Young Justice S02E01 Review: Time Skip!

Young Justice: Invasion, Episode 1: Happy New Year

It has been a fair bit of time since I last reviewed the first season of Young Justice... or, indeed, that I reviewed any superhero cartoon at all. It's just that things sort of piled up between stuff like TV shows and manga that are ongoing, so this project got pushed backwards and backwards... but now we're here. And with the third season of Young Justice coming up some time later this year, I do hope I finish the reviews of the second season in a relatively timely manner. For those who missed all my season one Young Justice episode reviews, they're all compiled here.

Anyway, I was definitely surprised when I first watched the second season of Young Justice, officially titled "Young Justice: Invasion". There was a huge time-skip -- not a trope that's as commonly seen in Western animation as it is in Japanese anime. And Young Justice's second season took a particularly huge one that I remembered being a huge surprise to me when I first watched this. Not being someone who particularly pays attention to any of the dates given in cartoons, I was surprised to find out that the story has jumped forwards not just one year, not just two, but five whole years. In the meantime, some of our characters have graduated from the Titans The Team and joined the Justice League. There are more members in both the League and the Team than what we were familiar with at the end of the first season. Some plotlines hinted throughout the first season -- like Garfield Logan becoming Beast Boy, for example, or all those cameos in the high school in season one adopting their superhero personas -- have taken place off-screen, Robin has adopted a new identity as Nightwing, and we've got a huge amount of new members that were recruited and integrated into the team. Perhaps far more shockingly to shippers, Superboy and Miss Martian are apparently no longer dating.

Young Justice is a TV series that likes to run pretty quickly through its story, and I think this timeskip is perhaps the biggest showcase of that. Its second season, Invasion, clearly wanted to tell a story that centers more about an alien invasion, in contrast to the first season's focus on the formation of the Team and the character interactions within them. But they didn't just want to slog from point A to point B, hence the time skip. After a brief recap of the events of the finale -- the six Justice League members that were brainwashed and sent into deep space by the Light -- we go straight into action as the episode sorts itself out. And, sure, a good chunk of the episode is just a wham-bam train of changes that have happened over the past five years, as well as introductions to new members of the Team, and us, the audience, just sits back and sees where everyone is.

And perhaps the bigger question -- where are everyone who isn't. Conspicuously missing from the Team are Kid Flash, Artemis and Aqualad (and also Red Arrow), all of whom will have... interesting answers down the line. Meanwhile, out of our main cast from the previous season, Superboy and M'gann are still on the team, while Robin has became Nightwing. This last one probably threw some people who aren't super-familiar with DC's superheroes off, even with the extremely awkward introdump of Lagoon Boy going "you trained hard as Robin, and then as Nightwing". Rocket and Zatanna have since graduated and joined the Justice League, whereas the role of secondary members of the Team are filled up by Beast Boy, Blue Beetle, a new Robin, Lagoon Boy, Bumblebee, Batgirl and Wonder Girl. Oh, and Malcolm Duncan, the future Herald, mans the computers.

Other than the recapping, we jump pretty quickly into things, although I do like the fake-out of the opening, which begins with Superboy, Miss Martian and Robin (and you may be forgiven into thinking this is Dick in a new suit) taking down Clayface in the sewers, a neat bit of generic superheroing... and then Nightwing steps out of the shadows, and the show quickly starts with its rapid-fire status quo changes. New members! Miss Martian and Lagoon Boy are dating! More new members! And then we jump straight into another set of action scenes, featuring DC comics fan-favourite Lobo as he battles Batgirl and Wonder Girl and rips an UN official in half... only to reveal that the UN official is, in fact, a tiny little green lizard alien that pulls something out of Men in Black and is controlling the dude. Lobo heads off with his bounty while the superheroes stand around confused.

And this is apparently going to be the hook for this season, because apparently aliens (Kroloteans, specifically) have infiltrated Earth's society. They stole Zeta Beam teleportation technology from the planet Rann. After a brief introduction to a Justice League ally, Adam Strange (who you might recognize from his newest outing in the live-action Krypton), as well as some exposition about Zeta Beams and Rann, Adam Strange tells the League and the Team that apparently the six members that were missing in season one have done some crime in space while mind-controlled that have caused an APB out on Justice League members in space... but not the Team. All this Adam Strange stuff is interesting, but other than M'gann's team going with Adam Strange to Rann, it's all not going to be explored in this episode.

Instead, the majority of this episode focuses on the Team being split up to track down the Kroloteans hiding all over the Earth. While we get glimpses of the new members' personalities here and there -- Beast Boy's taken over Wally's role as the trophy collector, Mal's the guy in the chair that handles communications, Lagoon Boy is boisterous and really likes the phrase "Neptune's beard" -- the episode smartly chooses to keep its focus on three people, namely Lagoon Boy, Blue Beetle and the new Robin. Robin and Nightwing have a bit of a conversation about giving Robin command over the 'gamma squad', which Robin dismisses as either Nightwing picking a safe, no-risk mission to send him out on, or that he's so short-handed it doesn't matter.

It's an interesting hook, but other than the two of them sharing a chuckle over it when it turns out that Robin's team hit the mother-lode, it's sadly not built up that much. The third act is just some neat superhero action as we are treated to some neat visuals of Lagoon Boy's ballooning up superpowers, as well as Blue Beetle's strange beetle-suit. Jamie Reyes is one of the most interesting new superheroes that DC has introduced in the past decades, considering how resistant the geek community is to change (guilty as charged myself) but the execution and utilization of Blue Beetle in this season of Young Justice is pretty awesome, and I do like how the nature of Blue Beetle's alien suit is hinted at pretty early on when he is able to converse with the Kroloteans in the base.

Before we close this off, I do want to note the neat little segment of G. Gordon Godfrey being this angry pundit who spreads this huge talk about "ALIENS ARE EVIL!" after the Lobo segment. Besides the obvious foreshadowing regarding Godfrey (who's an actual character in the comics with far more sinister intentions than just being an angry TV man) it's also a very neat little running plotline throughout the Invasion storyline about how the superheroes and aliens look to the public.

Ultimately, other than exploring a bunch of alien stuff and incorporating some neat ways to sneak in exposition dumps, this episode is pretty all right. It's not spectacular, but it certainly works to the standards set by the first season of Young Justice and is visually and story-wise pretty appealing. Great start to perhaps one of my favourite seasons of superhero material ever. 

Roll Call:

• Heroes: Superboy, Miss Martian, Robin II, Beast Boy, Blue Beetle, Bumblebee, Lagoon Boy, Nightwing, Malcolm Duncan, Wolf, Captain Atom, Wonder Girl, Batgirl, Superman, Martian Manhunter, Zatanna, Rocket, Catherine Colbert, Batman, Green Lantern (John), Adam Strange, Wonder Woman, Hawkwoman, Flash, Hawkman, Red Tornado, Icon, Captain Marvel, Black Lightning, Green Arrow, Plastic Man, Black Canary, Dr. Fate, Aquaman, the Atom
• Villains: Clayface, Lobo, other Kroloteans
• Civilians: Secretary Tseng, Gordon Godfrey, Catherine Grant, Sardath of Rann

DC Easter Eggs Corner:
Wow, I do have to talk about a lot of characters this time, huh?

• As any DC fan worth his salt knows, the original Robin, Dick Grayson, would quit from being under Batman's shadow, lead the Teen Titans and eventually adopt the mantle of Nightwing.
• Blue Beetle, a.k.a. Jaime Reyes, is the third person to bear the mantle of Blue Beetle. After finding the mysterious talisman known as the Scarab which gave the first Blue Beetle (Dan Garrett) his powers, the Scarab revealed itself to be an alien robot that latched on to Jaime's back and manifests in a transforming super-suit around him. Blue Beetle's origin story will be explored throughout this season, so I'm not going to delve deep into it. 
• Lagoon Boy (real name La'gaan) is a minor character in the pages of Aquaman and Young Justice, although his biggest fictional roles is in this cartoon. He's basically from a sub-race of Atlanteans with more obvious fish-like features. Lagoon Boy previously appeared in the season one episode "Downtime" as a brief cameo. 
• Batgirl, a.k.a. Barbara Gordon, is the daughter of Gotham City's police commissioner James Gordon. Inspired by the heroics of Batman and Robin, she would adopt the mantle of Batgirl and impress Batman enough to work with her directly. Barbara has appeared in episode 12 of the first season as one of Dick's schoolmates.
• Tim Drake is the third person to be called Robin in the comics, succeeding Jason Todd and Dick Grayson. Tim Drake was one of the members of the comic-book team called "Young Justice" alongside the generation of Superboy, Impulse and the second Wonder Girl. As he grew older, he would be part of the Teen Titans and eventually lead that team as well, and eventually shed the Robin costume and adopt the alter-ego 'Red Robin'.
• Wonder Girl, a.k.a. Cassandra "Cassie" Sandsmark, is the second superhero to call herself by that name, succeeding the original Wonder Girl, Donna Troy, who would adopt the persona of Troia. Cassie Sandsmark is the daughter of the Olympian god Zeus and an archaeologist, and gained superpowers at a young age. Working as a sidekick to Wonder Woman, she would join the comics' version of the team called Young Justice, and upon its disbandment, join the Teen Titans. Wonder Girl's costume here is based on her first Young-Justice-era costume. 
• Bumblebee, a.k.a. Karen Beecher, is a lady who built a bee-themed suit that allowed her to fly, and was offered membership into he Teen Titans West in the comics. Her shrinking powers (undoubtedly based on Marvel superhero Wasp) was given to her by the 2003 Teen Titans cartoon, which was imported to her comic-book counterpart. Karen and her boyfriend Mal first appeared in episode 10 of the first season, and have made multiple appearances as cameos or minor roles throughout the first season.   
• Adam Strange is one of DC's more oddball superheroes, being a normal human man who discovered a strange cosmic phenomenon called the Zeta Beam (which, in Young Justice continuity, powers the League's teleporters) which allowed him to be transported to the distant planet of Rann. Adam's unique attunement to the Beams allowed him to travel back and forth between Rann and Earth, and he his time on Rann donning a jetpack and saving Rann from extra-terrestrial dangesr. 
• Mentioned in Adam Strange's quick dialogue is the planet Rann and his scientist ally (and eventual father-in-law) Sardath, both of which are featured majorly in the next episode. 
• Lobo is an anti-hero that has been featured in many, many DC works, due to his immense popularity. His usage in DC media varies between being ultra-violent, ultra-gritty and ultra-serious... or a parody of the tropes associated with those sorts of characters. Lobo is the last surviving member of the Czarnian species, a species that was as powerful as Superman (who he fights a lot), and had wiped out the entirety of his race. While he tends to be villainous, he works on his own strange code of honour as a space bounty hunter. 
• G. Gordon Godfrey is the alias of the supervillain Glorious Godfrey, a media mogul who spreads anti-superhero messages and manipulates the media and creating public unrest against superheroes in general. As mentioned above, revealing more about Godfrey would spoil a twist at the end of the series. 
• Catherine Cobert is a supporting character in the Justice League International/Justice League Europe era of comics, where she is a UN liaison to Justice League Europe. She apparently has a similar role here, shooing away nosy reporters.
• The Kroloteans are a recurring enemy of the Green Lantern, being a race of gremlin-like aliens (actually called "Gremlins" in-universe) that perform genetic experiments on subjects and modify them to create super warriors. They are responsible for the creation of Green Lantern enemies like Hector Hammond and the Shark, and have allied with other evil alien races over the years. 
• The alien language that Lobo speaks is Interlac, a fictional alien language that is used by many alien races in the DC universe, most notably featured in Legion of Super-Heroes and Lobo stories. 
• The Justice League title that shows on the screen behind Godfrey is derivative from the logo of the Justice League animated series, albeit with enough alterations as to not provoke copyright problems. 
• Clayface notes that electrical attacks "won't work on (him) anymore", referencing to how he was defeated with a similar trick in "Downtime", the eighth episode of the first season.