We’re back with more Young Justice: Invasion coverage as part of the 2018 Multiversity Summer TV Binge! The invasion has begun, The Reach are here, and the cards are on the table as the secrets start to stand revealed and the march to the end begins. Let’s dive in!
1. The Artemis Monologues
We open this week aboard Black Manta’s ship with Kaldur still in his brain-blasted coma and Psi-mon brought in to fix it all. Artemis still disguised as Tigress is our vehicle through this whole thing as she spends the time before this giving you the recap of the last few episodes through her own monologue. So if you’ve been asleep, or haven’t been reading this column (which is most everyone in the universe) she gives you everything. It’s perfect comic book monologue dialogue. She feels sorry for herself, she laments leaving Wally and wanting to jump back in to this exciting life. She says perfect out loud and internally multiple times in the episode as bad things happen, and that part really works, but the recap at the beginning seems odd and forced. Do people really think their lives to themselves like that? I can get your alone and isolated and recapping how you got here keeps you sane, but the whole bit is more for us as the audience than for Artemis as a character.
I have a problem sometimes when comics deploy the monologues as recap routine. You see this often from characters like The Flash, Batman, Superman, Spider-Man, they all have a lot of time to think flying, swinging, or running around. Some times it feels forced, sometimes it’s so flowery you think there’s no way those people think such articulate thoughts to themselves, but a lot of the time it’s a look at the inner psyche of the character and less a recap grab. The device as a whole is a good one for the latter part of the episode as the plot moves forward.
2. Creepy smiles and silent scarabs
We’ll get through the mandatory side plot early as everything else that happens in the episode is far more interesting. While very on the nose with the title, the Blue/Green Beetle is hardly interesting, and, while a dump for the info on the Reach’s master plan and a device to get Miss M and Lagoon Boy alone, just seems less interesting. Long story shorts, Green Beetle does Martian weirdness to Jaime and now his scarab will stfu. This is after Green Beetle is still around creepy and we’re unsure if we should trust him. Spells bad news for Jaime, especially with seven episodes left. It works with the episode title though, Jaime is seemingly fixed just like Black Manta hopes Kaldur will be, it just seems weak, especially after the last episode ends with Green telling Blue he might can fix him. This is very anticlimactic.
3. Reach for a Reach
This I included just cause it’s really hella weird. How did anyone not know they were being mind controlled? The commercial they show for space Gatorade is like watching Barney tell you to drink alien juice as Alex Jones shows up to wink at you. Why is Godfrey here if not to be creepy (and cause he’s a Fourth World character and if you haven’t Googled that yet, well, good on you)? It’s just hilarious and the drink is designed to make humans dumb and submissive, which is what you’d have to be to be fooled by frolicking kids making nice with the new alien.
4. Secrets
Everything is starting to crumble. Lagoon Boy and Miss M are attacked by Tigress/Artemis and Deathstroke where La’gaan is badly injured and Miss M helps fake a kidnapping. Lot of people get kidnapped this season. Also other side note, did you know Yuri Lowenthal, the voice actor for Lagoon Boy, is also the voice actor for Sasuke from Naruto? No wonder he’s so annoying. Anyway…
They grab M’gann and La’gaan wants to go after his girlfriend of course and wants answers. Nightwing tells him and Superboy that Kaldur’s a double agent and Artemis is alive and of course La’gaan is pissed, but Superboy takes it like a champ. He’s the first one really to do so. Of course he scolds Nightwing as they leave the room and he knows that Miss M made Kaldur catatonic and they could probably all three die. Way to go Dick. It’s a very Superman/Batman moment just calmer. Batman holds all his secrets and cards, Superman wants him to trust him, he doesn’t, Superman thinks “Well you have your reasons,” and then it gets worse. Classic comics.
Continued below5. Symbiosi
Who knew people took Atlantean in high school in the DCU like people take Latin in the real world. Useless unless you go to divinity school, a history graduate program, or you’re trying to rebuild your friend’s consciousness. The scenes in Kaldur’s head this episode are really poignant as M’gann gets bombarded with self-pity and self-loathing and wants Kaldur to hurt her for hurting him and abusing her powers all season, while Artemis tries to begin the healing process. it’s great as it brings Tula back and Kaldur’s hurt over that and an empty face and a sign that he doesn’t really know who he is and needs to rebuild that. While they are all in danger, at least there’s the comfort of knowing Miss M gets to work out her mental health issues while she fixes Kaldur’s mental state. We’ve seen none of Kaldur as Aqualad this season, and it’s good to see him actually be torn as we’ve wondered whether or not he was triple crossing the team.
Bonus thought: Deathstroke’s ponytail sucks and his costume design in this show is atrocious. Don’t @ me.
That’s all for this week folks. Sound off in the comments below, and come back next week as the Super Friends unite!
