Young Justice, Season 1, Episode 21: Image
Hooo boy, this episode. It's a bit of a difficult episode to tackle due to the huge revelations that it gave me. Picking the relatively unknown Miss Martian has always given me surprises as to where they take the character, thanks to my relative lack of knowledge of the character... and I feel that it's one of the great feats of Young Justice. By combining more well-known (to the average comic-book fan) characters like Superboy and Robin with lesser-known characters like Miss Martian and the highly-retooled Artemis, as well as the brand-new, original Aqualad, the show creates a mixture of old and new that really works well to subvert any expectations I have. And, well, I probably could have read up on who Miss Martian is, what her backstory is... but when I first watched Young Justice, I went in without any such readup and it was... amazingly exciting to watch this episode.
The first part of the episode was a mixture of hilarious comedy and general discomfort as we see two young people with superpowers, well, basically abusing them. With footage of Black Canary making out rather vehemently with Superboy, much to the horror of the real Black Canary and her lover, Green Arrow... only for it to be revealed that "Black Canary" is actually Miss Martian, and, well, J'onn notes that such things are treated as games in Mars, where your telepathic skills wouldn't be fooled by a simple facial shape-shift... it's still unbelievably creepy for us 'mere' humans. Canary's anger kind of evaporates when M'gann apologizes so hard, but at the same time, well, it does tell us a fundamental problem with M'gann... she has shape-shifting powers, yes, but why not be herself?
And, boy, knowing what we know about M'gann at the end of this episode, that question from Canary had to really sting.
Oh, and also, Conner and M'gann probably have some... really kinky sex, to say the least.
The main plotline of the episode then kicks off after this conversation, with a continuation of the whole Bialya plotline, where apparently Bialyan warlord Queen Bee having somehow caused the neighbouring country of Qurac to surrender completely to Bialya for no real reason, allowing Bialyan troops to enforce martial law on his country. There's a neat bit where Robin -- who we know from his little psychological evaluation with Black Canary isn't quite happy to become leader, but is basically forced to do so by Batman in Aqualad's absence.
As they enter Bialya/Qurac, they save a mother-and-child pair from being trampled by a stampede, and find out that they are Marie and Garfield Logan. Now obviously Garfield Logan would ring some bells for longtime DC fans, but the origin story of the future Beast Boy isn't the main plot of the story, and Garfield's a mere supporting character in all this. Instead, it's M'gann's time to shine as she fangirls all over Marie Logan, a former actress, even telling her some information that seems suspect.
Things get a bit weird as M'gann tries to ask Marie all about her old show, Hello Megan, who she's a big big BIG BIG fan of, but Marie isn't super-interested about that one thing she just did, and has moved on -- and her role of Megan Wheeler is merely a role she played. I imagine that's the same reaction that a lot of actors like your Mark Hamills and Leonard Nimoys probably feel, too, when accosted with one too many fans. But little Garfield takes out the VHS of the Hello Megan show, and shows it to the other members of the Team... and it's clear that M'gann's fangirling of the show isn't limited to just borrowing the main character's name, but M'gann models her entire "Megan Morse" persona after the fictional Megan Wheeler, from her appearance, to her "HEL-LOOOOH MEGAN!" clumsy girl catchphrase, to even having a boyfriend called Conner. It's definitely pretty creepy, and Black Canary's question of 'be yourself' ends up ringing even more hollow as the M'gann M'orzz we've known over the past 20+ episodes ends up kind of being a mask itself.
Oh, and while all this VHS watching is going on, Garfield gets nearly killed by a bomb and needs a transfusion, and only M'gann's shape-shifting blood can cure him. Obvious sequel hook is obvious, of course, but Garfield doesn't become Beast Boy in this episode just yet.
Robin, meanwhile, ends up being more than a little depressed that their mission might be failed before they even have the chance to actually perform it, but after the detour of watching the Hello Megan VCR (without M'gann watching), they stumble upon the news channel and sees... well, Psimon in the background. Really, you'd think anyone with an exposed brain-in-a-glass lurking in the background would immediately raise alarms. You don't need superheroes for that.
In retrospect there have been some subtle clues that point out that M'gann is actually a white martian. The white shirt she wears most of the time, her freaking out when Black Canary points out that "you're white", meaning Caucasian, and her constant attempts to fit in while referring to how white martians are discriminated against by greens... yeah.
In any case, despite the Qurac president being mind-wiped by Psimon, M'gann impersonates the Qurac president to dissolve the deal between him and Queen Bee, ending the Bialyan/Qurac alliance, with a neat little Bruce Wayne cameo as he swoops in to rescue Qurac financially -- something Robin tries to brush off in front of the other members of the team.
Kid Flash, the person who doesn't think things through, is appropriately the one that confronts M'gann about the tape (Robin doesn't care, I don't think, and Superboy's too conflicted) and she tells the Team a story about how she really enjoyed the Hello Megan broadcasts from Earth, especially how in the Hello Megan TV show, every problem is solved in 22 minutes, something that the more mature take on the show prohibits the Team from doing. And, yes, there's the matter of their names being similar as well, which causes her to identify so much with the Megan Wheeler character. But she clearly is quite intent on hiding her real form for a bit longer, because when they ask to see her real form, M'gann picks yet another face to hide against -- this time, a face similar to that of her uncle J'onn, who, while not exactly human, was similar enough to be acceptable. M'gann is all happy that Conner, the Team and even Marie are happy to let her continue on as Megan Morse if it makes her comfortable...
But M'gann is then forced to choke on her secret, as when she checks up on her newly-adopted "blood brother", she finds Queen Bee inside Garfield's room in a particularly horrifying moment. Queen Bee monologues that she can simply order the enthralled Garfield to kill himself... and blackmails M'gann with the information that she knows all about her true white martian form. The specifics of this blackmail isn't made known, but it's clear how hard M'gann is going to fight to keep her secret. It's very selfish, yes, and perhaps nowhere as damaging as Artemis's familial secret, but at the same time the episode portrays the messy emotional soup that is M'gann M'orrzz's issues with self-image and acceptance and portrays it amazingly well, crafting a character that went from a bland sitcom parody into one of the best, fleshed-out superhero characters that feels absolutely human.
Roll Call:
- Heroes: Green Arrow, Black Canary, Red Tornado, Martian Manhunter, Batman, Superboy, Miss Martian, Robin, Kid Flash, Artemis, Aqualad
- Villains: Queen Bee, Psimon
- Others: Marie Logan, Garfield Logan, Rumaan Harjavti, Noor Harjavti
DC Easter Eggs Corner:
- Garfield "Gar" Logan is the alter-ego of the superhero Beast Boy, associated closely with the Teen Titans and the Doom Patrol. Obviously Garfield here isn't a superhero yet, but the show is edging to use M'gann's blood to explain Garfield's green skin and shape-shifting ability instead of a random animal-serum cocktail.
- The creators of the Hello, Megan sitcom are Greg Vietti and Brandon Weisman, which are the swapped names of the Young Justice producers Greg Weisman and Brandon Vietti. The other actors in Hello Megan other than Marie Logan are all characters in the DC comics that are also actors:
- Rita Farr, a.k.a. Elasti-Girl, is a member of the Doom Patrol who has a day job as an actress. She's actually Beast Boy's surrogate mother after Marie's death.
- Paul Sloane is a character who played the role of Two-Face in an in-universe TV show, causing the real Two-Face to get pissed off and scar Paul's face with real acid, turning him into the minor villain Charlatan.
- Jonathan Lord is the main character of the comic Silverblade, published by DC but not part of its mainstream continuity. Jonathan has the superpower to transform into every movie character he's ever acted, whereas Sandra Stanyon is his co-star and love interest.
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