Welcome back to the adventures of Earth-16 and our coverage of Young Justice‘s second season as a part of our 2018 Summer TV Binge! With only seven episodes left we get what seems like a bottle episode this week as The Reach abductees become runaways and Blue Beetle is sent to rescue them! Let’s dive in!
1. Challenge of the Super Friends
We open this episode with some of the recent Reach abductees/experimentees being monitored by scientists at STAR Labs in Taos, New Mexico lamenting their fate and looking to escape. The group consists of Virgil Hawkins, Tye Longshadow, Asami “Sam” Koizumi, and Eduardo “Ed” Dorado, Jr., or in the comics and on the Super Friends show of the 1970s and 80s, Static, Apache Chief, Samurai, and El Dorado. All these characters, minus Static, here taking the place of the character Black Vulcan who also had electric powers, debuted on the Super Friends cartoon and had about the same powers they do here in this episode. While there are some changes, Samurai is a man in Super Friends, it speaks still to the ways Young Justice has over and over again tried to pay homage to all the DC content that has come before. It’s also good that the show decides not use the probably racist, definitely stereotypical, superhero names Super Friends gave the respective characters. Definitely a step up from the portrayal of Native Americans back in “Beneath.” Although we do get an Asami who only knows Japanese and can’t communicate with everyone else, which is definitely a trope that has shown up in many a cartoon.
2. But also “Runaways”
We also get a lot of “Runaways” vibes, pardon the name of the episode. The “Runaways” comic for Marvel, created by Brian K Vaughn and illustrated by Adrian Alphona, thematically sort of shows up here. That and many “X-Men” tropes. All the training and learning their powers, being ostracized from the rest of the outside world, and having little faith in regular superhero-backed organizations matches with much of the tone of that series. I have been recently watching Marvel and Hulu’s Runaways and I was surprised how tonally this episode seems to match. While the entire episode is mostly extraneous and could have perhaps been reworked into a subplot of one of the episodes, the previous shows and comics it borrows from are very apparent.
3. Once important villains
This is where I’ll cover more some of my sense of indifference with the episode and thoughts that it is mostly a break from the ongoing action, minimally tied in furthering the plot at the end of the episode, and sort of a decompressed idea that could have easily been a subplot in a stronger episode focusing on the Team fighting The Reach.
As the Hall of Justice has now been destroyed by Despero, the League has sent some of its more valuable assets to other locations for safekeeping. To Taos, they sent the body of the droid Amazo which the Team had fought back in season one, and of course someone comes looking for it, namely, Red Volcano, a “relative” of Red Tornado’s created by T.O. Morrow (oh wow that literally spells tomorrow) who the Team also fought last season. Blue Beetle, who Nightwing dispatches to find the runaways, teams with them to beat the android and everything is fine. Red Volcano is made out to be this huge pawn and easily defeatable villain, which does not match up with any of the portrayal of his, Amazo’s, and any of the android menaces (menii?) from season one. Blue Beetle sends a sonic blast into his chest by episode’s end and that’s it. While showcasing the close bond of the runaway team in trying to protect STAR Labs, and Jaime’s increased role in the season, it diminishes a character who was a decent villain, and lessens the importance of the android plotlines from last season. All to give us a bottle episode. Bummer.
4. Double agent
Secrets, secrets, and more secrets. Though this one we should have seen coming for miles. Turns out, when Green Beetle reset Blue’s scarab and turned the voice off, he made him evil, and now they’re both working for The Reach. So shocking. In case you can’t tell, this is my not shocked text (although it’s the internet and sarcasm is hard to portray).
Continued belowOf course Green is in cahoots with Black Beetle and The Reach, he came out of nowhere and was creepy. Of course now The Reach also have a double agent with the Team like they do in The Light. Naivety on everyone’s part. Hopefully someone tells Nightwing Blue almost killed a lot of people to blow up an android so the guy can realize he probably made a dumb mistake relying on Blue as much as he has.
5. Double cross
Alright this one seems less obvious, although Lex did say he wanted a team of his own. Turns out, Lex thinks The Reach might turn on him even though the pair are manufacturing a Brain Force Plus analogue together. Luthor sent Red Volcano to get Amazo as a distraction to get a team of his own. But to what? Fight The Reach? The Light? The League? It sounds like definitely The Reach, but how long can all these villains vie for the world together before they turn? Guess we’ll find out soon. Still, it’s good to see The Light continue to manipulate and conspire, and it’s good these ragtag runaways will be sticking around and this last 20 minutes did serve some purpose.
That’s all for this week folks, sound off in the comments below, and come back next week as the war begins!
