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Stew’s Young Justice Retrospective: Season 1, Episodes 7 – 8
Image Credit: Warner Bros. Animation
Party On, Garth: A Young Justice Retrospective, S1 E7-8
Episode 7
We kick things off in late July and in New Orleans, where the streets are filled with cliche Mardi Gras music despite it being, you know, LATE JULY. We meet an old man who turns out to be Kent Nelson, but we don’t know that yet! He visits a psychic named Madam Xanadu, but she is just a showperson psychic who Kent laughs at when she fakes summoning his wife. Though he notes she DOES have real potential, so… I GUESS that explains why he even went to see her? I don’t know. I think it’s just for the bait and switch of thinking Xanadu is the relevant character.
Anyway, Abracadabra teleports in, grabs Nelson, and teleports out, leaving Xanadu screaming in terror.
Suddenly we cut to August 19th, so some time has certainly passed! Superboy and Aqualad are training in combat, and Superboy wins, paying off that story of… he didn’t like training that one time?
Meanwhile, back at the plot, Red Tornado shows up and sends Young Justice after the missing Kent Nelson, who he explains is formerly Dr. Fate. Kid Flash does not believe in your magic hoo-doo! But he pretends to when he sees Miss Martian is into it.
On the ship to find Kent, Artemis gives Wally a hard time for trying to impress Megan.
Kent and Abracadabra meet the REAL villain of our episode: Klarion (BUM BUM BUM!) The Witch Boy! And yes, I will use the “Bum Bum BUM” effect that Peter David gave him in the YJ comics.
Young Justice find Dr. Fate’s hidden tower, but Wally’s attempt to impress Megan sends them hurtling towards a pool of lava. Megan figures out what the tower really wants and answers its question, sealing the lava away. Artemis AGAIN calls out Wally for his bullshit, leading to his having to admit he was lying to Megan. Artemis is cock-blocking my boy Wally! I hate it!
The kids find Kent’s cane floating before them. Wally and Artemis both grab it, and it teleports them away. They reappear with Kent who helps them escape from Klarion and Abracadabra. He explains that Klarion is a Lord of Chaos, and that he is after the Helm Of Fate, who is a Lord of Order.
All of our characters, good and bad, coalesce together in the same place for the start of our final battle! Kent teleports himself and Wally to the roof of the tower, but Klarion follows, leaving Abracadabra alone to kick the other heroes’ asses for a bit. Superboy fought AMAZO a few episodes ago, but now Abracadabra is punishing him! What in the hell?
Kent puts up a forcefield to protect himself and Wally, but he dies in the process, leaving Wally along with the Helm. In desperation, Wally puts on the helmet, causing him to wake up inside of it with Kent’s spirit!
Kent reports that Nabu controls his body now, and Fate fights Bum Bum Bum for a while outside. A bunch of magic blasts, you know? Gripping stuff. Fate ends up realizing Klarion’s anchor to the human realm is his cat, so he attacks it, causing the Witch Boy to retreat.
Fate then pops over and stops Abra, who should have evolved into Alakazam by now. Superboy gently punches him unconscious.
Inside the helmet, Nabu doesn’t want to give up Wally’s body because he’s been sealed away too long! But Wally and Kent say “Please?”, and he does after all. Though he wants Wally to find him a new host body! When he gets around to it. Kent tells Wally to find someone to love; someone who won’t let him get away with any crap.
As the episode ends, Wally puts the Helm on his trophy shelf. Artemis shows up and dumps on him some more when he says he STILL doesn’t believe in magic, so the show is hinting at Wally and Artemis getting together (she’s the one who challenges him), and I hate that! Where is Linda Park at?! Someone tell her what these writers are doing! Wally has twins in his future, not an archer chick.
Episode 8
We open with the team getting trashed by Clayface, to the point that Batman comes in and saves them… but we see it is all a training simulation. Batman kicks the whole team out, saying he only wants to talk to Aqualad. He can tell Aqualad is not fully committed to leading the team; he clearly misses Atlantis! Batman tells him to decide in which world he belongs.
Aqualad visits Aquaman in Atlantis, then sees some… octopus kid. Octopus Kid gives us the 30 second Aqualad briefing: He and Garth did a thing, and Kaldur became Aqualad, while Garth chose to stay in the kingdom and work on his Water Bending.
Oh, there’s a girl named Tula that Kaldur is hot for. She agrees to go to the royal dinner with Kaldur, but as she swims away with Garth, he tells her that they have to let Aqualad in on some news.
So they’re banging? Or too obvious?
Kaldur visits the science sector of Atlantis and comes across Chekhov’s Frozen Shadowy Figure.
We cut to Miss Martian and Superboy in Mount Justice where Megan is about to prepare dinner, and Superboy is… watching a broken TV. She offers to turn it on for him, and he says no. So she decides they should make dinner together, but in her excitement, she dumps a bunch of ingredients on him.
They seem about to kiss, but Red Tornado walks in. By the time he makes it to the kitchen, Megan is cutting veggies while a food-covered Superboy is watching the broken TV.
Under the sea, we see that Black Manta is preparing to invade Atlantis!
Another quick interlude sees Robin training at Wayne Manor, but he is distracted and pissed that Batman only wanted to talk to Aqualad. Alfred lets Bruce know this, so he summons Robin for training… via a game of one-on-one hoops.
Guys, there is NO WAY that 13 year old, 5’3 Robin is beating adult, physical prime, 6’3 Batman at basketball. We never see even a hint of their game here, but I kind of wish we cut back at some point to Bruce blocking a shot, saying the score is 63-0, and telling Dick not to whine anymore.
Down where it’s better–down where it’s wetter–Aqualad tells everyone at the royal dinner that he wants to return home and start attending Water-Bending classes again. Though Mera notes that Tula and Garth are way ahead of him now, and he won’t be in their grade.
BACK to the surface now, and we see The Flash Family having dinner at Wally’s house. His parents yell at him for eating all of the ice cream. OH RIGHT! Wally’s parents are borderline abusive/negligent in the comics; I always forget that.
Back to where all the fish is happy (maybe because that’s where the plot is this episode), Aquaman and Mera announce they are pregnant (OH NO, says anyone acquainted with the comics). Superman summons Arthur for JL duty, so off he goes!
After dinner, Kaldur tells Tula he wants to stay in Atlantis for her, but she tells him in Childrens’ TV Language that she and Garth are boning, so that is not ideal. At that moment, Manta strikes, collapsing buildings!
While Mera and Tula and Garth and Kaldur fight off Manta’s men, Kaldur figures out this is all a distraction to get that frozen figure from earlier. He heads off to the science center, telling Garth to stay behind and protect Tula.
Back to where you don’t drink your oxygen, we see Artemis and her wheelchair-bound mom. Artemis has been accepted to prestigious Gotham Academy. She doesn’t want to go, but mom–in her first appearance no less!–gives an impassioned “Do what I never got a chance to!” speech, so Arty says she will attend.
Man, imagine if Buffy’s mom sucked that little! Or at least that we saw her this infrequently.
Garth bails on the women folk to help Aqualad defend the frozen starfish. I’m pretty sure Kaldur straight up kills a minion by pulling one in front of himself as a shield from Manta’s blasts.
Garth thwarts the theft of the figure, so Manta gets all pissy and blows it up as he leaves.
Prince Orm shows that a small piece of tentacle is all that remains… though it is starting to regenerate. Kaldur heads back to Mount Justice to tell DikemBat Mantumbo that he has decided to leave Atlantis behind and focus 100% on Young Justice.
Our The Light epilogue sees Manta report that he had to resort to “Plan B”, and The Light approves of this.
