Young Justice Outsiders Influence Featured Television 

Five Thoughts on Young Justice: Outsiders‘ “Influence”

By | July 3rd, 2019
Posted in Television | % Comments

Today is the day (for the second time)! After a five month hiatus, we are counting down to the finish line of Young Justice: Outsiders with thirteen more episodes to look forward to. The episode’s will be distributed a bit differently than they were back in January. In the winter, DC Universe debuted three episodes a week, with four the last week to get to an even 13. It was exhausting to keep up with, which is why I’m grateful I only have to do it twice this round. The streaming released three episodes to mark the return, which we’ll be covering over the next few days. Next Tuesday, you’re only getting one episode, and it’ll be like that until the last Tuesday in August where we’ll get three more episodes to close out the season.

We pick up right where we left off at the end of episode 13, with little reintroduction (minus a clunky speech by Superboy, Dick, and Artemis). There’s a lot to be reintroduced to as we’re juggling characters, settings, and galaxies, and if you haven’t reminded yourself of where we’re at you might forget some things. I have revisited the show recently and I still had to ask some questions. We’ve got League members in space, drama on the home front with Luthor, the UN, and Granny Goodness, a radicalizing Beast Boy, and the question of what to do with Dick’s team. That’s it in shortform.

We’ll be covering each episode individually, and there will be spoilers for the entire episode from here on out. It’s a month later than this show was coming back, and there’s been little fanfare, but Young Justice has returned, so let’s dive in!

1. Beginning again

The beginning of this episode mirrors the first episode we got back in January, I would imagine very intentionally. While a few things happened in the lead-up moments, the first episode of this season opened with the League in space dealing with Parademons, destruction, and tragedy. We get all of that here as Superman, Wonder Woman, Hawkwoman, Hawkman, and Guy Gardner (more on him in a bit) are on Thanagar in the aftermath of a massacre. Clearly this galaxy-wide war that the Justice League are barely fighting is not going well if the forces of Darkseid are decimating other folks. Of course that first opener was a lot more serious, and Guy undercuts just about everything in this episode with some oddly placed levity. But I digress.

We get the League in space, and new team-building at home. We’re picking up just two days after the recovery of Tara and the new status quo from the end of last episode, and already things are greatly changing. Dick, Superboy, and Artemis offer Geo-Force, Halo, Tara, and Forager a spot on the Team, mimicking and reversing the splitting of teams we got at the very beginning of last season with Batman Inc. and more departing. This episode opens with a lot more levity, and then a clunky information dump by Artemis and Dick to the new Team recruits, that it half-feels like a deliberate midseason opener, and also just a natural continuation all at the same time. It’s odd, but not unpleasant, and invitational, but also still wants to throw as much at you as it can.

2. “Today’s the day” and other lines I’ve loved.

There are a number of Young Justice-isms in this episode, and you can see how infectious the jargon on this show has been. Violet uses “And today’s that day?” and Nightwing repeats it back to her when Dick and co. give the four recruits the choice to be a part of M’gann’s Team, which they all say yes to. They don’t give Vic the choice, but he’s only been Cyborg for a few days at this point, so there’s no telling where we’re headed with him. Brion uses “Crash” later when talking to Vic and Forager later in the episode which is fun as Bart brought that back from the future. Lastly Superman makes a “whelmed” joke and you can see it coming a mile away, and it had me grinning especially as he tells Hawkwoman the children taught him that. Mainly Dick. Him and Supes have a good relationship in the comics (the name Nightwing being suggested by Superman) so this all maps in a fun way.

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Unfortunately, though, while these callbacks are great, it almost seems like we get them at the cost of again not coming back to some of the characters who were really important a few episodes ago. I don’t think Forager gets a line in this episode at all, or if he does I can’t remember. Tara doesn’t say a word at all, which seems odd because she’s the newest character and definitely a mole. Nightwing gives a speech at the beginning and then tra la la’s off to parts unknown. There’s none of the rest of M’gann’s team, or Batman Inc. Not that we’re required to see all of those folks, I just felt this return was a little…unbalanced.

3. Oh Guy

Something that added to my feelings of unbalance were the amount of lines that Guy Gardner gets. Guy Gardner gets to make a ton of cracks, which are odd and weird, and very Guy, but why? You have a fully fleshed out DC Universe, and for 60 episodes have barely done anything Green Lantern related and you let Guy have the run of the land? Haha. The Guy Gardner fans are fixing to have their way with me on the Interwebs, but he’s my least favorite Lantern. It’s fine, I’m a big boy, I can take your comments. I thought Guy was taking the League to Oa, which I was excited about because we know very little about this universe’s Green Lantern Corps. Guy sings some “Wheels on the Bus”-esque analogue song about the Corps while he’s guiding the ship that the League is in, and I was excited for more Lantern mythos. It’s one of the few corners we haven’t played in. Instead, Guy just makes a bunch of odd jokes, and uses valuable seconds that could’ve been spent otherwise. Maybe I’m wrong, it just seemed weird, and the tonal oddity of Guy Gardner undercut the darker vibes the show was giving off back in January.

4. Imposing

Alright I think I might’ve said something about this version of Granny seeming more innocuous and less threatening than Ed Asner’s run at voicing the character almost a decade ago. I take it all back. Deborah Strang’s Granny finally gets something to do this episode and she flips from being doll-like and innocent to being foreboding, torturous, abusive, and fierce very quickly. She’s pulling all the strings, and tries to sell the “I didn’t know my company was involved in metahuman trafficking, and I’m so happy Tara killed this other guy, but do you want some cookies?” And it works.

Plus, we get more Fourth World antics in the form of Big Barda and a handful of the Furies. Grey Griffin voices Barda with a lot more bite than I usually imagine in my head, but I also don’t think about Barda pre-heroine very often. Barda brings along Lashina and Gilotina to fight off Superman, Hawkwoman, and Wonder Woman, and they are all pretty evenly matched. We haven’t gotten a lot of main universe Fourth World interaction in recent years outside of Tom King and Mitch Gerads “Mister Miracle,” (but that’s really it’s own thing), and the much-not-loved “Earth 2: World’s End.” *shiver* Anyway, more Fourth World is more fun, and it makes sense that we’d be going deeper as the final showdown with Darkseid is (possibly) around the corner I hope we as obscure Fourth World things as possible. Also Scot Free, causes Supes saving Barda might be the beginning catalyst of her breaking good in this reality.

5. Who will we be?

If I had to boil “Influence” down to one sort of formative question it’d be this one. The group of four young heroes are asking it about their lives going forward. Artemis and Superboy are asking it as they rejoin the Team. Jefferson and Helga are asking it as they continue their relationship. Tara is asking it as she continues to break bad. Artemis and Will seem to be on the cutting edge of asking it as they’re non-traditional household has hints of moving in a more “traditional” direction. Dick asks it as his latest team dissolves. Garfield asks it as he comes back into the fold with the sole mission of bringing Granny down, and he’s real angry. The League is asking it as the United Nations (and Luthor) keep making their lives hell. Vic asks it as he realizes he likes Violet (dang it) and he needs to figure out his life. And Violet asks it as she rediscovers herself after discovering she’s a sentient Mother Box.

Speaking of Violet though, while some of this episode felt underwhelming, the moment of Violet correcting Artemis about her gender and beginning to express she is gender non-binary was really cool. As a sentient Mother Box, and exhibiting and expressing gender as a non-human, of course he identity as a woman or girl might not be so simple. It’s a benefit for her character, and cute that Brion accepts them exactly how they are. Violet’s the best.

Alright, we’re one through in this batch of three. I’ll be back Friday for episode 15, Monday for 16, and a week from today for 17 as we shift to a weekly schedule. What do you think of the return of this show? Sound off in the comments below, and be sure to come back Friday for more!


//TAGS | Young Justice

Kevin Gregory

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