Young Justice, Season 1, Episode 23: Insecurity
As we run headlong to the final few episodes of Young Justice, the threat of the whole 'mole' thing hangs high over our heads. The previous two episodes perhaps not-so-subtly foreshadows two different candidates, Superboy and M'gann, as the traitors in the group -- Superboy is susceptible to Luthor's commands, and M'gann has shown herself to have an Achilles' Heel that could be manipulated (though Queen Bee's manipulation is certainly fresh, that doesn't preclude another member of the Light manipulating her first). Artemis is an interesting ball as the third candidate of a traitor, considering how Artemis's murky past and her being one of the true newcomers to the hero scene alongside Superboy making her true allegiances relatively suspect. But this episode ratchets up Artemis again, and interestingly enough plays up her relationship with Green Arrow and Red Arrow, her mentor and the one she replaces, for lack of a better word.It's interesting that the relative focus on the Team means that we very rarely see the sidekicks interact with their mentors. Robin, Kid Flash and Aqualad do have scenes with Batman, Flash and Aquaman at various points in the show, and have been working alongside them prior to the very first episode. M'gann and J'onn are less trainer and trainee, but their familial relationship is well-established. Superboy's distance from Superman is an actual plot point. Artemis is different, though, because any time we get a 'mentor and student' montage, Artemis always runs back to her mother that it honestly makes me question at different points throughout the past 20+ episodes if Artemis is actually working under Green Arrow, or if Oliver merely 'sponsors' the younger archer.
Well, this episode tries its best to answer that by showing Green Arrow and Artemis do battle against Black Spider -- a villain retooled to basically become Evil Spider-Man, an inspired choice considering the actual Black Spider villain is relatively boring. They save a family from being assaulted by the Spider, and influences the young kid, enamoured by the two emerald archers. Observant comic-book readers will realize that the kid saved by Arrow and Artemis is actually Cissie King-Jones, a.k.a. Arrowette, who will be making her debut in the Young Justice cartoon in next year's season three... which I still can't believe actually got made!
In any case, the battle between Green Arrow and Artemis against Black Spider is animated well, and is intercut with Artemis's father, the villainous Sportsmaster (I still can't believe that a C-list villain like Sportsmaster is one of the main villains in a cartoon, and isn't played for laughs) goes through Belle Reve, with Hugo Strange's help, to liberate a prisoner -- specifically, Professor Ivo. There's a neat little scene playing up Ivo and the now-comatose T.O. Morrow's rivalry, a nice nod that despite the series focusing on the heroes, the villains still have their own histories from the comics intact, making them slightly more endearing than just Mad Scientist #3.
While all this is going on, Artemis returns to her home, and Green Arrow is confronted by his old protege, Red Arrow. They're on better speaking terms now that Roy has run around independently. The rift between Oliver and Roy is still evident, but Roy has clearly cooled down enough since then. Oliver tells Roy that he's been accepted into the Justice League, but needs to join the Team first in order to set up an example. However, the other Arrow sidekick isn't faring so well. She arrives home and in a conversation with her mother, Paula lets slip that Batman and Green Arrow approached her about Artemis's vigilantism, and Paula was the one that begged the heroes to help Artemis and stop her from being a villain like her parents were -- something that causes Artemis to get pissed off at her mother because this means that she wasn't selected, not in the way that she has always thought she was.
Of course, this all happens on the same day that Red Arrow, the original Green Arrow sidekick, and the first choice that the likes of Kid Flash and Robin wanted so strongly to join instead of her way back in the early parts of the season, was allowed to enter the Team. It's not a good day to be Artemis Crock's self-esteem. And, of course, that is also the same day that a Sportsmaster-centric mission comes up, and despite Green Arrow attempting to shield her from fighting Sportsmaster, Artemis decides to go anyway -- perhaps not to prove that she's better than Red Arrow in the eyes of Oliver or the Team, but to prove it to herself. I did like how Kid Flash manages to pick up on Artemis's obvious discomfort, which, while probably driven by the shipping part of the show, still felt relatively natural regardless. Meanwhile, Red Arrow talks about the possibility that Artemis is a mole, which might be driven by either jealousy or general paranoia (we do know Roy's very distrustful).
The battle between the Team and Sportsmaster is quickly interrupted by the arrival of Cheshire, who taunts Artemis about her identity, and flirts with Roy. Artemis's sudden mental process from "Cheshire flirts with Roy" to "omg they're dating" probably isn't the most elegant of plot progression, though. The dual distraction ends up causing Cheshire to be able to warn Sportsmaster, and all hell breaks loose. The other members of the Team arrive to help take down Cheshire (but not before she kisses Roy), but when Artemis is unable to take the shot to plant a tracking device on Sportsmaster's boat, Roy proves able, yet another strike against Artemis. Mind you, Sportsmaster almost immediately breaks the tracer, but still.
On the other hand, while everyone else is busy trying and failing to pursue Sportsmaster, Artemis manages to put a tracer on the escaping Cheshire. She fools the other members of the team with the location of a different tracer, while she goes off to chase Cheshire... while she is being tracked by Red Arrow. It's perhaps a bit weird to try and make sense of Artemis's intentions here beyond generic "it's personal" and "I want to prove myself" character beats, though.
In any case, despite the relative clunkiness of Artemis's motivations, the actual paranoia between Red Arrow and Artemis are well-portrayed as Roy, rightfully so, questions Artemis's game. But Artemis ends up sacrificing one of her shots while battling Cheshire in order to warn Red Arrow and save his life... but the villains get away anyway, with Artemis's relative foolishness in driving the other members of the Team away sealing the blame game. Artemis, without much in lieu of defense, accepts the accusation that she's just insecure about her spot on the team, unable to really tell them about her history with her family. Add that to Red Arrow's promise that he knows just who Artemis really is, and, again, it's not a good day for Artemis.
Sadly I don't think Artemis's logic is explored very well. I mean, yes, the combination of fighting her father and sister, the whole need to prove herself and Red Arrow threatening her position and showing her up is enough to make her do some rather foolish decisions, but on the other hand, the whole drive-away-my-friends-with-a-fake-tracker thing felt nothing other than stupid. This leads to the final scene of the episode, where Sportsmaster is waiting in her room, mocking that the Team will never ever accept her again, especially with the sword hanging over her head of the identity of her parentage. To the show's credit, Artemis makes it absolutely clear that she wants nothing to do with Sportsmaster, even in the face of all this, but the existence of this temptation, and the threat that Artemis might simply be rejected by the team, hangs high over Artemis's head. Ultimately I feel that this whole thing could've benefited from more editing in general, because especially compared to the previous M'gann episode, I feel that Artemis's self-esteem issues and secrets doesn't work as well as they should.
The big Light plan is the usage of Ivo, Brain and Klarion to combine their various science and magical abilities to experiment on the chunk of Starro, which, again, is a bit convoluted but it's something that can be handwaved as needing a particular set of specific plot devices and MacGuffins that Sportsmaster has to go around and procure. I did find the exit that Klarion does in response to the heroes' "Freeze!", which is freezing everyone in the room and shattering them, to be absurdly and awesomely theatrical.
The B-plot in this episode is relatively touching, too, with the involvement of Red Tornado, who's shoved aside somewhat after his mini-arc ended. Surprisingly for me, Red's involvement isn't anything sinister, or anything that's repetitive of his previous story arc considering T.O. Morrow's brief appearance in the episode. Zatanna, M'gann and Superboy poke around in Red Tornado's quarters (after all, he doesn't need it for human needs), and after several hilarious bits that include Wolf sleeping instead of keeping guard, they find out that Red Tornado is hiding a secret. Just one that isn't sinister -- he's been making a more human-shaped body, and studying Earthen culture if the little mish-mash of holiday ornaments in his quarters are anything to go by. It's a logical step considering how even back in his focus episodes Red Tornado has always been more human than mindless robot, and a surprisingly tender story for the character.
Roll Call:
- Heroes: Artemis, Green Arrow, Red Arrow, Red Tornado, Kid Flash, Zatanna, Miss Martian, Superboy, Aqualad, Wolf
- Villains: Black Spider, Sportsmaster, T.O. Morrow, Professor Ivo, Hugo Strange, Brain, Monsieur Mallah, Klarion, Teekl, Cheshire
- Others: Cissie King-Jones, Paula Crock
DC Easter Eggs Corner:
- Black Spider is voiced by Josh Keaton, and Black Spider's mannerisms and voice are seemingly based on Josh's role as the voice of Spider-Man in the Spectacular Spider-Man, a show that shares creators with Young Justice.
- Cissie King-Jones, the little girl saved by Green Arrow and Artemis, is the alter-ego of the superhero Arrowette, the member of the Young Justice team (which, lest we forget, shares no real common members with the Team seen here other than Conner) affiliated with Green Arrow in the comics.
- In the comics, especially in the old Earth-One comics, Red Tornado does become more and more human and adopts the identity of John Smith and becomes a schoolteacher -- something I just now realized probably influences the decision of those original Young Justice writers to use Red as their mentor.
- Roy and Cheshire does date in the comics! Cheshire's allegiances were a lot more fluctuative than her relative loyalty to the Light and Sportsmaster, though.
- The Save-Big is said to be on the corner of Weisinger and Papp, named after Mort Weisinger and George Papp, co-creators of Green Arrow.
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