Young Justice S02E15 Review: The Justice League Does Something

Young Justice, Season 2, Episode 15: War

Well, with all the buildup and a couple of slower episodes (featuring on the M'gann/Artemis/Kaldur drama and the Runaways/Blue Beetle drama respectively), it's actually about time that we got a big "whoa holy shit" episode like this!

But first, we actually finally see the trial of the main Justice League members progressing on Rimbor, and while it's somewhat questionable that their trial would take so goddamn long (the date given in this episode is April, so nearly four months after the start of the season) the proceedings of the clearly corrupt court -- who hilariously demands bribes with increasingly obvious euphemisms and apparently went over everyone's head except for Hawkman -- is at least enough of a handwave. Sadly, we don't actually go into the angst of the Justice League for being apparently the cause of many destruction and maiming of random aliens (the show still skirts about saying if the Leaguers actually killed anyone). We get some neat cameos of the Kroloteans, and then the revelation that the Reach has been "invited" into Earth basically causes Earth to be off-limits to every other force in the galaxy... including as John Stewart points out, the Green Lantern Corps.

Now it's a pretty dumbass system that the Corps have set up, because apparently as long as anyone invites the Reach into their world -- regardless of prior knowledge or not of their nature -- the Reach is free to conquer? What are they, traditional leprechauns? This ends up allowing John Stewart to introdump some outsider's perspective on the Reach, and among the crowd watching the trial, one of them -- an alien warlord called Mongul -- ends up being convinced that the Reach taking over Earth and its potential metahuman army would mean a huge, huge upset for the power balance of the galaxy. And this little devil on Mongul's shoulder is definitely surprising when it's revealed to be none other than the Light's own Vandal Savage.

More pressing than the fact that Vandal Savage has convinced an alien warlord to fight Earth and the Light's supposed allies is... how did Savage reach space? Again, it's another in a set of delicious mysteries surrounding the Light that arguably is better-handled than the side-step about who their mysterious partner is. Just how much does the Light trust the Reach, and just how many steps ahead are the Light in their little chess game?

The Mongul/Savage scene takes place in April, whereas the rest of the recent episodes (and the rest of this one) takes place in May, so there's actually a neat little nod to the passage of time as the Warworld moves through space, and everyone both superhero and Reach basically freak out when Mongul's Warworld -- a literal Death Star filled with weapons and a big planet-busting cannon -- shows up on the Solar System. The Reach knows about Mongul, and Green Beetle, their deep-cover agent, relays this information to the Justice League and the Team. It's neat that Mongul's arrival as this wild card ends up being a common enemy. Sure, he's evil in his own way, with the ultimate goal of conquering the galaxy on his own terms... and if anything, him wanting to get rid of the Reach for the good of the galaxy is arguably more heroic than most depictions of Mongul. It's actually quite interesting, really -- if Mongul wasn't so keen on immediately vaporizing Earth, he could actually conceivably happily join up with the League as an ally in the fight against the Reach.

Meanwhile, as the Black Beetle and the Scientist (no name given!) discuss cryptic things underwater, the Ambassador meets up with UN Secretary Tseng and gives this huge, huge speech about how the Reach has no resources other than their single, totally-unarmed ship, but they will at least stand with humanity.

And then a pretty badass sequence shows up. At this point we've seen some of Earth's less-flashy heroes like Aquaman, Black Canary and Green Arrow helping people in news reports... but when the Warworld declines to negotiate and opens fire on Earth, it is the heroes of the Justice League that finally show why they're the protectors of Earth. Doctor Fate shows up and straight-up just nullifies the Warworld's Death Star cannon to simply reflect the cannon back at its source, while the arrival of Rocket, Captain Marvel, Captain Atom, Green Beetle and the Bio-Ship straight-up just nullifies and wrecks a lot of the Warworld's weaponry... buying time and attention for the Young Justice Team to infiltrate the Warworld. The montage of the Team splitting up and then each team noting their own goals (defeat Mongul, destroy the crystal key, destroy the power core), all of which will lead to victory -- is pretty damn badass.

The Reach end up being forced to help out and send out their little fleet hidden inside Earth's oceans around halfway through the battle to protect their assets... although after an actually cool rundown about the fact that Earth's heroes (minus some of their heaviest hitters, too!) and humanity's military can deal with a significant portion of the Warworld's missiles -- and noticeably, the Reach's own ships didn't quite manage to deal with as many missiles as Earth's heroes and military combined. Power level comparison is kind of bullshit and depends heavily on situation, I know, but I can't help but notice just why the Reach went through such lengths to infiltrate Earth and build up this reputation. For all their bluster about Earth being meat, they know that Earth has enough actual force to shut them down in direct combat. The Reach calculate that they can fight against 23% of Mongul's barrage (and even then at the cost of 2/3rds of their fleet), whereas Earth's heroes minus the Team and the Rimbor Seven can take out 64%. Yeah.

Also, Doctor Fate's ankh absorbing all the missiles is pretty damn badass! Almost makes me forgive the rather... off animation when the Reach ships fly out to intercept the missiles. That was a very noticeably lazy bit of animation.

The actual battle on board the Warworld is pretty fun, and while the argument between Guardian and Bumblebee that take place in-between dodging alien robots and lasers felt out of place, I guess this sort of is their therapeutic relationship makeup? Kind of felt that this could easily be the B-plot that ran throughout last episode's slower Runaways episode, honestly, but hey, the scenes are at least funny.

The heavy-hitting team that fights Mongul is pretty great, too, with Mongul constantly trash-talking Earth's heroes as they battle him being neat. His crack to Superboy about how "do you think Krypton's the only planet with a red sun?" is absolutely badass. The actual three-part mission end up being a bit repetitive, though at least the action's animated pretty gorgeously. Thanks to Guardian making some cracks at her through the intercom, Bumblebee reroutes the power core to zap Mongul and stun him long enough for Superboy and Wonder Girl to beat him down.

And as the Team celebrates their victory... there was a sudden mood whiplash as everyone goes to celebratory mode. It's actually a pretty well-done scene, too, with the Team interacting, Guardian and Bumblebee making up, Arsenal making a wisecrack... when suddenly Blue Beetle whacks Impulse in the head as he finally unveils his nature as a (controlled) double agent and easily takes out the weaker members of the team while they are still reacting. Interestingly and rather horrifyingly, Arsenal just flips out at the thought of being taken prisoner, and blows up the airlock and very near well damn killed all his friends -- it's a good thing most of the unconscious people were stapled down by Blue Beetle's gun, while Robin manages to grab Bumblebee and Wolf is a good boy and digs his claws in. The Sphere did get sucked out, but, y'know, robot. Yeah, Arsenal is not a stable man.

But before we can really dwell too much, Blue Beetle takes the opportunity to take out everyone except for Arsenal, who manages to slip away... while Blue Beetle notes that he has retrieved the crystal key to the Warworld, all seen through the Ambassador's eyes. A pretty damn awesome plot twist as we go straight into the final five missions and the endgame -- the Reach has played their hand... now the question is, how will our heroes react? And, perhaps, behind it all... just what was Vandal Savage's plan?

Roll Call:

• Heroes: Batman, Wonder Woman, Hawkwoman, Green Lantern (John Stewart), Martian Manhunter, Superman, Icon, Hawkman, Captain Atom, Aquaman, Black Canary, Nightwing, Superboy, Adam Strange, Bumblebee, Guardian, Red Tornado, Dr. Fate, Rocket, Captain Marvel, Impulse, Beast Boy, Blue Beetle, Wolf, Arsenal, Wonder Girl, Robin, Batgirl, 
• Villains: The Kroloteans, Vandal Savage, Mongul, the Ambassador, the Scientist, Black Beetle, Green Beetle, 
• Others: The Tribune, Galet Dasim, Catherine Grant, Tseng Dangun

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• Mongul of Warworld is one of Superman's classic enemies, and tended to be displayed as an alien despot ruling over Warworld, a planet-weapon that sometimes is depicted as a space gladiatorial arena. The comics have gone back-and-forth on whether Warworld is a planet-weapon or not, but eventually settled on it being a planet-weapon that ended up being controlled by Mongul, Cyborg Superman and Brainiac at different points of the DC timeline. The fact that the Warworld operates with a specific key was a huge part of Mongul's very first appearance in the comics.
• Mongul makes it a big point about how his destruction of Earth is a "mercy", repeating the world a couple of times, which definitely is meant to be a reference to the most well-known (and oft-homaged) story featuring Mongul, For the Man Who Has Everything, where he used a biological weapon called the Black Mercy. 
• While the Tribune is original to the show, the planet Rimbor is also known as the Crime Planet in DC comics, and homeworld of the Legion of Superheroes member Ultra Boy.
• The prosecutor in the JLA's trial is a new character called Galet Dasim, but his design and name is clearly inspired by the Green Lantern Corps member Malet Dasim, whose prominent roles tended to being a prosecutor among the Green Lantern Corps' trials.