Young Justice Cartoon - Part 8

[vantheman77]

Much, much better episode than last week's that's a throwback to the first season with the young members being a covert team. Despite what the showrunners say, I don't believe the original 6 are the focus this season. I like this new team of Robin, Blue Beetle, Impulse, and Arsenal. Throw in Superboy and Wonder Girl and you'd have a team from the Young Justice comics. The Green Beetle was awesome and should join the team as well. I can see friction between he and Miss Martian.

After much focus on Miss Martian, she's benched for this episode. There seems to be a feud triangle with Sportmaster wanting Aqualad and Black Manta wanting Miss Martian. Deathstroke makes his debut and looked awesome here and in Arrow.

How cute to see Atom and Bumblebee working together as well as the Justice League series logo.

[venomfangs125]

Originally Posted by Jordacar

Anyone want to tell me why Deathstroke was sporting a long white mane?

The same reason Green Goblin looked different from his comic look in Spectacular Spider-Man. Different styles.

Originally Posted by vantheman77

Much, much better episode than last week's that's a throwback to the first season with the young members being a covert team. Despite what the showrunners say, I don't believe the original 6 are the focus this season. I like this new team of Robin, Blue Beetle, Impulse, and Arsenal. Throw in Superboy and Wonder Girl and you'd have a team from the Young Justice comics. The Green Beetle was awesome and should join the team as well. I can see friction between he and Miss Martian.

After much focus on Miss Martian, she's benched for this episode. There seems to be a feud triangle with Sportmaster wanting Aqualad and Black Manta wanting Miss Martian. Deathstroke makes his debut and looked awesome here and in Arrow.

How cute to see Atom and Bumblebee working together as well as the Justice League series logo.

Agreed.

The action was much better than Cornered, that's for sure. Black Beetle seemed even more impressive in this episode than Before the Dawn and that's saying something. Not to mention his banter:

"Nothing like a warm plasma bath to calm the nerves...And clean off the tomato stains." ROFL

"Seriously? The fruit hurt more."

He was on a roll in this episode. Can't wait to see what he does in his next showing.

I'd like to say I called it, sadly I never did. But I KNEW they'd have Psimon piece Kaldur'ahm's mind back together!

Way to go, M'gann, bravo, excellent job.

Instead of killing Kaldur, I'm sure the Light will indeed turn Kaldur into a triple agent. Brilliant...Poor Kaldur's been messed over bad, and is about to be made even WORSE.

Though it was for a short bit, Luthor and Savage are a truly ingenious duo.

A lost tidbit is that I expected this to be the episode the Reach was exposed. Ah well, like I said before, more Black Beetle for us.

[Jordacar]

"My name is B'ars O'ohm."
Ah, I see what you did there.

[Lencho01]

Enjoyed this episode a lot more than last week's.

I can imagine what Dread will say about the ending.

[Shazam]

I have no complaints about this show!!

[Tristan_McClark]

Another awesome episode. Arsenal is becoming a favorite of mine. He's got all that firepower and likes blowing stuff up. At least stuff belonging to Luthor.

This Robin is developing into quite the leader. This is his second mission that he led, right? (Episode-wise). I think Nightwing led the team once in Season One?

Btw, in the comics is there something between Bumblebee and Atom? I know she's in college, but he's her professor? Or am I mistaken?

[TheWiseGuy487]

Originally Posted by Jordacar

"My name is B'ars O'ohm."
Ah, I see what you did there.

Yeah, I thought that was kind of clever.

[Primal Slayer]

Just watched the episode and it was good. Was totally not expecting to see a Green Beetle show up, but it was cool to see how beetles attaching themselves to different species would somewhat give everyone some upperhand against one another.

Family vs. Family will be interesting. Sportsmaster/Chesire vs. Manta will be fun to watch if we ever get to this point. I also wish they could introduce Rose/Ravager when they introduced Deathstroke but that would be a lot of family members working together.

Now just give me some more development on Wonder Girl/Batgirl/Robin and I will be a happy camper all around.

Originally Posted by venomfangs125

I'd like to say I called it, sadly I never did. But I KNEW they'd have Psimon piece Kaldur'ahm's mind back together!

Way to go, M'gann, bravo, excellent job.

I still dont see how people are blaming M'gann for what she did. If anything blame the YJ trinity for not letting the rest of the team in on the idea. All M'gann knew is that Kaldur went to the dark side and killed one of her best friends. It isnt all her fault that it is all leading up to this. All the original members who arent Wally are to be blamed for everything leading up to this point.

[Shazam]

Originally Posted by Tristan_McClark

Another awesome episode. Arsenal is becoming a favorite of mine. He's got all that firepower and likes blowing stuff up. At least stuff belonging to Luthor.

This Robin is developing into quite the leader. This is his second mission that he led, right? (Episode-wise). I think Nightwing led the team once in Season One?

Btw, in the comics is there something between Bumblebee and Atom? I know she's in college, but he's her professor? Or am I mistaken?

Firepower that was given to him by Lex......cant wait to see how that plays out....

[GamerSlyRatchet]

Originally Posted by Shazam

Firepower that was given to him by Lex......cant wait to see how that plays out....

There's not catch about the arm, actually. Lex was saving his own skin, and he knew that the League would check on it right away, so he played it safe.

[gkokujin]

Originally Posted by Jordacar

"My name is B'ars O'ohm."
Ah, I see what you did there.

i dont get it.

[gkokujin]

i must say i get a complete nerdgasm every time the "batfamily" does the disappearing thing!!!



and I now hate the real Roy Harper.

[Nightwing]

Great ep and better than last week I thought. Really glad Tim had some more spotlight/line delivery and Arsenal was pretty badass - especially when it came down to fighting Black Beetle. Green Beetle showing up to save the day was nice too. Solid episode.

And that was one massive ponytail on Deathstroke.

[vantheman77]

I enjoy Arsenal more so than Red Arrow.

He can access the Watchtower for the team since Red Arrow was a member of the group.

Lex Luthor and Macho Man Vandal Savage are awesome together as top villains.

(I would like to see Vandal Savage pay tribute to the late Randy Savage by doing the flying elbow smash on the team.)

[brainchild81]

Great ep, but Deathstroke looks better on Arrow. Get rid of that ****ing ponytail

[vantheman77]

Originally Posted by brainchild81

Great ep, but Deathstroke looks better on Arrow. Get rid of that ****ing ponytail

With that ponytail, he reminds me of Image Comics hero Superpatriot.

[TheWiseGuy487]

Originally Posted by gkokujin

i dont get it.

His name is a play on and homage to the word "Barsoom", the Martian's name for Mars in the John Carter of Mars series written by Edgar Rice Burroughs.

[Dread]

It took the preview for the latest episode of "YOUNG JUSTICE" a little longer than the last to hit the web, which due to CN's scheduling nightmare brought on some extra anxiety than intended for this episode. Oh, no, not again! But in truth, waiting until Thursday or Friday to release it used to be nothing new. And thus Saturday morning did come, and "TRUE COLORS" did reveal itself to the masses, and it was good. It is a better and more involved episode than "CORNERED" was, naturally furthering along subplots as well as delivering on the action. New characters are introduced, some older ones from the comics are cameo'd, and a literary reference is made.

Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:

The episode starts with yet another reference in superhero fiction to "THE FANTASTIC VOYAGE" with Atom and Bumblebee attempting to remove the scarab from Jaime Reyes at the cellular level. While I've seen scenes like this with shrinking heroes many times, this one still manages to work, and I sense a loose comparison to Hank Pym and Janet Van Dyne between these two - the older scientist who's mastered shrinking, and the pretty young lady he's empowered and made his partner. The difference naturally is that Bumblebee is a scientist herself, and Ray Palmer isn't insane. The Atom is apparently a character closer to Greg Weisman's heart (alongside Black Canary and Captain Atom, whose comic he edited in the 80's post-CRISIS), yet he's actually resisted overusing him to a degree. This has always been curious to me because as a fan who is weary of some of the same old faces, I probably prefer seeing some more obscure DC heroes get vital roles rather than Batman or Superman. The Atom's design here is pretty cool, and this is a solid depiction for him. Regardless, as the fanatical spin doctor G. Gordon Godfrey reveals, the Reach have teamed up with LexCorp to not only begin developing genetically modified food, but they're doing so in Smallville, a.k.a. Superman's old home town. I'm honestly not sure if this incarnation of Luthor knows Superman's secret (it does seem a bit daft for villains as smart as "The Light" not to know who he is, considering his only disguise is a pair of glasses and Clark Kent is a notable reporter), but even if not, I still considered that cold.

Naturally, Nightwing assembles an alpha squad to infiltrate the facility and gain any Reach samples. This gives Tim Drake/Robin III a chance to shine, as well as adds more focus to those two characters who are totally not leads this season, Impulse and Blue Beetle. Tossed along for the ride is Arsenal, a.k.a. the "real" Roy Harper or Angry Arrow II or whatever you choose to call him. He's still sporting the cybernetic arm Lex Luthor gave him and he still has an attitude problem - if anything, he proves more unstable than even Red Arrow was. They are led on a tour by Sharon Vance, a minor Smallville based characters for cameo fans, which leads to a scene where some background ADR had to be recorded by the voice actors. Either Crispin Freeman or Phil LaMarr get in an exclamation of, "Now THAT'S a rutabaga!" and it made me laugh in the teaser and still did in the episode. It has to become a ringtone or a meme, I swear. Regardless, alpha squad soon manages to procure a sample of the Reach's "additive", but not before Arsenal botches the mission and they have another rematch with Black Beetle, who continues to be virtually unstoppable.

The B-plot of the episode, as the teaser revealed, was Sportsmaster confronting "The Light" over the death of his daughter. I was a bit disappointed that the meat of the scene was essentially revealed in the teaser. While Cheshire had declared revenge upon Kaldur and Black Manta back in "SATISFACTION" - because while she was a criminal she still loved her sister to a degree - for Sportsmaster it's all about his honor and professional reputation. Deathstroke (and thank god CN and Weisman aren't afraid of soccer moms this time and can call him Deathstroke) has been hired to replace Sportsmaster as "The Light"'s key "enforcer". Naturally we get more of Miguel Ferrer's Vandal Savage, which is always nice. It does appear as if Savage does at least make attempts to appease the issues of underlings; they did offer Sportsmaster a payoff. And back in "COLDHEARTED", Savage was essentially doing a favor for Count Vertigo, presumably as payment for his actions within the Injustice League gambit (as well as to hopefully gain Lativa as another country within "The Light"'s thrall). Now that formalities are over, Sportsmaster and Cheshire are fully intending to go against "The Light". Frankly, I imagine they'll accomplish more than the heroes ever will. It is wholly ironic that Nightwing's entire crazy infiltration plan was derived to topple "The Light", and it may succeed not for anything they did or do, but because it turned some of "The Light"'s key operatives against them by sheer circumstance and not design.

Much like "BEFORE THE DAWN", the battle against Black Beetle here is a good one. Kevin Grevioux gets some juicy one-liners to throw at the kid heroes in between mopping the floor with them. Naturally considering Black Beetle was able to cream the "heavy hitters" of the team like Superboy and Wonder Girl without much hassle, these four have little chance until a Green Beetle from Mars arrives to spout a reference to Edgar Rice Burroughs and save their bacon. I was curious if the old farmer at the tour was Pa Kent and it is revealed that it is, aiding the team with the use of a barn even with the man of steel absent. Pa had no issue accepting Conner into their home, which was always at the heart of why I find it stupid that Superman wasn't able to accept him in the comics and in the 'toon; the Kents raised him better than that. The Green Beetle reveals the Reach's long term conquest of the cosmos and offers to help Jaime. Naturally, this triggers my sense that he's a mole for the Reach to try to reclaim the scarab, since they failed when they'd captured Blue Beetle. Usually the only beneficial creatures the team meets wind up becoming Superboy's pets (Wolf & Sphere). While Green Beetle is hanging out at the Kent farm, I don't think that counts.

The episode ends with Vandal and Luthor musing over the usual thing they tend to do; how useless and ineffective whatever mission against them was. They totally expected the team to eventually claim a sample of the additive, and they didn't even discover Luthor's most valuable produce - a power drink made by the Reach. They set out to create their own team of young stealth operatives, perhaps due to tiring of even these mundane intrusions, or seeking their own team of public Reach-made heroes for Godfrey to fawn over. Naturally, they are targeting the vagabond teenagers the Reach had abducted and activated the metagenes of. The Reach are interested in cultivating and harvesting the metagenes of humans, which likely fits into Vandal Savage's plan to ensure Earth is stronger by evolving people faster. Naturally, the Reach ultimately plan to take over the planet, which is a future that Bart at least knows is successful. Vandal mentions a child and his best known one is Scandal from SECRET SIX, although he has another daughter post-New 52. Honestly it doesn't matter; a guy who's 50,000 years old like Vandal is would surely have sired quite a few children; and probably slew the ones he didn't like. Not only this, but he brings in Psimon to Black Manta's comatose son (the undercover Kaldur) and vows to reassemble his mind once again. "THE FIX" naturally suggests that they go after Megan, but that seemed to be odd to me without Psimon being given a try. Naturally this opens up a few possibilities. Does Psimon discover that Kaldur (and Tigress/Artemis) are moles? And if so, to "The Light" simply seek to eliminate them, or exploit it to position the team where they want them? Or, does Psimon simply assume that such "memories" were part of Miss Martian's psychic tampering and "fix" them? He's a powerful psychic, but he's no match for the white martian, after all. Regardless, it raises the stakes for "THE FIX" next week accordingly. If whatever actions Psimon undertakes to Kaldur in that episode do in fact twist him towards "the Light" and away from the team, it isn't exactly something which was Nightwing's fault, since he didn't known Miss Martian had become a psychic monster (because Superboy had hidden it from him). Of course, it could (and likely will) be argued that had Artemis' death not been faked, or had more people been aware of it, it wouldn't have happened. Regardless, there is the chance for "the team" to fracture a bit more as the villains are shoring up their own ranks a bit.

I have to admit being amused by Bumblebee screaming at the start of the episode, "We've accomplished NOTHING!" It's so good to see the newer members of the team catching the drift of the theme of the series. Much like Drake not telling Nightwing about Arsenal's instability; he got the memo about keeping secrets for the sake of drama over function. Regardless, this episode was better able to mingle subplot, dialogue, and action than last week's effort and thus was a better showing. Blue Beetle as always is a great new "dragon" for the villains and more of Vandal Savage is always nice. Robin got some time in the field and while the B-plot was a bit more suspenseful for the future, the A-plot was able to keep my attention due to the witty villain and the hopelessly unstable Arsenal. Man, that Roy Harper DNA is just flawed. He's predisposed for mania. I was hoping that one of the cybernetic attachments would be a dead-cat canon, but alas, I was denied. I am curious whether Luthor's bionic arm has a drawback which Luthor can exploit, much as his S-shields had. Regardless, a fight with a large brick of an enemy which can engage in witty banter is always better than one who merely roars like a tiger, so this was a success. The angle with the Reach and LexCorp handling food naturally dips into the very real life debate over genetically modified food, which is a smart thing to dip into for a superhero cartoon show. It had been a few episodes since the team went out on an attempted black ops mission which wasn't involving rescuing their own, much like Season 1 had a lot of. As the season winds through its second half, things are ramping up accordingly. Considering how huge the Blue Beetle of the future was, I am not altogether convinced it is Jaime Reyes, and thus his desire to be rid of the scarab may be exactly what Impulse is trying to avoid. The Reach likely have a more hostile host planned.

I'm not looking forward to an episode focusing on the abductee brats, but I know one might be inevitable and it probably will be executed well. I am, however, looking forward to "THE FIX" quite a bit, as it may potentially answer quite a few questions as only psychic memory quests can. While this show can be a frustrating thing at times to enjoy, it's a good kind of frustration that helps keep the suspense riveting. It certainly is a fearless and bold series, for better or worse, which would rather take risks than coast on the expected. Which one prefers depends on the beholder. But, so long as the episodes remain this good, then it's an easy choice.

Now THAT'S a rutabaga!

[Dread]

Originally Posted by Sarcastic Fan

That's a pretty monolithic view of what "the audience" is. Every member of "the audience" wants the same thing? Because JLU never gave me what I wanted. I wanted actions to have long term consequences, but they really didn't. I wanted Cadmus to have an ending as nuanced as the arc, not a convenient bad guy. I wanted Lex Luthor to NOT be the Big Bad again. I wanted it to end on something character-driven, not a twenty-two minute WWE match. I wanted Batman to NOT give a group of dangerous supervillains a five-minute head start.

You did cut off my quote before I noted, "to a fault".

It is a monolithic view, yes, but apparently one that Bruce Timm and some others in WB animation have. Why else do Lex Luthor and Darkseid keep popping up? They're popular and well known. I am generalizing, but I do imagine large chunks of the audience prefer over the top battles with popular villains and simple solutions to complicated problems/storylines. If not, why has "BEN 10" endured for 7 seasons besides merchandise?

The Cadmus arc didn't end as well as it began and JLU did over rely on certain villains when times got tough; if not for the silly "Batman embargo" I am sure we'd have gotten another Joker episode. Certain subsets of the audience like WWE style battles. Catering, or pandering, to audiences is hardly an unknown thing in television. And I'll readily admit to being a sucker for a good action sequence sometimes.

"YOUNG JUSTICE" is easily the best DC cartoon on TV since "JLU" ended in 2006, and it does do quite a few things better. I do think it's struggled with focus as the cast has inflated much as "JLU" did, only it has a more serialized storyline and more effective villains.

[Primal Slayer]

Dont forget that Jaime is still a teenager at this point. He could grow and bulk up as an adult.

And I have seen people speculating that M'gann is going undercover again as Psimon which I could see her doing.

[Dread]

Originally Posted by Primal Slayer

Dont forget that Jaime is still a teenager at this point. He could grow and bulk up as an adult.

And I have seen people speculating that M'gann is going undercover again as Psimon which I could see her doing.

Now THAT'S a rutabaga!

Sorry. I mean it'd certainly be a wrinkle.

[Drakepool]

Eh, this was a little disappointing. Mainly 'cause it didn't focus on Tim as much as I would've liked. Seriously, he's had three episodes and I still don't know jack about Earth-16 Tim.

[gkokujin]

youre not supposed to know about Tim. Just like Dick and any member of the Bat family, their identity is secret from the rest of the team.

[Primal Slayer]

yeah from the team but not the audience. Dick showed a lot more of his personality in season 1 than Tim has this season as Robin.

[Sarcastic Fan]

Originally Posted by Dread

I'm honestly not sure if this incarnation of Luthor knows Superman's secret (it does seem a bit daft for villains as smart as "The Light" not to know who he is, considering his only disguise is a pair of glasses and Clark Kent is a notable reporter), but even if not, I still considered that cold.

Yup...

http://www.s8.org/gargoyles/askgreg/....php?qid=17422