After taking a week off for the Fourth of July (sorry international folks) we’re still cracking as we take a look at Young Justice season 2 as part of the 2018 Summer TV Binge here at Multiversity Comics. We got some more details this last week on the upcoming DC Universe streaming service, and the apparent news that the upcoming Young Justice: Outsiders would be coming in 2019 and not in the fall like we had thought. Looks like we’ll be finished here in plenty of time!
This week things heat up, Artemis comes back to the Team, shit goes down, things get darker and twists abound. Let’s dive in!
1. She’s dead
Wow what a way to start an episode. Artemis gets called back in to the fold, her and Wally have a cute moment, she asks, “What could go wrong?” which is absolutely what you’re not supposed to do. Then everything apparently goes wrong as we cut to Nightwing trying to do CPR to no avail. Artemis died.
Of course this is a comic book-related show and in comics no one ever really dies, but with how dark this show has become I think it is highly believable and the cold open does a great job selling the tension given to the possibility that Artemis could be dead. This season has done a great job dealing with the actual moral tensions these heroes would face, and has given us death and darkness already, more than season one. To watch her the rest of the episode be excited about being back in the field, succumb to some rookie mistakes, and be a little rusty, the episode sells that it’s quite possible she could actually die. Well done.
2. Alien xenophobia
Tim Curry is a great G. Gordon Godfrey. I’m just going to get that out of the way now. The way he insights his viewers and the arguments he poses are actually not bad. Would Earth even want to communicate with Mars? Well who knows. They are even strengthened by the fact that the Leaguer is actually lying to the public at the moment with Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman and the like off to face judgment for their mind controlled crimes. It was scary watching this and hearing Godfrey talk and think this is a lot what current dialogue on the news sounds like talking about immigration. The rhetoric is powerful, and scary if you think about it too long. They give Godfrey a lot of power here. I love the talking heads comic trope, but to have one focal point throwing a wrench in how the viewer should feel, especially with the League and Team making questionable choices, again, it works. Well done.
3. Rebound guy from the Black Lagoon
Ah Miss M and Superboy. Superboy’s obvious disdain for Lagoon Boy is still hilarious, but the scene that him and Miss M share where he rips into her use of her psychic powers is again really good and I’m glad someone is telling her she’s wrong. She’s put Kroloteans and others in a catatonic state in order to extract information from them. You can make the greater good argument, but how to do you fight evil without creating more evils? That’s been her arc so far this season, and some in the last as she’s struggled with being as powerful as she is. It’s the difference between going in with a scalpel or a chainsaw. One you gotta clean the walls too.
Obviously they still care about each other a ton, and Superboy pointing out La’gann is a rebound is pretty obvious, they just seem unnaturally happy haha. But, the most impactful thing is him telling her how disappointed he was when she tried to mind wipe him, a scene we weren’t privy to, but one recreated here as Superboy tells her over and over how important she was to him.
Oh Lagoon Boy got capture too by Kaldur and co. This could complicate things. If this was a CW show this would be the part where Superboy and Miss M hook up and just create way more problems going forward.
4. Sexy fight scene
This is one of the best fight scenes in the whole show so far I think. Watching Nightwing and Artemis take on goons is really gorgeous, especially since they have you constantly anticipate Artemis is going down. Really just the level of efficiency there is in the whole thing is spot on. The Team has come a long way and trained way more over the last five years. Miss M doesn’t go after La’gann and they just operate so well as a unit against Kaldur. Of course, it may just be that that’s what it appears to be since Kaldur and Nightwing are playing chess to make it appear to everyone that the outcome of the fight hadn’t been planned months ago, but it definitely comes across as precision. And then Kaldur kills Artemis.
Continued below5. They may never forgive us
Artemis is dead, the Team is in mourning, Kaldur gets a promotion with Papa Black Manta, and Nightwing is off to tell Wally his girlfriend who got out of the superhero business is dead. Except! They all meet up in a warehouse in Blüdhaven, Wally, Artemis, Kaldur, and Dick, and initiate the next phase of their plan. Kaldur is in deep cover, Artemis is to join him in disguise with a fancy amulet it is absolutely implied Dick had sex with Zatanna to get, and the story goes on. I’ve always been curious why the four leave M’gann and Superboy out of this one? They have the original team minus 2. Maybe cause they were on the outs dating wise and they now M’gann is getting a little more unstable? Who knows.
I think this is super well done though. We don’t know if Kaldur is evil or not, although we all probably guessed there was more going on, but he killed Kroloteans which is definitely bad. Wally and Artemis were out of the game, but it appears they never really were, and Dick is playing Batman pulling all the strings and staying 10 steps ahead of everyone for the sake of the planet. Except Dick isn’t Batman, and as Wally said, “Who are you kidding, it only gets more dangerous from here?” It’s definitely all going to blow up.
That’s it for this week folks. Sorry about the delay, but we’ll be back next Wednesday morning for more of the 2018 TV Binge. Until then sound off in the comments below!
