Young Justice – S03E20-E23 Review

And so four more episodes of Young Justice have aired, from 7/30 through 8/20. Sorry for the odd distribution, but it was either do 20-21 and 22-23, or do them all together. E24-26 will air in one big batch on 8/27, and I'll review them all together shortly thereafter.

After roughly 19 episodes of dinking around, episodes 20-23 finally get down to the main thrust of this season. Which is Darkseid and Granny Goodness (who isn't Gretchen Goode, but Gretchen appears to be some kind of clone of Granny) have prepared the Anti-Life Equation. Which, if you read the comics, is the big McGuffin Darkseid has been trying to get for years. If Life = Freedom, then Anti-Life = mental enslavement.

And if you looked at the first letter of all the episode titles of Season 3, we should have known. What do the 26 first letters spell out? P-R-E-P-A-R-E- T-H-E- A-N-T-I-L-I-F-E E-Q-U-A-T-I-O-N. Duh.

The odd part is the Outsiders have been quietly back-burnered. Even though "Outsiders" is the subtitle of season 3. Yes, they still float around in the background.

That, and we still get characters without dialogue. Which I guess is a cost-saving measure, but it's really irritating. It's particularly noticeable in E23, "Terminus". More on that below.

"Quiet Conversations", E20, plays catch-up on the various subplots floating around this season. Violet visits the mother and cousin of Gabrielle, the Markovian servant woman who Violet possessed because she's actually the energy force of a Mother Box, which is a sentient piece of New Genesis technology. While Darkseid and Apokolips have Father Boxes, which basically do the same thing.

Speaking of, Victor, Jeff, Connor, and Forager track down Metron, a New God who created Mother Boxes and presumably Father Boxes. Since Victor is "infected" by a Father Box, they want Metron to uninfect him. Eventually, they catch up to Metron and bring him to Earth, but since he's a cold unemotional "god" of knowledge, he'd rather see what happens when the Father Box possesses Victor.

Also along for the ride is meta girl A-Four-One, who will get the name Dolphin in the next episode. Aquaman takes her to Poseidonis, part of Atlantis, to stay with his parents since she can't survive out of water. We also meet Aquaman's lover, Wynnde, whose male because it's 2019!

In a fourth subplot that advances in fits and starts, Megan talks to Harper, who helped Violet shoot a gun on a beach and drink because Violet was dealing with the news she was dying. It turns into a story of how Harper and her brother are abused by their father, and there's one of those 800 call number placards at the end.

"Quiet Conversations" does build up the fact Violet is a Mother Box. Which will be important to Granny uncovering the secret of the Anti-Life Equation. It's hard to get worked up about the other three subplots. Dolphin was just introduced two episodes ago and she doesn't seem to play a major part in anything. Ditto for Aquaman's lover, Wynnde, who shows up here for the first time.

Harper has only appeared sporadically, and she seems like an excuse to hang a abuse subplot on. And Violet's mental state over the news of her death has only manifested relatively recently and will get wiped out in a couple of episodes anyway.

The next episode is "Unknown Factors", which is a confusing mishmash of two storylines. In the A plot, Dick takes Jeff along with him to break into Gretchen's house. They get captured, and Aquaman and Wynnde go to rescue him. They approach Gretchen openly, and she transports them to the X-Pit, which is a glowing red void where Dick and Jeff are being mentally tortured. Gretchen shoves Aquaman and Wynnde out, but their magical glyphs (??) protect them long enough to rescue Dick and Jeff. However, Dick and Jeff are mentally enslaved by Granny, and they fight the two aqua dudes.

In the B plot (literally), Bumblebee and her husband, Mal are taking Bumblebee (aka Karen Duncan) to give birth to their child. The baby has a hole in its heart, and Karen has to shrink down to install a patch. Along the way, she decides to unleash some metagene serum she's developed to give their baby daughter superpowers.

The A plot is rather confusing because it's not clear what the X-Pit is or where it's at. Gretchen keeps having "Overlord", a robotic-looking head, do her bidding. At the end we find out Overlord s a six-inch high bad guy Gretchen carries around in a box. I guess he's someone from the comics, but I've never seen him and I've seen a lot of New Gods stuff. Apparently, he's from the most recent one.

The Karen/Mal plot confusion comes from the fact you wonder why we should care. The couple have been pretty minimal presences this season, and suddenly we're supposed to be worried about their baby and Karen's conflict about whether to give her superpowers or not. Since there's only two plots instead of the four in "Quiet Conversations", the episode tends to drag on.

At the end, Gretchen meets Violet and hears her mutter some New Genesis words. Which clues her in to the fact Violet is the living embodiment of a Mother Box. I guess the mind control she used on Dick and Jeff is only a minor part of the Anti-Life Equation. Again, this pays off down the road.

"Antisocial Pathologies" is a big clue to the fact the episode titles mean something, along with the fact episode titles starting with Q and U preceded it. Q-U is a fairly unique American-English spelling, and "Antisocial Pathologies" has nothing to do with what's in the episode.

As for the episode itself, Jeff sees a few people talking at the Outsiders HQ in Hollywood, and works out there's a secret conspiracy of heroes that have been manipulating the League, and Young Justice, and the Outsiders. Said conspiracy is led by Batman, because Batman is a dick. Accusations fly and tempers are lost. During this, we also find out Helga has faked her romantic relationship with Jeff in part so he can get to Brion, Tara, and Violet because Helga considers them her "children". Yes, Helga is a dick, too. She recreated them with the metagene to become essentially new people, and has been manipulating them ever since while working with Ultra-Humanite, a member of the Light. Which is the villainous conspiracy Batman put his conspiracy together to fight.

Jeff doesn't take any of this well. Most of the non-conspirator heroes don't, either, and there are a few points which I don't follow just because the season has been stretched out from January 4. Beast Boy is shocked to learn the conspiracy basically "fed" the Outsiders some of their major victories. But Barbara Gordon points out the conspiracy let Beast Boy and the Outsiders act publicly while they acted secretly against the Light. This makes him feel a little bit better, although I'm not sure why.

While the revelations come thick and fast in this episode, they still seem a bit abrupt. Jeff puts the clues together out of practically nowhere. And a lot of it revolves around the Bat Family--Batman, Nightwing, Barbara, and a dialogue-less Jason Todd and Alfred. The Bat Family hasn't been a big part of the season, and even the conspiracy group has wandered in and out of the series.

The end result of all this betrayal is first Helga takes Brion, Tara, and Violet to Ultra-Humanite, who takes them to Gretchen. As noted earlier, Gretchen has worked out Violet is a living Mother Box and the key to the Anti-Life Equation. So she uses some kind of mind-control doohickey on Violet to acquire Anti-Life.

We get flashbacks of Tara training with Deathstroke, since she's secretly a Light spy. All this betrayal convinces her the heroes can't be trusted, and Deathstroke is the only one who is being honest with her. Earlier, Deathstroke slipped her a device to let her free herself from the mind control implants Helga used on Tara and Brion to control them. They escape when Tara's implant "accidentally" malfunctions, but Gretchen holds onto Violet, reveals she's a duplicate of Granny, and boasts now she has the Anti-Life Equation for Darkseid.

Again, Jeff hasn't been a big part of the season. He was one of those characters it was implied he'd be a big part of the Outsiders. Which jibe with the fact he's a big part of the Outsiders in the comics, and has his own live-action show. But while it's nice Young Justice has such a expansive cast, that and the fact it's stretched over 26 episodes a season means it's hard to get too involved with anyone. Brion and Violet have been the only ones to feature throughout the season. The Outsiders come and go, Nightwing comes and goes, Aquaman comes and goes, Tara didn't show up until late in the first half of the season.

The last episode of the four is "Terminus". This one is definitely epic, and has a few callbacks to the early Young Justice heroes. It starts with nine Leaguers attacking Granny's floating outer-space base, "the Orphanage". They all get Anti-Life mind-controlled by Granny and the mind-controlled Violet.

Back on Earth, the Outsiders and Young Justice have stopped squabbling long enough to start comparing notes. And Vandal Savage shows up on their doorstep to help them against Granny, since a) she betrayed the Light, and b) the Anti-Life Equation threatens the Light as much as the heroes. Even though we saw Vandal meet with Darkseid a few episodes earlier in a dialogue-less seemingly-friendly meeting of the minds.

So two teams head to Granny's Orphanage: the original Young Justice Team--now Nightwing, Aquaman, Miss Martian, and Artemis--and the original Outsiderish team--Geo Force, Terra, and Forager. And Forager is another one of those characters that showed a lot of promise in the first half of the season, but who has been back-burnered over and over again in the second half.

Which makes one of the reveals, that Forager's former leader Mantis is working with Granny, kind of meaningless. Forager acts betrayed and upset, but at this point does anyone remember the whole "Forager betrayed by his hive" thing? It's not just it was a lot of episodes ago, but Forager has been gone from so much of the second half of Season 3 it's hard to remember why we should care about it. Add on the fact when he does show up, they use him for comic relief and... it just doesn't have any impact. Granted, it's funny comic relief. But having a comic relief character with a tragic background doesn't work if you don't occasionally remind the viewers of said tragic background.

Maybe Forager shows up because Jason Spisak voices him. And Jason Spisak has a dual role because he also plays the original Kid Flash who comes to the aid of the original Young Justice members. It turns out "Kid Flash" is a fever dream Nightwing is having because of the effects of the X-Pit on him from a couple of episodes ago.

But then Khary Payton voices Aquaman. And he also voices Jeff. But Jeff wanders around without dialogue, staring at the ocean with Static, and then visiting his ex-wife and daughters. So if they had Spisak do two voices while he was in the studio, why not Payton? As it is, the "adventures" of Jeff make it look like he's in a motion-capture comic.

Ditto with "Kid Flash" showing up. Yes, they've mentioned his death from time to time. But with the rush of all the different stories and characterizations, it never got much attention. And then suddenly Nightwing hallucinates Kid Flash is there. And then he hallucinates Kid Flash joins him in a video game battle with the bad guys via the drones. And then he hallucinates the rest of the team in their season 1 and 2 costumes. We've never seen any indication Nightwing has been thirsting for the good ole days, or he was really broken up about losing Kid Flash.

Connor and Miss Martian argue about how she lied to the team, and she swore to never use her powers to alter minds, and lying is a way of altering people's minds. After seeing them as a happy couple--the few times we have seen them together this season--it's weird to see them suddenly on the outs with each other. I feel like I've tuned into an episode of the Connor and Miss Martian Show. but it's not the show I've been watching for the last 22 episodes.

Miss Martian eventually mind-blasts everyone while Granny is giving one of her many speeches. She explains everything she's been doing except how she created a clone of Gretchen: that's the part I wish they'd explain. Instead she gives some explanation about how Anti-Life will eventually kill non-metas, and we cut to Elongated Man and the Green Lanterns writhing in pain. This also explains why Nightwing is having fever dreams from his time in the X-Pit.

But wait, Superman, Martian Manhunter, and Miss Martian aren't metas. They're not humans, so how can they be metahumans? They're natives of their home planets, and have the powers any Kryptonian or Martian would have. But there's no mention they'd die from exposure to Anti-Life. Ditto for Aquaman: he has (I think) the natural abilities of an Atlantean. Even if the new Aquaman has metahuman abilities (can you be part metahuman?), the rest of the Atlanteans, including the original Aquaman, would all die because they don't have metahuman powers. But if Superman doesn't die, neither would the Atlanteans.

But we're minutes away from the end of the episode so no time to think about that! Granny says Brion has been betrayed a lot and Terra looks shifty. Then Granny has Violet use Anti-Life to regain her mental grip on the Leaguers, as well as the new team, and Anti-Life spreads out from the Orphanage to encompass the universe.

And so E23 ends with Granny and Darkseid taking over the world. Maybe we'll get an adaptation of the Rock of Ages storyline, which showed an alternate-timeline Earth under Darkseid and Anti-Life. Watching Atom and Green Arrow taking down Darkseid is still one of my personal-favorite moments in comic history

And... they've got to do something in three more episodes, right? Episode 23 ended with Granny, Darkseid, and Anti-Life winning. Where do you go from there? They've got to do at least one episode of the universe under Darkseid's control.

Overall, Young Justice Season 3 has been a blessing and a curse. It's given us dozens of superheroes, dozens of super-villains, and several teams. But the creative team has presented so many characters and plots over 23 episodes that a lot of it has gotten lost in the shuffle. As a result, almost no single character gets much attention. And when they do, they're forgotten for another two, five, ten episodes if they're ever brought back at all. It's hard to get attached to any character when they're treated as disposable.

And when the creative team tries to cram in so much, some characters ended up as disposable. I don't believe that's the creative team's intent. It just seems like they have ADD. "Ooh, Forager. Oh wait, let's look at Geo Force. Oh wait, let's do a Mal & Karen story. Oh wait, let's look at Zatanna and her father issues now Zatara is Dr. Fate. Let's bring in Guy Gardner because he's cool. And Lobo, yeah, Lobo! Elongated Man should get a shot. And let's show Thirteen once and mention her later." And on, and on, and on. It's a tour of the DC universe by a creative team that clearly likes the DC universe. But it's a whirlwind tour. Constrain them to a single movie or an eight-episode mini-series, and imagine what they could do. But as it is, they've expanded to fill the vacuum of 26 episodes and there's way too much padding. It's just the padding is practically a different character each episode, rather than the same character 26 times.

But that's just my opinion, I could be wrong. What do you think?