We’re back with another run of Young Justice, more episodes done from memory, with a little help from the wiki summaries so again things may be out of order or condensed. Sorry, I only have so much time for these.
Evolution
One of the things I wanted from this season is to get a
better sense for what the end goal of the light actually is, and this episode
provides. One more recast of note, sadly Miguel Ferrer who originally played
Vandal Savage died in 2016, David Kaye has taken over the role.
We open with Vandal’s daughter Cassandra Savage being given
a book of Vandal’s history by another of Vandal’s daughters, Olympia. In the
present, there is an armada heading towards Earth that Vandal is made aware of.
We hear Cassandra reading from the journal, the excerpts are
displayed using limited if any animation, relying mostly on still-frames, this
was likely another cost-cutting measure. Vandal, 50000 years ago approaches a
strangely growing meteor, but was confronted by a bear, his old nemesis.
In the present, Vandal gets in contact with Luthor, they
make small talk as Olympia excitedly asks if Cassandra got to the part about
the bear yet. Luthor explains that with the restrictions leading to all the
resignation of the league, there aren’t enough heavy hitters on Earth to deal
with an invasion of this size. The leaguers in space are busy fighting on
Apolaxia, the Green Lantern Corps are split fighting the Reach and the forces
of Apokolips and Klarion is busy with Project: Rutabaga.
With those options out, it’s Vandal to protect the Earth
using the war-world. We see that in the past Vandal defeated the bear and made
it to the meteor, he’s attacked by other homo-sapiens and lies by the
meteorite, bleeding. It’s of course this meteor that grants his immortality,
effectively becoming the world’s first metahuman.
Dick, Artemis, Brion, Connor, Violet and Forager begin doing
team-building exercises on Happy Harbour Beach.
On the War-World, Vandal gives a message to try and force
their surrender but it comes up with nothing, the invaders attack as the war
world attacks. Olympia is fascinated by Cassandra notices another fleet
arriving from the other side of the solar system. He has no choice but to call
in help.
After another scene with the guys on the beach, we cut back
to the War World, where Savage has contacted Darkseid for help. Michael Leon
Woodley provides his voice and whilst he’s no Michael Ironside, I think it’s a
decent choice. Darkseid agrees to honour their deal and send help. As we get
another chapter from the book.
They took a page out of Justice League’s book and have
Apokolips be a force that invaded Earth Millenia ago. Vandal in this era was
known as Genghis Khan, and wages his armies, including his two gifted sons
against them. Naturally they lost quite spectacularly but Desaad believes that
humans may be sturdy stock for the anti-life equation, so Darkseid and Vandal
craft a deal. Vandal provides metahuman weapons to Apokolips to help Darkseid
conquer the Galaxy, then the two sides will wage a final battle for the
universe, winner take all.
In the present, Darkseid sends his fleet led by his son
Kalibak, to help Vandal. First thing he does is send out a meta-teen and then
up the power on his control chip until he explodes, taking out the fleet. Brion
and Violet are presented with Supersuits, Brion’s was created by Fire (who does
not appear this season) to not burn up under his powers. He also chooses the
name Geo-Force as a superhero code name. Don’t really understand why he needs
one when he outed himself pretty much straight away but I digress, they begin
team manoeuvres.
Both armies are being annihilated but do not seem to
surrender and when a certain sea star is shown controlling an alien body,
Vandal realises what has happened and how he can end it. He gives command of
the War World to Cassandra as we’re treated to another chapter of his origin.
In the times of Babylon, Vandal was known as the demigod
Marduk, he and his 2 children engage in a battle against another alien race
controlled by the sea-stars. His son Nabu, who wears a helmet similar to the
Helmet of Fate didn’t survive the battle. In the present, Cassandra finds a
single ship held back from the attack fleet and Vandal boomtubes aboard. We see
flashes of him fighting the sea star in both the past and present and on both
occasions, Vandal is victorious. He and his daughter became collectively known
as The Light.
Jefferson and Dr Jace had had a dinner date, and it’s clear
that Jefferson has feelings for her, as they return to hotel, slightly
intoxicated and spend the night together.
He places the remains of it in the War World’s prison cells
where we see Mongul but weirdly not Despero, huh. Olympia asks again whether
Cassandra has heard the part about the bear but Vandal tells her that his story
must never be told as it would disrupt his long-term plans.
He asks why she likes the story of him and the bear and as
she explains he snaps her neck, much to Cassandra’s shock. He tells her to
arrange a funeral for her and she agrees to do so.
The group on the beach enjoy some camp-food and Halo unveils
a new green aura that hollows that allows her to project holograms.
It’s an interesting episode. Highlighting Vandal’s overall
plan (though why would Queen Bee describe them as ‘new partners’ when boomtubes
first showed up?) and giving us a better insight into his character overall.
Rating 8/10
Triptych
Triptych is a word used in art meaning a piece of arc
divided into 3 distinct pieces. Nightwing reports to Oracle.
We open with Shade, Mist and Livewire breaking into a Star
Labs facility, Livewire knocks out their scientist, Silas Stone and they get to
work stealing a large piece of technology. Unfortunately for them, Silas
quickly recovers and sounds the alarm as Shade takes a few moments to transport
the machine away with his shadow powers. They’re given aid by Cheshire who
takes a bullet in the shoulder for her troubles. Even so they escape with the
device.
News of the break-in soon reaches the ears of Dick Grayson
and his team, which I’m dubbing ‘The Squad’ for the purposes of making this
easy. Cheshire may be their means of finding out more information about the
League of Shadows.
Cheshire is receiving treatment for her wound at an
airfield, her Doctor is obscure Batman villain Doctor Moon, she insists on
staying conscious during the surgery as she doesn’t trust him. The squad arrive
and fights ensue. Mist takes on Dick Grayson. Halo, Forager and Geo-Force take
on Shade whilst Black Lightning takes on Livewire. Dick uses a cryo-genic
gadget to take down mist, and Black Lightning’s lightning is able to hurt
Livewire. It’s a little more complicated with shade who has a bit more
experience and is able to handle himself. He transports Geo-Force into his shadow
and Halo unveils a new white aura that is able to burn through his shadow, he
brings Geo-Force back and retreats.
Tigress easily knocks out Doctor Moon and interrogates
Cheshire about the shadows, she doesn’t know who’s running the shadows, only
that it’s being run from Santa Prisca. Artemis then tells her to see her
daughter but this is request Cheshire doesn’t want to honour. She’ll always be
Cheshire first and doesn’t want to burden Lian with that. Shade arrives and she
escapes with him.
Robin reports to Batman. He’d been keeping tabs on Jervis
Tetch, the Mad Hatter since his release from prison. One night he brought along
his team consisting of Spoiler, Arrowette and Orphan, all 3 of whom wear face
coverings so the team don’t have to animate their lips. And because this is
only one third of an episode, none of them have much of a chance to leave any
impression, which is a pity when it’s their only episode this season. We do see
that Tim is a more confident field leader than he was but given the city and
criminals he’s up against, he’s more in his element anyway.
They notice that Jervis is drinking a lot of water and Robin
takes a look at of the bottles he threw away, finding clay backwash, Orphan
cuts ahead of them and reveals ‘Jervis’ to be Clayface. A brief fight ensues
but Spoiler uses a clever tactic of saying they know where Jervis is to get
Clayface to retreat, she’s tossed a liquid tracker on him so they can follow
him.
Jervis is busy implanting control tech into a metahuman
prisoner as Clayface arrives. The tech is successful as Robin and co arrive.
The team are split. Orphan and Arrowette are to run interference with Clayface,
Spoiler goes after Mad Hatter whilst Robin finds out what’s going on. Mad
Hatter activates a series of explosives on his way out. Robin observes the tech
and soon finds the explosives, ordering his team to evacuate, he asks Clayface
to do the same but he doesn’t do so as the place explodes. Clayface survived
but Robin surmises he won’t be happy with Jervis Tetch
Aquaman and M’gann report to Wonder Woman. They had received
word that a prison transport taking prisoners, the meta from earlier and Brick,
from Star City to Belle Reeve was about to be attacked. And so it was, by
Sportsmaster and Abra Kadabra. Unbeknownst to these villains, the drivers of
this particular job were Captain Marvel and The Flash. Sportsmaster uses a
sonic device to knock them both back but they’re re-enforced by Rocket and
Aquaman. They manage to capture Abra Kadabra and detain Brick, but Sportsmaster
escapes with the other meta.
So how do these 3 stories connect, well the unknown meta
from stories 2 and 3 is in fact Shade, [you might have noticed the stories were
played in reverse order] and thanks to the intelligence gathered across the 3
stories they’ve shut down Branchwater securities, a metahuman trafficking
operation that acquired metas from prison and used them for corporate espionage
on behalf of Simon Stagg. The tech they were stealing from Star Labs was a
Reach Dev believed to be a metahuman failsafe, they theorise Stagg had grown
paranoid and wanted to protect himself from potential meta-attacks against him.
They arrested Stagg for receiving stolen goods and got him
locked up for a long time thanks to the evidence gathered throughout the episode.
It’s unlikely Cheshire and Sportsmaster knew they were working together but the
same can’t be said for the heroes, we see here that all their reports happen in
the Batcave. The 7 of them have formed an operation linking their squads in an
attempt to beat the Light at their own game.
Robin managed to release Hagan from the mind control using
the tech he found raiding the base. Batman then used it to free Livewire and
Mist, they’re looking at an alternative to prison for them as they’re minors. As
for Shade, Cheshire releases him from external control and he pays Stagg a
visit in his prison cell, whether it’s to liberate or kill him is unclear but I
suspect the latter.
Wonder Woman expresses her discomfort in this affair but
Batman argues that with the others not knowing, should they worse come they
have full deniability, only the assembled heroes would need to lie under Oath
and since Wonder Woman has diplomatic standing, she might be able to avoid the
stand at all. Still, it doesn’t make Wonder Woman happy
This episode covers a lot of ground quickly as such is quite
busy, but it’s backed by a nice, if somewhat predictable twist
Rating 8/10
Home Fires
We open with a meeting of the Light in Greater Bialya. We
only see Vandal Savage and Queen Bee, making her first and only appearance this
season. There are 2 ongoing situations, she’s confident their newest hire can
handle the first, and asks Vandal about their choice of hire for the second.
Vandal is confident. Who is this hire, it’s Lobo, who we see accepting the
contract from a robot on Rimbor.
In Central City Iris is watching TV, Cat Grant is covering
the opening of the Star Labs Metahuman Youth Centre. Mist and Livewire will be
among the first to be helped there. Metahumans there will gain help controlling
their new abilities and adjusting to the worst with any physical and mental
therapy that may require. Iris is jealous that Cat’s covering it and not her.
Bart is with her, helping her with the twins as the doorbell
rings. It’s Mera and her son Artur. Guess running the kingdom is a busy job for
Orin suddenly. Meanwhile a figure across the street is watching them
We then cut to the G Gordon Godfrey show where G Gordon is
interviewing Gretchen Goode. He starts by deriding the goggles, saying it’s
turning folk’s brains to mush which given the evidence we’ve seen isn’t
entirely inaccurate. But that’s not what Gretchen is here for. She’s hear to
talk about her partnership with the Wayne foundation to make charitable
donations to causes such as the youth centre. G Gordon wonders why Bruce Wayne
wouldn’t appear on the show.
Miss M wonders how Superboy can watch the show with the
amount of bile and hate he spews and Superboy admits he finds him fascinating,
plus it can be useful to see what the other side thinks. Miss M heads off with
Snapper Carr as they both work at Happy Harbour High School. Superboy and Brion
have their own appointment to meeting to make.
Back at the playdate, Will has arrived with Lian and Racquel
with her son Amistad. Racquel answers the door to a very pregnant Karen.
Superboy, Geo-Force and Forrager arrive at a Quarry for them
to train. Jefferson, Tigress, Halo and Dr Jace, are there already and exchange
pleasantries before they’re fired at. Nightwing is on the edge of the quarry,
testing them with rubber bullets. Halo and Forager adapt quickly, Geo-Force not
so much.
Back at the playdate, John Smith arrives at the house with
his daughter, Traya, that he created, somehow. We see that Linda Stewart has
arrived with her children also, there are only 2 more to arrive.
Geo-Force complains about the training but as Nightwing is
about to tell him about preparing for surprise attacks, they get a surprise
attack by Lobo. His contract is to kill Forager. They attack him to protect
Forager but Lobo is a tough customer. Halo is tasked with flying Forager away
but Lobo is having none of it and fires a chain gun which impales Halo.
Halo activates his healing aura to help herself as the
others keep Lobo distracted
Back at the playdate the last arrivals are Lois Lane and her
son Jonathan. God what I’d give for a super-sons tribute. Anyway, it’s revealed
that the guy across the street watching them is Orm, the Ocean Master, he’s
about to act but he’s confronted by Lady Shiva, the Light’s hire. She
congratulates him on his hard work, a plan the Light have referred to as the
Nuclear Option, but the thing about going Nuclear is that you’re pretty much
guaranteed retaliation and neutral annihilation. Shiva was sent to stop that
and does so be decapitating him. Must be a special sword that pierces Atlantean
skin. She cleans up the operation soon after so no-one would ever know.
Back at the quarry, Halo uses her holograms to try and keep
Lobo off but it only works for so long, she then uses her yellow aura to blast
Lobo, successfully chopping off his finger. Forrager seems to attack from
behind and Lobo crushes his shell, he leaves, considering his job completed but
it seems that Forrager was able to shed his exo-shell to fool Lobo.
Back in Greater Bialya, turns out that Lobo’s attack was a
means of confirming Vertigo’s testimony of what happened at Bedlam. I have a
lot of questions as to the logistics but I’m gonna run with it. So, we know 4
members of the Light [Vandal Savage, Lex Luthor, Klarion and Queen Bee] who are
the other 3? Well replacing Ra’s al Ghul is Deathstroke, now sans pony tail,
replacing the Brain is the Ultra Humanite and finally we have Gretchen Goode.
Who promises that a plan is in motion to deal with the Squad.
There are a few issues with how this played out and it takes
a while to get going but overall I enjoyed this episode
Rating 7.5/10
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