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The kolotarians have given me a "men in black" vibe since being introduced. It was a pretty good episode but I still continue to feel that this just isn't Young Justice anymore. The league is taking over the show it seems.
Aqualad (or whatever his name is. having a bad morning for names today) being Black Manta's son = yawn, who didn't see that coming?
I had no idea Black Manta was actually, well, "black," so it didn't occur to me. I did see the reveal coming a few seconds early, though, or rather heard it, because I recognized Khary Payton's intonations despite the voice alteration. It was pretty startling, though I'd seen an episode description about redeeming a comrade fallen from grace, and given Kaldur's absence I wondered if he might be the one.
It was interesting seeing the pairings of adult heroes and young counterparts -- or more of a grouping in Batman's case, since he's accumulated quite the family. Nice to see that Superman and Connor are getting along much better, working closely together and having the camaraderie of brothers. And yes, I loved it that they got Superman's selflessness and compassion right. One can quibble about the extent of his powers and whether he should've been able to defuse or remove the bomb in time, but his powers can vary from one adaptation to another; what matters most is how they portray his character, and they captured his most important qualities.
But now most of the JL's heavy hitters have gone off to Rimbor to defend themselves, so presumably they'll be out of the picture for a while, or at least off in their own subplot. It'll be up to the Team and the remaining Leaguers to fight the invasion. So it's pretty clearly still going to be focused on the YJ characters.
That one Krolotean evidently mistook Blue Beetle for a "Competitor soldier," so the Competitor must be the Reach, the aliens who built the Scarab. And apparently they're working with the Light.
Scoop them up with what? He could've only held a few of them at a time, and if he'd just come at them, they would've fought him and made it harder to assist them.
And like I've been saying, different incarnations of Superman have different power levels. We don't know what the limits are on this particular Superman's speed.
Didn't they play that MAD Super Friends musical short already, but with a different ending?
Not on DC Nation. The only MAD shorts that have aired there to date are "Shazamwich," "Green Care Bear," and "Teen Titanic." But I assume they're all recycled from the MAD show itself.
I like to think of Supes having near unlimited speed but limited fine control over acceleration and decceleration which is why he doesn't run around like the Flash. Helps to explain a lot of "Why doesn't Superman..." questions.
I have been underwhelmed by this season so far. I'm still bored by the Kroloteans. I did enjoy the revelation Aqualad had joined up with Black Manta but then the revelation that he blames the JLers for the death of someone he cared about was cliched.
When Kaldur revealed that one of the reasons he turned against the heroes was because Aquaman hadn't told him who his real father was, I thought, "Good grief, he's Loki!"
Aquagirl dying is part of the lore, she has come back a couple times in the comics, but I'm still thinking Aqualad is totally playing Alias all deep cover and the like...
Speaking of Alias?
if Aqualad isn't really a traitor, then maybe Aquagirl isn't dead... And the most likely person to put the Donnie Brasko card into play is batman...
Is Batgirl really Aquagirl?
This Batgirl isn't blond, ginger or Asian.
We've never seen a Brunette Batgirl before.
(Don't forget about Helena? She had black hair. Shut up.)
Now about John not being able to interrogate the Krolitean when Megan could so easily.
1. She's a more power telepath?
2. John still has residual fail safes from the 16 hours when Vandal Savage used him in so not to uncover what really went on?
3 that kroletan was a plant who was waiting for the team to get back from space to drip feed them the next bread crumb to a larger plan, which is still 6 episodes from turning into total victory, or deathtrap?
I like to think of Supes having near unlimited speed but limited fine control over acceleration and decceleration which is why he doesn't run around like the Flash. Helps to explain a lot of "Why doesn't Superman..." questions.
Nope. He's Superman; he can do whatever he wants. If we live to see the dawn, it's because Superman allows it.
I think super-lack-of-thinking on his part. That's one of his other weakenesses. Whatever faults any of us would have would be super-sized with Kal-El. That's a super-frightening prospect.
Anyway, the MAD version of the Super-Friends short they change they change their name to Justice League at the end. Of course, any of us will point out that gobs of those characters were never on Super Friends and the comic book JLA came waaay before the Hanna Barbera cartoon. But...it's a just a funny short.
I like to think of Supes having near unlimited speed but limited fine control over acceleration and decceleration which is why he doesn't run around like the Flash. Helps to explain a lot of "Why doesn't Superman..." questions.
Back in the late '30s, Superman could only jump 1/8 of a mile rather than flying; "nothing short of an exploding shell" could penetrate his skin, implying that an exploding shell could; and there were definite limits to his physical strength. In the Fleischer cartoons, he gained the ability to fly, but his power was still limited; he was often temporarily overwhelmed by the threats he faced (such as rampaging beasts or high-voltage cables or mad-science death rays), and there was a palpable sense of danger, not necessarily that Superman would die, but that he would be too late to save Lois.
Over time, in the comics, his power levels got amplified, until by the peak of the Silver Age he was juggling planets effortlessly. One of the changes John Byrne instituted when the character was rebooted post-Crisis was to reduce Superman's powers to a more finite, reasonable level, for instance removing his ability to fly unprotected in space. Again, though, later writers began amplifying his power levels.
When Superman: The Animated Series premiered, its creators followed the same logic as Byrne, that having a more limited Superman who can genuinely be put in danger of injury or failure is more dramatic. So they gave him limited power too; in the pilot 3-parter, he struggled to stop a crashing jumbo jet, and only barely managed to bring it to a safe crash landing. He also needed a spacesuit to survive in vacuum and a ship to travel to other star systems. But he, too, got stronger over time; just a few episodes after he struggled with that jet, he was effortlessly tossing helicopters around. He was actually unusually vulnerable in the first season of Justice League, since the writers needed to take him out of action so the other characters had something to do, but as usual, he got stronger over time; and in the series finale, we got the famous "World of Cardboard" speech, where he explained how much he usually held himself back to avoid hurting people.
So there is no single blanket statement that can be made about how powerful Superman is. The question is, which Superman, in which continuity and which era? Young Justice is set in Earth-16, a universe all its own, and we don't know how powerful that universe's Kryptonians are when charged by G-type solar energy. Earth-16's Superman is only as powerful as the show's writers choose to make him.
A few years ago, after DC's previous reorganization of its continuity, it reintroduced the multiverse idea and asserted that there were 52 parallel universe, numbered from Earth-1 to Earth-52. Some of the numbers were retroactively assigned to various pre-existing alternate continuities like some of the more popular Elseworlds titles and Batman Beyond (and thus implicitly the DCAU as a whole, I guess), but many were unassigned. When Young Justice came along, the producers declared that it took place on Earth-16.
The team members' average age certainly doesn't come out to 16. Let's see, of the original 5 founders as of 2010 (when season 1 took place), Robin was 13, Aquaman was 16, Kid Flash was 15, Superboy was under four months old, and Miss Martian was 48, giving an average age of about 18.5. Add the 15-year-old Artemis and it drops to 17.9.
It occurs to me I never gave any thoughts on "Earthlings," so a couple notes there: good overall episode, I know nothing about Adam Strange; I take it Allea is his love interest from the comics? Nice to get a focus on Connor and M'Gann, see where they are now, and some hints about stuff in the five-year gap. I do wonder about his "she gave me no choice" regarding the breakup - it's said in a way that makes me think there's a lot more story there. MM and BB are a great sibling pair, funny and touching.
As to "Alienated," I loved it. So many things revealed and hinted at at the same time. Really fun to see the Team working with their mentors, in particular I liked the Bat family working like a well-oiled machine and the way Cassie fangirled but then drew a proud smile from Diana when she took down two mechs. Still not the biggest fan of Lagoon Boy, but whatevs. Blue Beetle really should explain that the scarab talks to him - on the other hand, the running joke of people looking at him like he's crazy is fun.
Loved seeing how Superman and Superboy have become close, with their banter during the fight, his "Superman won't be okay with [the Kroloteans not surviving]" and Clark calling him "Kon-El." I noticed that Nightwing seemed to be calling the shots pretty much throughout the attack on the Krolotean base - even with high-ranking League members present. He seems to have grown into quite the impressive leader.
Not sure what to make of M'Gann at the moment with her "rip the answers from the enemy's mind" trick in two episodes now. It seems to especially bother Superboy, but Batman and J'onn don't seem to care. Was that was J'onn was trying to do and she's just become a much more powerful telepath? I assume this will be addressed, and I wonder if Connor's reaction to it is just because of his own past or if it has something to do with his "she left me no choice?"
Speaking of things revealed and characters going dark, listening closely you can hear the reveal about Black Manta (II?) being Kalduhr even before he takes off the helmet - same distinctive speech pattern. I wasn't really surprised overall, although the rage he showed when confronted by his former teammates and Aquaman did somewhat. I'm still guessing that we'll see more of this during the future episodes, but right now he makes a very compelling villain. Wonder what happened to Ocean Master? Also, I wonder if the two Mantas distinguish themselves to their minions/enemies/allies?
So is the Krolotean threat all wrapped up now? Pretty grim ending if so; they always seemed like an oddly... minor threat though once they were revealed. Except for the mechs and advanced tech they don't seem to have much going for them. Safe to say I think that
Blue Beetle's scarab is going to play an increasingly large role, since the Light seems to have allied itself with the Reach.
Speaking of the Light, I wonder if part of the whole "rampage on Rimboir (?)"
was to "advertise" for aliens who might be interested in what Earth has to offer, inviting a "bidding war" as it were and ending up apparently choosing the Reach.
Of course, this may all lead to
a Xanatos Pileup, since the Light are presumably unaware that G. Gordon Godfrey is Apokyliptan in origin. Perhaps a Reach/Apokylips showdown with Earth caught in the middle?
^Yeah, chronologically, Superboy and MM mess things up, but if you go for more of an "emotional age", I think 16 is what they were aiming for. In what episode did we get that Robin is 13?
ETA: this was in response to Christopher's last post. Also, now that I've heard him speak a bit more, Nightwing sounds fine.
Strange is an archeologist suddenly teleported from Peru, Earth to fictional planet Rann through the "Zeta Beam". Called on to protect the planet from extraterrestrial threats using high-tech weaponry, Strange grew to care for the planet and its inhabitants, especially the blue-haired Alanna and her father Sardath, whose experiments were responsible for the ray that had brought him. Eventually, the effects of the beam wore off, automatically returning Strange to Earth at the exact point of departure, but not before Sardath had given him a schedule of beam firings allowing him to periodically return to the planet. Independently wealthy, he traveled Earth, intercepting the scheduled Zeta Beams to defend Rann and be with Alanna. Although never a headlining character, Strange has had a consistent presence in the DC Universe.
Not sure what to make of M'Gann at the moment with her "rip the answers from the enemy's mind" trick in two episodes now. It seems to especially bother Superboy, but Batman and J'onn don't seem to care. Was that was J'onn was trying to do and she's just become a much more powerful telepath?
It was established in "Failsafe" that M'Gann's telepathy was far stronger than J'onn had ever realized, which is probably because she's actually a White Martian.
