Gotham S03E13 Review: Return of the Joker

Gotham, Season 3, Episode 13: Smile Like You Mean It

I have to admit that the initial teaser pictures for this episode soured me so much from watching it, mostly it features the "cut off my own face and then wear it like a mask" version of the Joker from New 52, which, while I try to not let myself be a raging purist when it comes to reinvention of characters... it's something that absolutely sickens me. Yes, the Joker is a psychopath, but he always has this absolutely great balance between being a sick psychopath and being entertainingly funny. Poison an entire city? That's just an evil thing to do. Poison an entire city to blackmail the mayor to give him trademark for laughing fish? That's funny. In the words of Jerome himself, New 52 Ultra-Psycho Joker just 'has no class'. He's turned into your run-of-the-mill psychotic killer that doesn't have the same hilarious charisma as what the Joker should be.

But Gotham, against all odds, actually made the cut-off-face thing come off as an unsettling thing, combine it with this spiritual adaptation of Batman Beyond's Jokerz gang, and still bring Jerome back. While watching this episode I totally bought the idea that Jerome wasn't coming back, and that we're going to have Dwight wear Jerome's face as one in a presumably rotating lineup of Jokers. It was actually a nice bit of subversion when the mad scientist set-up, despite the foreshadowing from last episode, didn't manage to bring Jerome back. But bring him back he did. 

Don't get me wrong, Dwight was absolutely entertaining, played by a pretty awesome actor who tries his best to rouse the army of Joker fanatics, but as both Jim Gordon and Jerome himself points out, all Dwight is doing is aping what Jerome did in the past, only managing to get along because the Jerome fanatics all bought in "we are all Jerome" spiel. Jerome himself comes back in the second act, and absolutely returns to form even without a face, channeling that glorious Mark Hamill/Heath Ledger Joker hybrid interpretation, with that conversation with Leslie being the highlight of the episode. Jerome absolutely steals the show from Dwight (quite literally), kidnapping him, blowing him and the power plant up on television, with a far more effective message than Dwight's longer one earlier in the episode -- in the darkness, unleash who you really are. And Jerome makes good on his promise by actually blowing up the power plant and plunging the city of Gotham into darkness. That was a wonderful bit of villainy. 

The slicing-off-the-face thing actually felt well-integrated in this, too, being a crazy act that a desperate wannabe like Dwight would do when he realized that after gathering so many Jerome fanatics, he couldn't deliver in time... and it serves to give Jerome that New 52 look without making the Joker-in-all-but-name feel crass. The Joker Cult is also handled really well, and showing that the cult has so many psychopaths hiding in society -- the guard in the beginning, officer Dove in GCPD -- pretending to be normal until they are confronted and they reveal their true starking mad nature.

The rest of the storylines here are pretty weak, so much that I get pissed off any time we cut away from the Jerome/Dwight plot. Jim and Leslie have this argument about how Leslie doesn't want to be bound and protected by Gordon any longer, which is just annoyingly repetitive. The Bruce and Selina plotline is also weak because Maria Kyle turned out to be nothing but a scam artist working with DoucheDude to scam some money from Bruce, and he knows it but goes along with the hopes that Selina will reconnect with her mother anyway. It's actually not super-bad, it just doesn't quite hit with the same emotional impact considering Selina's mother literally came out of nowhere. Oswald's disgraced in public, and while we get a nice return to the mafia genre with Barbara, Tabitha and Nygma pulling all sorts of strings to get various colourfully-named members of Penguin's organization dead should be fun, but really felt mechanical and nowhere as interesting as literally everything else that's happening in this episode. Hopefully Jerome's blackout will throw a huge monkey wrench in, well, all these bland plotlines to inject some fun into them. 

Overall, a very, very good police-vs-Jerome episode, but it falls short in all other aspects.

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• I think I covered a lot of the Joker stuff in the review proper, didn't I?
• Speaking of the Joker, while no one refers to either Jerome or Dwight as the Joker, the beginning scene has people playing cards with one of them noting "Joker's wild", and the scene after the Jerome-cult guard stabs the other guard shows the blood splattering on the iconic Joker card featured in various live-action adaptations that feature the Joker.
• Dwight's actor is David Dastmalchian, and he played another psychotic Joker henchman in 2008's The Dark Knight.
• Riddler claims to be held in Kane Chemicals. Kane can refer to two things -- Bob Kane, real-life creator of Batman; or the Kane family, a member of which is Katherine Kane, a.k.a. Batwoman.
• Bullock's comment about how the graffiti has been here the whole time and they haven't noticing is actually accurate -- since season two, HA HA HA and smiley-face graffiti has been in the background of many scenes set in the streets. 

Supergirl S02E13 Review: Kltpzyxm-ing it Like the Golden Age

Supergirl, Season 2, Episode 13: Mr and Mrs Mxyzptlk

Where Flash fought Gorilla Grodd and King Solovar in Gorilla City this week, Supergirl and Mon-El had to deal with the most famous fifth-dimensional reality-warping imp, Mr. Mxyzptlk. See, whether you want to know if someone is a real DC fan or not, you tell them to spell Mxyzptlk. If, like me, they spend way too much time reading comics as a kid, Mxyzptlk comes off the tongue (or the fingers typing on the keyboard) smoothly. 

The sheer hilarity of what's going on, with Mxyzptlk reimagined as a tall, handsome charming man who just wants to straight-up marry Kara, leading to the most bizarre romantic comedy where Mxyzptlk and Mon-El fight over Kara's affections. It was pretty one-sided, of course, with Kara really liking Mon-El, Mxyzptlk literally being an irritating dude that shows up out of nowhere, and of course we get a random conflict about how Mon-El's aggressive jealous defense of Kara's honour causes Kara to be angry. 

Yes, it has all the bearings of a classic Mxyzptlk story from the more light hearted comics. Put him into an unwinnable situation, and have him spell out his name -- in this case, Kara makes use of a loophole Mxyzptlk notes briefly at the beginning of the episode (he can't make her kill herself) by engineering the Fortress of Solitude into exploding with her in it, and if Mxyzptlk wants to shut down the reactor, he has to spell a password... which, of course, is Kltpzyxm. It's a pretty simple solution, but it's still fun with Mxyzptlk's insane power set that gives us a lot of flair. From resurrecting Parasite so he can come on down with a fake Superman costume, to dropping Mon-El in his underwear in the DEO base, to challenging Mon-El to a duel with guns on a stage, to reanimating Jor-El's statue in the Fortress, to putting Kara in a wedding dress, Mxyzptlk is absolutely entertaining. 

I'm not quite sure where they're going with Kara and Mon-El, other than to give them some rom-com subplot. Again, something that's beating a dead horse at this point, only the charisma that Kara and Mon-El have together really allows this subplot to proceed on its course without being grating. I'm a bit confused why Kara would be so angry for Mon-El being a bit of a pushy boyfriend that speaks his mind when in this episode her advice to Alex is to, um, be a pushy girlfriend that speaks her mind. But circumstances differ, of course -- Mon-El wants to straight-up murder Mxyzptlk, and keeps getting into situations where only Mxyzptlk's playfulness prevents him from getting killed by the imp.

Alex and Maggie's subplot would be absolutely trite and irritating in a different episode, but here, with the romantic theme between Kara/Mon-El/Mxyzptlk nonsense, it actually sort of fits? I literally don't care about this, though. Like, you're a secret agent and a badass policeman, stop spending every fucking episode repeating the same old 'we disagree, then we make up' subplot. 

There's also another subplot featuring Winn banging a random lady alien, Lyra, who literally comes out of nowhere. That was totally weird and random. I don't think Lyra's based on any particular character in the comics, but Starhaven is definitely a setup for more Legion-inspired alien goodness. 

So yeah, it's a huge comedic episode filled with Valentine's day festivities, and it actually kind of worked, which surprised me. A good chunk of it is thanks to the Supergirl-Mxyzptlk-Mon-El three-way being so gosh-darned hilarious, of course, but the B-plots, despite being weak, doesn't break the episode either. 

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• Mr Mxyzptlk is usually portrayed as a orange or purple-shirted little imp with a bowler hat, with or without a cigar depending on the media. He hails from the Fifth Dimension, and has reality warping powers far, far more powerful in the comics than the relatively simple magics he wields here. Sending him back also involves tricking him into saying "Kltpzysm", his name backwards, although the reverse-name spell only lasts for like forty-two days or something. He's a lot less romantic in the comics too.
• Parasite's return is actually a nice reference to how writers like to use Fifth-Dimensional Imps, especially Mr. Mxyzptlk, to bring back dead characters as part of their game, and when they return they forgot to 'undo' the resurrection. 
• Zook, briefly mentioned by J'onn as being a Fifth Dimensional Imp that wreaked havoc on Mars, is actually J'onn's sidekick in the Golden Age. While his status as a Fifth-Dimensional Imp as powerful as Mxyzptlk, Bat-Mite or Yz is disputed, he is still an extra-dimensional being with limited reality warping powers.
• Starhaven is home of the Legion of Super-Heroes characters Dawnstar and her ancestor Wildstar, and Starhaven's inhabited with humanoids with large angelic wings. Neither Dawnstar not Wildstar have a proper given name, so maybe "Lyra" is supposed to be one of them? 
• In the comics, genies are straight-up fifth-dimensional imps.
• We get a "It's a bird! It's a plane! It's Superman!" from the crowd when Mxyzptlk-man shows up to wonk the fake Parasite. 
• Mxy kind of mentions the X-Men movies, albeit not by name, when he uses his magics to pull a bunch of criminals' guns, lift it up over their heads and start doing the mid-air dramatic gun cock, a sequence of action that's the signature of Magneto ever since the first X-Men movie. 

Justice League Unlimited S02E03 Review: Death of Superman

Justice League Unlimited, Season 2, Episode 3: The Doomsday Sanction

We're back with the Cadmus storyline, and we're back with more focus on the original founding members of the Justice League, giving the Superman/Batman team some additional emphasis. By virtue of both of them having long-running shows of their own, and Superman plotlines being some of the more eventful ones during the run of Justice League (their clashes with Luthor, Darkseid and Brainiac in particular), it's a fitting storymaking to have the overreaching Cadmus plotline have ties to Superman's own storyline.

Shit, where to even begin with this episode? Let's talk about Doomsday-vs-Superman later and start with the conflict between Batman and Amanda Waller, which is a very excellent choice for the showmakers. The Dark Knight needs a worthy opponent to challenge, and Waller is a breed of enemy that Batman hasn't exactly faced before in the DCAU, discounting Lex Luthor -- basically, Batman himself. Waller's similarities with Batman is highlighted several times. Sure, they approach things differently, with Batman donning a costume and beating up criminals, while Waller gathers a group of like-minded individuals and schemes in the background, but they're both paranoid, they're both open to negotiating with what they view as the 'lesser evil', and most importantly, as much as Amanda Waller brushes off civilians as acceptable casualties, they're both here to protect humanity. Batman was also the catalyst that formed the League's initial inception when he realizes there are threats too large for one rich man in a bat costume, which is essentially the stance that Amanda Waller is taking.

Amanda Waller is perhaps properly paranoid that these superheroes, beings with immense resources and powers, might turn on the people they protect. Whether by design or by accident, it's definitely plausible in-universe for her to think that way. After all, in-universe, we've got Superman himself being mind-controlled at the climax of Superman: TAS, we've got Hawkgirl revealing herself to be the harbinger of a full-on alien invasion during the final episode of Justice League, and other heroes like Metamorpho or Aquaman had proven to be antagonistic before, whether they mean to or not. And considering mind control is a very real thing in this universe, some of Waller's paranoia is well-founded.

And that's what makes Waller so scary and untouchable as a villain. Unlike Lex Luthor or TNBA's rendition of the Penguin, who are just villains with good publicity and a way to weasel out of actually being imprisoned, Amanda Waller fits more in the anti-hero category. Yes, she's extreme about it, but nothing she does is actually illegal.

Of course, Batman himself isn't a force to be underestimated. After their last meeting ending with Waller taunting Batman about the knowledge of his secret identity and presumably those of many others, it's time for Batman to show how scary he can be. This episode's first scene is an oddity in Justice League Unlimited, whose shorter running time tends to jump straight into the superheroing business. Here we start off with Amanda Waller's domestic life, showing her morning routine, just like any normal person, until it gets interrupted by Batman handing her a towel. Batman's appearance just shatters Waller's peaceful morning, showing that, yes, Batman can get to her any time he wants to, at moments when she's at her most vulnerable. Instead of a towel, Batman could've had a weapon in his hands. It's a very powerful scene, where these two master strategists and leader figures of their respective factions show up to simply talk.

We get the revelation that Project Cadmus was set up in response to the Justice Lords crisis in case the League ever went bad (though Doomsday rampaging before the Justice Lords even arrived kind of puts some holes in that), noting that they are the only line of defense against the metahumans should they go bad. Batman warns Waller against attacking his League, a threat that Waller accepts without missing a beat. It's very powerful storytelling in showing how nonchalant Waller is in the face of someone like Batman, yet the next scene, when she's alone, shows that her hand is shaking. It's credit to Amanda Waller as a character, who dares to stand up to what she believes is right even though she's shaking inside.

We get to see the rest of Project Cadmus, and it's revealed that there's a relatively significant amount of older faces among the group. We've got Amanda Waller herself, and Professor Emil Hamilton, Superman's treacherous friend... but we get the revelation that Wade Eiling, previously appearing as just an angry military general in the episode 'Dark Heart', as a member of Cadmus (which explains why he was so vehemently against the League's participation there) and Batman villains Hugo Strange and doctor Milo, the former explaining where Waller got Batman's secret identity from. Oh, and this mysterious white-eyed lady we've never seen before. Pay attention to her, she'll be important in future episodes.

There's a very cool transition where in the Watchtower, Batman gathers the seven heads of the Justice League, which transitions into Amanda Waller gathering her own generals on a meeting. Quite hilariously, when Batman reveals that he's got the Question investigating Cadmus (yay Question!), the rest of the founding members groan in unison.

Obviously, the titular Doomsday becomes the central antagonist for a huge chunk of the episode, with the recton-slash-reveal that Doomsday's randomly-out-of-nowhere appearance back in Justice League was actually him escaping from a Cadmus facility. It's the kind of 'tying all things together' retcon that feels like it actually makes sense, and we get our the DCAU's own take on Doomsday. Doomsday is basically Bizarro done right, a clone of Superman, but instead of being imperfect and speaking in reverse, Doomsday is engineered to be stronger and more powerful, with spikes all over. Instead of being naive and generally confused like Bizarro, Doomsday is programmed to hate Superman and wanting to destroy him.

It's a very well done alternate origin story for Doomsday, certainly far simpler than the "Kryptonian alpha predator modified by aliens to continually regenerate and overcome the thing that killed him" origin story that they gave him in the comics. Doomsday's earlier appearance in Justice League, as hilarious as it is to have him lobotomized by Justice Lord Superman, is a bit of a disservice to the iconic supervillain (as much as I personally dislike Doomsday) and this time around we get a bit of a do-over with him. We've done the "Superman dies" plotline before, though, so instead of retreading past grounds, Doomsday is instead used to develop the ongoing Cadmus Project.

Within the present-day Cadmus, there is significant discontent with doctor Milo, whose work in splicing animals ends up producing no results. It's a bit of Waller's fault to hire such a shitty scientist as doctor Milo, who is the asshat responsible for some of Batman: TAS's worst episodes. Waller fires Milo, and in his bitterness, Milo sneaks into Doomsday's prison and tells the monster, who has recovered his intellect, about the fact that it was Cadmus that tormented him and filled him with hate against Superman, trying to goad Doomsday into destroying Waller and the others. There's an absolutely great and surprisingly dark bit where Milo briefly hallucinates taking out a gun and murdering everyone on the roundtable in cold blood.

Milo frees Doomsday, only to be rewarded with a pretty graphic death as Doomsday grabs his face and the scene cuts away -- but not before we get a pretty definite CRICK. Doomsday heads off to do battle with Superman... who's off helping the League evacuate the residents of a tropical island threatened with a volcanic eruption. 

All of the scenes that I have just described takes place within the episode's act one, and the rest of the episode focuses more on the big brawl between Superman and Doomsday. With the rest of the League occupied with the evacuation (and honestly none of them bar maybe Wonder Woman standing a chance against Doomsday), Waller goes ballistic in Cadmus's base, which General Eiling takes as an invitation to launch a kryptonite nuclear missile at the island they're fighting on, and damn the consequences. Eiling notes how efficient this would be, getting rid of three problems at once: Doomsday, Superman, and a hub for drug trafficking. 

As Batman rushes in with recklessly driving a Javelin down towards San Baquero, he calls Amanda Waller (on the White House's hotline, no less!) and calls her bluff, noting that Waller had no idea that Eiling is acting behind her back. Amanda Waller is a harsh woman, but she's not completely evil and is absolutely furious at Eiling -- but there's nothing either of them can do to stop the nuclear missile. Instead, Waller's hopes of stopping a disaster borne of a weapon she designed ends up resting on Batman, the superhero she's threatened before. (Apparently, according to J'onn, Captain Atom and any other superhero suitable for the mission are just too far away to arrive in time)

Batman, of course, manages to use the Javelin to redirect the missile before ejecting himself off the Javelin, allowing the nuke to detonate safely away from the island. At the same time, Superman and Doomsday have a battle at the heart of the volcano, and kudos for the DCAU team for making intelligent!Doomsday a far more interesting villain than he is. Superman ultimately wins, though the show does a great job of portraying just how beaten the man of steel is, and he had to be rescued and bailed out by Wonder Woman.

In a way, similarly to how Eiling and Milo launched the nuke and unleashed Doomsday without Waller's supervision, this time it's Batman that has to deal with the rest of his people doing something morally questionable without his supervision. The founding members of the League, minus the wounded Batman, as well as minus Hawkgirl (though strangely she's in the opening meeting), vote to banish Doomsday into the Phantom Zone because there's no way to rehabilitate Doomsday.

Batman is recovering in the Watchtower's infirmary, wounded after the heroic crash and he calls out Superman because they passed down judgments like gods, and realizes that Amanda Waller has a point -- Cadmus is scared for a reason. Granted, Phantom Zoning Doomsday (the big fucker isn't even killed!) isn't quite on the same level of evil-ness as launching a nuclear bomb at an island full of civilians, and Doomsday is a threat they're not prepared to deal with, but the principle still stands. Batman calls Superman out, asking him what would humanity do should Superman actually go crazy like his Justice Lord counterpart. Superman tries to joke about the kryptonite piece that Batman carries around, and in one of the best and most emotional moments in the entire DCAU, he lashes out in a perfect combination of anger, disappointment and a bit of uncertainity. "You don't get to joke! Not today. I just took a bullet for you." 

It's an amazing moment for Batman. While the conversation does kind of show the amount of trust and respect Superman has for Batman -- noting that Batman would be the one to take him down should he go evil -- Batman acknowledging that Amanda Waller has a point, and really, the only thing that keeps him going is Superman going "Trust me. You know me.", a statement that Batman agrees in... the seeds of doubt is planted. Right now they might say that they wouldn't cross the line, but as Superman and Wonder Woman leaves Batman while he is shrouded in darkness, it seems that, well, Batman isn't completely convinced. Just like how Waller has seen some of the points in Batman's argument, it works the other way around, and the great part of this story is that neither of them are completely in the wrong.

What an amazing confrontation, really. And that's honestly not everything that's happening here. All throughout the episode, we've got hints here and there that Lex Luthor is running for president, which, of course, in the Justice Lords universe ends up leading to the chain of events that ended with Superman murdering Luthor in cold blood. Will events play out similarly? Is Amanda Waller right to be paranoid?

Justice League Roll Call:

• Speaking Roles: Batman, Flash, Wonder Woman, Martian Manhunter, Superman
• Non-Speaking Roles: Green Lantern, Hawkgirl, Hawk, Vixen, Fire, Ice, Vibe, Booster Gold, Black Canary, Obsidian, Hourman, Wildcat, Shining Knight
• Major Villains: Amanda Waller, Doomsday, Emil Hamilton, Tala, dr. Milo, General Wade Eiling
• Non-Speaking Villains: Lex Luthor, Hugo Strange

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• A lot of callbacks to "A Better World", including references to Doomsday's arrival and conflict with the Justice Lords, the events that led to the creation of the Justice Lords in the alternate timeline, as well as Lex Luthor running for president. (Itself based on an arc in the Superman comics where Lex actually does become president). The Watchtower's giant space cannon is also referenced from the episode "Dark Heart", which was witnessed by General Eiling. Other Cadmus projects like the Ultimen and Galatea (who's mentioned by Hamilton to have fully recovered) are also mentioned.
• The Phantom Zone projector returns from Superman: The Animated Series, and Batman carrying Kryptonite around is a reference to their first meeting in Batman/Superman, as well as Batman using the Kryptonite to fight Amazo in "Tabula Rasa".
• Hugo Strange and Doctor Milo both return from Batman: The Animated Series, one of the few characters other than Batman himself to appear in Justice League Unlimited despite the 'bat-embargo' preventing the showrunners from using any major Batman-related characters. This is Hugo Strange's sole appearance in the series, and he doesn't get any lines. The producers note that Strange's appearance here is a set-up for future episodes, but they were unable to use Hugo Strange after this.
• Milo makes allusions to another scientist well-involved in splicing animals, presumably a reference to Kirk Langstrom, better known by his alter ego Man-Bat.
• Doomsday adapting to the thing that last killed him, in this case by growing spines on his forehead to block Superman's heat vision, is true of him in the comics as well, where every time Doomsday returns from the dead, he has evolved to counter whatever killed him last. 
• A bit of a little interesting thing to note is one of the original plans for the show was to have this episode be the turning point that would eventually lead to Batman splitting off from the League and form his own team of non-powered superheroes (like Huntress and Wildcat), all Civil-War/Injustice-style, and also presumably explaining Bruce being estranged from the Justice League in the future in Batman Beyond. This idea ended up being scrapped because the showrunners found it too difficult to tell that story without making Batman feel like a villain. How cool would that be, though?

Pokemon of the Week #13: Mandibuzz

Pokemon of the Week: Mandibuzz, the Bone Vulture Pokemon

Actually good in competitive.

So... Mandibuzz. Mandibuzz is not a Pokemon I'm very fond of, mostly due to its rather unattractive design. Oh, it's not quite as bad as, say, Jynx or Garbodor, and I didn't put Mandibuzz on my top ten least favourite generation five Pokemon list (Mandibuzz's pre-evolution Vullaby is a honourable mention, though) but it's not a Pokemon that I'm full with positive energy towards either.

Mandibuzz gets to actually look a lot better with the modern 3D models in Generation VI and VII where it shows her flying like a bird of prey, but how it looks in the original Black/White games and the anime really make it look like this very chunky bird with random human-looking elements like the bone topknot and the skull skirt and the eyelashes for no good reason. It just felt like they just took a cartoon vulture and just plopped a couple cavewoman fashion sensibilities into it and called it a day. And it's supposed to be a counterpart to Braviary, which, while not a design I particularly like either, at least looked powerful and cool. 

Vullaby and Mandibuzz are also exclusive to Black and Black 2, whereas Rufflet and Braviary are exclusive to White and White 2. They are very rare, only found in like a route or two and as a rare encounter at that, and absolutely no few trainers actually use the two lines, meaning that they're literally nonexistent in my playthrough of White/White 2 and what little I saw of them in like websites or mangas or anime only had me going "oh, these stupid cavewoman vultures". They were also close to nonexistent in XY or ORAS, and finally saw some relevance in Sun/Moon. It's Moon-exclusive, but at least it's used by the Elite Four member Kahili, as well as some trainers in the later part of the game, bringing her from this very obscure and iffy-looking bird from Generation V (where it's competing for attention with so many other Pokemon) to, well, I wouldn't say prominence, but at least it's a lot less obscure than it was before. 

Mandibuzz is also an entirely-female species, a counterpart to Braviary being all-male. Perhaps that's why they all died out? It's like how Tauros is all male and Miltank is all female, yet neither pairs can interbreed (contrast this to Nidoran family and the Volbeat/Illumise species, where the females of these pairs can produce either male or female versions of the pairing). No wonder they are close to being extinct. The recent Sun entries even lampshade this: "[Bone decorations are] supposedly an effort to attract males, but no male Mandibuzz has ever been found." Did all the male Mandibuzz get turned into bone skirts and diapers?

Mandibuzz's dex entries aren't exactly interesting. It basically behaves like a vulture, attacking weak prey and then uses their bones to make a nest, which explains the bone diaper that its stupid-looking pre-evolution has, and the stupid-looking bone-skirt that Mandibuzz herself has. Generation VII added the grisly detail that Mandibuzz's favourite food is Cubone, which I suppose makes sense -- Mandibuzz is a vulture, which preys on weakened animals... and Cubones are both children without parents to protect them, and they have extra bones on their person. But Cubones are cute little buggers! Why must Mandibuzz be such assholes? I guess that's why they're Dark-type.

Which brings us to its stats. Mandibuzz has a base stat total of 510, which isn't bad, being slightly weaker than starter final evolutions. And to become a proper counterpart to Braviary, it means that their stats are switched around. While Braviary is offensive, Mandibuzz has high Defense and Special Defense, and respectable HP. It's very balanced, ever so slightly having a higher physical side than a defensive one, and Dark/Flying isn't the worst typing out there. It's nothing new, with Honchkrow being a more offensive-oriented predecessor, and it's a decent enough defensive typing -- though granted Rock, Electric, Fairy and Ice are all relatively common offensive types.

It's movepool is relatively large, though limited to Dark and Flying types with a smattering of others... in other words, decently wide enough for competitive mucking but not very overpowered. It's got recovery in Roost, it can Defog, it can help set up weather effects (which was the THING in Generation V meta), it can cast Tailwind to buff its buddies, it can Taunt to shut down other stallers, and it can even bounce back with U-Turn. Foul Play allows it to get past its inferior Attack stats while still getting STAB, too. Mandibuzz is an absolutely irritating thing on the battlefield, a menace in the few Wi-Fi and Battle Tower battles I've met her in... it's just that its lack of stats and honestly any kind of offense beyond Foul Play makes her kind of eh.

Her abilities are not spectacular, but not damning either I guess. Overcoat prevents Sandstorm and Hail damage, which might be useful in Wi-Fi battles but not particularly. Big Pecks are eeeeh not the worst ability out there, but hardly relevant. Weak Armor is risky and the speed bonus isn't exactly why you want Mandibuzz in the first place, but I guess maybe you can make it work? I dunno, none of these three really appeal to me.  

I dunno. It's actually pretty good, if irritating, in competitive, the way Klefkis are good in competitive, but I'm not a big fan of it, honestly, design-wise or playstyle-wise. Ken Sugimori, one of the lead art directors in Pokemon, actually notes how Mandibuzz and Vullaby are a last-minute addition to the Generation V games, kind of shoved in and weren't even planned to be counterparts of Braviary... which might explain the relative lack of effort the two designs had.

Before I close it off, let me tell you guys that Mandibuzz's Japanese name is Vulgina. Yes, the origin might be from 'vulture' and 'regina' (queen in Latin), but come on, who's going to think of that instead of the obvious?

Eh, I dunno. I just can't really talk a lot about this thing. Just one of those Pokemon that I don't like is all. 

Justice League Unlimited S02E02 Review: FLASH SPEAKS

Justice League Unlimited, Season 2, Episode 2: The Ties That Bind

One of the most common complaints against Justice League Unlimited is the lack of focus given to the original seven characters, while still juggling a huge cast of brand-new superheroes, introducing them and making them all have their own distinctive characterization and all that. The previous episode even didn't feature any of the original seven founding members bar a brief cameo by J'onn at the end. While the various members of the original seven characters have all had their roles reduced to some degree, with only Martian Manhunter and Green Lantern really having an almost-constant presence due to the former being mission control and the latter just appearing pretty often compared to the others, none really had the brunt of reduced screentime as badly as the Flash.

You see, throughout the first season, Flash didn't even get a proper speaking role, only appearing as part of the group shot in the first episode, as well as briefly as part of the ground team that got one-shotted by Amazo in 'the Return'. Every other member of the original seven had major roles in an episode or other, but Flash didn't even get a single line of dialogue. It's a bit of an oddity that he's not given any role in the first season of Unlimited. Whether it's a problem with the voice actor, or simply the showmakers forgetting about one of their old main characters (Michael Rosebaum did voice Ghoul from the season finale, though, so it's unlikely to be that), Flash is back now.

There's a hilarious bit of meta-commentary where Flash complains that he's seeing a lot less action since the expansion of the team, and the little scene with Elongated Man (who's portrayed in this universe as a bit of a whiner) where Flash complains about the other members not seeing him as mature enough... while they play on a beat-em-sock-em-robots toy, is one of the most hilarious scenes ever. The show's great scripting, scene choreography and Michael Rosenbaum's great voice acting really sells Flash's own insecurity and his own immaturity very well.

The guest stars of this week are Mister Miracle and Big Barda as we tackle the Apokolips characters again. We quickly establish the quirkiness of these two characters, Mister Miracle being this very-colourfully-costumed new god that spends his time being an escape artist for a show. Their buddy Oberon gets kidnapped by Granny Goodness's agents, however, as the two of them get trapped in Apokoliptan politics. After Darkseid's death in Justice League's second season, Apokolips have fallen apart as the various mini-factions led by Darkseid's generals fight for their former master's place on the throne. Kalibak, son of Darkseid, has been kidnapped by one of the generals, the hilariously-voiced Virman Vundabar, who wants to use his possession of Kalibak to boost his claim to the throne. Meanwhile, recurring enemy Granny Goodness wants to force her former 'pet' Mister Miracle to break into Vundabar's prison and free Kalibak.

Vundabar is just such a weird design. He's this slightly baby-faced man who's dressed like one of those British soldiers, yet speaks in an accent that's... very mangled German, I think? And he's one of the generals of a planet that generally has a hell theme to it.

Granny Goodness is one of DC's more sinister characters, and one that has always made me uncomfortable. Yes, on the surface she's just weird. One of the most powerful generals of Darkseid is an old, muscular grandmother who calls herself Granny Goodness? But Granny is the embodiment of parental abuse, and while we never see anything truly graphic, a combination of her unsettling man-voice, her continually trying to pretend to be a mockery of a nice grandparent (you wouldn't want to make granny sad, would you?) and the sheer callous sadism she shows in Mister Miracle's very effective flashbacks show the sheer depths of depravity that Granny Goodness sinks into. She is the personal demon that Mister Miracle is trying to escape from, as Miracle has been raised and tortured by Granny Goodness as a child and his only preoccupation is escape -- thus showing his skills in being the universe's best escape artist. Miracle is a grown man now, but he still carries the emotional scars within himself. Even his 'real' name, Scott Free, is an adaptation of how Granny Goodness keeps telling him that he'll never get away scot-free from Apokolips.

Mister Miracle tries to recruit Superman's help in all this, but the League is unwilling to choose a side in the political struggle for Apokolips, because whether Granny or Vundabar wins, Earth stands to lose anyway, and their best bet is to let Apokolips be embroiled in a self-destructive civil war and hopefully exhaust its own resources. It's a bit callous, of course, and arguably hypocritical considering how many times the League has interfered in other countries' political situations, before, but you can see the side in J'onn's argument. It plays into the theme of "should the League get involve in political situations" argument, as well as a slight display in J'onn being more detached and more... analytical and strategist-y with everything.

Flash sees this as the perfect opportunity to get some high-stakes superheroing going on, and add that to the whole 'rebel against the rules' thing that the younger Flash finds so appealing, Flash volunteers to help Mister Miracle and Big Barda out, and the initial rejection that he gets from the two new gods -- that Flash simply isn't as good as Superman, their first choice, only increases Flash's desire to help out and prove himself.

The episode is very much a fantastic journey as Flash, Mister Miracle and Big Barda go through the crazy alien fortress in Apokolips trying to rescue Kalibak and Oberon, fighting through Parademons, hell-hounds and using Mister Miracle's crazy methods to escape from Virman Vundabar's death traps, but the episode makes it a far more compelling episode by continually juxtaposing to scenes of young Scott Free, being tortured and refusing to be broken, escaping on his own from Granny Goodness, escaping from the hell that's not just physical torment but mental as well. There's a great sense of cinematography where the flashbacks are bleak and desolate, using a depressing, monochromic blue tone in its scenes, while in the present day we get the absolutely colourful costumes of Mister Miracle and Big Barda going insane in a similarly fun and colourful environment.

There's a nice bit where J'onn finally ends up helping out as Flash has the idea to use the martian's shape-shifting powers to pre-emptively doublecross Granny Goodness, having J'onn use his mind-reading powers to find out where Oberon is being kept in Granny's palace before she can kill Oberon. J'onn's fears that helping out the struggle for the throne would unify Apokolips is ultimately averted as Kalibak is imprisoned on Earth, thus meaning that neither Virman nor Granny have a solid claim to the throne and are forced to continue their little war. It's a bit cold that they're basically sentencing Apokolips to perpetual war and possibly the deaths of many, many Parademons and other soldiers... but then, eh, Parademons aren't people. So.

There's a very nice scene at the end after everything is said and done, where Flash basically expects J'onn to punish him for disobeying orders. But J'onn breaks from his earlier stiffness and all-business demeanor and just asks Flash to play some Brawling Bots with him. J'onn's disconnect with the world and his humanity (martianity?) is shown earlier this episode, and it's Flash's youthful energy and 'help people first, think of political backlashes later' stance that gets J'onn to, well, basically take a break. J'onn's character arc is building very slowly and subtly in the background as he becomes more and more detached with his humanity, but this is it's characters like Flash that prevents this from happening sooner.

"I wanted the green one..." man, that is the most hilarious scene ever. I never thought I would ever see J'onn J'onzz pout.

Justice League Roll Call:

• Speaking Roles: Mr Miracle, Big Barda, Flash, Elongated Man, Martian Manhunter
• Non-Speaking Roles: Fire
• Major Villains: Granny Goodness, Virman Vundabar, Kalibak

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• Darkseid's death happened in the Justice League episode 'Twilight'. Kalibak was last seen in the Justice League episode 'Hereafter', where he was part of the villains that attempted to kill Superman, and was beaten down by Lobo. Presumably he travelled back to Apokolips between that episode and this one? Regardless, this marks Kalibak's final appearance in the DCAU. Granny Goodness last appeared in Superman: The Animated Series' series finale, and has been a frequent enemy of Superman throughout the series.
• Big Barda, a.k.a. Barda Free, has appeared in the DCAU before as a member of the future Justice League Unlimited in Batman Beyond. She was one of Granny Goodness's brainwashed Female Furies until she was freed by Mr. Miracle, and later married him. Big Barda's more... revealing outfit from Batman Beyond appears briefly when she's helping Scott out on his performance, but for the majority of the episode she wears a full-body armour based on her costume in the comics. Barda is immensely powerful, and in battle wields the Mega-rod, a verstatile weapon that augments her strength.
• Mister Miracle, a.k.a. Scott Free, has had brief cameos as background characters in Superman: TAS and Justice League episodes among the New Genesis gods. While not really mentioned here, Scott Free was actually the biological son of New Genesis's Highfather, traded for Orion during the weird child-trading pact between New Genesis and Apokolips. As told here, Scott could not be broken by the tortures of Apokolips, and eventually escaped alongside his lover Barda and rejoined the side of good.
• Oberon is a human born with dwarvism who was abused in a circus, before eventually meeting Mister Miracle and, well, basically being his manager-slash-mentor as shown here. 
• Virman Vundabar (sometimes spelled Vundabarr) in the comics serves mostly the same role as he does here, as a treacherous member of Darkseid's minions with a penchant for designing traps. He clashed multiple times with Superman and Mr. Miracle, and is involved in various Apokoliptan stories. He was eventually killed by Darkseid for his treachery, though.

The Flash S03E13 Review: Planet of the Apes

The Flash, Season 3, Episode 13: Attack on Gorilla City

"I am a gorilla." never sounded so badass.

See, for all the problems that I bitch about Flash ever since we had all the inconsistent plotlines and repetitive nonsense in season two, episodes like this week's "Attack on Gorilla City" is why I watch and love this show. It's predictable, yes? It's your basic action movie fair, no? The CGI's conspicuous at some parts, ain't it? It doesn't progress the plot, yeah? I don't care. Yes, when it comes down to it, this episode probably is a merely slightly-more-impressive-visually version of your standard procedural fare. But you know what? Fuck you! Like, seriously. I really liked this episode.

Like, go back and read my review on the episode of Grodd's debut. Fuck, man, it's Gorilla Grodd. Without repeating everything I said in that review, know that throughout this episode I was still being a huge fanboy going "ohmygod Gorilla Grodd is on the teevee again!"

And honestly, compare the latest few episodes to the early days of Arrow's first season, where the showmakers are even too chickenshit to call their vigilante "Green Arrow" because it's not mature or badass enough. Well, this episode we've got Flash, Vibe, Killer Frost and Draco Malfoy Indiana Jones Doctor Alchemy going off to an alternate-Earth Gorilla City to fight Gorilla Grodd, ending with a gladiatorial death-match between Flash and King Solovar. Not bad from a show that's so scared of DC's more wild characters that they're even too afraid to adapt Firefly and re-imagines him as this wussy angry arsonist.

I knew Gorilla City was coming after last episode's teaser, but I didn't realize how much of it will be shown. The CG of a high-budget show like Game of Thrones tend to depict battle scenes and dragons very strategically, how would the Flash fare? Last two seasons only managed to have one entirely-CG character like Grodd himself or King Shark, and even this season's Savitar relies on being invisible to non-speedsters and reusing some animation between episodes. But they manage to be very strategic. It's not that the gorillas aren't shown, it's that we get shown just a couple of sweeping views of the city, or the huge coliseum, but the main brunt of the action and closeups are saved for just Grodd and Solovar. And even then, for a fair amount of scenes, Grodd speaks through Cisco or Wells. The actions scenes with Flash also features some slo-mo rotation scenes which I'd wager is far easier to animate than for the entire five minutes of the battle to be constant movement.

And honestly? I'm fine with what they did. Both Grodd and Solovar looked impressive, and, yes, there were times where the CGI looked a bit suspect, especially the big gorilla army pan at the end, or the turnaround during Flash's speech, but for the most part it's amazing. We get to see Grodd be a creepy telepathic gorilla and his voice is always amazing. David Sobolov gives this perfect blend of barely-contained animalistic rage, a deadly intelligence and the general creepiness that really makes it feel that Grodd is projecting his thoughts out to everyone. It also helps that he gets a lot of really, really awesome lines. "I am an animal. Kill or be killed!"

Grodd's plan is simple, of course. He eggs both Solovar and Flash on to rise into power. Solovar seems to be portrayed as a warlord here, and Grodd's attempts to curry sympathy has enough of a selfish streak to make us buy into at least part of it... though of course, he's Gorilla motherfucking Grodd, he's a card-carrying villain. Team Flash doesn't necessarily know it, though, they think Grodd's just using them to gain power, whereas Grodd's real plan is to invade Earth-1 and wreak vengeance. It's pretty simple plot, and, yes, there are a lot of plot holes in it -- why didn't Grodd use mind-control to force Cisco to make the portal as soon as he became leader? Why did Grodd drag Flash out of his cell only to leave him right outside it? Why are there no gorilla guards? How did the power-dampening happen and why does it only work in the cells? I don't care, I've got the fastest man alive fighting a gigantic albino gorilla with a spear-axe in a gladiatorial match, I can deal with a couple of tiny plot holes.

It's also amazing to see Harry Wells reappear. H.R. is entertaining, that's for sure, but as much as the show pretends that H.R. is an essential part of the team, he absolutely can't hold a candle to the cantankerous Harry Wells of Earth-2. Shame he spends three-fourths of the episode being either unconscious or a gorilla's puppet, but hey, what little screentime he got, he used very, very well. Caitlin also has a brief subplot where she learns to use her powers more without turning into Killer Frost, and Julian has a lot of great scenes, from him showing up in full Indiana Jones gear and showing off his inner archaeologist, to him caring for Caitlin -- a chemistry that works so much better than the shoehorned Caitlin/FakeJay last season due to how this is allowed to build up over time.

It's a shame the Earth-1 subplot was so weak. It's great to see Jesse Quick back, but her subplot with Wally, and wanting to stay on Earth-1 with Wally, felt absolutely weak, and Wally does come off a bit like a douche for going all "we need to solidify our relationship" when Jesse's worried sick about her father, who's on a different Earth kidnapped by a fucking city of gorillas. The whole Jesse being upset because Wally's life felt complete (dude lives in a different dimension, you'd think not writing back for a couple of months would be acceptable). It's a very badly-paced story mostly because Wally and Jesse hung out like twice before this. H.R. has some great scenes and steals all the Earth-1 scenes, though. The whole 'stop the future from happening' plot is glossed over somewhat, though certainly the main appeal and plot is, y'know, escaping the city of telepathic gorillas.

Ideally, we'd see more of Solovar, more of Gorilla City in general. Solovar comes off as a flat might-makes-right warlord whose only redeeming factor was that he's not Grodd. But you work with the CGI budget you get, and while it's a more villainous take on Solovar than the tradition, he has one helluva badass voice.

And besides, we definitely haven't seen the last of Grodd. He's apparently got Gypsy (whether it's the same Gypsy we met, or if she's Earth-2's version, or if she's brainwashed is not clear) and a full army of armour-plated gorillas ready to invade Earth-1. Gypsy's return would have actual shock impact if, y'know, the recap section didn't randomly focus on her. Not sure if this will happen later this season or if it's just next season's Grodd episode, but dang, I was so happy watching this episode. No, it's not perfect by any means, but fuck you, we've got Solovar creating gigantic shockwaves with his spear, and Flash punching Solovar with a vibrating hand, Grodd being a badass evil psychic gorilla and man, if you don't find that awesome, I dunno. Go watch like the five o'clock news or something, because clearly superhero shows aren't for you.

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• King Solovar is the king of Gorilla City in the comics. The comics' Solovar is more of the wise allied king, though, instead of the strength-based leader he is here. Gorilla City is also a location from the comics, although in the comics gorilla-kind have hyper-advanced technology instead of living like the tribal setting we see them here. Solovar also has his comic counterpart's telepathic powers. 
• Grodd last appeared in season two, and he recounts being dropped off near Gorilla City in that episode. Caitlin recalls Grodd's affection for her in their previous two outings (though Grodd's grown past that now). Grodd also refers to his 'father', Reverse-Flash, while Caitlin recalls her doppelganger, Earth-2's Killer Frost. In addition to all that, when learning of Caitlin's powers, Harry also notes how he never believed that he and Cisco were responsible for releasing Barry from Mirror Master's mirror. 
• Julian gets abnormally excited about the "Planet of the Apes", repeating it twice while talking to Barry. Julian's actor, Tom Felton, was in Dawn of the Planet of the Apes as a glorious monkey-hating douchebag. Referencing the franchise is, of course, Cisco, who notes how Grodd had Flash "damn dirty work."
• Bludhaven, which has been a setting in Arrow for a couple of episodes, also known as sister city to Gotham City and romping grounds of Nightwing, gets mentioned yet again. 

Justice League Unlimited S02E01 Review: Fight Club

Justice League Unlimited, Season 2, Episode 1: The Cat & the Canary

Well, back to this again! I have a love-hate relationship with reviewing Justice League Unlimited. On one hand, it's such a delight to review what is easily one of my favourite pieces of fiction, like, ever. On the other hand, there's so goddamned much to talk about, from the episode review, to talking about character development, to gushing over how well they adapted the source material... all that jazz, y'know?

And it's this kind of double-layered duality that you can see in this episode. The younger members of the audience, myself included when I first saw this episode, will see a fun, different plot than the usual Justice League fare, where our two street-level heroes, Green Arrow and Black Canary, have to deal with a freaking superhero/supervillain fighting ring, co-starring a fall-into-villainy/love-triangle subplot with Wildcat. The older members of the audience will see something more... depressing, as we get to see just what crimefighting actually does to your mental state. Obviously it doesn't quite go to as dark a place as, say, Watchmen does, but seeing Wildcat basically trying so hard to relive his glory days is a pretty harsh depiction of the problems of depression and inadequacy that many people are struggling with.

Wildcat is a professional boxer turned crime-fighter, and both of his professions involve violence in some form or other, but as many people probably points out, in a huge team made up of the likes of Superman, Wonder Woman, Captain Atom and other godlike beings, where do 'enhanced normal' superheroes stack up? More casual superhero fans often joke at how out-of-place the likes of Batman or Hawkeye are in their respective superhero teams, and, well, it's not hard to see why.

Here we see Wildcat going through some kind of a late-life identity crisis. His crimefighting methods are sorely outdated and ineffective to really compare with these new-fangled superheroes, and even the 'enhanced normal' superheroes like Batman, Green Arrow and Black Canary generally tend to rely both on technological gadgets and not just simple fisticuffs. As a simple man who just wants to fight, Wildcat feels absolutely inadequate, so when he has an opportunity to relive his glory days, fighting against supervillains and metahumans in this Metabrawl, he jumps into it despite the constant warning from his loved ones.

He feels absolutely inadequate compared to the stronger and larger-than-life metahumans, and transferring that rage and anger to beating up, well, metahumans in Roulette's Metabrawl does double work for his mind -- relive his glory days and be a wrestling superstar, and at the same time, work through his aggression against the metahumans that he feels are overshadowing him. And he needs this glory, and the villain of the week Roulette knows just which buttons to push. Like how Cadmus and Amanda Waller are such different villains than your usual superhero breed, here Roulette isn't dangerous because she's very strong, but rather because of how well she can prey and manipulate Wildcat's inadequacies and addiction, getting him to stay and continue fighting despite him having second thoughts.

While there's an obvious 'Green Arrow is jealous of Wildcat' plot, the relationship between Wildcat and Black Canary is quickly established to be one of a surrogate parent to Black Canary, and the interactions between Canary and Wildcat is really well-told, similar to how a child argues against her stubborn dad to quit doing the reckless, self-destructive things he's doing. Usually it's like, gambling or drugs or alcoholism or something, but those would get too real too fast for a superhero cartoon (Black Canary's actual father in the Arrow TV show straight up struggles with alcoholism) so we get, well, this superhero fight club. And it's a very well-told story of how Wildcat's addiction ends up leading to a path of horrifying self-destruction that very nearly alienates and kills the people he cares about.

Oh, don't get me wrong, Black Canary and Green Arrow very much carry the bulk of the episode, with Wildcat mostly serving the role of the secondary character they have to rescue, but it's the Wildcat story that really feels the most fascinating to me. That's not to say that Green Arrow and Black Canary are badly-executed here, of course.

Green Arrow is established pretty early in the Unlimited series as this happy man who's a bit anti-authority, but ultimately is a nice fellow. He's got two very strong spotlight episodes, and while that's not to discredit CW's live-action Arrow adaptation, this is a Green Arrow that's far less troubled with angst and brooding and personal sins, but one that's just concerned about being a nice superhero and flirting with the ladies. And, boy, what a lady he's fallen for. Green Arrow's interest in Canary has been shown all the way since his first appearance, and while he's a bit reluctant to help out, the very well-done little sparring session (that has a lot more 'wink-wink' flirting than I remembered it to be) shows a very hilarious and different side to these superheroes.

Canary makes great use of Arrow's obvious interest for her to gain his help in dealing with Wildcat, and it's hilarious where in the sparring session Green Arrow tries his best to 'teach' things to Canary but she quickly establishes herself as the far superior fighter. It might not mean much at a glance, but it's a very well-executed way to show that, yeah, Canary is exactly on the same level playing field as Green Arrow, and isn't just a damsel in distress. Hell, Wildcat even mentions at one point that Green Arrow is straight-up inferior to Canary, and while that might just be a nod to how Canary was trained by Wildcat himself, it's this showcasing how Canary is both a woman that's not beneath using her charm to get what her want, but also someone who can drop-kick your ass when she feels like it.

There's some degree of emotional manipulation involved, of course, and Canary's pretty obviously holding back before making that bet, allowing the cocky, macho-gesturing Green Arrow to pin her down before making a bet and showing what she can really do. Yes, the end goal might just be access to Oliver Queen's huge, huge wallet to get into the metabrawl itself, but as the show quickly establishes, the attraction that Arrow feels towards Canary isn't one-sided.

Of course, Green Arrow himself feels a different form of inadequacy, quickly assuming that Canary's relationship with Wildcat is a romantic one, and he's just the third wheel being strung along. It's a feeling that many people definitely dealt with before in the past, second-guessing your loved ones because you feel that there's someone better. When Canary establishes that, yes, there is something between them and Wildcat is a father-figure to her, Green Arrow goes extreme in trying to make up for his accusations, knocking Canary out and facing Wildcat in the ring. ("That was reckless, macho, stupid... but very sweet", as Canary herself points out later) Yes, it's a pointless macho gesture, but Green Arrow has a gambit of his own. He knows that Wildcat and Canary might hold back against each other, and he intentionally riles Wildcat up, calling him a has-been and all sorts of insults to get him really riled up and apparently kill Green Arrow (he uses a 'stun arrow', apparently. An arrow for every situation!). It's all fake, of course, but the jarring sight at the ugly side of his addiction manages to shock Wildcat out of his rage to see how low he's fallen, and the shift from unbridled, blind rage to shame is well-done.

It's a nice way to end the conflict, of course, because even if it was simply Green Arrow or Black Canary beating Wildcat down to the ground in the ring, Wildcat's anger and desire for glory and his deep-rooted addiction isn't going to go away. It's a surprisingly emotional way to get Wildcat to see the error of his ways, by having Arrow fake the worst-case scenario for Wildcat's unhealthy addiction -- that someone will end up dying.

Oh, and let's not get into the fight scenes in this episode. The choreography of the varying styles of martial arts shown in this episode and the sheer upgrade in animation smoothness and quality is very well displayed. There's a distinct stylistic difference in Wildcat's more wrestler/boxer style that focuses more on his wide upper body, to Black Canary's more fluid, acrobatic fighting moves that relies on using her legs, while Arrow's kind of a more general, street-level of brawling. That long sequence of Wildcat or Canary running through a barrage of enemies is just amazing. Yes, Black Canary does have her canary cry power (which looks pretty cool in this cartoon, by the way), but the show has her rely more on her martial arts skills.

Yes, the superheroes team up and beat down Roulette's army of colourful supervillains (what the shit is an alien overlord like Evil Star doing among them), but a single realization isn't quite enough for Wildcat to get through his issues, and there's a nice little nod to his gradual healing as Wildcat goes into therapy with J'onn. He has been forced to see the error of his ways, but that doesn't mean he's automagically healthy again mentally. Acknowledging that you need help from a 'shrink' is one of the hardest things that people struggling with all sorts of mental issues have, and, well, it's a nice little bit for the cartoon to acknowledge this.

Shit, that's a lot more than I thought I would write for this episode, to be honest, but man, I really love this episode. It's a different approach to characters who've all been adapted into live action (Green Arrow, Black Canary and Wildcat in Arrow; Roulette and the metabrawl in Supergirl) but take a wholly different approach to it.

Justice League Roll Call:

• Speaking Roles: Black Canary, Wildcat, Green Arrow
• Non-Speaking Roles: Martian Manhunter
• Major Villains: Roulette, Atomic Skull
• Non-Speaking Villains: Sportsmaster, Hellgrammite, Bloodsport, Electrocutioner, Evil Star, Tracer, Gork

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• Wildcat, a.k.a. Ted Grant, is one of the original members of the Justice Society of America, one of DC's first (both in real life and in-universe) superhero teams. He's a heavyweight boxer who tangeld with the criminal underworld and adopts a costumed superhero alter ego to clear his name. He's also super-old, first being active before World War II, though there have been attempts to handwave his still being alive right now with magic or whatever. Wildcat serves as a mentor to many younger heroes, including Black Canary and Catwoman in the comics, and is often portrayed as a rowdy grandfather-type figure with a streak of old-fashioned male chauvinism thrown in here or there.
• Roulette, a.k.a. Veronica Sinclair, is a villain associated with the Justice Society, though she primarily singles out Mr. Terrific as her nemesis. Roulette runs an underground 'metabrawl' like she does in this episode in the comics, though at various points in her career she's also pitted heroes against each other, or sent supervillains to wreak havoc and gain points like a game show. 
• Atomic Skull, a.k.a. Joseph Martin, is a Superman enemy, a normal human that has been exposed to a gene bomb unleashed by the alien invaders, the Dominators, which activated his latent metahuman gene and turning his skin transparent, while wreathing his head in atomic fire and allowing him to shoot energy from his hands. This is his first appearance in the DCAU.
• Other supervillains in Roulette's employ, in quick recap order:
• Sportsmaster, a.k.a. Lawrence "Crusher" Crook: enemy of the Justice Society, specifically the original Green Lantern (Alan Scott) and Wildcat. A petty thief who uses, well, sports equipment, and is often a member of various incarnations of the Injustice Society. He's more well-known nowadays for being the jackass father to superheroine-slash-antihero Artemis, who stars as one of the main characters of Young Justice.
• Hellgrammite, a.k.a. Roderick Rose: Hellgrammite is a minor Superman enemy, who experimented with insects and mutation and turned himself into a hideous insect hybrid. 
• Bloodsport, a.k.a. Robert DuBois: A Superman enemy, Bloodsport is a man obsessed with the Vietnam war because he had chickened out and his brother went in his stead and lost his limbs. Luthor manipulated the unstable man to become a mercenary, fighting Superman with Kryptonite bullets and other sorts of heavy duty weapons.
• Electrocutioner, a.k.a. Lester Buchinsky: a lesser Batman villain who uses electricity-powered gloves to fight. In recent years has received far more focus than he deserves thanks to being featured in the game Arkham Origins, with a hilarious chronic loser status. 
• Evil Star: An enemy of the Hal Jordan Green Lantern, Evil Star is an alien from the planet Auron who creates the powerful artifact the Starbrand, and then comes to Earth to terrorize it.
• Tracer: He's the Sabertooth-looking dude, and an obscure alien enemy of the Justice League. Tracer is a member of the Extremists, a group of aliens whose appearance and powers are based on Marvel comics characters.
• Gork: Gork (dude with the weird pustules) is apparently based on a pretty obscure Batman enemy, having a single appearance as one of the genetically-modified soldiers of Doctor Moon. 
• In the comics, of course, Green Arrow and Black Canary is one of the series' longest-running superhero couple. 

Gotham S03E12 Review: Who You Gon' Call?

Gotham, Season 3, Episode 12: Ghosts

I'm not quite sure why this episode didn't quite work, but it didn't. It took me three separate attempts to actually finish this episode, and it honestly isn't even super-bad. I dunno. It's just kind of bland, where it tries to change up the status quo in various ways, but it didn't quite hit the right spot with any of them, mostly because of how inconsistent it is. It meanders around and tries to deliver a bunch of huge plot twists, but none really are things that end up having an impact. 

Bruce, Selina and Alfred meeting Selina's mother Maria ended up delivering absolutely nothing beyond a bit of a 'aw they hugged' moment which means not much considering I've watched an episode starring her but I don't know anything at all about Maria Kyle, and thus why should I care about her, or the random angry dude that she accidentally caused to hunt Bruce? For all the buildup she's gotten, all she has here is 'deadbeat mom, ran away, came back.' I don't care about her at all.

It's actually a bit of a genius for Riddler (and Barbara, Butch etc, but mostly Riddler) to employ Clayface, who we haven't seen since season two, to push all the right buttons with Penguin in fuck him up... which is kind of ruined by how utterly silly the whole 'Penguin is haunted' storyline really is before the big reveal that it's Riddler and Clayface messing with his head. Considering how Gotham has shoved utterly bizarre plotlines before to side characters (the Dollmaker, Penguin's family, Barbara's weird lesbian affair) it's honestly not too much of a stretch to believe that the show would suddenly go for a random ghost story, especially with the ghost showing up every time the corpse is desecrated... again, the reveal that it's Clayface is actually somewhat genius, but that doesn't really make all the previous scenes any less blah. 

Zsasz is easily the MVP of the episode, being consistently entertaining and very clinical in his approach to murder, with his scene telling Jim that he doesn't want to kill him but it's his job, and his very cheery "Kay going home now" when Falcone shows up to call off the hit. He's literally the only entertaining thing from the Jim storyline, because everything about it kind of ruins the relatively good cliffhanger from last episode. Sure, there's the token discovery of a cult trying to resurrect Jerome, but nothing really came out of that other than setting this up.

The thing is, everyone involved in Jim's life does a huge 180 and it's absolutely annoying. Lee goes from, well, Lee to a very angry widow quite literally demanding for Gordon's death, then after a brief conversation with crazy Barnes he goes back to Lee and is all "noooo call off the hit." Falcone, too, goes from tranquil fury mafia godfather to fatherly anti-villain in the last act... for no good reason. The change and the impact from Mario's death really wasn't felt at all, considering how wildly the characters are jerked from one characterization to the next, and Jim's just being boringly brooding and Harvey's just along to make it somewhat entertaining by being smarmy about it.

So yeah, pretty much a disappointment in all aspects. Zsasz's cool though, even if he probably needs to get some new contact lenses considering how much of a crap shooter he is for being a self-professed super-killer.

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• The Jerome-worshipping group is more of a cult here than a gang, but they seem to be inspired by the Jokerz from Batman Beyond, who rally around the dead Joker as a symbol and commit heinous acts in his name. 

Supergirl S02E12 Review: Kryptonite Armours and Fifth-Dimensional Imps

Supergirl, Season 2, Episode 12: Luthors

Superman's arch-enemy is Lex Luthor. There is no questioning that. Sure, Lex is ultimately just a really, really smart guy with hair issues. Sometimes he rides a robot suit. Superman has faced against world-conquering alien warlords and gods -- Darkseid, Brainiac, General Zod, Mongul, Doomsday -- yet it's the dude with the bald head that we remember. It's easily one of the best hallmarks of the franchise, the idea that this man whose goal boils down to wanting to prove himself superior to the god-like alien Superman, is told well even through sub-par adaptations. In the real world or in-universe, Lex Luthor is synonymous with 'Superman's nemesis'. And if Superman is the ultimate good, guess what that makes Lex Luthor?

So, her adoptive sister's presence in the series certainly raises some wary eyebrows. I admit that I, too, fell under the bias that, well, she's a Luthor, so she definitely has the potential to, if not become evil, then to do some morally ambiguous things. While I spent the episode shaking my head at Kara's naivety -- even if she's all buddy-buddy with Lena, it's a bit too naive for her to insist that Snapper and James not print what appears to be The Truth, backed up by hard evidence. Kara's argument actually kind of makes sense, though -- Lena has done nothing but help the good guys, even being instrumental in Lilian Luthor's downfall in the mid-season finale. And, yeah, I'm more of a cynic so I agree with James's own argument that "she put her mother under the bus, what makes you so sure she's not going to do the same to you?"

Lilian's talk to Lena, revealing that Lena's not actually an adopted daughter, but actually her husband Lionel's child, born out of wedlock, is a huge, huge bomb to drop on poor Lena and Lilian's talks of reconciliation certainly sounds sincere. Thus it's honestly not too much to believe that Lena engineered Lilian's escape -- if not to aid her in getting Cadmus online, then the motivation that she's trying to break her own mother out of prison is believable. Of course the moment Metallo shows up to 'rescue' Lena shows that anyone who suspects Lena is wrong, but for the first half of the episode I certainly believed that Lena went evil. So yeah, challenging the audience's own biases is definitely there... and while Kara might be naive, she's freaking Supergirl, the maiden of steel, as much a beacon of justice as her cousin, so she's inherently a better person than myself.

Mind you, they certainly could've scripted Kara's dialogue to make her sound less bullheaded and unreasonable, but emotions run hot and she truly believes Lena to be a good person, unlike the rest of the cast who operates in a 'not evil until proven otherwise'. Lena and Kara's friendship is shown to be really close this episode, and I think it's a matter of time before Lena puts two and two together and figure out just how quickly Kara can contact Supergirl.

Lena's childhood is also told very well through a series of flashback that shows us her father Lionel (who looks 100% like he should be playing Lex Luthor in an adaptation) and little Lex. Definitely a fun scene, which, in the short time that we had, shows Lena's relationship to her brother and mother. And the final scenes where he wraps her fingers around the chess pieces is intriguing. Is she remembering her bloodline ties to the Luthors, thinking about her past with her brother and mother, who both went evil? Or is she satisfied about playing Kara and even Lilian like pawns? Or is that just my own bias against Luthors speaking?

I'm a bit confused why Lilian and Lena keep talking about Lex in the past tense, when IIRC previous episodes established him to be locked up in prison. Is it just odd dialogue choices for Lilian to seduce Lena to the dark side, or did something particularly bad happen to Lex during his latest battle with Superman?

A lot of scenes really are things that are well-done, too. The cruel, cruel cameo of showing Lex's Kryptonite Warsuit only to have it apparently be destroyed in Metallo's explosion, is both something I appreciate and a huge, huge cocktease. J'onn randomly showing up like the big damn hero he really should be more often just comes out of nowhere and I actually cheered in that scene -- J'onn really needs to get out of base more often, not just for martian-relevant missions.

And the ending! Mr. Mxyzptlk just shows up out of nowhere without any real announcement, and in addition to the appeal of hearing a live-action actor say the word 'Myxzptlk', it's just absolutely awesome and unexpected to see a relatively big-name Superman antagonist appear again. And in an episode where we have a trifecta of other major Superman villains (Lex, Metallo and Cyborg Superman) appearing, too!

There are several weak points in this episode that really kept it from being stellar, though -- while Snapper Carr's arguments with Kara actually felt like they belong, and I think it's the only real good use of the CatCo setting all season... James just didn't work. Sure, the Guardian-vs-Metallo fight was decent, but James and his arguments with Kara all felt unnecessary and something that I honestly didn't particularly care about. I've spoken at length about my dislike of the Guardian subplot and James in general, so I don't feel I have to repeat myself. Likewise, Kara's romantic subplot with Mon-El is at its weakest in this episode, with their conversations feeling both rushed and prolonged at the same time... though Mon-El has the benefit of getting all the best lines about how just out-of-touch with human culture he is. But their will-they-won't-they relationship is starting to get tiring, and it's a good thing Mxyzptlk crashed that particular plot strand.

Both Metallo and Cyborg Superman make their return in this episode, but Cyborg Supreman is squarely out of focus, only showing up in the final acts and even then only to be another thug in Lilian's employ. Metallo fares better, having a lot more screentime, though I honestly am slightly confused -- didn't he freaking die in his last appearance? Or am I misremembering things? He certainly dies in this episode, going through a classic 'unstable kryptonite radiation' plot where he burns himself up and eventually explodes in the climax. Metallo's also a glorified thug with Kryptonite beam abilities, but I did like his rants against the aliens while testifying for Lilian in court. That was kind of well done, making him feel like he has actual motivations. Ultimately, though, he still feels one-dimensional, a problem that's common to most villains in Supergirl other than Lena.

Overall still a very interesting and fun episode, despite my little gripes. We're apparently getting a Black Lightning show into the CW lineup alongside with the Ray, whenever that's happening. Black Lightning is definitely a very solid B-list hero that I don't particularly like... but I know who he is and he looks cool, both things that I can't really say about the Ray. So yeah. I mean, I'm barely keeping up wit

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• Lex Luthor's father's name, Lionel, originates from the Smallville TV series, and his physical appearance here seems to be very based on Lex Luthor's classic comic book appearance. Other details, like Lex and Clark being friends for years before being enemies, as well as Lex going bald in prison, are also aspects that originated in Smallville. 
• The items in Lex Luthor's vault include:
• Lex's iconic silver-age purple and green war suit
• The Atomic Axe is the weapon of choice of the supervillain Persuader and can cut through, well, anything. 
• The Black Mercy, from the iconic Alan Moore story 'For the Man who has Everything', the alien flower that appeared before in Supergirl's take on that story.
• Mr. Mxyzptlk is one of Superman's more iconic (and zany) enemies, a reality-warping imp from the fifth dimension who comes to bother Supreman with his insanely powerful array of magic, and the only way to return him to the fifth dimension is to trick him into saying his name backwards. Over the years he's alternated between being a truly chaotic neutral character, or someone with greater designs.

Pokemon of the Week #12: Mantyke

Pokemon of the Week: #458 Mantyke, the Kite Pokemon

Happy little thing, isn't he?

Okay, this isn't a very interesting one, let me get this out of my chest first. Mantyke is a Generation IV Pokemon, a newly added baby Pokemon to pre-existing Generation II Pokemon Mantine. While I don't mind newer generations adding baby Pokemon (though they've stopped doing it in the last three generations, realizing that really not many people care for weaker versions of existing monsters) it's generally kind of superfluous. I mean, yeah, sure, we get smaller versions of Marill, Magmar, Pikachu, Clefairy, Sudowoodo, Snorlax and whoever... does anyone really care? I mean, they're cute and all, but we generally want our creatures to become stronger. I get that it's an incentive to breeding, to add several extra things to do to catch them all, but it's a rant I often have -- other than adding a couple of cute ones to sell plushies and show up in the anime, the baby Pokemon are often irrelevant. 

Take Mantyke, for one, who literally is just a smaller Mantine, with facial features rearranged a little, sans tail, with a smiley face marking pasted on its back. It's cute and all, that's for sure, but where a lot of Mantine's Generation II buddies got evolutions that made them relevant in Generation IV, Mantine got... a baby. Yeah. It's one of those annoying things where you needed to have Mantine hold a specific incense to get a Mantyke egg to plop out, too, which is always one of the least innovative things to do in Pokemon. 

Mantyke is at least abundant to find in the wild, so you don't have to go through the headache of breeding Mantine with an incense unlike nearly every single one of the baby Pokemon introduced post Generation II, which is definitely appreciated. Still, while seeing manta ray Pokemon as a relatively common encounter is a treat after three generations of nothing but Tentacools and Wingulls, it's still... eh.

Mantyke is Water/Flying, and it's just a small little manta ray that jumps out of the water. I honestly don't really know what to say here. Like Mantine, it's a big Specially Defensive tanky thing, which doesn't matter because it's still 4x allergic to electric, so no matter how big its special defense is, anyone with a Thunderbolt will murder this baby ray. 

The only real thing that makes Mantyke more interesting than his baby comrades is how it evolves. You see, Mantine's official artwork all depict it with a little Remoraid hanging off one of its fins, in reference to how remora fish like to hang around larger fish like sharks and manta rays. So to evolve Mantyke, you need to have a Remoraid in your party (it doesn't get consumed, don't worry), which is cool, a nice reference to the symbiotic relationship that they share.

Good luck figuring this out without a guide, though -- the same generation that they introduced Mantyke is the same generation they removed Remoraid from all of Mantine's in-game sprites. Oh, Nintendo, you're so weird sometimes.

Yeah, not the best-executed Pokemon... but honestly, none of the baby Pokemon really are. I think only Elekid, Mime Jr and Chingling are the ones I honestly like, while the rest range between ambivalent to 'fuck off'. 

Agents of SHIELD S04E12 Review: Koenig and Koenig and Koenig and Koenig

Agents of SHIELD, Season 4, Episode 12: Hot Potato Soup

Definitely a pretty episode, mostly due to the focus and arc welding it does. Sure, the LMD plotline might be nowhere as interesting as the Ghost Rider episodes, but it's still engaging enough to watch anyway. I totally forgot the Koenigs existed, and to see them reappear -- and introduce two more Koenigs, as well as reveal that they're just quirky, identical quadruplets and not robots like the fandom has been speculating since season one... yeah. 

There's a bit of weaker points in this episode, as much as I enjoy the Koenigs, and a lot of it is due to the fact that I'm just not super-invested in Fake May. Sure, the situation she finds herself in, a robot who feels, yet knows she's not the real thing, but so desperately wants what the real May buries deep within herself -- attraction to Coulson -- is kinda sorta interesting... yet at the same time it does really feel like a weak attempt to pander to the shippers. It's one thing for Fake May to flirt with Coulson in the base, it's another for them to randomly kiss in the middle of a life-and-death mission. 

And, of course, Fitz and Simmons contacting Quake about the true nature of Fake May's LMD-ness, as well as Fake May blowing her own cover by grabbing the Darkhold, came pretty quickly, and the fact that Fake May ends up just getting left crippled as she was after Quake blasted her, only later to be abandoned by Radcliffe and kept deactivated just for potential drama in the future (SHIELD visibly melts the Radcliffe LMD as well as the first Aida's head) is a bit eyeball-rolling.

Likewise, the huge revelation that, uh, the enigmatic Superior (I think it's him, anyway?), Anton Ivanov and his weird submarine and torture fetish, hates the Inhumans because they didn't... get their power by effort? And wants to genocide them all? Also, he wants the Darkhold to get the power to kill Coulson, who he thinks is, like, an Absol-esque portent of alien disasters and whatever? It's honestly very weak and even Radcliffe seems to realize the utter hilarity of someone who thinks Coulson of all people is responsible for all the apocalyptic alien invasions on Earth. 

While Radcliffe and Aida continue to give strong performances in this episode, and I absolutely like Radcliffe's insistence of not permanently hurting or killing any of the SHIELD agents -- he still has some attachment to them -- neither Nadeer nor Ivanov are appealing enough to really believe that Radcliffe is in any danger from any of them. And if Aida going all Terminator on Ivanov's people is any indication, I'd honestly rather have Radcliffe do his own independent thing instead of getting bogged down with all this. 

Fitz and the LMD Radcliffe is easily the standout parts of this scene, with Mack and Simmons playing along very well. They discover that LMD Radcliffe has an actual synthetic brain, of course, and we get some unexpected emotional focus as LMD Radcliffe reveals that the real Radcliffe knows Fitz's father, and as Simmons helpfully tells us, Fitz's father is an asshole that has caused the dude to live with a huge, huge self-esteem issue, and Fitz is blaming himself for being so trusting of so many people that ended up hurting him -- his father, Grant Ward, Radcliffe -- and it's a cool display of raw emotion and the bond between Fitz-Simmons that works very well. 

So yeah, the performances of Fitz's emotional turmoil, Radcliffe being a pretty awesome anti-villain and the hilarity around the Koenig quartet are all very strong beats, which sadly undercuts the Fake May story, and to a greater extend makes the revelation of Ivanov as the apparent Big Bad of this leg of the season very weak. Still, can't complain -- the episode itself was pretty enjoyable, and Patton Oswald is absolutely hilarious.

One Piece 856 Review: ONE PAWNCH

One Piece, Chapter 856: Liar

Well, that was a pretty fun, if predictable, meeting between Luffy and Sanji. Sanji gives Luffy the food, Luffy eats and becomes healthy, Sanji's filled with self-loathing and lists all the reasons why he should be left behind (he doesn't have the heart to let his family die? What a nice person he is -- I certainly would've saved only Reiju, buggered off and not looked back if I was in Sanji's position) and then Luffy does a great big punch, telling Sanji to tell the truth -- and he does. It's a pretty cool, emotional and, well, somewhat predictable moment where he cries about how he wants to go back to the Sunny, but he's just not strong enough to either run away from there, nor is he strong enough to fight Big Mom and his family all alone. Luffy, of course, goes all "well, that's just you! We're here for you!" and all that jazz.

It's pretty much as good as it can get, mostly because it's a confrontation we can see coming from miles away. Still good, though.

Meanwhile, the rest of the chapter has the gang in the mirror world discuss where Luffy and Sanji's going to meet, the Vinsmoke men are being horrible jackasses who're drinking and thinking about getting Nami (an 'it') for themselves while cheering about Sanji the 'dud', Big Mom is freaking cuddling with the fake Brook... apparently Pekoms is alive, and has informed Jinbe of the plot. Well, we never saw the body and his 'death' literally came out of nowhere, so his survival isn't a big surprise. What else? There was a random page of Bobbin, who recovered last issue... collapsing in the rain, because someone shot him? That was weird.

Overall, a pretty decent chapter. The Sanji-Luffy meeting needed to take up a good chunk of it, and there's not a ton that I can really talk about on that front.

Arrow S05E12 Review: Sins of the Past

Arrow, Season 5, Episode 12: Bratva

One of the burning questions I have with Anatoli Knyazev returning in the flashbacks after two seasons of being absent is whether he'll have any bearing on the plot in the present day. It's been some time since we've seen jolly ol' Anatoly in the present day, after all, so it turns out that, yes, we're seeing Anatoly again. And we get a bit of a follow-up to the Diggle subplot with General Walker breaking free and basically going rogue which really makes me wonder why we needed Diggle re-imprisoned again for this plot to go on. But oh well.

Walker serves as the enemy in this episode, but he's not really important. Neither is Anatoly, to be honest -- in the present day he did have a couple of memorable scenes with Oliver, but the focus of this episode is on generally developing Oliver, Diggle and Felicity, and the character growth they've developed. It's a big too in-your-face for my liking, though... Felicity's big thing was that she used the Pandora information dump to get information to blackmail people, something that Rory finds unnervingly immoral. Though honestly? Compared to Oliver stooping to helping the Bratva beat up their rivals, or Diggle beating a prisoner half to death, fake-threatening someone who's not exactly squeaky-clean is way, way more innocent and Rory's just overreacting. It's definitely very welcome for Felicity this season to deal with things that are outside the romantic drama balloon, what with having to face Rory earlier this season, and now dealing with this Helix/Pandora thing. The mysterious Helix organization seems to know what she's doing, and Felicity seems intent on making even more use of Pandora.

Diggle's character progression basically had him beat a prisoner to death, showing how absolutely angry the dude is, before choosing not to pull the trigger on Walker despite the man making the same threats to his family that Andy Diggle did. Oliver's speech about how Diggle and Felicity are the better parts of the team are well done, though the execution on Diggle's part is blindingly obvious. Oliver, meanwhile, is forced once more to face the sins of his past as Anatoli punches Oliver in the face in one of the most hilarious fake-outs ever, blaming Oliver for betraying and causing the death of Bratva member Alexi Leonov from season two. It's a very interesting dynamic where Oliver and Anatoly's long past causes Anatoly to be willing enough to help out, even bringing an army of Bratva for the final battle (though, y'know, stopping a nuclear bomb from killing everyone is probably a good incentive for Anatoly to help anyway), but now wants a tit-for-tat for his services, citing that Oliver's help with Gregor (presumably shown in a future flashback this season) has absolved him of Oliver causing Leonov's death, but this means that everything between the two of them is now back to favour-for-favour.

Anatoly's favour this time around is relatively tame, basically asking Oliver to beat up a bunch of competitors and it doesn't seem like Oliver actually killed anyone, but Anatoly notes how vows are for life, noting that, no, as much as Anatoly is a 'devil you know' kind of deal, he's not going to let Oliver off just like that. It's a nice little nod to how Oliver destroyed his relationship with the Bratva during his obsessive hunt for Slade Wilson and his big 'I won't kill' creed in the second season, and while on the surface Anatoly and Oliver seems to have made nice this time around the looming threat of Anatoly asking something more... violent from Oliver is still there.

Ragman, meanwhile, hasn't really been doing much since... oh, the Tobias Church arc, I guess? He's easily the most powerful member of Team Arrow, being a mystically-empowered invulnerable metahuman, and honestly I don't think the show ever really makes a good argument as to why they didn't just sic Ragman on Prometheus the moment the two of them meet, beyond general 'Ragman's on the other end of the city!' This mission gives him a bit more focus, especially his interactions with Felicity. When she fails to disarm the nuclear bomb, Felicity proposes to fly it to a less populated area, something that Ragman strongly objects to because this was how Havenrock happened. Ragman unleashes his rag powers to contain the blast, and in the process this robs him of his powers. Boo! Ragman promises to return, though, and thinning out the cast a little after Dinah's introduction and build-up last episode is probably for the best -- Ragman's not doing much anyway, and the cast's so crowded that we haven't even seen Thea for the past two or three episodes.

Dinah gets a couple of cool action scenes and her talk to get Oliver out of his funk, stating that he can't just mope, is somewhat decent. Right now the show's just letting her settle in. There's a very weird B-plot of Wild Dog helping Quentin out in preparing for his interview against Susan Williams, and the equally strange reveal that Quentin actually inspired Wild Dog when he was a kid -- I guess it explains why Rene is so uncharacteristically patient and willing to help, but it's all kind of weird. I am also very uninvested in Susan Williams, or her attempts at uncovering the identity of Green Arrow, or her sleeping with Oliver Queen, at all. She's so uninteresting.

The past flashbacks are the strongest part of this episode, I think, which isn't something I thought I'll ever say. Talia is training Oliver more, helping to flesh out, well, basically what he ends up doing in Arrow's first season. Oliver gets to realize the importance of the list and even takes out the drug supplier responsible for the drug that he saw distributed in Starling City last season. Add that to the dissension within Bratva itself with Gregor having Anatoly beat up (with the latter noting that there's nothing to do within Bratva rules due to their rank difference), and Oliver's basically pulled in several directions to take down Kovar and Gregor.

Overall, though, a pretty solid episode all around. There are some parts that didn't quite work for me -- Diggle's story, Quentin's subplot, Susan Williams -- but all in all the episode is more hit than miss, even though we seem to lose Ragman for the forseeable future. Boo.

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• Alexi Leonov was a Bratva member that appeared several times throughout the first and second seasons of Arrow, whose attempts at asking Oliver for favours per Bratva tradition ends up being rebuffed by Oliver multiple times until Leonov threatens that Oliver is 'no longer Bratva'. He met his end at the hands of Slade Wilson.
• Markovia, fictional state and home of the DC superheroes Terra and Geo-Force, has been mentioned several times in Arrow as a country that tried to buy different types of superweapons before. 

Agents of SHIELD S04E11 Review: Who's An Android

Agents of SHIELD, Season 4, Episode 11: Wake Up

Another pretty strong entry in Agents of SHIELD, with the LMD plot being absolutely well-played out. While Quake, Jeffrey, Talbot, Coulson and Yo-Yo has to deal with trying to be proactive against Senator Nadeer and ending up failing pretty badly due to Nadeer pre-empting them, May is trapped within a mental prison that she's still badass enough to match. In all this, Radcliffe sets up the fact that there's a second L.M.D. other than Fake May in play, which gets the audience thinking. The obvious red herrings are Mack and Fitz, of course. Mack bugs out of the mission because of a suspicious text, and Fitz's obsession with investigating the L.M.D. mystery seems to set up Fitz as the second L.M.D., if only to have him go and break down when he, like Fake May, realizes that he's an L.M.D.

Of course, it turns out that the Radcliffe which Fitz and the other agents arrested is the actual L.M.D., but I honestly didn't see this coming at all until the final scene, where Fitz shot Fake Radcliffe in the head. That was a well-done twist, and Fake May seems to be firmly incapable (or doesn't want to) betray her creator just yet. Fake May's story in this episode is as engaging as the real one. While the real May finds herself in a brutal breakout attempt, fighting against Aida... only for it to be revealed to her (and us, the audience) that it's merely a simulation to keep her contained, Fake May is going through a crisis of conscience, tearfully confronting her creator (well, the L.M.D. version of Radcliffe, anyway) but being physically incapable to pull the trigger or even betray him.

We also get the revelation that Radcliffe, via his three L.M.D's: Fake May, Fake Radcliffe and Aida, is the leak that SHIELD has, and has ran off to find protection from Nadeer. And apparently there's yet another mysterious 'Superior' in play?

There's a lot of great character beats here, like Coulson's mistake, Talbot's not unreasonable claims that Coulson keeps taking risks without listening to other people, Quake's attempts to defend herself by telling the truth and only the truth, and most importantly Mack and Elena's talk about 'Hope'. Hope is Mack's daughter that died four months after she was born, which... which felt a bit irrelevant in the grand scheme of things, but it does deliver a pretty powerful scene between Mack and Elena, so there's that. I'm curious why Mack held Hope's picture during the Ghost Rider arc, so maybe there's something about Hope's death that will be relevant somewhere down the line? I dunno.

Overall, a pretty solid episode, even if a good chunk of the episode is just having us guess at who the L.M.D. is, it's still a pretty solid 40 minutes.