Movies & TV / Columns
Stew’s Young Justice Retrospective: Season 2, Episodes 19-20
Image Credit: Warner Bros. Animation
Gone In A Kid Flash: A Young Justice Retrospective, S2 E19-20
For more Young Justice Retrospectives, click HERE!
EPISODE 19
After a startling 26 episodes were dedicated to season one, season two is set to end in just 20, making this the penultimate episode of the season! And we have a lot to clear up, so let’s see how it all goes…
We kick things off in Santa Prisca, and a meeting between The Reach and The Light. Black Beetle makes Manta, Tigress, and Deathstroke take off their masks for… reasons. After a lot of in-fighting and disagreement over whose side has performed worse as of late, Black Beetle attacks Black Manta!
Tigress protects Ra’s from a blaster attack from Reach minions, and he seems to take a quick interest in her necklace, the one providing the glamour charm to make everyone see her as Not Artemis.
Aqualad interjects himself and gets both teams back on the same page. After the two sides straighten out their issues, Vandal Savage notes he has bribed Rimbor to find the Justice League guilty of the attack for which they currently stand trial.
During The Reach Ambassador talking about his plans, Ra’s Al Ghul just casually walks over to Tigress and tears off her charm, revealing Artemis! Oh shit! Everyone puts together that Aqualad has been playing everyone, and Deathstroke shoots Kaldur and Artemis down. Double Oh Shit!
As he dies, Kaldur plays a hologram revealing that The Light has been playing The Reach from day one. Of course, we then see the two young heroes did not actually die; it was all parlor tricks from a shape-shifted Miss Martian imitating Deathstroke. Several members of Young Justice then break into the meeting!
Vandal Savage summons the League Of Shadows to attack the kids, but many members of them are also YJ kids in disguise. Big fight scene! Black Beetle kills Ra’s! Wally hands the Kid Flash mantle down to Bart going forward! Manta and Aqualad duel, with Manta still hoping to get his so back to his side!
Again with all of the excitement!
The heroes win big–though Aqualad laments that Black Beetle, the female Reach scientist, Klarion, and Vandal Savage all escaped–and after an entire episode se in one location, we jump with a few minutes left to WarWorld.
Vandal Savage appears via Boom Tube onto the planet-buster and is attacked by Black Canary, Shazam, and Black Lightning… but we don’t see how that ends as we shift focus to The Watchtower.
Dick gives formal leadership of Young Justice back to Kaldur, and then the defeated Justice Leagues are Boom Tubed in, and WarWorld flies off into space, away from Earth.
In one final scene, Black Beetle vows that The Reach will leave Earth… and destroy it on their way out.
EPISODE 19
At the trial on Rimbor, The Justice Leage are found guilty by the tribunal. Megan, Superboy, and Adam Strange arrive with the evidence they collected during the summit, but they are too late.
At The Reach’ ship, Blue Beetle, Green Beetle, and Aqualad attack Black Beetle’s forces, and Black Beetle destroys Green’s scarab. He then prepares to kill him while he is unconscious.
Back at the tribunal, the justices have agreed to hear the new evidence, but they code language their way into saying they want a bribe. Megan and Superboy counter that if they side with truth and justice THIS time, more trials will be brought to them, allowing them to collect more bribes going forward.
I mean… it’s a good argument, but it’s not particularly heroic.
Black Beetle tries to destroy Blue’s scarab, but it fights back and destroys the Black scarab instead, Black Beetle, knocking him out. After we have heard so many times that if a host and scarab are separated, the host will die, both Green Beetle and Black Beetle survive their separations.
With his defeat, Black’s plan to destroy Earth is activated, causing natural disasters (or… unnatural disasters, since they are being manufactured?) around the globe.
HA! In the very next scene, Captain Atom mentions “natural disasters”, leading to Jaime calling them “not-so-natural disasters”. I knew I liked you, Reyes.
Anyway, Lex Luthor calls in saying he has developed a virus that will affect Reach technology.
Back on Rimbor, Superboy tells M’Gann that he isn’t dating their classmate Wendy, he was just giving her advice on her new relationship. In only slightly more important news than Conner’s love-life, the tribunal comes back and drops the charges against the Justice Leaguers.
Vandal Savage broadcasts a message to Rimbor that Earth is off limits to alien threats, and to back that up, he pulls WarWorld up as a threatening presence.
Back on Earth, the heroes take down 20 of the Reach’s devices causing the planet’s magnetic field to destabilize, but a hidden 21st is found late… and it’s reached its final form or whatever, so the virus won’t affect it!
To counter the device’s energy signature, The Flash and Bart are tasked with running out its power and negating it by running opposite its flow. Kid Flash hears this is the plan and heads off to help them.
The trio of speedsters save the planet, but in the process, Wally is, like, Crisis On Infinite Earths‘ed away into oblivion. This leaves Artemis a crying mess.
G. Gordon Godfrey is completely ignoring his cheerleading of The Reach on TV and is happy to announce the head of the U.N. has stepped down due to his support of what turned out to be an alien invasion. Godfrey then champions Lex Luthor as a new candidate to head the U.N.
This makes such real-life sense. UN Secretary Tseng was a good man who made a mistake, so he steps down. Godfrey and Luthor are bad men who did a bad thing, so they ignore they did anything wrong and keep charging forward. This is US and world politics in a nutshell.
Bart, as promised, assumes the Kid Flash identity in honor of Wally. Tim Drake and Wonder Girl start dating. Artemis adopts the Tigress identity full-time, leaving “Artemis” the heroine behind with Wally. Static Shock joins the team, and Dick takes a leave of absence due to Wally’s passing. Superboy and Megan seem about to reunite, but are distracted by a call for the team to meet.
As an epilogue, we see Vandal Savage and G. Gorden Godfrey meeting with Darkseid…
So that was Season Two of K8LYoung Justice, a season which had way too many characters–poor Wonder Girl, Robin, and Batgirl were all particularly short-changed and irrelevant–but also had a fun story that gave really good focus to other characters like Blue Bettle and Impulse.
When I saw this season was called “Invasion,” I was expecting it to be about the Dominators, so it was a bit surprising that it was not. I’ll have to look up the actual DC Reach because it’s not a story I’m familiar with!
Until next time… take care!
