Welcome back to our 2017 Multiversity Summer Binge as hit the halfway point of the first season of Young Justice. We should probably entertain the fact that this is going to be partially a fall binge as well…hmmm. Anywho, we get some fallout on the whole traitor business as Red Tornado fled the cave at the end of last episode and Captain Marvel is the first one to take over as den mother as the team goes on a mission to India. Let’s dive-in!
1. Sowing the discord
We begin this episode with the fallout of Fight Night in the cave as the League is cleaning up after the Reds trashed the place. It is implied that Red Tornado is the traitor that Kaldur was warned of by Sportsmaster. As the League is repairing the cave, the team is feeling betrayed and Superboy overhears Kaldur telling Batman about the mole and freaks out since Megan almost died last episode, and thus the stage is set.
This really highlights the “young” part of “Young Justice” as of course the team spends most of the episode being pissy with Kaldur and each other since this team was meant to be founded on the idea of no secrets unlike the Justice League. It’s very stereotypical, and reminiscent of mid ’00s DC stories with themes of betrayal and secrets. Luckily Captain Marvel is there to show Kaldur how to lead better.
2. The superhero Chris Traeger…uh I mean Captain Marvel
Captain Marvel is voiced by Rob Lowe. I repeat Captain Marvel is voiced by Rob Lowe!
It took me until the end of the episode to realize this, but it’s an awesome fit as Captain Marvel (not Shazam, which is correct) just is so excited and happy about literally everything. He’s literally Chris Traeger from Parks and Recreation, it’s perfect.
The best part though is the epilogue bit to the episode where Captain Marvel flies back to Fawcett City to his home with his uncle and is recounting the entire mission to him and he’s so unimpressed and then he transforms back into Billy Batson. It’s priceless. Hopefully we get more Billy along with that wisdom of Solomon.
3. Why does the Brain sound like Lumière
So now for some bad voice acting. The Brain literally sounds like Lumière from Beauty and the Beast. Making him French…pas une bonne idée. It just sounds really weird and out of place even though the gorilla is Monsieur Mallah. Maybe he is actually really French in the comics, I’m not sure. My only prior knowledge of him as a character is from the much loved Teen Titans cartoon (maybe next summer we’ll do that show).
Also the line “This is not our Waterloo,” is god awful.
4. Krypto and Tawny
So this show is a little more grounded in some ways than other DC shows and other comic tropes, so when you see a tiger come to save Captain Marvel’s behind, and a white dog that Superboy befriends you should automatically be thinking Mr. Tawny and Krypto. Both names are alluded to as Captain Marvel names the tiger Tawny as he sends him off to protect the jungle and Wally tries to name Wolf Krypto, to which Megan said that name’s already taken implying there’s a real Krypto here somewhere. Both are great cameos and callbacks, and Wolf as a character gets really interesting as the Kobra-Venom powered animal fights with Superboy in almost all appearances going forward and continues his streak of picking up the loners.
5. The plot thickens
It’s fun that this show continues to build on all past episodes while also making most episodes fill very one-and-done in some ways. Kobra Venom comes back this episode as we see that the Brain was experimenting on these animals in Northern India, along with making them submit via the same collars used on the prisoners in Belle Reve. This show does something that more comics should do in playing the long game, it really just does it so well and I will keep on singing the praises.
That’s all for this week folks, sound off in the comments below and come back next week as we get the Injustice League, a Joker worse than Jared Leto’s, and we finally see The Light.
