Young Justice S01E10 Review: Outside the Law

Young Justice, Season 1, Episode 10: Targets

Ah, this episode. It's another Red Arrow episode, and the Red Arrow storyline is one of the most interesting storylines that is stretched out over the course of the first season. The reason that ti worked is because Roy himself is a character -- an asshole of a character -- but we actually see him do things and develop over the course of the season, which is more than what we can say about the Light and its fast-irritating 'oh we are behind the plot of every single episode and every villain of the week is our minion'.

Red Arrow, on his solo mission, calls in Aqualad's help in his own personal mission as he tries to hunt down Cheshire (who's going to fuck up a peace summit), and it's this continuity where the episode works well. Cheshire is a villain we know is going to be important due to her ties to the whole Artemis mystery, and the friendship between the more cool-headed Aqualad and Red Arrow is well-established. Of course Red Arrow will pick Aqualad instead of Robin or Kid Flash -- it feels natural and that naturalness is great in storytelling.

Of course, the man Roy's protecting who would bring the peace summit to fruition? Lex Luthor. The Young Justice show always works on the assumption that the audience is well-versed on who Lex Luthor or Green Arrow or Aquaman are, because they're not holding our hands here with the more 'mainstream' DC lore. And while some would argue that this makes characters like Lex Luthor's evil reputation be more of an informed ability than anything, it is a show about the Young Justice characters, and rehashing another Lex Luthor or Joker story, which has been done in other Superman/Batman-centric shows, is probably not that fresh. Red Arrow quickly balks at having to help Luthor, knowing that he's evil even if he has a squeaky-clean public image. Luthor admits to having weapon-selling deals with the two halves of Rheasia, but at the same time he would want them united since it'll profit him better. He wants to hire Red Arrow to find the assassin, but they kind of refuse any sort of money from Luthor.

Cheshire flirts a bit with Red Arrow before escaping with the help of another returning villain, the Sportsmaster -- someone she doesn't seem to have good relations with -- and they return to their master, Ra's al Ghul, another well-established character in the more mainstream 'geek' community that the series assumes we're already familiar with. Ra's doesn't take part in any of the fights, though, leaving Cheshire and Sportsmaster to take on Red Arrow alone. It's pretty neatly-choreographed, and explosive javelins apparently beats explosive arrows.

Red Arrow ends up working with Luthor after all, using his connections to sneak him and Aqualad (finally in person) into the ceremony and stopping Cheshire's bomb. There's a cool bit with Aqualad's watershield, and the one-on-one fights between Cheshire and Red Arorw, as well as Aqualad and Sportsmaster, is a treat to watch. Aqualad is informed about the fact that there's a traitor among the Team (which rules Aqualad himself out) by Sportsmaster, and while he drives away the assassins with a kickass-looking giant water serpent, assisted with Mercy's cannon arm, the damage is done, and it kicks off the 'mole' subplot foreshadowed before.

Meanwhile, in the episode's B-plot, M'gann and Superboy go to school. M'gann adopts the alias of Megan Morse, while Superboy is given the moniker 'Conner' by M'gann (after Superboy rejects the 'John' name that both Red Tornado and Martian Manhunter uses in their human guise). There's a neat and clever bit of continuity where Martian Manhunter's suggestion of 'Kent' as the last name, referring to Clark Kent, is taken as a homage to Kent Nelson. Their school bits, like dealing with the superhero T-shirts, cheerleading tryouts and some dickish bullies, aren't anything to write home about, but it's a neat bit that helps develop them as characters, and Superboy's at least controlling his temper a little better. There's a rather forced tie-in to the Rhelasian civil war, although it does allow M'gann to tell Superboy about how things are in Mars, where the greens and whites are extremely prejudiced against each other. These shorter scenes with M'gann does so much good at developing her character compared to the previous, underewhelming episode, that's for sure -- she's still struggling to break out of the ditzy-girl stereotype and while this episode doesn't completely succeed, it's certainly trying to.

So yeah, there's the question about who the mole is. Aqualad is out of suspicion, since he's the one doing the investigating, and at first glance Artemis feels like a red herring, and Superboy is newly brought to life so it's probably not him (unless he's not aware of some genetic programming). M'gann is one of the more mysterious members of the team, and while Robin and Kid Flash might be 'established', we know relatively little about them as well. It's an interesting speculation bit.

The episode ends with two conversations. Red Arrow telling Aqualad that he respects the Team enough to call them for help instead of the League or Green Arrow, parting in good terms, while Luthor and Ra's meet and reveal that they're both profiting from Rhelasia's unification -- Ra's supplies the scary assassins to get the Rhelasians to cooperate when they are impressed with LexCorps' weaponry. This episode's Light subplot at least far more neatly tied into the episode, and reveals two of the head honchos in the Light -- Luthor and Ra's, joining Ocean Master and Queen Bee from the past two episodes.

Though honestly, hopefully Cheshire and Sportsmaster were in on the plan that Luthor's their ally, otherwise Cheshire would look like a gigantic tit if she accidentally did blow Luthor up with a bazooka.

Roll Call:

• Heroes: Red Arrow, Aqualad, Superboy, Miss Martian, Martian Mahunter, Red Tornado
• Villains: Cheshire, Lex Luthor, Mercy, Sportsmaster, Ra's al Ghul
• Others: Cat Grant, Marvin White, Mal Duncan, Karen Beecher, Lucas "Snapper" Carr, Wendy Harris

DC Easter Eggs Corner: 

• Ra's al Ghul, the demon's head, is the immortal leader of the League of Assassins. An impossibly old man who was able to rejuvenate himself and prolong his life with the magical waters of the mystical Lazarus Pits, Ra's long life means that he knows far, far more than any other mortal on Earth.
• Lex Luthor, a.k.a. Alexander Luthor Junior, is Superman's greatest enemy, a simple man who clawed his way up to be one of the most influential, rich and intelligent men on Earth. Part of what makes him dangerous is how he is always able to make himself seem to be innocent of the crimes that he sets in motion. Over the years there have been various takes on Luthor, of course, both in live action, animated or on paper .
• Mercy Graves, Luthor's bodyguard, originated from Superman: The Animated Series. Here she's been given a brand-new cyborg arm cannon, something that no previous incarnation of her possessed.
• Catherine "Cat" Grant, the reporter, is a recurring Superman supporting character, recently famous for being part of Supergirl's cast.
• School characters:
• Mal Duncan, in the comics, is the alter-ego of the Teen Titan known as Herald, later adopting the aliases Guardian, Hornblower and most recently Vox. She's hanging out with Karen Beecher, who is the alter-ego of the Teen Titan known as Bumblebee. Karen's hair is done in a similar way to how she looked in the 2003 Teen Titans cartoon.
• Wendy Harris & Marvin White, Conner and Megan's classmates, are based on the two annoying teenage sidekicks to the Justice League in the old Superfriends cartoon. 
• The teacher, Lucas Carr, otherwise known as Snapper Carr, is the original teen sidekick to the Justice League in the comics, eventually outgrowing his role and becoming a supporting character. He's affiliated with the comics' version of Young Justice as one of its mentors briefly. 
• Conner Kent, is, of course, Superboy's comic-book civilian name.
• The relationship between green and white martians, as told by M'gann, seems to be reversed in the Young Justice world, where the whites are the hated second-class citizens now instead of being the supremacists that enslaved the greens, though the history she tells seems to be truncated and slightly biased.