Young Justice S01E13 Review: Captain Marvel's Holiday

Young Justice, Season 1, Episode 13: Alpha Male

Captain Marvel has had a rather checkered relationship with the media. Thanks to the uniqueness of his legal status in DC comics, it has been hard for them to properly adapt Captain Marvel into cartoons in the past, with the DCAU only managing to use Captain Marvel for a single episode of their Justice League Unlimited series. Of course, things have changed now with Captain Marvel being a major part of the upcoming live-action Justice League movies, and upgraded into being a central member of the New 52 version of the League. But Young Justice remains to be one of the best animated portrayals of Captain Marvel ever, showing him equally as a child and as a big beefy cheesy superhero that everyone is rightly intimidated by.

I really like 'Alpha Male' for several reasons -- the fact that it features the Team investigating an army of sentient gorillas is cool enough,  but Captain Marvel as a relatively major supporting character is definitely awesome. The DCEAU direct-to-video movies never gave Captain Marvel enough time to shine, acknowledging his child alter-ego before moving on, and Justice League Unlimited focused more on Captain Marvel's role as an innocent hero to play off Superman more than the duality of his existence. I've never been the biggest fan of Captain Marvel, only knowing him tangentially from 90's Justice Society comics and the Kingdom Come miniseries, but his portrayal in Young Justice makes the dorky man-child easily one of my favourite supporting superheroes in Young Justice. Yes, the main characters in this series are going to be the titular members of the Team, this mish-mash group of Teen Titans and Young Justice characters, but Captain Marvel's larger role as an actual character instead of a 'parental figure with some awesome scenes' the way Batman or Superman is treated here is definitely welcome.

The team fractures a little because Aqualad keeping a secret about the existence of a traitor (which they rightfully assume is Red Tornado at the moment, after the events of the previous episode), especially Superboy. It's a pretty logical next step, and a neat follow-up from last episode's hook. Sadly the episode doesn't actually do a super-great job at showing how Aqualad and Superboy reconciles their little conflict, but it's a neat subversion from the expected 'hunt down Red Tornado' story.

Captain Marvel, who's more than excited to hang out with the Team, is treated with suspicion by the members of the Team. Robin and Kid Flash think that the Captain's exuberance and enthusiasm are a facade to hide his suspicion over them and that the League blames the Team for what happened to Red Tornado. Of course, Captain Marvel is just that excited to go out with people who are mentally closer to his age -- he acts all Golden Age hero-y, but at heart he's still the child-like Billy Batson, a fact that no one in this continuity seems to be aware of. It's also a revelation that's only made to the audience at the end when Captain Marvel returns to his normal life, reverts to a kid an talks excitedly to his uncle about all the adventures he had with these cool kids.

The main plot of the episode, aside from the glorious Captain Marvel, is a bit weak. Miss Martian is pissed at Superboy's smothering, overprotective boyfriend issues. Superboy reverts to his early season one personality and lashes out angrily at everyone. Robin and Kid Flash just dick around and ditch Aqualad for keeping secrets from them. Aqualad loses all confidence with leadership and starts second-guessing himself. It honestly feels a bit forced and overdramatized, even if the series tends to do that sometimes this is one episode where it feels like they tried too hard to have the 'everyone hates each other now oh noes' moment. Like, I get that Robin and Kid Flash feels betrayed because the League keeping secrets was why the team was founded in the first place, but it felt not as well-developed as it should be.

The fights with mind-controlled animals are cool enough but felt filler-esque at times, although I do admit to being surprised with Superboy's adoption of Wolf the wolf. Aqualad deciding to force himself to be a leader and force respect by putting his foot down -- at least for this mission until he steps down -- is well and good enough, but it kind of feels like a rehash of the first 'Aqualad is the suitable leader' episode. Especially because everyone makes up after realizing that Aqualad got his information from the very untrustworthy Sportsmaster, which is why he keeps it at the down-low... and the fact that this could've been resolved with a single conversation made the whole plot feel a fair bit weaker than it probably could've been.

The Brain and Monsieur Mallah are behind it all, and while I'm a fan of these weird-ass Teen Titans/Doom Patrol villains, the way they're introduced -- enhancing animal brains -- is a bit weird especially in light (ha) of the future revelation that Brain's actually pretty high up in the Light's heirarchy. The two villains are fine and fit the more off-the-rails plot (which sneaks in a couple of Captain Marvel's more colourful supporting characters like the tiger) but it does feel a bit weird nonetheless. There's at least a pretty cool and dark bit where the Brain decides to rip out Captain Marvel's brain and put himself into Marvel's body, but that it offset by the utterly hilariously insane image of Mallah in surgery scrubs, making his normal beret-and-ammo-jacket getup look so much more normal in comparison. And then the two's exit, preceded initially by Brain's insane transformation only to pull off a 'run away woop woop woop' trick was a riot as well.

Side-note: we know Hamilton Hill survives it, but how utterly badass and unexpected was Mallah machinegunning them to apparent death in the cold open?

The Captain Marvel stuff was great, and it's still a pretty colourful episode that's fun to watch despite the rather forced conflict subplot. So yay.

Also, because I have nowhere else to put it, J'onn randomly patting the Sphere -- whose role honestly extends little beyond an obligatory cameo -- with a goofy smile on his face is hilariously out of nowhere and charming as all hell.

Roll Call:

• Heroes: Green Lantern (John Stewart), Martian Manhunter, Captain Atom, the Sphere, Kid Flash, Green Arrow, Superboy, Miss Martian, Robin, Artemis, Black Canary, Batman, Aqualad, Captain Marvel, Wolf the wolf
• Villains: Monsieur Mallah, Brain
• Others: Hamilton Hill, Mr. Tawny, Uncle Dudley

DC Easter Eggs Corner: 

• Captain Marvel, a.k.a. Billy Batson, is a child with pure heart and an incorruptible soul, chosen by the imortal wizard Shazam to inherit the awesome, god-like powers and upon speaking the magical word 'Shazam' (an acronym of Solomon, Hercules, Atlas, Zeus, Achilles and Mercury), the young boy can transform into Captain Marvel, the strongest mortal on Earth. In the comics, Captain Marvel is particularly famous for inviting lawsuits. The original creators of Captain Marvel, Fawcett Comics, had to face lawsuits from DC regarding plagiarization of Superman -- something which DC comics won. Subsequently the whole IP of Captain Marvel and its supporting characters were integrated into DC comics during the event Crisis on Infinite Earths. Then thanks to Marvel comics having their own character called Captain Marvel (a.k.a. Ms. Marvel), the DC's Captain Marvel ended up being rebranded Shazam.
• Brain & Monsieur Mallah are villains of the Doom Patrol. The nameless scientist who would become the Brain performed experiments on a gorilla and raised him into a super-genius gorilla he christened Monsieur Mallah. During an accident set up by a jealous Niles Caulder (later turning into the 'hero' called Chief, morally-ambiguous leader of the Doom Patrol), Brain would be nearly killed in an explosion, and only Mallah's intervention allowed him to survive as a brain in a robotic jar. The two would found the Brotherhood of Evil and menace the Teen Titans and later the Justice League. Also, the two of them are lovers, something that most animated adaptations (Teen Titans and Batman: The Brave and the Bold have used these characters as well) happily ignore. 
• Mayor Hamilton Hill is the mayor of Gotham City, an often-corrupt mayor first introduced in the comics before being a relatively major recurring character in Batman: The Animated Seriesb
• Kid Flash's suggested name for Wolf, "Krypto", is, of course, the real name of Superman's pet, Superdog. Miss Martian lampshades that it's already taken. I think Wolf the wolf is original to this cartoon series. 
• Uncle Dudley is the alter-ego of Uncle Marvel in the comics, a member of the Marvel Family.
• Captain Marvel names the tiger "Mister Tawny", a reference to Tawky Tawny, a humanoid tiger-man that's a supporting side character to Captain Marvel.
• Captain Marvel, of coures, resides in Fawcett City, the city named after Fawcett Comics who published Captain Marvel comics before the rights to the Marvel characters were bought out by DC. The comics version of Captain Marvel also lived in Fawcett City.
• "Get your paws off her you darn dirty ape" is, of course, a line that homages the 1960's movie Planet of the Apes. It's honestly obligatory for anything with intelligent apes to feature that line, yeah?