It’s been a while since I’ve done a
DC Thing, and given that I don’t have enough The Mandalorian episodes to
get five posts this month, this feels like as good a time as any to do a write
up for another episode of Young Justice. The episodes are all available on DC Universe.
I know, another streaming service, but it also has all the comics, so you get a
lot of bang for your buck.
Last time on Young Justice,
three teen superheroes in training made a shocking discovery. In a bid to
impress their mentors, they went to check out a shady genetics’ lab called
Cadmus. In a classic example of things spiraling out of control, they quickly
discover that Cadmus has an entire army of creatures called Genomorphs under
their lab, the crown jewel of which being a clone of Superman. The kids are
almost replaced by clones themselves, but are saved by the clone, dubbed
Superboy, whom helps them escape. They’re forced to brawl with a roided out
scientist before meeting with the Justice League. Believing that the young heroes
could be used on more covert missions, the Justice League approves the creation
of a Team to do just that. No, to my knowledge they never give their group a
better name than The Team. Let’s get to it.
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| Think they realize that coming out of and flying up to a secret base is THE fastest way to make it public knowledge? |
We open on the three original
sidekicks trying to convince their fourth friend, Roy Harper aka Speedy, to
join their new team. All while fighting a Green Arrow villain named Brick and
stopping his smuggling operations. Teen heroes are great at multitasking. Roy
is uninterested in another “game of pretend” as he seems to see it and storms
off.
The next day the team, the Team gathers
at it’s new base… which is actually an old base, Mount Justice. It’s a hollowed-out
mountain that the OG Justice League worked out of back in the day. The group
currently consists of Robin, Aqualad, Kid Flash, Superboy and the new gal Miss
Martian. The kids run out to meet Red Tornado, the hero that will be there
overseer at the base. They ask if he’s got a mission for them, but the android
has nothing for them. Without anything else to do, Miss Martian and Superboy
offer to show the others around. They live at the base, as one has no family,
and the other’s all live on Mars. After the short tour the team introduce themselves
to each other using their real names… well, Aqualad (Kaldur). Kid Flash (Wally
West), and Miss Martian (Megan Morse) do, Robin (Dick Grayson) has orders not
to and Superboy doesn’t really have any other name. Megan, trying to be
encouraging, tells Superboy telepathically to keep his chin up, which infuriates
Superboy. He screams at her to stay out of his head. Kid has issues with telepathy.
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| Why yes, Wally, it' is a little weird to think the Fem-version of yourself is hot. Just sayin'. |
In order to try and salvage the
day, Megan shows the boys her bio-ship. It’s a semi-organic spaceship that responds
to Megan’s thoughts. She takes the boys on a joyride. During the flight, Kaldur
advises Superboy to apologize for flipping out, but he ignores him. Still
trying to brighten the mood, Megan shows off her Martian shapeshifting powers.
She takes on feminized forms of both Robin and Kid Flash. When asked why she
did gender-bender versions instead of a complete shapeshift, Megan admits
shapeshifting gender is harder than you’d think. She also admits to not being
able to phase through solid objects yet, either. Robin tells her not to sweat
it and reveals that Wally can’t vibrate through object like his mentor, and the
last time he tried he got a nose bleed, much to Wally’s embarrassment. Their
revelry is interrupted by Red Tornado telling them he got an alter form a
powerplant, just before the ship is hit by a massive tornado. That can’t be
good.
The team exit the ship and enter the powerplant.
Inside they’re met by a red armored figure whom dubs himself Mr. Twister. He creates
tornadoes and easily tosses the teen heroes around. He belittles them as they
fight, claiming to be waiting for a “Real Hero” to show up. Megan tries to read
his mind, but gets nothing. She jumps to the conclusion that Mr. Twister is actually
Red Tornado in disguise, as the Android is also immune to telepathy. The kids
try to call him out on this, but Twister smacks them around some more, even
lightning blasting Superboy. Yeah, he’s probably not Tornado. Megan calls up
her bio-ship and uses it’s cloaking ability to hide them from Twister’s line of
sight. He tells the group to stay away or he’ll kill them.
After they all recover, the boys decide
to bench Megan, as the Martian girl is rather inexperienced when it comes to
fighting, and her blunder nearly got them killed. The boys rush off to fight
Twister again. While they try to stop him from destroying Happy Harbor, Megan
tries to get Tornado to help. He says he won’t, as he doesn’t want to set the
example of him always flying in to save the group if things get hairy. He notes
that it’s rather odd that Twister seems to have very similar powers to him, and
an immunity to telepathy, which gives Megan a lightbulb moment.
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| He's no Iron-Man, but Mr. Twister is a solid baddy. Shame he's just a one off. |
While the boys are holding their
own against Twister, it seems clear that they won’t last much longer. Megan contacts
them telepathically and the group forms a plan. A moment later “Red Tornado”
flies in and tells the boys he’s taking over. He and Twister face off, much to
Twister’s delight. Tornado is good, but Twister’s additional powers over lightning
give him the edge. He seems to disable Tornado and tries to reprogram the robot
using wires that extended from his fingers. That’s when it’s revealed that “Red
Tornado” is Megan in disguise. They’d used her shapeshifting plus Wally running
around in circles at high speed to fake Tornado’s powers. The group pummels Twister
now that he’d been knocked off balance. Twister’s chest then pops open and a skinny
guy falls out. Much to everyone else’s horror, Megan drops a rock on the guy,
killing him. Or so it looked until Megan revealed that the pilot was also a
robot. Hence why she couldn’t read his thoughts. Wally nabs one of the pilot’s
robot eyes for a “souvenir.”
We cut over to a hidden lab where
the pilot of the pilot is held up. It’s revealed that he works for Dr. Timothy
O. Morrow (T. O. Morrow, ugh.). Dr. Marrow is the evil scientist that build Red
Tornado in an attempt to infiltrate and destroy the Justice League before the machine
went rogue. Marrow isn’t put out by their robotic battle suit and even more
sophisticated android pilot were destroyed. Why? Because he reasons that the
tracking program did work and that Red Tornado is probably within the area of
Happy Harbor. Oh no.
Back at the base, the kids and
Tornado examine the parts they were able to collect of Mr. Twister and the pilot.
Tornado reveals that the main reason he stayed out of the fight was to help train
them, so they shouldn’t expect him to help them the next time things go south. The
episode closes on a sheepish Superboy apologizing to Megan.
Overall, this was an excellent continuation
for Young Justice. The scale was dialed down slightly, from discovering
a potentially earth shatteringly big plot to replacing Superman with a clone to
the kids dealing with an exceptionally powerful villain of the week. It was also
a good introduction to Megan aka Miss Martian. The episode makes it clear that she’s
a bit of a bubbly weirdo, but is good natured at heart. The whole “drop a rock
and seemingly kill a guy” scene was kind of shocking given what we’re shown of
her here, even for someone like me rewatching the episode. I also liked that they
brought up that a number of the teen heroes aren’t quite up to their mentor’s abilities.
We’d established last time that Superboy doesn’t have some of Superman’s more
over-the-top powers like flight or heat vision, and Megan and Wally are in a
similar boat. Making the kids weaker does help build tension when they face off
against threats that their mentors we know could easily dispatch. Makes things more
exciting. And I like how this episode sets up a longer story arc of the Team
dealing with Dr. Morrow and his obsession with getting back his rogue android. Subplots
make most stories better, at least in my experience. I really like this
episode, and it makes me excited to keep going through the first season of
Young Justice. Not sure when I’ll post another post on that show, but it’ll probably
sooner rather than later. Have a good night!
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/posts/31983647
Twitter: @basicsSuperhero
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