Young Justice S02E14 Review: Challenge of the Super-Friends

Young Justice, Season 2, Episode 14: Runaways

What is it with these good superhero shows trying to modernize the "Captain Ethnic" characters from Super-Friends? I mean, don't get me wrong, both Justice League Unlimited and Young Justice actually do a pretty great job at portraying these homages. And "Runaways" here is a pretty great reboot of these rather problematic characters, for sure! Again, some fans might complain that the later episodes of Young Justice spend perhaps a wee bit too much time with Static and his buddies, and not quite enough time to develop new members of the team or older ones that have been out of the spotlight for a while (Nightwing is the biggest recipient among the old cast)... but I actually thought that the focus on Blue Beetle's story ties in well with the Reach/Light villainous storyline, and the Runaways* ends up factoring in a big way.

*Static's group is never officially called the Runaways, but the episode's title fits them so much that I'm going to call them that anyway.

And the episode spends a good chunk of time developing these characters. Virgil "Static" Hawkins, Tye Longshadow, Ed Dorado Junior and Asami "Sam" Koizumi aren't happy that they've basically traded one set of captors for the other. They understand, on the intellectual level, that STAR Labs and their detached staff are just trying to help them, but they definitely aren't willing to be used as what amounts to laboratory rats for any extended periods of time. The episode actually makes the STAR Labs staff strict and unlikeable, but not sinister at all, an admirable choice by the writing staff. And considering that a good chunk of these children, other than Virgil, are runaways, it's not a far stretch to understand that they distrust STAR Labs and decide to break out.

It's just such a shame that out of all these characters, only Tye Longshadow really has any sort of meaningful backstory or any connection for the audience to care about, with Longshadow's own troubled family and his friendship with Blue Beetle. Sam ends up being completely redundant to the entire episode and the show just has her say sumimasen every time she opens her mouth due to a language barrier, which is kind of unfortunate but also hilarious at the same time. At one point, the Japanese words she says in a full sentence basically translates to "I have no idea what's going on, but I'll go along!"

Virgil "Static" Hawkins might be more recognizable to a wider audience thanks to his old cartoon show, but as far as the version in this show is concerned, he's sort of only beginning to display any sort of personality now -- he's the more 'lawful good' of the team, I suppose, to counteract Longshadow's more rebellious nature. Ed Dorado... we get to see a scene early on of him arguing with his dad, Ed Dorado Senior (a recurring background character throughout this season), who is far more concerned about proving his meta-gene hypothesis than finding a cure or realizing that Ed Dorado Junior ran away from home to meet him.

And the episode neatly goes back and forth to showing the degree of control the kids have with their powers. Their initial attempt to break out is foiled when Neutron snitches on them, but Sam, Ed and Virgil show off that they can control their powers enough to kick the ass of guards who are trying to subdue instead of kill. But when they are on their own, they clearly do a fair bit of fucking up, especially when Tye ends up nearly losing control of his powers and that encounter with the STAR Labs dudes just doing their job could've ended really ugly. Their sheer inexperience, like trying to crash at Virgil's place which would bring the entirety of STAR Labs crashing on to them, is also a neat nod to their inexperience.

The episode ends up focusing on Blue Beetle, with him being the only member of the Team to make a physical appearance (Nightwing has a brief voice role), but that's for good reason. For one, his real identity as Jaime Reyes ends up being the only reason why Tye, the most rebellious member of the Runaways, even bothers listening to him. Jaime concedes the point of not letting the Runaways return to STAR Labs, and tries to find a third way...

But, of course, a supervillain attacks! This time around is returning antagonist Red Volcano, who rampages around STAR Labs hunting for Amazo's pars, as Volcano rampages in STAR Labs, Blue Beetle and the Runaways are the only ones near enough to stop him. And during the fight... Blue Beetle ends up increasingly becoming violent and angry, straight-up shoving any suggestions from the Runaways to exercise constraint, and is hell-bent on destroying Red Volcano regardless of the collateral damage. The climax of the episode ends up with the Runaways saving the dazed and trapped STAR Labs staff while Blue Beetle continues to do battle with Red Volcano pretty brutally, destroying the building in the process and killing Volcano with no restraint at all. Most damningly, when Volcano traps the Runaways in rocky hands and tells Blue Beetle to "save them like a good hero", Blue Beetle straight-up doesn't give a shit and continues to go for the kill. 

Is it any wonder that despite Tye and Jaime's heart-to-heart earlier in the episode, the Runaways decide to, well, run away again? With Blue Beetle absolutely and easily distracted in showboating for the news reporters that arrive, and angrily shooting down even Tye's suggestions, the Runaways decide to bugger off.

Of course, we then get the revelation that Green Beetle is, in fact, a villain, a double agent sent by the Reach to infiltrate the Team, and last episode's tinkering with Blue Beetle's Scarab was just him reprogramming Blue's Scarab to become back on-mode. It's definitely a neat twist, and, as I mentioned last episode, it was left ambiguous enough whether M'gann's half-hearted mindscan was accurate. And it sort of plays into the thematic parallel of there being a villainous version of Kaldur'ahm, infiltrating the good guys as a deep cover agent. The Scarab is calling the shots now, and while it can reasonably pull up a good enough cover of Blue Beetle's personality, in battle its savagery ends up being shown.


That scene where Green and Blue Beetle are discussing Blue's failure and "overplaying his hand" is neatly done, as it could've easily been talking about Jaime's control over the Scarab when it's apparently just Reach operatives discussing the Scarab's newfound dominance over Jaime when Black Beetle shows up.

The episode's final scene, of course, ends with Lex Luthor showing up in front of the Runaways, finally putting his plans in "True Colors" into action. He reveals to the Runaways that he had helped out their escape in STAR Labs by deactivating the power to the facility, sent Red Volcano to STAR (a detail he leaves out to the Runaways) and even summoned the press to distract Blue Beetle. Luthor tells them this half-truth about how he knew that the Reach is bad news for Earth and is he now is trying to protect Earth from them, and he needs his own little superpowered strike team. Luthor promises some glorious sweet words -- the Runaways would get resources, but will be free to accept his missions as they will. Luthor plays to the Runaways' own anger at being used, something that he claims he himself is being used... and the chance to play secret agent and bring down an invading alien force is definitely sweet honey to these kids' ears. They are definitely not villainous, but they definitely are easily swayed to Luthor's side... and also sort of shows off the true plans of the Light (or at least Luthor), which is to eventually double-cross the Reach.

Overall, a pretty great spotlight episode for a bunch of new characters and Blue Beetle. I just really wished that these newer characters had gotten more incremental spotlights from earlier episodes beyond Longshadow's friendship with Jaime and Virgil getting a line or two every other episode, and I also kind of wish this episode had a B-plot to break up the Runaways/Beetle plot... but it's still a neat and solid episode. Just one that perhaps wouldn't have that many fans for those expecting the actual Team to have more screentime.

Roll Call:

• Heroes: Adam Strange, Blue Beetle, Nightwing (voice only)
• Villains: Red Volcano, Amazo's body, Green Beetle, Black Beetle, Lex Luthor, Mercy Graves
• Others: Virgil Hawkins, Tye Longshadow, Asami Koizumi, Neutron, Dr. Wilcox, Eduardo Dorado Sr, Eduardo Dorado Jr, Burton Thompson

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• The members of the Runaways team is, of course, with the exception of Static, meant to evoke the "racially inclusive" superheroes included in Hanna-Barbera's Challenge of the Super-Friends cartoon, which tended to be ignored in the mainstream DC continuity. Justice League Unlimited did a similar thing with the Ulti-Men, and just like the Ulti-Men, the Runaways team end up working with Luthor at the end of this episode. 
• Static, a.k.a. Virgil Hawkins, was initially introduced as a superhero published by Milestone Comics, before being folded into DC comics. He's most commonly known by 2000-era cartoon Static Shock, which was part of the DCAU. In this team, he is an analogue of Black Vulcan, Superfriends' suspiciously-similar-substitute to Black Lightning due to some royalties problem.
• Tye Longshadow is based on the Superfriends' Apache Chief, and borrows his name (Longshadow) from Apache Chief's stand-in in Justice League Unlimited. Where Apache Chief uses Apache magic to grow into a gigantic size, Longshadow has the far cooler ability of creating an energy projection of a giant around him.
• Asami "Sam" Koizumi is based on the Superfriends' Samurai (hence the "Sam" nickname). Samurai in Superfriends had Red Tornado's wind-controlling powers, although his was given by Japanese magic. Sam Koizumi is given powers that allow her to generate kinetic energy or sound waves of sorts which manifests in a series of rings that homages Samurai's tornadoes. 
• Eduardo "Ed" Dorado Junior and his father Ed Dorado Senior is based on Superfriends' El Dorado. Superfriends' El Dorado has ambiguous powers including teleportation, illusions, super-strength and flight depending on what the episode demands, while Ed Dorado just has the teleportation. 
• In addition to using a manhole cover as a hoverboard like his comics/Static Shock counterpart, Virgil notes that he has a pair of loving parents and a sister, a reference to his comic-book counterpart's family.
• Burton Thompson is a minor character and brief director of STAR Labs from Superman comics. Dr. Wilcox, on the other hand, is original to the show and shares his name with show producer David Wilcox.
• I forgot to mention him in "Cornered" (S02E11), but Neutron has joined the STAR Labs' testing crew after Impulse cured him in "Bloodlines" (S02E06). 
• Red Volcano was last seen in episode 15 of the first season, "Humanity", where he had been turned into molten slag. Amazo's body has been seen as a trophy in the Hall of Justice, and it was last seen clattering apart when Despero fought the Team in episode 11 of this season.