Welcome back to our Multiversity Summer Binge coverage of Young Justice as we enter the tenth week and things continue to heat up. We get another Red Arrow centric episode this week where Roy is really moody, alongside the Miss Martian and Superboy go to school subplot, as the overall plot for the season starts to fall into place a little bit. Let’s dive in.
1. Roy Harper is still a little insufferable
I think I’ve made it pretty clear in previous weeks that I am not a huge Roy Harper/Red Arrow fan in this show. He’s just kind of a jerk. And I get it. He feels under appreciated and unvalued and so he strikes out on his own thinking he can do it all by himself and tries to tackle the biggest baddest cases to prove his worth. I think it’s really interesting that both of his solo adventures feel like missions the actual Justice League would maybe have wanted to take on between people getting nanotechnology and then the possibility of an Asian country’s civil war, but I guess this Justice League is not super interventionist. But I digress.
So Roy thinks he can keep North and South Rhelasia from going to war with each other by stopping an assassination attempt and he does pretty alright for himself until, well, he gets hired by Lex Luthor and gets the crap beat out of him by the League of Shadows. So he calls Aqualad the only member of the “junior Justice League” he has any respect for. And they manage to do alright but the League gets away and Luthor gets what he wants. What I don’t get is why Roy thinks he can do this all by himself. It’s kind of ridiculous to risk the political stability of two countries on your ego. And also flirting with assassins is almost never good. Roy makes some progress here, I’ll give him that. He start to respect the team and learns he’s very vulnerable. But boy does he have a ways to go. It’s a long road…
2. Not shying away from real world conflict
So in this episode we have the two countries of North and South Rhelasia, who used to originally be one country but split into two and are on the verge of war with troops at both borders. Can we call this North and South Korea? Because it is. Which is awesome that this show chooses to go there. Especially interesting is choosing Lex Luthor as the power that negotiates the peace between the two countries, which of course gets a little comic book-y at the end with Mercy having a gun for an arm and saving the day. But Luthor makes some good points to Roy about profiting off the war between the two countries whether it be war or peace, which parallels ways in our worlds that global corporations almost become imperial structures and powers. It’s really good social commentary veiled in all the good comic book tropes.
Even thinking about Miss Martian and Superboy’s first day of school and Megan’s choice to be a white girl to fit in as opposed to Martian Manhunter’s African American chracter of John Jones. Megan makes the comment to Superboy in class that the White/Green Martian conflict is not unlike the Rhelasian conflict as the White Martians are the minority and are subjugated. She says she’s Green though so it’s less of a problem for her. She gets her privilege, as a Green Martian/white girl. Way to go DC for calling people to think.
3. Superboy finally gets a name!
Finally we get to call Superboy something other than Superboy. Conner Kent is born in this episode and I think it’s really humorous and clever how it happens. Martian Manhunter and Red Tornado tell Superboy he’ll need a name to go to school and Manhunter suggests taking the last name Kent, to which Megan responds oh of course in honor Kent Nelson who just passed away! J’onn is a little flustered, but goes with it realizing the team doesn’t know Superman’s real identity of Clark Kent. Megan picks Conner and he’s like sure whatever. The craziest part of this whole thing though is that it took 10 episodes to get Conner a name. Seems way too long to me, but perhaps to some the Doctor Fate Kent gag was worth it. It also rings a little more true and sad in this world where Superman still wants nothing to do with Conner.
Continued below4. Oh the cameos galore
So in this episode we get a multitude of different cameos and DC name drops that eventually all grow into larger roles. Cat Grant is the reporter on the scene during the Rhelasian peace talks. Grant of course is played by Calista Flockhart in Supergirl. We also get high school student versions of Mal Duncan and Karen Beecher who both grow into full fledged superheroes themselves as the Herald or Guardian and Bumblebee respectively. The kid Conner picks up off his skateboard is Marvin and the girl that invites Megan to be a cheerleader (a “Bumblebee”) are named Wendy and Marvin which is a call back to the Wonder Twins on Super Friends. Finally the main teacher at Happy Harbor High School we see the students interact with is none other than Lucas “Snapper” Carr the on and off again Justice League ally. If you count Luthor’s bodyguard Mercy, who was created for Superman: The Animated Series and has since made her way into the main DCU, that’s 6 different name drops and fun tidbits.
5. “Another corner of the world sees the Light.”
Finally the main thrust of the episode shows the global conspiracy continue to grow and the team is revealed to have a mole. The episode ends with Luthor and Ra’s al Ghul drinking (apple juice of course) and toasting that the Light has gained more power. This continues the stretch of big super villains, political powers, and countries having power over this world. This episode really makes you start to wonder why the Justice League hasn’t caught on by now. Like I know the show is about the team and their missions and them rising to prominence, but it just makes me wonder what the League is up to that they can be this oblivious. Who knows. It’ll bite them in the ass soon though.
That concludes our tenth week! Look to the site in the next few days for fun SDCC news! Maybe we’ll get some more Young Justice season 3 details! As always sound off in the comments and check back next week as Conner and Megan go undercover in prison!
