Welcome back to our coverage of Young Justice as part of our 2017 Multiversity Summer Binge as we tackle the sixteenth episode of the first season, and the most intense, most adult episode to date. Aliens have invaded, the League is dead, and its up to the team to save the Earth…or so they think. This episode gets really emotional and really dark. Let’s dive in.
1. The Cameos
Let’s get this part out of the way first before we dive in to the meat of the episode, because the death, tears, crying, destruction, that’s what you’re here for right? Begging to be entertained? Anyway…so yeah Iris West-Allen gets a moment here reporting at the beginning of the episode as the Justice League fights the aliens in Central City. She’s rescued at the last minute from an alien attack by the Flash, her husband Barry Allen, who then goes on to be obliterated himself before she also gets taken out. The soldiers that help the team as they make it to the Hall of Justice also have familiar names in General Wade Eiling, a usual villain, as well as Jason Bard, a Gotham City detective and recent “Batman Eternal” main player, who is the soldier Superboy saves. Barbara Gordon, Alfred, and who we can assume is Stephanie Brown are all on hand for the team’s hope inspired speech as well. Everyone comes out to play when the world is in peril.
2. Martian Manhunter Spotlight
It’s always good to get more Martian Manhunter, and appearances like these really have you wondering why DC doesn’t give him more spotlights in other parts of their publishing line. Manhunter has been largely absent from the DCU really since The New 52 began until Rob Williams and Eddy Barrows series as part of “DC You” which was awesome, you should all go check it out. The amount of intrigue and compassion that J’onn has in on display here as the amnesiac until the end of the episode when he goes full Injustice on Megan. I get that people think that characters like MM and Superman are hard to write and difficult to grasp since they seem all powerful, but the emotional beats or stories like this, and shows like Justice League and Justice League Unlimited really emphasize that what those characters have over others are the emotional vulnerabilities. I will always take more Martian Manhunter.
3. Hope Survives
In the midst of strategizing on how to take down the big mothership, after having lost both Artemis and Aqualad, the team puts out a huge broadcast telling the world that as long as there are heroes that hope will survive. This might be the most “DC” moment this show has had so far, because that moment is an embodiment of what all of DC’s characters are. They aren’t real in the sense that they’re like you and me, they’re real in the sense that they are ideas, they are hope and love and peace and justice and compassion. It really shines through here as the world has lost the Justice League and presumably billions of lives, and the team has lost two of their own, that of course hope survives. We’d do well to listen.
4. Caricatures Of The League
The other things this episode really highlights is just how much all of these characters are so much like their mentors, and in a crisis that is emphasized and kicked up to the max. Superboy, after episodes of struggling with being Superman-lite, embraces that when the world needs him to be the symbol that’s what he’ll be. Robin becomes just as shrewd as Batman, knowing full well that the team and the League are actually dead even though the alien weapons use Zeta beam technology, and yet he lets Wally rely on that hope of saving Artemis so that he’ll focus. Wally 100% wears his heart on his sleeve just like Barry. Megan leans into the compassion of J’onn and seems to be the only one attempting to grieve when any of the team dies. Kaldur goes down in the most honorable way possible, and Artemis puts herself out there in any way she can like Green Arrow would. When Kaldur tells Eiling at the Hall that they are the Justice League, he means it.
Continued below5. Kobayashi Maru Gone Wrong
I almost titled this last bullet, “Why so serrrrriousss?” but this also works.
So the main conceit of the episode turns out that the team went into a training exercise, knowing it wasn’t real, and the moment that Artemis died in the exercise Miss Martian believed it to be real and trapped the team and their minds in the exercise. They believed that everything that happened was real, and almost actually died in the process. While this creates an extremely emotional episode, it also furthers these kind of dark and gritty superhero stories, these deconstructive stories, that we have become very used to. Luckily, it looks like next week we get to explore the emotional fallout and the team’s mental health following the events, but how many times have stories like this occurred where that doesn’t happen? Where characters are put through the ringer just because it’s “cool.” Where the female characters are screwed with in order to further the plot of a male character? I’m not saying there’s not room for stories with high emotional stakes, but we have to be conscious of how those are done, and the moments in which they’re told. Looking at you “Secret Empire.” Fortunately, I think this episode is done really well. Feel free to disgree in the comments.
That’s a wrap this week, come back next Wednesday as we get much needed therapy sessions and the Forever People!
