The Watchtower Orbiter is an orbital space station used by the Justice League. It appears to have the same orbit around Earth as the Moon.
Season Ten[]
John Jones brought the new space station online in the spring of 2011. Tess Mercer used the station's cameras to get a look at the planet of Apokolips.[1]
Notes[]
- The space station technically appears in Finale, Part 1, but is not explicitly shown (with Tess merely using its camera system to observe the coming planet known as Apokolips.
- The Watchtower Orbiter is technically the third satellite/space station linked to the Justice League. In Justice & Doom, John Jones is shown operating out of a Swann Communications satellite[2] (which was seemingly forgotten about afterwards). In Salvation, Oliver Queen reveals that he has had a proprietary satellite launched into orbit to allow them to operate and speak with the Watchtower headquarters in Metropolis during emergencies.[3] As the Watchtower Orbiter is explicitly identified as a new space station, that John Jones has only just brought online,[1] it is not one of the first two introduced.
- The Watchtower Orbiter was forgotten about in the Season Eleven comic book series, where the Justice League builds a Watchtower Outpost on the Earth's Moon, which is brought online after the Watchtower building in Metropolis is destroyed.[4]
Appearances[]
In the Comics[]
The first Justice League Satellite was introduced in Justice League of America #78 (February, 1970). The satellite served as the home for the Justice League for a number of years. It was destroyed following Crisis on Infinite Earths, after which the Justice League went back to using bases on Earth for the better part of a decade.
The Justice League acquired a new satellite base (called the Justice League Refuge) in Justice League America #0 (October, 1994), which had originally been the escape pod of an alien spaceship. The Refuge was destroyed in JLA #1 (January, 1997), and replaced with the Watchtower base on the Earth's moon.
In Justice League of America (Volume 2) #7 (May, 2007), the Justice League acquired a new satellite headquarters (after the destruction of the Watchtower moon base).