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Stew’s Young Justice Retrospective: Season 2, Episodes 15-16
Image Credit: Warner Bros. Animation
Bad Relationship Advice: A Young Justice Retrospective, S2 E15-16
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EPISODE 15
We start off on Rimborr for a thrilling episode of Law & Order: Galactic Intent. Superman is arguing at the Justice League’s trial that they had no control over their attack on the planet, but the tribunal in charge seems disbelieving of this.
Suddenly news breaks about The Reach being on Earth, and this causes Vandal Savage to get Mongul all wound up, so he makes a big show of leaving the trial to go get himself involved.
At The Watchtower, the League and Nightwing see WarWorld approaching Earth from across the Milky Way. The Reach also sees WarWorld coming and contact it, but Mongul says he is on his way BECAUSE they are there.
Green Beetle gives the team and the Leaguers some backstory on Mongul: he is a conqueror out to take over the galaxy so he can then reclaim the throne of his home world. The League reaches out to Mongul, and he tells them he is putting them out of their misery before The Reach can do too much damage.
Not, like, altruistically, though, because he also says Earth being under Reach control is bad business for his plans, too.
Dr. Fate single-handedly takes out WarWorld’s biggest planet-busting gun because if you have Dr. Fate, do you really need anyone else? I guess so, because Rocket joins in to help him shield Earth from WarWorld’s attacks while the rest of the League attacks its outer shell.
Nightwing notes that Young Justice has breached WarWorld and are ready to take it down from the inside. We got pretty much the whole team on one mission, too! So it’s nice to see that Mongul is being treated as a threat the likes of which we have not seen before!
Superboy, Wonder Girl, Wolf, and Arsenal reach Mongul while the others are doing their part to disarm WarWorld. This goes as well for that group of kiddos as you might imagine. After kicking their asses, we got an awesome little “Mongulogue” about how he has tried to be merciful, and he will now unleash every weapon he has on Earth. After firing, he gives them a “You’re welcome”.
After determining that The League and the Earth’s military won’t be enough to stop all of WarWorld’s power, The Reach gives up the game and reveals their military fleet to help defend the planet… just a short while after telling the U.N. that all they had was one peaceful traveling vessel.
Mal, now permanently adopting the Guardian persona I guess, and Bumblebee bicker the entire way to the planet-buster’s power core, and Mal is a straight up asshole to her, being stupidly passive aggressive until she calls him out on it, and then he just gets a little less passive about it.
He does give her a good idea, though, and she re-routes the power in the core to have the defense drones attack Mongul. After the fight, Mal recognizes he was wrong and tells Bee how proud of her she is. Then she forgives him, and I hate the lesson this teaches young girls! Mal is a dick, Bee! Don’t let him come crawling back.
With Mongul down, WarWorld shuts down, and Blue Beetle takes the key to operating it, so THAT’S bad. And it immediately pays off, as when the team is together, Blue jumps them. He defeats them all except for an escaping Arsenal.
EPISODE 16
Moving onto our B plot after the WarWorld episode and Blue Beetle’s full heel turn, we start off in Manta’s ship. Aqualad reveals by way of telepathy that he is already fully restored, but he, Artemis, and M’Gann are keeping that secret until they figure out how to save the Martian telepath from Manta and Deathstroke. Manta barges in and gives her 24 more hours to cure Kaldur or he will kill her regardless.
Aboard WarWorld, all the defeated heroes are gone. Blue Beetle tells Nightwing a sob story about a Boom Tube opening and taking Mongul and the others away, and Dick buys it. He sends Blue and Green Beetles back to Earth.
Some ridiculously good plot contrived timing sees SportsMaster and Cheshire sneak aboard Manta’s ship in the 24 hour window they unknowingly have to inadvertently help Miss Martian. I forgot these two were after Manta, but I do still love some villain-on-villain violence.
Not even aware that her family is on board, Artemis takes a break from watching Megan and Kaldur, Right after she leaves, Cheshire breaks in through a grate to attack Aqualad (who she sees is apparently a vegetable, so KIND OF a dick move).
Lots of things start happening! Megan tries to dissuade Cheshire’s attack, but Deathstroke turns off her telepathy via her control collar! Artemis sends troops to protect Kaldur so she can have the control room alone! SportsMaster attacks Manta until Manta’s troops pin him down with suppressing fire! Excitement!
Back to WarWorld! Dick is detective-ing around for clues. He figures out Robin threw a Birdarang at Blue Beetle.
After that quick interlude, we are back on the submarine for Artemis disarming Megan’s collar, but the latter has already been KO’ed by Cheshire. Artemis rushes off to Aqualad’s room, but finds herself in the middle of the fight between Manta and SportsMaster. So now she has to fight her own dad to keep her cover, and he is fighting the person whose death he is here to avenge.
Miss Martian wakes up and links the minds of herself, Kaldur, Artemis, SportsMaster, and Cheshire to reveal the truth. Man, now even SPORTSMASTER knows Dick’s big master plan. And he’s a fool!
A whole bunch of excitement and telepathic planning follows as SportsMaster, Cheshire, and Megan are all able to escape Deathstroke and Manta’s clutches, but Manta has his son back, so he barely cares.
Our last scene sees Blue Beetle come out publicly in support of The Reach.
Everything is moving along swimmingly here, as we resolved the Megan-In-Peril storyline, but have also progressed the threat of The Reach, who now have the key to WarWorld.
Weirdly, Arsenal escaped Blue Beetle, but it DIDN’T come down to his revealing Beetle is a villain. So I guess–I hope–the reason for his escape plays out some other way. But we’ll see!
