Welcome back to Boomb Tube! Here, we will be catching you up on the week in comics TV, both through micro-reviews, as well as links to our full-length TV reviews. We also tend to review series that are dropped all at once weekly so there are a few ‘older’ shows mixed in for good measure. Are we missing your favorite show? Let us know in the comments!
The Flash – “Rogues of War” (S9E03, The CW)
This was a very nice and funny team-up episode. The bad guys steal yet another gizmo and Barry and Iris (who were learning how to make Crème Brûlée in Paris) go to the crime scene to learn that the rogues are building a cosmic treadmill and they are missing only a piece, located in a building of the Department of Defense, so Barry cannot ask for it.
Hartley has an idea, if there are rogues looking to steal the last piece, maybe someone else can steal it before, some kind of a good-Rogue team. So, he and Barry start recruiting bad guys, they ask Jaco/The Hotness who immediately joins the team no questions asked; then they recruit Goldface who ratted on his wife to avoid prison, and they recruit Chillblaine, who still feels betrayed by Team Flash for not trying to revive Frost.
Barry learns to trust the rogues after they have many disagreements; when they are about to enter to the building, Goldface starts questioning the need to deactivate meta-dampeners and the presence of Barry, and Jaco mocks him for not realizing yet that he is The Flash, which is very funny to me because he is not careful at all about maintaining his identity a secret, but after thinking about it for a minute, actually I agree… that’s accurate, if I were a superhero, after 9 years surely everybody would know my identity.
Then, when they get the gizmo, the bad-Rogues arrive, Jaco and the Fiddler start flirting, Chillblaine betrays the good guys, the Red Death appears to defeat them and, at the end, it is revealed that the new big bad is Ryan Wilder, Batwoman herself (or a version of her).
Finally, there’s something that the production does that deserves praise: they keep the show up to date with the modern era of comics, they have introduced characters and concepts that are very new in the books: Deathstorm, Zoom, the other Forces, Godspeed, Bloodwork, Meena Dhawan/Fast Track, The Hotness and now the Red Death; we’ve even had “reactions” to real life, like the cameo from Ezra Miller, the current DCU Flash. And in this episode, we got to see the funniest thing with this “modern awareness”, where Ryan Wilder menacingly said: “I am Vengeance!” – Ramon Piña
Harley Quinn – “A Very Problematic Valentine’s Day Special” (S3E11, HBO MAX)
Read our full review of the Valentine’s Day special by Carl Waldron.
Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur – “Run the Rink” (S1E3, Disney Channel)
Lunella Lafayette receives a little lesson in patience here, after persuading her family to let her manage the skating rink while they’re away at an event. Quickly bored, she tries to automate her tasks, only to cause a mess with a flood of popcorn, and then indirectly destroy her mother’s DJ set by asking Devil Dinosaur to eat said popcorn. At Casey’s behest, they throw an event attended by Moon Girl and Devil to cover the costs for a new set, failing to realize it’ll attract supervillains.
The first two villains, Instantanegirl (instant-tane-you know what, forget it) and Manbaby, are bizarre losers, but the third, Gravitas (who does have a precedent in Marvel Comics, albeit a completely different one who’s only ever appeared once), is a genuine threat, using tech to leave Devil floating in the air, before lifting the whole rink into the sky. Lunella remembers her grandmother’s advice about patience, and wears out Graviton by dodging him until his battery runs out, allowing her to take his tech, and use it to land the rink (and everyone inside) safely.
All in all, this was a nice reminder that, as “freakishly smart” as Lunella is, she’s still a young girl. Also this episode, it was confirmed Casey has two dads, and Devil got to float over the end credits like a green disco ball. His confused expression was so adorable: bless him. – Christopher Chiu-Tabet
Continued below
Star Trek: Picard – “Disengage” (S3E2, Paramount+)
We learn Jack Crusher is a charming medical smuggler, a doctor who fancies himself a Han Solo or Robin Hood in the lawless regions of space, and has consequently become a wanted man, with a bounty on his head that’s sent Fenris Rangers, Klingons and even Starfleet after him. Picard, Riker, and the crew of the Titan learn his pursuer in the nebula is the creepy, and oddly well-informed Vadic (Amanda Plummer), captain of the Shrike, a formidable ship with a tractor beam that (incredibly) is capable of flinging nearby vessels at others. Shaw wants to give up Jack to protect his crew, but Picard and Riker assert that he should be tried in Federation space, not handed over to sadists who’ll likely kill him.
Like Kirk and Spock, our heroes face a no-win scenario, where the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, but Jean-Luc and Will refuse to negotiate with a terrorist. Star Trek has always been intended as an aspirational example of what humanity could be in the future, and this concern for even one person’s life reflects how repulsive sentencing anyone to death should be for any enlightened individual. However, there’s another wrinkle here, an uncomfortable truth for Picard that Riker easily deduces: Jack is Jean-Luc’s son. When Beverly recovers from her medically-induced coma, and sees Picard on the bridge for the first time in decades, he accepts this, and asserts his rank over Shaw to order the Titan to flee further into the nebula.
Meanwhile, Raffi defies orders to investigate who was behind the attack in San Francisco: Starfleet learns immediately it was T’Luco, a Romulan rebel, but she wants to know who bought and supplied him the stolen portal tech. Meeting with her ex-husband, Jae Hwang (Randy J. Goodwin), Raffi arranges to meet with a Ferengi crime lord, Sneed (Aaron Stanford), but her cover story falls apart when the gangster reveals he beheaded T’Luco. The lovely sight of a decapitated head is repeated, more awesomely, when WORF shows up to bail her out, revealing himself to be her incognito handler. Worf was a sight to behold, between his now white hair, his fabulous new sword moves, and his line, “I told you, do not engage.” What’s Worf doing in Starfleet Intelligence? Who cares, it’s Worf, and he came, saw, and kicked ass! – Christopher Chiu-Tabet
Star Wars: The Bad Batch – “Retrieval” (S2E10, Disney+)
This is the second episode in a row, after a series of three really great episodes, that felt a little plodding and unnecessary. While last week’s “The Crossing” had some emotional moments between Tech and Echo – very eloquently discussed by co-host Matt Liguori on last week’s Force Ghost Coast to Coast – “Retrieval” didn’t really add too much to the overall story. In fact, aside from continuing to show Omega’s kindness, nothing new was delivered to the audience about the characters in this entire episode. Now, of course, not all episodes need to rewrite the story of the characters, but if the episodes aren’t deepening the understanding of the cast, then it should at least have enough action to entertain or push the story ahead.
This, again, is where the episode falters a bit. While I suppose recovering the ship and their droid are ‘important’ to the series, this isn’t exactly like recovering the Ghost or Chopper on Rebels; those elements are not intrinsically vital to the show’s tone. And so, instead, the episode becomes a heist – which we’ve seen before – and we met a local despot – which we’ve done before – and so the episode doesn’t really work. The Bad Batch has now had ten episodes air in its second season, and it’s easy to cleave them right down the middle. Half of the season thus far has felt really new and additive to the greater Star Wars universe, and the other half feels like filler. Let’s hope that the final six episodes steer away from the doldrums of “Retrieval.” – Brian Salvatore
