Young Justice S01E26 Review: The Traitor

Young Justice, Season 1, Episode 26: Auld Acquaintance

Boss fight!

Thank you very much for keeping up with my gigantic review of the first season of Young Justice, a project that took far more effort and energy than I thought it would due to the large amount of things to be discussed in these episodes. Old superhero cartoon episodes might not be the most popular type of review in this blog, but it's one that I'm quite passionate about and one I truly enjoy. That said, while the finale of the first season of Young Justice is hardly perfect -- too many characters means that some of the takedowns and action scenes felt rushed -- it is also relatively satisfactory as the Young Justice Team's final boss before the huge timeskip to the second season being the mind-controlled Justice League of America, the larger-than life mentors and experienced heroes, as well as half of the Light, the most powerful villains out there. Not all members of the Light participate in the finale, and Luthor and Queen Bee don't show up again after their retreat in the previous episode... but honestly, the finale is crowded enough as it is that I do enjoy the decision of limiting the villains to just Vandal Savage, Klarion and the mind-controlled Leaguers.

The episode starts with the very confused Red Arrow fighting for his life, running through the subway tunnels pursed by Green Arrow, Flash and Aquaman, and Red Arrow is so insanely outclassed that it's a miracle he managed to escape with the distraction of a train.

We then cut to the Team, fresh from the victory of defeating Luthor's group, only to have Batman and Red Tornado inform them that Red Arrow is the mole... and the Red Arrow that has been around for the last three years is, in fact, a Cadmus Clone. It's a huge, huge revelation that I honestly felt should've been better built up. The clues are there, of course, if you ever consider the fact that Roy's a clone -- Superboy is a clone and he has the whole 'able to be reprogrammed by Luthor' thing going on, and Superboy is shown to be unable to resist Luthor's orders while not knowing what happens in the interim. It is a bit odd that no one realized this before the finale, though I guess they're just chalking it up to Roy's general stubbornness? The Clone Roy, who replaced Speedy three years ago shortly after he became Green Arrow's sidekick (which means that Oliver might not simply known the real Roy Harper that well?) was programmed with a desire to join the Justice League and infiltrate it, hence all the things he's done in order to attempt to join the League and earn their approval. Oh, and the real Roy might be dead, as a last-minute addition Batman says.

Regardless, though, I did like the subversion that seemed to show that Batman escaped Roy's Starro-tech plant last episode by simply being BATMAN, but he didn't -- we saw it happen on-screen, after all. And when Batman called the team 'kids', Robin realizes that it's not actually Batman, and that the mind-control has set in. There's the huge, huge weirdness as to just why Batman would monologue all about Roy Harper and the truth behind him, which I felt was a weak point. The team manages to take the offline Red Tornado, who's incompatible with the Starro-tech, and transfer his essence into the John Smith body from two episodes ago, while they then go to look for Red Arrow... but not before the mind-controlled Black Canary arrives and screams the John Smith body apart.

Robin and Rocket manage to knock Canary out with a gas/forcefield combo, and the Team manages to escape with Red Tornado (now clear of the Starro tech) and the gagged Black Canary in tow. Aqualad manages to talk Red Arrow down after the Team tracks him, and Red Arrow confirms the story that mind-controlled Batman told them. It's honestly a bit odd why they couldn't have just gone after Red Arrow by themselves and not go through all of this weird bit where the Light reveals one of their most intricate plans to the Team since the story is going to have Red Arrow monologue and exposit anyway. This bit felt like the rough patch of the episode in my opinion.

Red Tornado, Canary and Red Arrow (who are all cured) then teleport back to the Watchtower, where they claim to have escaped from the Team (when it's a ruse for Tornado to shut down the defenses and let the Team in) who then proceeds to take down half of the Justice League by injecting the cure into them. It's a neat montage, but honestly none of them are super-exciting. It does speak to the Team's strength as a stealth black ops team considering how effective they are at not being seen while taking down enemies. Of course, Vandal Savage is in the process of having six of the most powerful superheroes go elsewhere to further his plans, and he calls them back... and, hoo boy, seeing Superman, Green Lantern, Martian Manhunter, Wonder Woman, Hawkwoman and Batman literally rip through the unaffected Leaguers is insanely brutal and well-done.

While all this is going on, we get a pretty touching and sad scene as Zatanna takes out Dr. Fate, but is still unable to remove the helmet and get Zatara back.

The actual battle against the Big Six is a lot more thrilling, but it still reeks of them just going down a checklist. We did get a pretty awesome scene of Wonder Woman just rampaging around, and of white martian M'gann having to induce the fear of fire to contain J'onn. Robin and Superboy's tag-team to take down Batman and Superman is clearly the highlight of it all, with Robin being prepared with kryptonite to subdue Superman, and Superboy taking advantage of Batman's lack of strength to subdue him long enough for Robin to slap the cure-tech on him.

Vandal and Klarion escape, and while it might ring hollow as not a single member of the Light was captured, at least they have the League out of their mind control, and, perhaps far more literally than the Team expected, they manage to surpass their mentors just as New Year happens. Superboy and Miss Martian kiss, Wally and Artemis kiss, Robin and Zatanna kiss (Rocket and Aqualad have a cheek-peck because they're the odd ones out)... and, finally, Superman apologizes and finally acknowledges Superboy as his family.

It's a bit of a bittersweet victory, too, as apparently the Light has raided Cadmus, beaten up everyone there, and stole the real Roy Harper's body, and the 16 hours that the members of the Justice League were taken control of, they have no record or memory of what they were doing. Obviously these are all plot points for the next season, but the first one, and the themes of betrayals, moles and surpassing their mentors are over. It's a climactic ending, and one that perhaps might have been paced differently and been done with a different set of buildup that perhaps doesn't quite feel as randomly injected as Clone Roy Harper. It's not one that I contested that much because, shit, I really liked that particular plot twist, but definitely one that could've been done better.

Roll Call:

• Heroes: Red Arrow, Green Arrow, the Flash, Aquaman, Robin, Artemis, Aqualad, Rocket, Zatanna, Miss Martian, Superboy, Batman, Red Tornado, Martian Manhunter, Superman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern (Hal Jordan), Green Lantern (John Stewart), Dr. Fate, Plastic Man, Icon, Captain Atom, Captain Marvel, Hawkman, Hawkwoman, Black Canary, the Sphere, Tula, Tempest, Guardian, the Atom, Wolf, Roy Harper
• Villains: Vandal Savage, Sportsmaster, Cheshire, Klarion the Witch Boy, Teekl, Queen Bee, Ocean Master, Ra's al Ghul, Lex Luthor, the Brain, Hugo Strange, Mammoth, Amazo, Black Adam, Joker, Count Vertigo, Psimon, Match

DC Easter Eggs Corner: 

• The group that was unaccounted for 16 hours corresponds to the cast of the Justice League cartoon -- Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Martian Manhunter, John Stewart's Green Lantern and Hawkwoman/Hawkgirl. The seventh member of the Justice League cartoon is the Flash... but specifically, the Wally West version Flash, which obviously was out of the question since here he's still Kid Flash.
• Robin's reference to "four flavours of alien" in the Justice League is referencing Superman (Kryptonian), J'onn (Martian), Hawkwoman and Hawkman (Thanagarian) and Icon (Terminian).