilarious writing, inventive action, awesome music. I couldn’t sing this show’s praises any higher if I was working at Netflix (and trust me, I wish I was). Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have the rest of the season to watch. Don’t try to reach me until tomorrow.

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