Young Justice S01E11 Review: Undercover Heroes

Young Justice, Season 1, Episode 11: Terrors

I have really fond memories of this episode, and rewatching it, I'm mostly validated. From the opening sequence, where the Young Justice Team teams up with Superman and J'onn J'onzz to beat up a pair of supervillains, the Terror Twins, we're treated to Superboy and M'gann taking on the identities of the Terror Twins, as they are apparently going to do some kind of an undercover mission thing into the Belle Reve Prison. This is Young Justice at its finest and also its messiest, as the plotline of this episode is crafted from various plot lines dropped here and there, explores the characters of Superboy and M'gann, and also shows the Team as an actual undercover/black ops team that does the things that need to be low-profile and not feature the well-known heroes. 

There's a quick recap of the four ice villains from the first episode all requesting to be transferred to Belle Reve, including Mr. Freeze asking to be tried as a sane person and Icicle Junior wanting to be tried as an adult. The fact that there's a fair amount of time between the first and eleventh episode is cleverly handwaved with the time that the legal stuff took to move Icicle Jr. to Belle Reve.

Of course, the character selection of Superboy and Miss Martian for this episode is partially caused, externally, due to them being in a relationship and it's interesting to explore that, but internally it also makes sense. M'gann has shape-shifting powers, and Superboy's the only member of the group to have a similar enough physique and power-set with Tommy Terror, and the Terror Twins' sibling relationship means that the two of them have a cover story to collude and talk to each other. 

We're quickly introduced to the prison, where a huge chunk of the population are characters like Ojo, Brick and Abra Kadabra -- villains we've seen earlier in the episode. Leading the prison as the warden is none other than Amanda Waller, working together with Hugo Strange. These are not unfamiliar names to anyone that's familiar with the DC universe, but the episode still does its work to give both a pretty spiffy entrance, showing Waller as a no-nonsense warden that boasts of power-inhibiting collars and walls strong enough to hold out Superman, while Hugo Strange is a shifty-looking mad scientist. While Waller is harsh, the guards in the prison don't care if the prisoners beat each other up as long as no one escapes. 

Superboy and M'gann are stuck with two members of the ice crew -- Icicle Junior and Killer Frost respectively -- as cellmates, and we quickly discover that the prison is run internally by Icicle Senior, father to Icicle Junior. The elder Icicle has a backup crew of a bunch of other villains (the other ice dudes, as well as Mammoth and Blockbuster) and pushes around lesser villains like poor Riddler (who spends most of the episode pushed around by the other villains). Junior is the villain that gets the most screentime in this episode, working well with Superboy (or "Tommy") and they sort of bond over daddy issues. A fight between Professor Ojo and Superboy ends up causing Ojo to nearly discover Superboy's identity, and Superboy's forced to whack him out, earning him the respect of both Icicles. Icicle Senior is a huge dick father, who continually notes how shit his own son is compared to Tommy/Superboy, and we learn that Icicle is planning a breakout.

In-between their undercover missions, we have a strange (ha ha!) little scene with Hugo Strange, who plays prison therapist with "Tommy" and "Tuppence". Basically, M'gann tries to get Superboy to work through his father figure issues, and Conner snaps in anger, but it's really not the place and time for them to be talking about this in an undercover mission. It's a nice gesture to attempt to put some characterization into our main characters, but on the other hand it felt a bit shoehorned in. 

The actual breakout is relatively simple, despite Icicle Senior's big talk, but entertaining enough. After making sure the JLA members (except for Red Tornado, who's sitting with Aqualad outside the prison) are occupied, Icicle Senior and Mr. Freeze stages a fight, allowing Freeze to be taken away to Waller, upon which he breaks free and attacks the guards. M'gann is forced to break her cover to save a guard, causing her to fight toe-to-toe with Killer Frost. Superboy pretending to have a telepathic link with his "twin sister" felt unnecessary but works to fool Icicle Senior to a sense of security. 

Superboy and Icicle Junior are left to break down the walls that separate the male and female wards, but Superboy knows that he needs to buy time for M'gann to take down Killer Frost, and thus appeals to Junior's own daddy issues. He falsifies a story about how the female wing's inhibitor collars are back on, and sweet-talks Icicle Junior about how they can take matters into their own hands and impress Icicle Senior. Icicle Junior is conned into turning the inhibitor collars on, allowing Waller and Strange's people to take out Icicle Senior's forces. 

Superboy manages to fool the silly Junior that Mr. Freeze is staging a coup against his father, and we get a fun little team-up as the two of them do battle against Freeze, Blockbuster and Mammoth. Superboy then breaks into the womens' wing, and goes to rescue the apparently dead M'gann from Killer Frost and Devastation. The episode focuses more on Superboy being scared of losing M'gann after being super-angry at her, and while it's obviously not going to happen, it does work relatively well in forcing Superboy to confront his own emotions and not be angry all the time. Plus, it does give us the hilariously awkward moment when Icicle Junior goes "ew dude that's your sister" when "Tommy" and "Tuppence" kiss each other. 

The revelation that Hugo Strange and Icicle Senior are in cahoots so that Strange can depose Amanda Waller as the warden of the prison is well-done, subverting the expectations that they're just giving Hugo Strange a dose of adaptational heroism (or not-a-villain-yet), and that apparently putting Strange in power was the whole point of the operation, not the breakout itself. Riddler escapes, and while I'm not sure if it's part of Strange and Icicle's plan or not, it's apparently a bonus as well. 

Overall, though, while the episode's a bit messy, I still really like it. Both Superboy and Icicle Junior get a fair amount of great scenes and character moments, and while M'gann is reduced to damsel in distress for the second half, she did get some neat bits earlier. The fast-paced chaos as we jump from one colourful villain to another is very well-done. While not the most well-structured episode, it's actually one of my personal favourites among the first season. Maybe I'm just a sucker for shows featuring multiple villains. 

Roll Call:

• Heroes: Martian Manhunter, Superman, Aqualad, Red Tornado, Miss Martian, Superboy, Batman, Amanda Waller
• Villains: The Terror Twins, Mr. Freeze, Icicle Junior, Captain Cold, Killer Frost, Professor Hugo Strange, Professor Ojo, Brick, Mammoth, Blockbuster, Icicle Senior, the Riddler, Shimmer, Devastation, Anthony Ivo, Hook, Abra Kadabra
• Others: Cat Grant

DC Easter Eggs Corner: 

• The Terror Twins are invented for this TV series, the first wholly original characters to appear in the show if you don't count Artemis's heavy reinvention.
• Icicle Senior & Icicle Junior, a.k.a. Joar Mahkent and Cameron Mahkent respectively, are based on two versions of the supervillain Icicle. In the comics, the first Icicle is a normal person with an experimental ice gun, and fought the Golden Age Green Lantern, Alan Scott. The second Icicle, his son, is mutated due to exposure to his father's weapon's radiation, causing him to be born with the innate ability to control the cold as well as having a bleached ice-like skin -- something reflected in this show. The two Icicles never interacted in the comics, with the first Icicle being killed during the Crisis on Infinite Earths and the second succeeding his father as a member of the Injustice Society. (Quite hilariously considering this show, the comic-book version of Icicle Jr. and Artemis are in a relationship and even had a child).
• Professor Hugo Strange is one of the first villains to be featured in Batman's comics, and has been one of his longest-running adversaries. A intelligent psychiatrist and scientist, Hugo Strange is famous for deducing Batman's secret identity, and is highly obsessed with Batman. His role as a warden seems to be borrowed from the vesrion of his character featured in the Batman: Arkham City game, where Hugo Strange also ascended into being the warden of the Arkham Asylum and later Arkham City prisons due to unethical manipulations. 
• Belle Reve Penitentiary is a prison that first appeared in the first issue of Suicide Squad in the 1980's, a prison specializing in metahuman criminals headed by Amanda Waller.  In the comics and various other adaptations, Waller is, of course, the leader of various government-sanctioned organizations such as Checkmate and ARGUS, most famous for going a bit too far in enforcing her agendas, most famously by founding the unethical Suicide Squad
• The Riddler, a.k.a. Edward Nygma, is one of the Batman's most iconic enemies. A career criminal who's obsessed with riddles, the Riddler would send convoluted riddles to Batman to solve before commiting a crime.
• Devastation, a.k.a. "Deva", the gigantic tattooed lady that hung out with Killer Frost, is a Wonder Woman enemy, created by the titan Cronus from clay similar to how Diana herself was created, to become an Anti-Wonder Woman. 
• Mentioned to be apprehended by the Martian Manhunter, the Headmaster is a name of various criminals in the comics. One of them, Thaddeus Hoskins, is a villain of Martian Manhunter -- a scientist who transferred his body in a robotic body and wants to do the same to all humanity in a misguided attempt to 'save' humanity from its inevitable destruction. This Headmaster is possibly the one this episode is referencing.
• Arkham Asylum for the criminally insane, the iconic asylum that houses most of Batman's enemies, is briefly mentioned when Mr. Freeze claims that he refuses to be tried as insane.
• The villains here are all captured in previous episodes. The ice villains Mr. Freeze, Icicle II, Killer Frost and Captain Cold were arrested in the opening scenes of "Independence Day". Blockbuster was captured at the end of "Fireworks", Brick was defeated by Speedy in "Welcome to Happy Harbor", Mammoth and Shimmer were arrested in "Drop Zone", Professor Ivo was arrested in "Schooled", Ojo and Hook were arrested in "Infiltrator" (Ojo references his fight with Superboy in that episode), Abra Kadabra was arrested in "Denial".