Young Justice S01E15 Review: Zatanna's Day Out

Young Justice, Season 1, Episode 15: Humanity

So this episode works as the follow-up to the earlier episodes where Red Tornado disappeared and is kidnapped by his siblings, Red Torpedo and Red Inferno. It's been some time since Red Tornado was kidnapped, and I really wished the previous couple of episodes dropped lines telling us about the League's investigation to Tornado's disappearance. We get the quick confirmation that T.O. Morrow, Red Tornado's creator, was the one responsible for Tornado's kidnap, and it's a neat bit of tie-in to both "Welcome to Happy Harbour" and "Homefront".

We get an introdump from T.O. Morrow about his insanely long-running plan of building androids and trying to have them infiltrate the Justice Society of America, first going through Red Torpedo (who disguises himself as the Golden Age Red Torpedo!), then Red Inferno (who disguises herself as the superheroine Firebrand! God, this show and its obscure Easter Eggs) before finally settling on Red Tornado... who actually ended up developing sentience, and becoming a hero himself.

As if that isn't enough, we also get some neat little world-building that establishes that the Justice Society does exist in this continuity -- we know that it does from the first Dr. Fate episode, but it's the first time we've actually seen the team in action, albeit via flashbacks. Seeing the likes of Jay Garrick and Alan Scott has always made me happy.

Meanwhile, we get a brief reminder of Captain Marvel and Black Canary sitting in as the team's new 'den mothers', with a hilarious bit of Marvel acquiescing to the injued Wally's every whim. The episode does the dual duty of both introducing Zatanna. Young Justice's decision to use Zatara as a member of the Justice League is now very apparent, because they've also de-aged Zatanna (traditionally a superheroine the same age with the likes of Batman and Superman) to be able to interact with the Young Justice team. Zatanna is instantly likable, and like Captain Marvel before her, quickly proves herself to be a very interesting guest star.

Zatara's evidently a more protective father compared to the other superheroes in the League, not allowing Zatanna to join the Team or the missions. The Team's split a little due to Superboy being angry at Tornado's apparent treachery, with the others who want to make a mission to rescue Red Tornado, with Zatanna floating the idea that they 'kidnap' her under the excuse of showing Zatanna around Happy Harbour, to get around the restrictions placed upon them by the League. Zatanna doesn't get a ton of chances for characterization in a crowded episode -- she stays a lot longer than this episode implies, though, so she gets more chances to shine -- but it does manage to portray her as a charming girl that is happy enough to play ball and bend the rules a little, but has enough of a backbone to stand for her own when needed be.

There's an interesting bit where Hugo Strange allows the Team to interrogate Professor Ivo, Morrow's competitor, and while M'gann's telepathy didn't work, Zatanna's reality-breaking spells manage to get Ivo to spill the bins. As they travel to Morrow's lab, Morrow has apparently built his masterpiece, 'Red Volcano'... who's outfitted with a programming that will not fail him the way that Tornado's did. Which ends up reducing Red Volcano to a simple "kill all humans" mentality. There's a harrowingly disturbing bit when Volcano tries to rip T.O. Morrow apart, but apparently Morrow has been operating via a remote-controlled android (while Brom Stikk just sneaks away) which is pretty cool. Volcano then tries to pull an Ultron and destroy all humanity with a disaster while the robots conquer the world.

We get a pretty neat bit where Superboy seems to be devolving back to his early-season-one rarrr angry angry fighty brute persona, but Aqualad comparing Red Tornado's life as someone who's initially built as a simple weapon, something identical to Conner's own backstory, causes him to actually back down. Hey, character development! We also put limiters on Zatanna's powers, because this version of Zatanna is powerful but doesn't have the fine controls that prevents her from deus ex machina-ing Red Tornado back.

Of course, the big climax isn't the battle with evil android Red Volcano, but rather the seemingly mind-controlled and/or converted-into-evil Red Tornado fighting against the Team, who try their best to get through to Red Tornado. Which I felt doesn't quite have enough build-up. Red Tornado was mostly silent throughout the episode with the majority of his characterization being given to us by proxy, so there's no real indication that Tornado was at any point corrupted or seduced by Red Volcano's promises of robot supremacy. Tornado faking his defection (he's just trying to get his charges to play dead) is quickly called out by Volcano, but Zatanna's presence, a truly unknown quantity to either Volcano or Tornado, ends up being the lynchpin that stops Volcano from winning.

I feel that Torpedo and Inferno's sudden change to heroism as Tornado's brief dialogue reminds them of their past lives as heroes, causing them to sacrifice themselves to stop Red Volcano, is way too sudden, and I honestly wished that we got another episode starring the Red Tornado story -- maybe an episode before this that has the team actually suspect Red Tornado's betrayal, as well as developing both Tornado and his siblings' personalities, with this episode focusing more on introducing Zatanna and Red Volcano? The showmakers are pretty ballsy and the episode ended up being way too crowded with subplots that are resolved a bit too quickly for my liking.

And again, the awkwardly handled "oh, he isn't the mole" bit doesn't sit quite well compared to how well-done the mole subplot has been dealt with in previous episodes, because they honestly don't have any evidence either way that Red Tornado hasn't been corrupted by Morrow in any way or form. I mean, he did attack the Team back in 'Homefront', right? We did get a brief awww-touching moment when Red Tornado admits that his volunteering to be the Team's den mother stems more from a desire to try and be more human himself, which is reflected very well at the penultimate scene of the episode, when Red Tornado finally arrives at the dying T.O. Morrow's hospital bed, and vows to take care of his dying father, evil as he may be, because that's the "human thing to do".

Red Tornado's storyline might be relatively clunky,  but it's one that Young Justice tells relatively well, and honestly I'm impressed at how much focus that Young Justice puts into C-lister superheroes like Dr. Fate and Red Tornado while largely ignoring most of the bigger names. Oh, and speaking of which -- I really, really like how the show relatively keeps Canary, Tornado and Captain Marvel constant as the more recurring JLA members, allowing the show's versions of them to be developed reasonably well.

(Also, this makes me sad, once more, that the Supergirl TV show handled Red Tornado so badly and turned him into a generic evil robot).

Roll Call:

• Heroes: Red Tornado, Captain Marvel, Kid Flash, Wolf, Robin, Artemis, Aqualad, Miss Martian, Black Canary, Superboy, Zatara, Zatanna, Flash (Jay Garrick), Sandman, Green Lantern (Alan Scott), Dr. Fate, Wildcat, 
• Villains: Mister Twister, Red Inferno/Firebrand, Red Torpedo, T.O. Morrow, Dragon King, Professor Ivo, Hugo Strange, Red Volcano

DC Easter Eggs Corner: 

• Zatanna is actually one of the more important members of the Justice League of America, one of the most powerful magicians on Earth. Daughter to Golden Age hero Giovanni "John" Zatara and a member of the Homo magi race, Zatanna was born with an unparalleled aptitude for magic. While initially working as a stage magician, Zatanna would learn to manipulate the fabric of magic itself, able to do most things by reciting spells backwards, a skill she calls 'logomancy'.  
• Zatanna's good chemistry with Robin is actually a referencce to how traditionally Zatanna has had a history with Batman, both having grown up in Gotham City and a young Bruce Wayne being trained by John Zatara during his training to be Batman. 
• Red Torpedo & Red Inferno are characters introduced in the 2009 Red Tornado miniseries, although their genders are swapped for Young Justice. They were both created by T.O. Morrow as a set to match Red Tornado, with different elemental powers to fit with the four classical elements. In the comics, Red Inferno had the civilian identity Seth Aiden, whereas Red Inferno operated mostly full-time as a superheroine. Both would be slain in a confrontation with their evil brother, Red Volcano, who wants to destroy all three of his siblings. 
• The superhero identities that Red Torpedo and Red Inferno use are far, far more intricate than you'd imagine. Red Torpedo's human disguise is James Lockhart, who is a Golden Age World-War-II era member of the superhero team Freedom Fighters also called the Red Torpedo, a soldier who piloted a one-man submarine. Obviously, in the comics neither Red Torpedoes had anything to do with each other. 
• Meanwhile, Red Inferno's superhero alter-ego is Danette Reilly, a.k.a. the second Firebrand, a superheroine with fire-manipulating powers also from the Golden Age, albeit a member of the All-Star Squadron. Here Firebrand/Inferno is sent to join the Justice Society instead. Similar to the two Red Torpedoes, Firebrand and Red Inferno had nothing tying them together in the comics. 
• Red Inferno being designed to infiltrate the Justice Society of America disguised as a superhero is actually part of Red Tornado's original origin story.
• The World Fair, the site of Firebrand's death, is the headquarters of the original All-Star Squadron in the comics.
• The Justice Society's lineup, of course, includes some of the most prominent members of the JSA, including the Sandman, Dr. Fate, Red Tornado, Wildcat, as well as the Golden Age versions of the Flash and Green Lantern (Jay Garrick and Alan Scott respectively).
• Dragon King, the unnamed hooded villain who 'killed' Firebrand, was a Japanese agent during the World War who fought against the All-Star Squadron, and actually killed Firebrand in the DC comics.