We’re back for another look at YJ outsiders, how will the first half of the season be capped? Let’s take a look.
Exceptional Human Beings
The Batplane is en-route to Santa Prisca, with Katana and our newest addition, Metamorpho, Oracle takes control of the plane as they dive in. Metamorpho uses
his unique skillset to provide them a safe landing. We cut to Silas Stone
taking a call from his son Victor who’s about to play his big game, Silas
promises to be there before taking a call from Steel. Like, do they expect
everyone to have a degree in DC or something? Newcomers have likely never heard of
Metamorpho or Steel, it wouldn’t take much to explain who they are.
The infiltration is handled silently, with the only voices
we hear, the assembled assassins and occasionally Oracle on the coms. Miss M
and Superboy have fun times as the other members of the squad, minus Tigress, are training back in the quarry, Brion and Violet continue to flirt.
Metamorpho and Katana are watching Lady Shiva training assassins as a
helicopter arrives. Oracle describes her as the most dangerous woman alive.
They follow to the base but Batman’s already there as the
helicopter lands, as I'd said before, Deathstroke is leading the assassins. And we see
that one of the shadows is Cassandra Savage, she asks about the empty bunk, the
Markov Girl. Deathstroke tells her she washed out, with Batman listening and
looking close, bear this in mind for when we get to the payoff.
The big game approaches and it seems Vic’s team are
bog-standard jocks, with 2 of them bullying a guy named Ramon. A reference you
might get if you have that DC degree, or watched any episodes of The Flash. With the intel they need, Batman’s escape
plan is to board a boat carrying a venom shipment, unfortunately Bane is
waiting for them.
Artemis’ has decided to enrol Violet in high school, she
officially chooses Harper as her last name, with Will’s blessing. We see that
Cheshire is watching from outside, Will confronts her and wants her to come in but
that’s not why she’s here, she wants to say goodbye.
As Katana and Metamorpho arrive to help Batman, Deathstroke
and Shiva arrive to back Bane up. Shiva takes Katana, wanting her Soul-Taker
sword, which doesn’t look all that special, or distinct from whatever her other
sword is… Deathstroke takes on Metamorpho, who’s basically impervious to all his
attacks. Batman’s not doing so well against Bane, who’s found strength without
the Venom. Oracle guides in the Batplane, blowing up their missile defences and
providing them an exit.
Victor crushes it in that match we don’t see, and naturally
Silas did not appear, as he’s awaiting a visit from an aging Hal Jordan. A
college scout approaches him and says he sees great things in Vic’s future. Oh,
if only he knew.
There’s a lot going on in this episode, and it’s kinda
strange that the A-plot surrounds Batman Inc but it’s a solid A-plot. Though
they really need to slow down and actually introduce their more obscure
characters rather than just having them show up.
Rating 7/10
Another Freak
I feel I’m gonna be making this point often but I need to
address how I feel about the show’s incorporation of new characters. This is an
issue that traces back to season 2, season 1 had a Justice League Roster of
mostly well-known heroes, season 2 added a couple of extras but by and large it
stuck with the more well known roster.
Season 3 had Steel, Batwoman, Katana, Hardware and Ice as
new members of the League, Fire is also mentioned and we here about Magog later
also. Almost none of these members have lines, none of these members do
anything of note. And if you don’t know about comics, you might know Batwoman
and Katana are from their live action adaptations. Then in the story Orphan and
Metamorpho just show up with no explanation. Arrowette and Spoiler are not well
known either but at least their appearance was properly set up.
I am a DC-literate fan, I’d like to think, but even I had to
wiki-search Magog. Background references and Easter Eggs I mind less, and I’d
expect it from a show that wants its own DC-Universe but you cannot expect your
fans to be able to follow such an expansive roster without being confused. And
I get wanting to encourage these viewers to explore the DC Universe, but too
often we have nothing to work with, I’m not excited about Batwoman because of
her appearance here.
Why do I bring this up? This episode introduces Cyborg and
gives us an introduction to Harper Row, a recent addition to the bat-family and
it does so in a way that newcomers wouldn’t be confused. Victor’s been built up
for a while, partly in news and radio broadcasts, and partly in his subplot in
the last episode.
But it’s another factor in what’s becoming this show’s
biggest issue, which is something I’m gonna get into in the back half of this
season.
OK, preamble over with, onto the episode itself. Silas is
studying the fatherbox at the lab as Victor, rather annoyed at him missing the
game, comes in. Silas mentions his grades but it’s revealed he’s actually quite
smart, with a 4.0 GPA, something I kinda wish they used more in the show, but
minor nitpick.
On his way out, he pulls the wire out of the Reach device,
which was already damaged, causing it to explode right in his face. In Happy
Harbour, it’s the first day of school for Violet Harper and for Forrager as
well, what? Do we even know how old Forrager is? Also, he’s incapable of using
pronouns, not sure school is a great place for him. Artemis gives him a glamour
charm and entered him into the school under the name Fred Bugg.
The Fire at Star Labs is put out and Silas is surprisingly
unharmed, Victor is not so lucky, we see his injuries in extensive detail and
yikes, couldn't have done that in a kids show. Unable to move him, really, Silas has one really bad idea. Since the
Parademons use fatherboxes to heal themselves, that could feasibly do the same
to Victor. He places it on Victor’s chest and it draws power from the building
and builds a sort of metallic cocoon for victor.
Violet and Fred introduce themselves to the class, and are
derided as freaks by the guy at the front. Another student in the form of
Harper Row arrives and makes an interesting first impression. Violet is feeling
weird for reasons yet to be discovered. She sits at the back of the classroom
and gets acquainted with Violet and Fred
The fatherbox soon gets to work replacing all the damaged
components in Victor’s body with metallic ones. Back at the house, Brion is still
looking for any signs of Tara. Dick arrives and tells him that Tara was on
Santa-Prisca but has been moved, but this further annoys Brion. He gets angry
and lashes out, Nightwing is able to hold him off hand to hand but he needs to
win the battle with words. Brion can’t be obsessed with his banishment forever.
This is something that’s well set up, he’s been checking his phone for news
from Markovia pretty much since episode 4.
The metamorphosis is complete and Victor is released. Violet
and Fred head outside to eat as none of the other students really want anything
to do with them, naturally they bump into Harper Row out there. Violet’s still
feeling weird and we cut back to the lab, Victor is understandably angry at
whole affair and tech within him takes control and lashes out.
He’s about to crush Silas as we cut back to the school as
Harper Row dishes out a life lesson to Fred Bugg that I’m kinda surprised no-one
else tried, Violet’s still feeling weird and she unlocks an indigo aura that
opens a boom tube. She walks through it, whilst Fred goes to get Megan.
Violet’s boomtube leads her straight to the incident at the
lab, she and Victor fight with Violet deflecting a blast with her shield that
knocks him out. She utters a phrase in her violet aura that seems to cleanse
Victor and stop the tech within him taking control.
Here’s the thing though, while he isn’t out for the kill anymore, he’s
still furious, he’s never gonna be able to resume his normal life like this. He
asks to leave with Violet and she allows him as she opens a boomtube back to
the school. Megan and Fred are waiting under the bleachers as Violet and Victor
come through. Victor stands on the football field in the rain, mourning the
life that he’s lost.
Dick and Brion get a moment of reconciliation and Brion
decides to take Dick’s advice and focus on moving forward. In the end-credits,
we see Lobo’s finger in the quarry has started to grow a little.
This is a strong introduction to both Victor and Harper and
I wish more of the show’s character introductions were handled like this.
Rating 8/10
Nightmare Monkeys
It’s been a while since we’ve seen our old pal Garfield
Logan on the show, and he’s still killing it with his acting gig, playing Lieutenant Torq in Space Trek 3016. And who would be the co-star of the show
but Paul aka Connor from Hello Megan. He congratulates Garfield on the tear for
a death on the show, and Gar says he’s had practice, something we’ll be getting
into.
Gretchen Goode is running the show, and she put the two
together to ‘recapture that Hello Megan magic’ why is Gretchen doing this? It
doesn’t really advance her schemes at all, maybe it’s just part of the cover.
Producing the show is Steve Dayton, aka Mento from the Doom Patrol. Yup, we’re
introducing the Doom Patrol and… not to spoil anything but I wouldn’t get too
attached, and we see he’s also the stepfather of Garfield. Both are happy that
Gar will be out on a date tonight rather than at the house.
OK, we still have some loose ends from the last episode. In
particular who Halo actually is. But hearing about the boomtube gives Superboy
an idea. Remember the dissected motherbox back in the Bedlam arc, well it seems
that its soul escaped and bonded itself with Gabrielle’s body. Old soul in a
young body. Bedlam’s crew were burying here because they legit thought she was
dead.
The trauma of it impacted her memories, so she get’s flashes
of Garbrielle’s memories, and flashes of motherbox knowledge but ultimately
would have to learn everything anew. Gabrielle is effectively dead, long live
Violet Harper, which given her power of resurrection seems appropriate.
At the hotel where Gar and Perdita are staying, it seems
Perdita was gifted a pair of Goode goggles. Gar puts them and begins playing a
Space Trek game. We see the device injects something into him.
Back with the crew, Victor still wants to be ‘cured’ and get
back to his life. The moment the name fatherbox is mentioned Sphere goes into
attack mode and so does Victor. Halo cleanses Victor again and manages to calm
down sphere. What it proves is that a Halo cleanse is a temporary solution and
the two had better stick close for the time being. Not wanting to return to his
father, he’s now going to live with the others
Back at the hotel, Gar completes his game but then
subliminal messaging tells him to go to a place called Encino. But the goggles
malfunction and this is where the story with Beast Boy gets interesting.
Gar is on the Space Trek bridge but rather than his regular crew,
it’s holograms of fallen heroes. Megan and Superboy discuss how Megan’s feeling
a bit… overwhelmed by all this, this was supposed to be their one place
separate from the missions, and now they’ve got several visitors.
Clamulons, the show’s villains, attack and for each of the
crew he defeats, one of his team is killed, first Tula, then Ted Kord, then
Jason Todd and then finally it’s Wally West. (He only barely interacted with Wally and not at all from any of the others) And we get a clip from the end of
season 2 is no way in heaven Garfield would’ve seen. Gar sees a green monkey
and chases after him, his form turning to his pre-transformation self.
Then the channel is changed to Doom Patrol Go. There was a
story in Teen Titans where members of Young Justice showed up, I reviewed it
with GregsChan1 [plug] in my first and only live action appearance. It was a
ratings trap and it was terrible, still not all of Teen Titans Go is terrible,
just most of it, and we get a bit of a tribute to it here. The jokes are much
better than in the actual show, but it’s got a dark undertone to it.
Beast Boy, now in his TTG design follows the monkey onto the
Titans Tower background. In the real world, Perdita takes off the goggles and
he passes out. On the set he finds the Doom Patrol. Rita Farr aka Elastigirl
(also Megan’s best friend in the show), Chief, Robot Man, Negative Woman and of
course, Mento. Why negative woman, when it’s negative man in the comics? Quite
simply, they needed someone for Tara Strong to voice. I think this is the first
show I’ve seen that uses both Chief and Mento from the Doom Patrol.
Why do I not care so much about them introducing the Doom
Patrol out of nowhere well… For one, it might’ve been some clever
cross-promotion for the Doom Patrol series but for the second, they’re not
really important, they just service Beast Boy’s character arc. They’re going to
die, they even sing a song about it. Hynden Walch absolutely nails the delivery
here
So how is Mento still alive? Well turns out he chickened out
at the last minute and hid in shame for years, allowing Miss Martian to take
care of him as his ‘brother’ until he showed up again, claiming dubious
parental rights to exploit him and make himself rich. M’gann was willing to
fight for him but Gar didn’t see that he had a choice.
Miss M and Superboy arrive and Miss M quickly begins to
enter Gar’s mind to help him. Next channel is Hello Megan. And we’re getting to
the heart of, that being his own mother died. If you read the YJ comic, you
sadly saw this happening. Gar’s back in his pre-green form. Megan had stolen
some honey and Queen Bee is out to get it. We see that Gar saw his mother
plummeting to her death from the cliff. It’s sad they couldn’t get Logan Grove
for this but… some limitations are inevitable. I think this may well have been
the point where he got the green monkey bite that combined with the martian
blood gave him his powers.
Gar is in his s2 form and talking with the magical monkey
god, who sounds like Wally West because why not? The magic from the monkey god
was involved in stopping the goggles sending him to be meta-trafficked. Miss M
finds him but at this point he’s already ready to leave. He accepts that his
acting, whilst fun was as much a means of pushing away the ghosts of his past. He’s
ready to get back to the hero life.
Upon being released he warns Miss M about the goggles and
since Gretchen Goode handles everything at Goode World Studios, it confirms
that she’s one of the bad guys. And the episode ends with 3 couples kissing.
Gar and Perdita, M’Gann and Superboy and Brion and Violet.
I do like this episode, and since Beast Boy, despite a few
episodes absence, is going to end up as a major player this season, it’s an
important one.
Rating 8.5/10
True Heroes
We’ll conclude this half of the season. It’s
Halloween in Happy Harbour and Vic, Forrager, Brion and Violet are about to
head off but Halloween is cancelled as Dick arrives with a solid lead on Tara
Markov in Greater Bialya. Halo has to stay behind to ensure Vic doesn’t need
another cleanse.
So, what do they know? Well, by hacking the goggles, they
got the location of a ton of meta-trafficking depots, which the League and
Team are conducting simultaneous raids on. M’gann held back the location in
Bialya because it was purchased on behalf of Goode World Studios by Jakkar
Marlowe, and they have an inventory from the dark web indicate that Tara might
be among the metahumans there.
It seems Violet’s new-found relationship with Brion has her
in a panic. Dr Jace calms her down by brushing her hair but when she says that
she may be vulnerable right now, it activates Victor’s fatherbox tech.
The squad arrive in greater Bialya and Dick uses a beetle
drone to spy. Most of the guests are wearing Court of Owls style masks, and we
see Queen Bee’s enforcers, now codenamed Onslaught are providing security. And
hosting the event is obscure villain Mr Bliss. It’s a fighting arena, and up
first is Milestone pyrokinetic villain Holocaust against Tara Markov aka Terra.
Dick has hacked invitations to the event and gets himself,
Brion, Black Lightning and Tigress inside. Lightning then knocks out Simon
pretty quickly. Holocaust brings down Terra but Mr Bliss doesn’t want her dead.
They open bidding for Terra which Brion eventually wins.
Victor makes his attack but Violet’s powers have been
overwhelmed. Victor’s human side tries to hold her back and it doing so allows
Violet to snap out of her anxiety and cleans Victor again, this time
semi-permanently.
Brion and Tara get their reunion but there’s still a matter
of the fight club to deal with, so Nightwing, Lightning, Tigress and Superboy
are heading back in. Forrager is in the bio-ship providing cover fire, as his
shell’s still too soft for combat. Superboy and Icicle Jr have a funny little
chat during their fight. Artemis and Nightwing free the prisoners but the
Terror Twins take notice, Lightning manages to knock them out but Devastation
is a tougher customer.
The Terror Twins recover and attack Artemis and Nightwing and
whilst they can hold their own for a while, it’s clear the twins have the edge,
Brion and Terra arrive to help. Superboy meanwhile has managed to knock out
both Shimmer and Mammoth, Black Lightning eventually summons enough power to
knock out Devastation.
Dr Jace is happy to be forgiven by Tara, and we see her
sneakily pick up the brush she was using on Halo’s hair. Dick thinks it’s time
to bring Violet, Tera, Forager and Halo to the team. Tara is staying with
Violet at the Harper household. The next morning she gets out her phone, we see
Deathstroke receiving the message that she’s in.
It’s a solid end to the first half of the season, leaving a
lot of story threads for the next half of the season to pick up on.
Rating 8/10
This concludes our look at outsiders for now, we’ll back for
the other half once it gets a full season price.
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