Boomb Tube: Hello Sadness

This week in cartoons is going to be a sad one for many reasons. First, both Green Lantern and Young Justice are being pulled off in the air during their prime because no one bought the tie-in toys. Even though this is completely DC’s fault for making toys of Razer and Lagoon Lad which did not sell amongst fans as much as Larfleeze action figures and playsets of Impulse’s family working in the slave mines would have. Unfortunately, all fans of these shows can do now is go sign fan petitions, but until then we’ll go ahead and review the final episodes of these two soon-to-be missed shows.

Green Lantern took a very strange turn halfway through its second half of the season (three-quarters way?) when Aya took on the Anti-Monitor, killed him, took his body, powers, and Manhunter army, and started wrecking the unvierse. Now with Aya prepared to go back to the big bang and prevent sentient life, The Green Lantern Corps attack her and her Manhunters head on. Before the assault however, Tomar-Re talks wiith Hal about Aya’s destruction of star systems and says that he’s okay with his system being destroyed since no one lived there. Hal then checks the areas destroyed by Aya with the map of uninhabitated sectors and finds that Aya hasn’t taken a single life this whole time. This brings up the essential question of what the hell is Tomar-Re defending if his sector is just a bunch of rocks? I may be rusty on my Green Lantern lore, but isn’t every member supposed to defend their home sector? Tomar-Re is the sole surivor of his sector, which someone should probably check, or his sector’s completely undefended because Tomar just really digs this one lump of purple planet. If I’m wrong about any of this feel free to call me a butt in the comments.

Hal flies off to join the assault against Aya and flies into the Anti-Monitor body which is both bigger on the inside and contains a portal to the beginning of the universe. Tardis. Aya shows up and when confronted by Hal over her refusal to actually kill anyone, she reveals that she’s not going to wipe out all life, just make sure that the only life left is devoid of emotions. Hal decides to stop her by calling in her ex, Razer, who swiftly arrives, by having Kilowogg make a light construct gun that Razer fires himself out of while encased in his own red light construct bullet casing. This show is incredible. The huge explosion apparently didn’t alert Aya however, as she doesn’t notice Razer stealthily approaching her from behind while holding a knife and crying. I would like to remind you that this show is part of a line-up intended for children. Aya turns around in time and blasts him while Hal Jordan, Jerk Guard of the Green Lantenr Corps, screams at her about it.

Aya takes Razer to a room where she uses the power of the Green Lantern to revive Razer. She turns back to normal and everything seems chill until it turns out that Aya programmed a copy of her AI into each Manhunter. In order to stop them, she and Razer have one more feels-moment for the Tumblr crowd before she activates a virus and kills herself, every copy of herself. The Manhunters are gone and the Green Lanterns have won. A few days later, Razer tells everyone that he’s off to go into space and search for Aya who he still believes is alive. In the best show of the series, he flies off into the unknown and, just as he’s out of sight, a Blue Lantern ring comes into frame and follows him. If this weren’t the final episode it’d be a great scene and set up a “Search for Aya” arc next season. Unfortunately, this is the final episode so we can just assume Aya’s dead and Razer’s wasting her time.

Thanks DC.

Review Score: 8/10 – A few glaring plot holes, but this finale still packed quite a punch.

Over on Young Justice, The Reach’s plans for invasion have been foiled and The Green Lantern Corps could arrest them for attempting to take over a planet. Black Beetle hopes to hide any evidence of The Reach’s plans by blowing up the earth. A little nonsensical? Maybe. Incredible? Incredible. The Team and what remains of The League race around Earth in conjunction with Lex Luthor to defuse the natural disaster bombs The Reach left to crystalize the planet.

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Meanwhile on Rimbor, Miss Martian and Superboy arrive with enough evidence to exonerate The League. The alien judges say they can’t review the case as they’ve already declared The League guilty. Then they review the case again anyway and release The League. After they leave, however, Vandal Savage parks Warworld outside the planet’s orbit and tells the relatively chill aliens not to mess with Earth or they will be blown up. The aliens shrug and go back to not planning to invade Earth in the first place.

Back on Earth, all of the natural disaster bombs have been defused but one which has now activated. All three Flashes race counter to the current of the bomb’s energy waves and succeed in disabling it, but Wally, who has spent the past five years writing research papers and gaining a freshman fifteen instead of doing superheroics, is not fast enough to survive and is absorbed into The Speed Force. Everyone cries. Bart takes up the mantle of Kid Flash, Artemis joins him by staying as Tigress, and Static joins The Team who have finally been allowed to move into The Watchtower.

Well that’s a pretty good resolution. Wally kind of suffered the same “Death made permanent thanks to cancellation” curse Aya did but at least the show didn’t end with any big cliffhangers the show will never get to resol-