Young Justice, Green Lantern return January 5th

[Silvercrest]

Come now; I wouldn't have called him "Glorious" if I didn't know that.

[Mr Light]

Maybe it's the huuuuuuuge break between episodes but I'm confused as to who the bad guys are. For the episodes before now, it was the Kroletarians, is that a made up race? But I assumed it was always about Darkseid, because of all the hints in the third season. But now it appears to be the Reach. So were the Kros working for the Reach the whole time? Could Darkseid be behind the Reach? Is "The Light" working for the Reach? They always seemed to be with Darkseid in season one.

[shivkala]

Christopher wrote:

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By coincidence, this was covered on a comics blog just a couple of days ago... in fact, Mal's stint as the Guardian lasted for all of one issue, and the way it happened wasn't too different from what we saw here:

http://goodcomics.comicbookresources...-new-guardian/

I had read that about an hour or two before seeing the episode, yesterday. The only thing is, unless I'm missing something, in the show, the outfit did't have a powered exo-suit underneath it.

Mr Light wrote:

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Maybe it's the huuuuuuuge break between episodes but I'm confused as to who the bad guys are. For the episodes before now, it was the Kroletarians, is that a made up race? But I assumed it was always about Darkseid, because of all the hints in the third season. But now it appears to be the Reach. So were the Kros working for the Reach the whole time? Could Darkseid be behind the Reach? Is "The Light" working for the Reach? They always seemed to be with Darkseid in season one.

Aren't they're all made up races?

But to answer your question, as far as I can tell, the Kroloteans were created by Geoff Johns back in 2005. They were portrayed as Gremlins (not the movie type) who would mess with mechanical devices unnoticed, as well as abduct and mess with the evolution of living beings to turn them into weapons to sell.

[Gotham Central]

Mr Light wrote:

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Maybe it's the huuuuuuuge break between episodes but I'm confused as to who the bad guys are. For the episodes before now, it was the Kroletarians, is that a made up race? But I assumed it was always about Darkseid, because of all the hints in the third season. But now it appears to be the Reach. So were the Kros working for the Reach the whole time? Could Darkseid be behind the Reach? Is "The Light" working for the Reach? They always seemed to be with Darkseid in season one.

I figure that its all going to work out like this:

The Light was responsible for sending the big 6 away, bringing Earth to the galaxy's attention. Their actions, by design, attract the attention of the Reach.

The Reach hires the Kroloteans to infiltrate Earth and gather intelligence to prepare for an invasion by the Reach.

The whole point of attracting the Reach is to undermine the Justice League and rip down Earth's only line of defense, aswell as undermine confidence in the population for the superhero community.

We will ultimately discover that the invasion and the creation of The Light were all the handiwork of Darkseid.

[Christopher]

shivkala wrote:

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I had read that about an hour or two before seeing the episode, yesterday. The only thing is, unless I'm missing something, in the show, the outfit did't have a powered exo-suit underneath it.

Well, I didn't say it was exactly the same; for one thing, the villain was different, and the Hall of Justice wasn't destroyed in the comic.

The writer of the comic gave Mal a super-strength exoskeleton because the intention was that he'd continue in the Guardian identity, but when Julius Schwartz took over as editor in the next issue, he nixed that plot thread. Here, though, it was just about Mal putting on a bluff to distract Despero long enough for the others to come up with a plan. Having him just be an ordinary guy standing up to this superbeing made it more impressive.

[sojourner]

I thought it made it more absurd, well, that he lived.

[Nerys Myk]

Christopher wrote:

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Well, I didn't say it was exactly the same; for one thing, the villain was different, and the Hall of Justice wasn't destroyed in the comic.

The writer of the comic gave Mal a super-strength exoskeleton because the intention was that he'd continue in the Guardian identity, but when Julius Schwartz took over as editor in the next issue, he nixed that plot thread. Here, though, it was just about Mal putting on a bluff to distract Despero long enough for the others to come up with a plan. Having him just be an ordinary guy standing up to this superbeing made it more impressive.

Yes, Julie. Hornblower was a much better idea than Guardian.

[shivkala]

My only issue, is that, like someone else pointed out, he should have been a red smear, without any way to boast his powers. Look at the abuse Captain Marvel took, for instance. Despero, especially assuming that Mal was supposedly the pinnacle of Earth's super-heroes, would have no reason to hold back. All of the others who he deemed unfit were simply taken out by his third-eye.

[Mr. Adventure]

I'll admit that I couldn't overlook it either, at least in the moment, but at the same time how many times have we've seen characters in comics/cartoons who only have offensive abilities survive more physical abuse than they should? Not that it excuses it but it's not unusual either.

[Christopher]

Right, it's just routine action storytelling, and not just in cartoons or comics. Tons of action heroes have survived being blown through the air by explosions, something that realistically should've pulped their innards and perforated them with shrapnel. Or they've been able to shrug off a bullet wound in the shoulder or leg and still be able to win a fight with the bad guy. Fictional characters, even ones nominally without superpowers, are routinely far more durable than real people. (Well, unless the plot requires them to die, in which case they usually die much more quickly and easily than real people.)

[JD]

Gotham Central wrote:

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I figure that its all going to work out like this:

The Light was responsible for sending the big 6 away, bringing Earth to the galaxy's attention. Their actions, by design, attract the attention of the Reach.

The Reach hires the Kroloteans to infiltrate Earth and gather intelligence to prepare for an invasion by the Reach.

The whole point of attracting the Reach is to undermine the Justice League and rip down Earth's only line of defense, aswell as undermine confidence in the population for the superhero community.

We will ultimately discover that the invasion and the creation of The Light were all the handiwork of Darkseid.

That's pretty much my interpretation of events too. Although I had thought the Kroloteans and Reach were unconnected. I thought they both just decided to take advantage of the lack of the JL by themselves.
I definitely think Darkseid is somehow involved with all of this though, Godfrey's presence makes that pretty clear.

[Agent Richard07]

Just caught up on the last four episodes. I didn't know that two had aired months ago. As usual, the show is well written and each episode manages to tell a good and complete story in 20 minutes. The only things I don't care for are the often drawn out fight sequences or the new arc involving the manhunters. Neither are very interesting to me.

The New Guy: We meet Guy Gardner. Clever play on the title there. I love his outfit by the way. I didn't like seeing Hal get jealous of Guy but at least some of it was played for comedy. Do they have any tropes for the guy who's liked by everyone to the point of annoyance by the jealous party? Carol broke thing off with Hal but I can see her joining him at some point by rejoining the Star Sapphires. I never saw her stint there as a one-off thing, but her rejoining seems like more of a possibility now. Relationshippy stuff doesn't seem like the way they'll bring the two back together again.

Reboot: Poor Aya. What were the guardians trying to do to her? I'm glad Hal rescued her.

Steam Lantern: Loved the steampunk stuff and the three new characters with their English sensibilities. This episode was especially a good example of how well this show can deliver a full story and rich characters in a short amount of time. And the ending was clever too with Hall bringing an entire planet into our universe. Hope it's in a proper orbit though.

Blue Hope: The full gang is back and we're getting the start of the Blue Lantern Corp. I thought last year that Razer might become a Green Lantern and I'm still holding onto that. Or he could join another corp either permanently or in the interim. I also like seeing the budding relationship he has with Aya. Something tells me that she may not remain a robot forever.

Next week… Sinestro. The yellow lantern stuff can't get here soon enough.

[Christopher]

I really don't think Razer is going to become a Green Lantern. I think the reason the producers went with the lineup they did -- Hal, the much burlier Kilowog, the red-suited Razer, and the white-and-green Aya -- is because they're more visually diverse than a team of four GLs would've been. Color and design are important in animation for distinguishing characters, especially at a distance or in cluttered or active scenes, and it's weak design to have your main characters resemble each other too closely. (This is why The Real Ghostbusters gave the four leads differently-colored jumpsuits and very distinct hair colors and styles instead of going with something closer to the movie cast. It's also probably a factor in why the main casts of Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra include representatives of multiple different nations, each in their own color-coded wardrobe.) Kilowog's distinct enough from Hal in size and shape that the similar colors and designs of their costumes aren't much of a problem, but Razer is much closer to Hal in build, so I don't think Timm would ever want to put Razer and Hal in the same color -- not as long as he's a member of the core team.

Anyway, I think the takeaway from "Blue Hope" is that rage is too fundamental a part of Razer's nature, that he's just intrinsically best-suited to the red ring -- but that he's finding a way to draw on righteous anger and wield the emotion constructively rather than giving into hate. I think a part of the whole emotional-spectrum idea is that none of the emotions are intrinsically bad; they all serve a purpose, but can be wielded positively or negatively. So giving Razer a different driving emotion than Hal and Kilowog makes the characters more diverse in personality as well as design, and that's not something it would be desirable to give up.

[Agent Richard07]

Having a variety of colors to distinguish the characters makes sense, but the show has enough character development to make me believe that Razer won't stay red forever. Who knows, maybe we're both right and he'll stay red for the duration of the show and go green in the last moments of the final episode. The idea of learning to channel anger is a good one. I'll have to think about that some more. I've always seen anger as a negative emotion to be gotten rid of, but real peace/power/personal growth etc is said to come from acceptance and integration, so you may be onto something with regards to the Razer's development. Or his journey may lead to a transition to another color. Back to square one.

We'll see.

[Gotham Central]

Agent Richard07 wrote:

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Having a variety of colors to distinguish the characters makes sense, but the show has enough character development to make me believe that Razer won't stay red forever. Who knows, maybe we're both right and he'll stay red for the duration of the show and go green in the last moments of the final episode. The idea of learning to channel anger is a good one. I'll have to think about that some more. I've always seen anger as a negative emotion to be gotten rid of, but real peace/power/personal growth etc is said to come from acceptance and integration, so you may be onto something with regards to the Razer's development. Or his journey may lead to a transition to another color. Back to square one.

We'll see.

I actually don't think that Razer will end up a Green Lantern. If anything I think the fact that he was drawn to Saint Walker is a good sign that at some point, he will finally cast off his anger and accept that there is hope. I think he'll end up a blue lantern.

I think that its also importnat to remember that the Red Lanterns are not inherently evil. They are just angry...and they have justifiable anger at the Guardians for what they did. Even in the animated series, they justify their actions with the idea that they were bringing order to their space. They also were seeking justice for what the Guardians did to their worlds.