Stew’s Young Justice Retrospective: Season 1, Episodes 17 – 18

Finally Harm Has Come Back To Young Justice: A YJ Retrospective, S1 E17-18

Episode 17

Image Credit: Warner Bros. Animation

We kick things off at Mount Justice, and with a very melancholy Young Justice team struggling with the effects of last episode when they all believed they died in that weird-ass training exercise. The League has brought in Black Canary to act as a therapist for the team, and… is she trained for that? That’s a weird choice! I feel like they used her just because she’s a woman. How is she any more of a trained therapist than, say, John Stewart?

Anyway, Conner is up first for therapy, and to the shock of no one, he is a dick to her and storms out. My god, this kid. He’s really the Xander of this show, and I hate that given how much I love the comic book version of Kon-El.

Elsewhere, we see The Forever People have arrived on Earth… and they are looking for the stolen New GenesiSphere!

Speaking of which, Superboy and Wolf are about to leave the cave, but the sphere stops him. Hey, it turns into the Super-Cycle! I have no idea how, but until this episode, it did not dawn on me that the sphere was the Super Cycle. Probably because it was a bland sphere and not a super cycle, I guess. So is that really on me?

Artemis is in for therapy next where Canary tries to get her to talk about being the first to die and how it affected her. Artemis dodges, but Canary picks up on the fact that she seems to have feelings towards Wally. She calls that interesting.

Is it?

Is it interesting?

You’ve put together a group of hormonal teenagers to presumably save the world, but they are all getting hot for each other.

Is that interesting to you?

It feels dangerous to me.

I don’t want my life depending on horny teenagers.

ANYWAY.

The Forever People cut off Superboy and are about to fight him for the Super Cycle, but their Motherbox tells them he SAVED the cycle, not stole it. So they decide to partner up to find more missing New Genesis tech.

Back at the cave, Aqualaud is with Black Canary. He believes sacrificing himself in the training shows he isn’t a reliable leader, which is a weird thought. Very villainous to assume leaders should protect themselves at all costs. He also realizes no one on the team is ready to lead but him, so he decides to keep on keeping on.

I really want to like this kid, but they have given him the most white-bread personality on Earth. He’s so tedious and self-flagellating sometimes.

Superboy and the Forever People discover that a New Genesis Rescue Drill (That is a very specific use for a drill) is being used to rob banks by members of Intergang. A fight breaks out to get the drill back, and the gang members have Apokolips weapons!

Wally and Canary now, with Canary asking Wally how he felt about Artemis dying in the simulation, but he blows it off. She says he is in denial, and he replies that he is comfortable with that.

Superboy and the Forever People run off Intergang, who Boom Tube away to safety, when the FP join to form Infinity Man. Though the heroes do capture a few of them, at least. Dreamer uses her powers to see that Desaad is supplying their weapons.

MORE THERAPY! This time with Robin. He is the first to admit to being traumatized, as he sacrificed himself and Wally in the simulation to help J’onn and Megan blow up the ship. It made him feel like Batman, and for the first time, he realizes that is not what he wants to be when he grows up.

Team Superboy find the rest of the thugs, and another fight ensues. This time, though, the thugs interrupt the formation of Infinity Man with a Father Box, giving us an evil Infinity Man! He attacks Superboy and Wolf.

Megan in therapy now, and she blames herself for everything that happened in the training. Probably only because it was all her fault, though. Canary advises her on stick-to-it-iveness and maintaining training her powers so it doesn’t happen again.

We also get a VERY FORCED moment where Megan inexplicably turns into her human form, and Canaray says “You turned white”, and Megan freaks out for a second before saying “Oh, I turned Caucasian”. So is the reason her human form is a white girl JUST for this moment? Because wow.

This very long episode continues with Infinity Man whipping Superboy’s ass until the Super Cycle equips to him like a fucking Yu-Gi-Oh card and turns him good again. Desaad Boom Tubes away, and the thugs are defeated.

Superboy asks the FP if he can keep the Cycle, and they ultimately relent.

Finally, Conner revisits therapy and admits he was mostly happy in the simulation because he finally got to be seen as Superman. So that’s dark-ish!

Episode 18

Image Credit: Warner Bros. Animation

A random ass museum just happens to have the actual Sword Of Beowulf lying around. Or they did until it was recently stolen. The thief is still there, and it’s Harm from the actual Young Justice comics, even if he doesn’t look or sound like Harm. He is speaking in the third person, and I keep wanting him to ask someone a question and then interrupt with “IT DOESN’T MATTER WHAT YOUR NAME IS”.

But still. First the Super Cycle and now Harm? We’re getting more material influenced by Peter David and Todd Nauck’s Young Justice comics now, and I’m here for it.

Back at Mount Justice, it is Halloween, and the gang is dressing up for a party. Wally is flirting with Megan, and does he not realize that she and Conner are dating? It actually turns out that maybe nobody knows, because Artemis figures it out on her own and gets all pissy and jealous because of that one time ten episodes ago when she thought Superboy was cute. Zatanna offers to bail on the party and go find some action to keep her distracted from barely caring about something just because the plot wants her to.

Megan, Wally, and Conner head to Happy Harbor High’s Halloween Hoe-Down and see most of the M & C’s classmates are dressed as super heroes. One is even dressed as classic Young Justice (comics) era Superboy, which makes no sense, as that character does not exist. So he says he is dressed as a cooler version of Superman. Okay, writers. I see your Easter Egg, and I’ll allow it.

All of the students’ phones start going off with alerts that Martians are attacking, and Megan appears very worried!

Batman is with the remaining members of Young Justice in the cave discussing the mole, though Kaldur now thinks it was just a ploy by SportsMaster. Still, Batman isn’t convinced and suspects Superboy. Roy, ever the hothead, suspects everyone, but mostly Artemis and M’Gann. Oh, so he’s just sexist, I see! Just wait till Zatanna inevitably joins the roster; you can blame her for stuff, too, you incel!

That may have gotten away from me.

Zatanna and Artemis stop a bunch of low level crimes and seem happy with themselves, but they eventually run afoul of Harm, and he attacks them. There is a cloaked girl who lures them away right when Harm has the upper hand. She introduces herself as Secret!

She actually responds to EVERTHING with “Secret” because the show’s iteration of Secret is apparently a fucking Pokemon, and I hate it. She was a core member of the team for its entire run! And she used sentences like an actual person!

(Even if she really was just “Young Justice’s version of Raven”)

Back at the Halloween party, the power goes out and there are more news broadcasts over the school intercom about Martian attacks. Superboy’s enhanced vision and hearing picks up that it is a prank, though.

Artemis tries going one-on-one with the great one, but Harm is too much for her. It was all a distraction to allow Zatanna to try to get the sword, but she can’t wield it because she isn’t pure of heart. Secret again guides them away to momentary safety, taking them to Harm’s own house, but he shows up and KO’s them.

Superboy, Wally, and Megan turn the prank around on the kid at the school by having Megan shape shift into Marvin The Martian and attack him. He runs into the safety of the school and admits he made the whole thing up.

Back at the plot, a tied-up Artemis wakes up and says “I’m tied up, and not in the fun way”.

She doesn’t say that, actually, but I really wanted her to. I kind of want that innuendo to be her shtick.

Anyway, Secret frees an imprisoned Zatanna, and they rush off with Artemis, who blows up Haem’s house! That will show him, I guess! Secret guides them to the backyard to show them her very own gravesite. Harm monologues how he killed her to become pure evil so he could use the sword, but Secret, hearing this, like… pulls his evil out? She pulls something out of him. It’s weird.

The sword no longer obeys him, so Artemis kicks his ass, then they promise to give Secret a proper grave and burial.

So let’s look at something so far:

Dick Grayson: Not a member of YJ in the comics

Aqualad: Not a member of YJ in the comics

Miss Martian: Also no.

Artemis: Nope.

Wally West: Nuh-uh.

Superboy: A wildly different character in the comics

Secret: Not a god damn Pokemon who is around for one story only in the comics

This series really just took the name Young Justice and did virtually nothing Young Justice-y with it, man.

But at least we got Harm and the Super-Cycle, so they are TRYING!