Stew’s Young Justice Retrospective: Season 1, Episodes 5 – 6

Episode 5

Image Credit: Warner Bros. Animation

We kick off with a typical day in Metropolis: a bridge is collapsing! Look, I know Gotham is supposed to be a terrifying, crime-ridden place to live, but Metropolis is Disasterville, man. These people should all move to Iowa.

Anyway, Superman shows up to save the day! But also… so does Superboy. They both do their part in rescuing people while Superman repairs the bridge, but then he fucking scolds Superboy for landing on the bridge to help people. The usually annoying Superboy asks for training so he can do a better job, but Superman refuses. As he flies away, Batman calls him and says they need to talk.

At Mount Justice, the Superboy we all know and [verb] arrives, acting bratty to his teammates. Black Canary and Martian Manhunter are there for training. Seeing Canary, Kid Flash of course agrees to practice because he is a horndog, and Canary whips his ass. Superboy thinks this is all a waste of time, but Dinah taunts him into stepping in the ring with her. She tosses him around, which I’m sure will do wonders for his attitude.

This is like how Wolverine somehow fights fairly with The Hulk, right? Black Canary whipping Superboy’s ass?

Batman calls the team in; the JLA just took several hours to defeat and dismantle Amazo. They have him packaged up and are transporting his parts to two locations. He wants Young Justice to escort and protect the transit.

The team splits up: Robin and Superboy follow one truck, Megan, Wally, and Kaldur go after the second. Robin is STILL making prefix jokes! He wonders if the opposite of disaster is “aster”, which would be everything going right. Superboy don’t care; he is pouty. I mean… minus the poutiness? I don’t care, either. Does this joke run all series long?

Both trucks are set upon by flying robot monkeys! Superboy jumps off his cycle, nearly crashing Robin off of his. Robin pulls out two sticks to fight the monkeys, and that’s a Dick Grayson trait. So is this Dick?

Elsewhere, Miss Martian shapeshifts several extra arms to fight the monkeys, and that frightens both the driver and Kid Flash.

Both groups fail, and the monkeys abscond with the Amazo parts. A pissy Superboy bounds after them, leaving Robin behind.

Robin hacks one of the destroyed monkeys and sees they are taking the pieces to Gotham. Kid Flash leaves his group to run ahead; Robin is close to the location where he is.

We cut to The World’s Finest Team, eating dessert in a diner. I love that Clark orders apple pie, and Bruce asks for Devil’s Food Cake. Batman knows Superboy’s existence perturbs Clark, but he wants Clark to train the boy. Superman goes all “I don’t wanna!” and STORMS OFF.

You know how Superman & Lois is a show that really just GETS the character of Superman and handles him beautifully?

This is whatever the exact opposite of that is.

Superboy finds a train that the monkeys have boarded and tears his way inside. He discovers Dr. Ivo within… and a very quickly rebuilt Amazo.

Honestly? Gonna go ahead and blame the League for this one. This is some My Name Is Judge stuff from Buffy. They just got Amazo into five easily re-assembled pieces and called it an afternoon. You gotta do better than that! At least pulp the head, team!

Amazo beats Superboy’s tail because he is AMAZO, and the android punches the clone into a nearby town.

Kid Flash and Robin arrive in Gotham, where Superboy and Amazo are doing battle in Robin’s high school We see Robin has an award in a trophy case! He’s Dick Grayson after all! Mystery solved, even if disappointingly. I was pulling for Tim. Dick was never in YJ in the comics!

Kid Flash almost gets bearhugged to death by Amazo, but an arrow shot out of nowhere saves him. The archer never shows their face, though.

Between the three of them, Superboy, Robin, and Kid Flash manage to defeat Amazo, which should be a HUGE deal because Young Justice has stunk on ice every episode until now. The league should be fawning over this! And you know how the kids did it? By destroying his head.

So they are already smarter AND better than the League all of the sudden.

The League meets with Young Justice to thank them for their work, and Green Arrow reveals the arrow at the scene does not match any of his. There’s a new archer with green arrows out there, and that would be a big mystery if Arrowette-But-Wearing-Green (?) wasn’t in the opening credits every single episode!

As we wrap up, we get Superboy being much more humble and respectful towards Black Canary.

Episode 6

Image Credit: Warner Bros. Animation

This show keeps reminding us that Roy Harper exists, and we open up with his saving a scientist from some villainy. But because he is a solo act, he can only save her… and not her research. They escape by speedboat, and I’m pretty sure Roy MurderDeathKills a bunch of minions by blowing them up with bombs.

We cut to Young Justice having a superfun beach day! But not Wally–he is at school. Does Robin not have school? Whatever; I guess it got wrecked last episode. We get a montage of Wally at school and the kids at the beach.

Wally finally shows up ready for some beach fun, but the team is in costume with some Leaguers. Green Arrow introduces his niece, Artemis. Kid Flash does NOT like her, despite the fact that she is a cute blonde wearing a mid-riff bearing shirt. Very un-Wally-like!

Roy shows up and demands to be called Red Arrow. He alerts them to the threat of the scientist’s findings. It’s a cloud of nano-bugs! They eat technology and transmit the info back to The League Of Shadows.

The kids don their stealth suits and head off to protect Dr. Roquette, the scientist. Kid Flash is still an asshole to Artemis the whole time. Meanwhile, Artemis is openly flirting with Superboy, which cheeses off Megan.

Kid Flash gets knocked out and tossed into swimming pool. The ninja lady wearing a cat mask that is responsible shows up and battles Aqualad for the fate of Dr. Roquette. Before she can beat him, the rest of the team shows up to help, so the villain ninja vanishes. Megan is suddenly very complimentary of Artemis’ efforts and first outing with the team.

Robin and Superboy head off to STAR Labs, but the cloud got there first and destroyed it.

The team sets up Dr. Roquette to hack the nano-bugs and destroy them, but the League Of Shadows attacks. Apparently Spider-Man is a member of The League? Because a Spider-Verse version of him attacks Kid Flash. Before the League can kill Dr. Roquette, she reveals she is really Miss Martian.

Elsewhere, we see the REAL DR. Roquette still working on hacking the cloud. Cat Ninja Lady shows back up and has a chase sequence with Artemis.

A bunch of things happen. Aqualad fights Cat Ninja Lady again. Robin rushes into a Wayne building to try to disarm the cloud before they can hi-jack the tech. Fight fight fight, hack hack hack, and then the cloud is destroyed. Cat Ninja Lady has Dr. Roquette dead to rights, but doesn’t bother killing her since it’s all over.

As she is escaping, she runs into Artemis; they clearly know each other, and Artemis lets her go. The rest of the team does not see this, but they find Artemis and welcome her officially to the group.

Artemis runs afoul of Red Arrow, who warns her that he knows she is not Oliver’s niece. He orders her not to hurt his friends.

And with our typical foreboding epilogue of what The Light is up to, they note that they have an operative inside Young Justice!

Oh man! Who is it?

There are a lot of options. Superboy, if they go the Lex Luthor mind control route. Artemis, obviously. But I want to say it’s a hacked Red Tornado! Can’t trust adults, Young Justice.

I guess I’ll find out going forward.>

As I worried about last time, the team got super competent in a hurry here, defeating Amazo and outsmarting The League Of Shadows. And Superboy is still the absolute worst; nothing like his character from the comics.

The Artemis “reveal” was quick, but like I said… the opening credits gave it away for 5 episodes, so why bother?

Until next time… take care!