Young Justice S01E06 Review: Enter Artemis

Young Justice, Season 1, Episode 6: Infiltrator

I really like this episode. Of course, part of it might be because I really like Artemis -- an enigmatic character that's more or less semi-original to the show, although she does share her name and backstory with a character from the comics -- and the show makes her interesting from the get-go. See, throughout the first five episodes we've been getting hints that the sixth member of the Team is going to be Speedy (or, well, Red Arrow as he's been calling himself now) as long as the Team can get him on their side. Well, turns out that the Green Arrow sidekick that the team's going to be hanging out with isn't Red Arrow, but rather a brand-new sidekick called Artemis.

But we do follow Red Arrow for a bit, as he rescues a scientist, dr. Serling Roquette (who I found to be relatively bland, honestly, but it's an escort mission and in these things the escort is always annoying) from a bunch of armed guards on an island. And Red Arrow is... considerably more brutal. He doesn't explicitly kill people, but he uses really big explosives during that raid.

Meanwhile, M'gann, Superboy, Robin and Aqualad have a beach party. Must be nice to be them. Wally's arrives too late on the base, only to find that Batman, Green Arrow and Tornado to arrive with the newest member of the Team... not Speedy, but this blonde hot lady archer Artemis. Who's apparently also Green Arrow's niece. And, well, being great friends (or at least acquaintances, Roy was kind of a dick) to Speedy/Red Arrow, Wally quickly defends his friend's honour. Red Arrow shows up and while the Team (well, the three founders, anyway) say that he's still welcome, all Red Arrow shows up to do is to is exchange some barbs with Oliver for 'replacing' him so quickly and to warn them about the Fog, a swarm of data-collecting people-eating nanobots that the League of Assassins got dr. Roquette to design.

Now I really wish we know more about the bad blood between the Green and Red Arrow, especially considering how the Arrow sidekicks will be important down the line. Red Arrow is full of anger and bile, and I guess both the 'kiddie table' thing and being 'replaced' are valid enough reasons, but Green Arrow tries his best to get Red Arrow to work with him... and later work with the Team, but Red Arrow refuses and exits the base and the episode. Again, I'm actually siding with Green Arrow on this one -- sure, Oliver might look a little ditzy here but he's being reasonable and attempting to reconciliate.

Artemis, of course, proves to be competent, far more savvy and able to give them intel about the League's inner workings, and also reveals herself to be the one that saved Superboy from Amazo last episode. Kid Flash ends up being the source of conflict in this episode. Both Aqualad and Robin are level-headed and professional enough to work with Artemis, but Kid Flash is more immature and child-like and bickers with Artemis all throughout the episode. Artemis also finds a little bit of conflict with M'gann after she openly admires Superboy and causes no small degree of embarrassment. Meanwhile, Aqualad gets Roquette to track the Fog, knowing that this will put them in League crosshairs.

Superboy and Robin go off to pursue the League, but the League also pursues the Team. We get lots of colourful characters and action scenes thrown around and it's so, so much better than the robot monkeys from last episode. Cheshire, this Japanese assassin with shurikens and a cat mask, does battle with Aqualad and his swirling water-blades and his super-dense skin. Artemis fights Cheshire too when Aqualad is slowed down by poison, but Cheshire escapes before she is outnumbered. Kid Flash arrives a little too late (good job, fastest boy alive) and blames Artemis for leaving her post, but this time he's being a dick and the others acknowledge it.

Of course, the next thing you know, it's Kid Flash and Artemis standing guard together, protecting Roquette, and Cheshire shows up with backup -- Hook (who's just a dude with a hook) and Black Spider (portrayed here as literally a knockoff evil Spider-Man). Bypassing the far more powerful Miss Martian and Aqualad, the three ambush Kid Flash and Artemis... only for Miss Martian to be impersonating Roquette throughout this leg of the mission. However, Cheshire still manages to get away. Artemis pursues her, only to be defeated in a one-on-one combat.

Superboy confront Professor Ojo, who has a freakin laser eye. That Superboy punches through. Robin manages to use Wayne Tech technology to hack the Fog and shut down the nanobots, causing Cheshire to bugger off... though not before Artemis sees her real face and recognizes the face underneath. Cheshire taunts Artemis that, sure, Artemis can slow her down, but is her position 'secure enough' for them to learn everything that Cheshire knows? Artemis then lets Cheshire escape, which adds a whole lot of mystery. Still, the Team defeated Ojo, Hook and Black Spider, stopped the Fog, and despite Kid Flash's dickery they still won. The others welcome Artemis to the team...

And as Artemis goes home alone, she is confronted by Red Arrow who calls bullshit on the whole niece story. He trusts Green Arrow and Batman enough not to expose her cover, but leaves her with one warning: "don't hurt my friends".

And, well, all of this is pointing to the fact that Artemis is a traitor, right? Especially when Sensei informs the mysterious floating Facebook portraits of the Light overlords that they still have an 'operative on the inside'.

Artemis herself is more mysterious than likeable at this episode. She's snarky enough, and she looks cool, and is clearly competent, but there's a lot about her that's mysterious -- does Batman and Green Arrow know her backstory? Whatever it is, why trust her? What is the backstory that Cheshire can destabilize it if her position is 'not secure enough'? Why is that knowledge apparently so dreaded by Artemis that she lets Cheshire get away? There's so much pointing to Artemis as the traitor, that when I first watched the episode I immediately thought that Artemis was an obvious red herring and thus not the 'operative on the inside', but then who? Which one of the five that we've followed for five episodes looked like the traitor?

Overall the episode's still pretty decent. Wally's absolutely annoying with his pissing contest with Artemis, and being the most one-dimensional character in the show right now (even more boring than Aqualad, whose whole point was to be a boring sane leader) and he really needs more to do. Still, it does give us a lot of cool action scenes, a very intense 'outwit the other group' plot and builds up both Artemis and Cheshire's mystery... as well as still giving Red Arrow things to do and keeping him as a constant (and angry) ally despite him not really being part of the Team.

Side-note: how fucking creepy was it for M'gann's head to go full Exorcist and spin around like that before transforming?

Roll Call:

• Heroes: Red Arrow, Miss Martian, Robin, Aqualad, Superboy, Kid Flash, Red Tornado, Batman, Artemis, Green Arrow
• Villains: Sensei, Professor Ojo, Cheshire, Black Spider, Hook, the Light's council
• Others: dr. Serling Roquette

DC Easter Eggs Corner: 

• Artemis... hoo, boy, where do we begin? She shares her name and backstory with Artemis Crock from the comics, known alternatively as 'Artemis' and 'Tigress', but she's not affiliated with the Teen Titans or Green Arrow in the comics. There have been female sidekicks to Green Arrow before, namely Mia Dearden (the second Speedy) and two superheroines called Arrowette, but neither resembles Artemis in the show whether from her look (chest arrow symbol notwithstanding) or her backstory. YJ's Artemis does share some backstory with her comic-book counterpart, if not her storyline. I'll not spoil much since the next few episodes are going to explore her backstory.
• Roy Harper, previously Speedy, now calls himself Red Arrow. In the comics, Roy Harper went from Speedy to adopting the codename Arsenal before becoming Red Arrow. His Red Arrow costume is a mix of his Arsenal and Red Arrow looks. 
• Serling Roquette is a supporting character in Superboy's comics, being one of Superboy's love interests and later serving as a member of Cadmus. 
• Sensei is a recurring Batman enemy and one of the higher-ranking members of the League of Assassins, often acting as Ra's Al Ghul's herald. Some stories in the comics also imply that Sensei is Ra's father. True to his name, in addition to being a powerful martial artist himself the Sensei is also a trainer of junior League of Assassins members.
• The League of Assassins began life in Batman and Richard Dragon comics, and is an international, well, league of assassins led by the immortal warrior, Ra's Al Ghul, who has lived longer than most mortals due to bathing in the waters of the Lazarus Pit. While Ra's made no appearance here, the fact that Sensei reports to the Light means that it's a safe bet that Ra's is a member of the enigmatic Light.
• Infinity Island, where Red Arrow saves dr. Roquette from, is one of the many bases of operations for the League of Assassins in the comics.
• Cheshire, a.k.a. Jade Nguyen, is an enemy of the Teen Titans in the comics and while also an assassin with a kimono and a cat mask, she's not affiliated with the League of Assassins in the comics. Cheshire is also well-known as having a on-and-off romance with Roy Harper.
• Black Spider is a Batman villain, and there has been three of them -- Eric Needham and Johnny LaMonica fought Batman various times, while the third, Derrick Coe, tangled with the Birds of Prey. His appearance here is a combination of the Needham version's purple outfit and the LaMonica version's Spider-Man-esque goggles and a spider emblem on his face, but he has relatively little in common with any comic-book Black Spider, being based more on the Marvel superhero Spider-Man with web-shooters, and voiced by Josh Keaton who voiced Spider-Man in Spectacular Spider-Man.
• Professor Ojo is a very obscure and somewhat forgotten villain, an enemy of Richard Dragon, an eyeless man whose father built a helmet with a special cyclopean eye. After his appearance in the cartoon, he ends up seeing a return in the comics.
• Hook, a.k.a. Matson, is a man with a hook for an arm, and is the assassin who killed Boston Brand, otherwise known post-humously as the supernatural hero Deadman. Out of the villains here, only Sensei and Hook are actually aligned with the League of Assassins in the comics. 
• STAR Labs, a group of generally good-aligned scientists that are a major part of Superman stories (and also the Flash's TV series) appear briefly as one of the places that the Fog looted.