Stew’s Young Justice Retrospective: Season 1, Episodes 13 – 14

Episode 13

Image Credit: Warner Bros. Animation

This show continues its globetrotting ways this week, as we kick off in India. The mayor of Gotham City and some underlings are after a tiger as part of their big game hunting, and I’m already on the tiger’s side. FUCK Big Game Hunters. They are always some of the worst people humanity has to offer. And this is why you shouldn’t eat at Jimmy John’s. There are, like, a dozen better sandwich places, too!

Anyway, because there is justice in the world, a frickin’ GORILLA WITH A MINI-GUN emerges and blows the hunters away! Oh, gorilla; you are my hero; I don’t care if you are a villain or not.

Cut to Mount Justice, and the League is helping YJ repair their cave in the wake of Red Tornado’s heel turn. Green Arrow tries to distract the kids with pretzels, but they don’t want pretzels; they want ANSWERS! Except Wally also wants the pretzels. Superboy and his super-hearing overhears Kaldur talking about the mole, and the team LOSES THEIR SHIT on him for keeping that a secret.

With Tornado gone, the League is assigning rotating supervisors to he kids, with Captain Marvel up first. Batman sends the team after the gorilla while they hunt down Red Tornado. Even the kids see through how silly that is. “You go get this gorilla with a mini-gun, okay? We’ll handle the actual threats”.

AS IF A GORILLA WITH A MINI-GUN IS NOT A THREAT.

The team arrives in India with Captain Marvel tagging along with them. Robin and Wally are pissed at Kaldur and leave on their own. Superboy goes on about protecting Megan, but she and Artemis are tired of his patriarchal ways and leave on their own, causing Superboy to go bounding off alone. Marvel asks Aqualad why he let the team split up without a plan, and Kaldur has no real answers.

The team members all get attacked by Cobra-Venom enhanced wildlife! Marvel and Kaldur face off with elephants and a tiger. Superboy is attacked by wolves, one of which is white and appears to be supervising the rest. Robin and Kid Flash are set upon by vultures, and Martian and Artemis are struck by a crocodile. Fights ensue!

After subduing the attacking beasts, Marvel notes to Kaldur that Batman leads the League because he TAKES command, not because he asks for or expects it. Then he just bails on Aqualad to go help out the tiger that attacked them; that MIGHT have been a test you just failed, Aqualad.

Anyway, as the Captain does so, he is felled by a paralyzing device. Monsieur Mallah emerges from the shadows.

The team FINALLY establishes their telepathic link, allowing everyone to grief Aqualad for not trusting them with the mole secret. Channeling his inner Batman, Aqualad shuts it down and orders them to regroup and save Captain Marvel, who we see is about to get dissected by The Brain and Mallah so they can examine his mind.

Young Justice breaks into the lab and overcome the paralyzing device used on Marvel. Also, Superboy has befriended the white wolf off camera. So that’s a thing that happened that we did not need to see.

Speaking of which, the tiger from earlier busts in to save Captain Marvel. More fighting, but Brain and Mallah escape. I sure do hope this tiger inexplicably starts talking…

A bit later, the team reports they have removed the control collars from all of the animals, so the island’s wildlife is safe. Marvel has befriended the tiger and named him Mr. Tawny; I KNEW IT. Now talk, damn you! Superboy calls the white wolf “Wolf” and brings him home; he also apologies for being overprotective of M’Gann, who insists that on missions, she is his teammate, NOT his girlfriend.

Kaldur opens up to the team that he kept the secret for two reasons: one, as it was from SportsMaster, he wasn’t sure it wasn’t just a ploy to create division, and two, he didn’t want to alert the mole if there was one. The team unanimously votes to keep him as leader.

Elsewhere, in Fawcett City, Captain Marvel returns home and reveals he is a kid, too.

Episode 13

Image Credit: Warner Bros. Animation

We start off in Metropolis this episode, and a giant plant monster busts through the ground and starts wreaking havoc on the perpetually havoc-wreaked-upon city. We see this is the working of the Injustice League: Poison Ivy, Joker, Waton, Captain Vertigo, Ultra-Humanite, and Black Adam.

At Mount Justice, Kaldur is sparring with Robin pretty evenly. Zatara is their weekly advisor, but Captain Marvel is still hanging around, as Billy Batson thinks the team is cool as heck. Batman shows up and puts on reports of the plants striking around the globe… and it appears to be Cobra-Venom-ized. Wait, that works on vegetation? Weird. Do anabolic steroids work on plants? Will they help my pumpkins grow? They seem to have hit a wall.

Hmm, whatever. Batman has figured out that a group of villains is working together, related to the attacks that have been going on all year.

Joker interrupts the world’s satellites and demands a ten billion dollar ransom, and real talk? This guy is not Mark Hamill. It’s a very subdued Joker without much flavor to him. Voice actor, if you get to play The Joker, PLAY THE JOKER, man. Have fun with that role!

Bats send the kids after the Injustice League while the main Leaguers fight off the plant threats. Batman insists the kids are ready for such responsibility.

Batman, Captain Marvel, and Zatara fight the Gotham plant monster, and upon destroying it, they find it is filled with Joker Gas as a backup threat! But Zatara just “nah”s that gas away.

Young Justice heads to the Louisiana Bayou, the home of the Injustice League threat… and Bayou Billy, an NES video game I always saw ads for in comics in the 90’s! Count Vertigo and Black Adam attack them, wrecking Megan’s ship and getting a quick upper-hand. A plant emerges there to join in on their strike.

After Vertigo and Adam subdue most of the team, it is revealed Robin and Miss Martian escaped, but they are quickly found and assaulted by Ivy and the Ultra-Humanite. Megan’s ship recovers and sets the team free and helps them all fend off the baddies. Artemis and Aqualad realize their weapons have been confiscated, and Artemis, on this CHILDREN’S TELEVISION CARTOON, says “I feel naked, and not in the fun way”.

Somehow that not-subtle-at-all line got by the censors for whatever channel this show aired on. I can just picture this show’s producer going to the network and saying “You know, like how showers are fun!”.

Robin, who was never captured and was hence NOT disarmed, blows up the central plant with his Batarangs. For, like, the third time this episode, The Joker breaks the 4th wall to talk to us, the viewers, directly. I like the idea of it, and I wish we’d see more of that in other media. Give Robert Pattinson a self-aware Joker to face in his sequel! That… actually does not fit the mood of that franchise at all. Oddly, Jared Leto’s iteraton would have, though. And really, it couldn’t have hurt that character any worse.

A big final fight breaks out with the teams evenly matched for a while until Wotan’s magic gets to be too much for the kids. Aqualad calls out for Plan B and puts on the hidden Helm Of Fate, much to Wally’s chagrin!

The League shows up and, between their firepower and Fate’s, make quick work of the Injustice League. Wally is despondent that Kaldur is lost to them, but then Aqualad just… takes off the helmet and is like “Nah, Fate said it was cool”. Batman gives the kids a Satisfactory grade.

In our epilogue, we see the true villains of the Light step forward—Luthor, Vandal Savage, Ra’s, Brain, and more—as they announce the Injustice League were just falls guys. BECAUSE THESE GUYS CAN NEVER JUST TAKE AN L.