Young Justice S02E02 Review: Journey in Rann

Young Justice, Season 2, Episode 2: Earthlings

After the huge season premiere that established so many other things, this second episode focuses solely on the Rann team, with Superboy, Miss Martian and Beast Boy joining Adam Strange to head off to Rann and investigate about things in space. M'gann's telepathy allows for smooth translation between the Rannians and Earthlings (I always adore Young Justice's attention to aliens not actually speaking English) and we learn more about the nature of the Kroloteans, and how the Justice League is branded criminals in space. With the aid of Adam Strange's mentor, Sardath, the away team ends up beating a Krolotean base, some robots and establish a series of Zeta Shields to prevent other aliens from Zeta beaming out of Earth.

The episode itself is extremely straightforward, beyond the honestly pretty basic world-building around Rann and Adam Strange. It's honestly a bit of a shame that Adam Strange didn't actually do much but quote Lewis Carroll and provide a distraction, since this really could've been an Adam Strange spotlight the way that lesser-known JLA members like Red Tornado and Captain Marvel got significant spotlight in several episodes of the first season. Instead, it is his girlfriend Alanna that hangs out with the heroes... and Alanna isn't honestly that interesting of a character beyond being a Rannian native and wanting to randomly discuss relationships with Superboy.

And relationships, I guess, is the theme of this episode. Superboy and Miss Martian has clearly broken up, and while the two work admirably professionally, they also ignore Beast Boy's attempts to clumsily 'ship' the two back together. It's not until Alanna gets Superboy talking in a rather clumsy scene later on that they had disagreements, and while they might still carry a torch for each other, Superboy's not going to make a move since La'gann, while a bit of a jerk, is actually nice to M'gann. I guess Alanna's own unresolved love issues with Adam Strange is what drives her to bond with Superboy, but I still think that the 'let's talk relationships!' bit came somewhat out of nowhere. There is an interesting observation by Superboy that as a half-Kryptonian clone, his biology is unchanging and in stark contrast to Miss Martian; while Alanna notes that the two of them have so much communication while she and Adam have communication barriers.

Meanwhile, we get a fair bit of backstory regarding Beast Boy, who's taken to calling Miss Martian as his adopted sister. The two are adorable when interacting together... until we are thrust into a flashback, because in addition to M'gann's blood giving Garfield shape-shifting powers, apparently in the five-year gap Gar's mother is killed by Queen Bee.

And then the rest of the episode's mostly just fun smashy-smash stuff as the Team sabotages the Krolotean Zeta Beam platforms (and apparently these are the Kroloteans that retreated from the base destroyed by Robin). But while it's all heroic and stuff, M'gann grabs one of the Kroloteans, forcibly extracts the information she needs out of the Krolotean's mind about what the JLA-ers did in their missing 16 hours -- despite previously establishing that she will take a lot of time to understand an uncooperative mind in an alien language... and leaves the Krolotean brain-dead. Beast Boy doesn't even realize what's happening since he's elsewhere, while Superboy is intensely pissed about this, because this was different compared to the time that M'gann did the same thing to Psimon last season, where they were in an intense psychic battle. This was forced interrogation, and the show really makes it look horrific.

Still, ultimately, while slightly disappointing and we really could've had more build-up with Adam Strange and Alanna as characters to really make us care about them, it's still all and all a pretty solid episode through and through.

Roll Call:

• Heroes: Miss Martian, Alanna, Beast Boy, Superboy, Adam Strange, Sardath
• Villains: The Kroloteans

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• The Rannian scientists Sardath and his daughter Alanna are, of course, major supporting characters in Adam Strange's stories, with Sardath being the mentor-figure that's not xenophobic towards humans, while Alanna would eventually become his love interest.
• Alanna says "thank Ulthoon!" at one point, referencing Ulthoon the Tornado Tyrant, a wind elemental (no, really) from Rann who would eventually become one of the components of Red Tornado. 
• The Bialyan super-villain Queen Bee and her rivalry with the Logan family (and the subsequent off-screen murder of Marie Logan) was established in episode 21 of the first season, 'Image'. Beast Boy also references the blood transfusion Miss Martian gave him in that episode, which is confirmed to be the source of his shape-shifting powers. 

One Piece 909 Review: Land of the Rising Sun

One Piece, Chapter 909: Seppuku

A pretty decent chapter, although I definitely feel pretty blue-balled that we basically left the Reverie arc at such a cliffhanger. The brief chapters we saw at the Reverie were some of my favourite in One Piece for a while, and unlike the vast majority of the fandom, I've not been chomping at the bit for Wano. Sure, I'd like to get to Wano eventually, but not any more than, say, Elbaf or any of the other countries we haven't been to. Honestly, I think I might be in the minority in saying that, shit, I really wanted to know what the fuck's going on in the Reverie with Im and the Gorosei and everything they've hinted to us. 

But Wano we got, as much as I personally felt like we could've easily delayed the beginning of this arc until later. 

Anyway, I suppose since I don't actually have much to say about this chapter beyond "new costumes, pretty locales, it's neat", I guess I'll try talking in more detail and discussing about the whole Rocks Pirates that we've been hinted at in the past couple of chapters? Oh, and the Orlumbus cover story -- which I've been ignoring in the past couple of chapters due to the sheer amount of content in them -- is surprisingly going on, and Orlumbus is apparently raiding some town? It's a bit weird, considering how the Orlumbus cover story arc have been weirdly just flip-flopping about the mundane bits of a pirate's life? Eh. 

The first half of this chapter has Nekomamushi and his Mink crew apparently going off to recruit Marco, who is apparently acting as a doctor and healing giant manticore beasts living in a secluded village in the New World. We get confirmation that Marco can actually use his phoenix healing flames to heal other people, and we get this long backstory from Marco about how Whitebeard's spent a good chunk of money to support this one village that he originally came from, and despite no one in the village knowing about it, Whitebeard's money has been supporting this village that refused to pay tribute money to the World Government. Marco then points out about how Blackbeard and Weevil have been making a fair amount of trouble for the remnants of the Whitebeard Pirates... wonder what they're doing with Marco guarding Whitebeard's village? Is someone else in charge?

Marco notes that it's a matter of time until Weevil finds him and/or this village, but then also notes that, far more interestingly, Weevil's mother Bakkin (Bucking?) served on the same pirate crew as Whitebeard did 40 years ago. And '40 years ago' is the specific line that is used by Kaidou and Big Mom in one of the Reverie chapters, where we get the implication that Big Mom and Kaidou served in the same crew some 40 years ago, heavily implied to be this mysterious "Rocks" crew that wreaked havoc before Gol D. Roger. Throw in some people with very impressive memories remembering that Shakky (Silver Rayleigh's girlfriend) also notes how Garp hounded her 40 years ago when she was a pirate... yeah, this whole 'pirate crew 40 years ago' storyline is starting to get even more intriguing as we get the revelation that Whitebeard is also part of that crew. 

Meanwhile we then cut to Wano, and as much as I'm not the type of person who gets excited by a prolonged updated-character-model showoff, it's a pretty damn pretty series of splash pages. We get to see Franky, Usopp, Robin and Zoro basically hiding out with stereotypical Japanese names and jobs, under Kinemon's instructions, and we get to see their brand-new designs. Again, they're well-drawn and quite cool, but not something that in my opinion could hold an entire chapter on its own. We do get a slight bit of worldbuilding, I suppose, but beyond "it's like Japan"... it's something we already know and there's really not much beyond that. We get the name of the shogun, Kurozumi Orochi, and that apparently the Straw Hats' plan involves having Robin sneak in as a geisha or something? 

The Zoro bit is clearly a spotlight, where his possession of the sword Shusui has caused people to accuse him as a graverobber that robbed Ryuma's body, and also accuses him as being a manslayer, forcing him to commit seppuku. And then Zoro just slices a whole goddamn palace and slits the real killer's throat with nothing but the tiny seppuku blade, and that's pretty damn awesome. If nothing else, the fact that we're going to get a lot of Zoro in this arc is a bit of a consolation prize for ending the Reverie arc abruptly.

I'll catch up with Boku no Hero Academia, Attack on Titan, Nanatsu no Taizai and JoJolion sometime in the next week, because I've not actually been keeping up with them for one reason or another. Also, apparently the writer of Fairy Tail made a new manga? I'll read the first chapter and see if I have anything to say about it. 

Agents of SHIELD S05E22 Review: The Needs of the Many

Agents of SHIELD, Season 5, Episode 22: The End

And that's it. That's the end. While Agents of SHIELD apparently has garnered enough goodwill for the Marvel overlords to sign on for a sixth season, this is perhaps one of the better ways a show can end with the huge weight of history, ending in a satisfying blend of tears and hope, closing up the storylines of a majority of the characters and giving a very bittersweet conclusion for a character that's been with us for around the better part of a decade. Clark Gregg's Phil Coulson is a character that's honestly pretty dear to my heart after several MCU movies and five seasons of Agents of SHIELD, a very charismatic lead that ends up resigning himself to eventual death and accepting it. Coulson's grounded performance has been what made the MCU and Agents of SHIELD's otherworldly and fantastical wackiness feel so anchored despite all the craziness. 

It's an episode that, sure, spends a good chunk of its time dealing with the supervillain they've built up for the past couple of episodes, but the strongest moments have to be the last five minutes or so as Phil Coulson delivers that speech. Whatever the future of the show may be, they're saying goodbye to Clark Gregg for sure, and the farewell -- which could've easily been cheesy -- ends up being pretty damn well-done. Sure, the triple fake-out with Fitz's death and the plague they put on Zephyr One ends up being slightly comical instead of dramatic, but having Coulson retire to the real Tahiti, spending whatever days he has left with May, the woman he loves, is pretty well done. We tie off a few ends -- Simmons quite literally has a spare Fitz in space that she's planning to bring home, Mack becomes the new leader instead of Daisy, who isn't ready. The new SHIELD blasts off with Daisy bidding Coulson a tearful "I love you", and Coulson and May just stand there looking into the distance, content and peaceful. And honestly it's so well done that any attempt to bring Coulson back for a gratuitous cameo in any future installment would honestly betray this beautiful character arc. 

But, of course, as masterful as the ending is, there's still he rest of the episode. The first part of the episode is the argument from the previous episode dragged on, with everyone arguing on whether they should save Coulson or save the world, with both sides acknowledging that none of this is a surefire shot. Poor, poor Elana's probably the one who's arguing against saving Coulson (or rather, arguing to prevent the cracked-earth timeline from ever coming into fruition) and her tearful performance is actually well done. It's a bit anticlimactic, though, that the argument ends with May smashing the Odium while Mack is speechifying. I thought that ended up going somewhat against the grain of what Mack's huge speech is all about.

There's a bit of a jump back and forth with Elena apologizing to Coulson (who of course doesn't blame him), Talbot threatening Robin (who draws the entire half of the globe as where Gravitonium is), May and Daisy both trying to get Coulson to see the merits in keeping him alive, and Daisy acknowledging that she's not ready to lead and them voting for Mack as the new director. 

It's a bit corny, sure, but SHIELD ends up mostly on rescue duty, hailed as heroes by the police as they arrive to pull people out of the line of fire. Coulson had refused to take the cure, and Daisy angrily tells him to return to the base to take it. Quake then battles Graviton in a metahuman battle and it's... it's all right. We've got a bunch of pretty fun epic battles, and while it's not quite MCU movie level, it's pretty epic nonetheless. Daisy ends up finding out that Coulson's slipped the cure (which is part Centipede, a power-boosting compound) into her gauntlets, and she ends up taking it and then super-Quaking Talbot into space where he freezes to death. It's apparently a third option that causes Robin to go "something's wrong" and that they've broken the loop, because apparently they picked a third option. Use the plot device on Daisy to defeat Talbot. And before the superheroing punch, we actually do get Daisy to take Coulson's advice and try to talk Talbot down by appealing to his patriotism, but, of course, the man's too far gone. Nice sentiment, though. 

Speaking of the timeline being changed, though, was the moment when Fitz realizes that Robin's mom doesn't survive in the future, and he ends up rescuing her before being buried in the rubble. And there's the tense back-and-forth with Fitz's fate. He's alive under that rubble! Oh, that scared me -- oh wait, he can't feel his legs, oh wait, he's dying. Oh wait, he's dead. Oh no, Simmons is sad... but not really because they have a spare Fitz. I really wished this wasn't done this way, because it feels like a last bit of attempting to milk out the Fitz-Simmons-are-separated drama before we close. Not that it's not touching or done well, but it really just feels eye-rolling when I end up realizing that, oh, they just straight-up have a spare. 

But ultimately? A damn good finale, a pretty good final battle to a very solid season, and a very grand exit to Phil Coulson, the heart of SHIELD.

For those who have been following my reviews of Agents of SHIELD since season two, I bid you all a huge thank you. I've not always been the most consistent at putting these TV episode reviews out at a consistent and timely manner, but I've definitely had a lot of fun in doing so. We'll finish up Legion's second season in the next week, and then continue with Cloak and Dagger and the second season of Luke Cage hopefully some time in the next month. Until then, adieu!

Legion S02E04 Review: Touch Me Not

Legion, Season 2, Episode 4: Chapter 12

The fourth episode of Legion's second season is a bit more focused and a lot slower. It's basically the concept of the third episode -- the maze in the mind that we sometimes find ourselves trapped in -- minus all the superhero "hunt down the Shadow King while figure out the monk conspiracy" plotline. Sure, there's a bit of it going on in the background of the episode, but ultimately this episode focuses almost entirely on Sydney Barrett. It's an interesting bit as the 'maze' that Syd gets trapped in is basically the story of her life from her literal birth to her current age, giving us some neat Rogue-esque story of having to live without being able to ever physically touch someone without unleashing her mutant powers. And just as the audience has to relive Syd's life story reel over and over again, David, too, has to repeat the sequence like someone playing a detective video game, only to be told "try again" multiple times as he tries to 'get' what Syd wants.

And as David and us, the audience, looks through Syd's life as she starts life as a baby, grows up and has this whole speech about surviving, gets bullied, and dances around in a club, David and dream!Syd keeps returning to the art gallery and an igloo. David tries a couple of obvious solutions. Syd doesn't like to be touched. Syd is always left alone, but desires intimacy like the lovey-dovey couple around her at points in her backstory. Syd is afraid that David will hate her if he sees all the darkness within her. But it's all not true, and as David repeats Syd's story, he gets to see a bunch of extra scenes he doesn't see before...

And it basically paints a slightly uglier picture of Syd. The first morally ambiguous scene is a bully that harasses Syd and forces her to kiss him. Which Syd does, and when the body-switch happens Syd uses the body of the douchebag to beat the ever-living crap out of the three girls that have been constantly tormenting her.

But clearly, the biggest and most disturbing scene (which was implied in season one, but it's different to see it here) was Syd touching the body of her sleeping mother, and then walking over to have sex with her mother's boyfriend while in her body... and then when the inevitable 'switch' happens, the poor, confused boyfriend gets arrested for basically having sex with a fifteen-year-old girl. It's a dark, dark disturbing scene, yet seeing just how tormented Syd is and how she desires for any sort of physical contact, you can sort of sympathize with the girl even though her actions in both those scenes are pretty horrid.

I also would like to add the distinct directional decision to have Syd's mother never actually say anything to Syd. Syd's mother speaks to other people in the flashback, and it's most notable when Syd's mother pointedly ignores her for a bit while talking to her boyfriend, but throughout the flashback Syd's mother tries her best to communicate with Syd through touching, through gestures and through smiles. It's a neat way of showing how distant their relationship is, but it's still a relationship with some amount of love.

The moral of the story that ends up allowing Syd and David to wake up rolls back to the speech about survival and damage, and how all the suffering that the two 'broken birds' have gone through have caused them to truly become stronger. Syd makes the distinction of not suffering to better herself -- she just suffers to become stronger because, to her, life is a constant war. They can't be lovers, but they have to be fighters. Sure, getting to that point seems odd considering the scenes from Syd's life that's shown to us in the flashback loop, but it's a neat little conclusion to David and Syd's relationship. Through their final confrontation between David and Syd, and the fact that the two of them are trapped in a different sort of coma compared to the rest of Division Three, it's heavily implied that Syd wasn't even trapped and that she's doing it for David's benefit as a form of tough love.

Speaking of the rest of Division Three, apparently everyone else just wakes up, including Cary/Kerry and Agent Clark, so I'm genuinely unsure why we had that extra flashback last episode. Also, whatever happened to the cow? Oh, and Division Three has gotten their hands on Lenny, who proclaims that "I'm back!" Whether the Shadow King actually lets Lenny go from his weird hive-mind or it's some other ploy, I'm definitely curious. Ultimately, the episode ends up being fairly more slower-paced and might feel like a 'filler' episode of sorts, but on the other hand I do very much appreciate the additional focus given to Syd. One of my bigger complaints about Syd as a character is that she's such an enigma (especially post timeskip, where she's grown a little harder -- possibly explained by her "suffering makes me stronger" mentality) and this episode does more than its fair share to peel back the layers behind the woman that is Sydney Barrett. 

Young Justice S02E01 Review: Time Skip!

Young Justice: Invasion, Episode 1: Happy New Year

It has been a fair bit of time since I last reviewed the first season of Young Justice... or, indeed, that I reviewed any superhero cartoon at all. It's just that things sort of piled up between stuff like TV shows and manga that are ongoing, so this project got pushed backwards and backwards... but now we're here. And with the third season of Young Justice coming up some time later this year, I do hope I finish the reviews of the second season in a relatively timely manner. For those who missed all my season one Young Justice episode reviews, they're all compiled here.

Anyway, I was definitely surprised when I first watched the second season of Young Justice, officially titled "Young Justice: Invasion". There was a huge time-skip -- not a trope that's as commonly seen in Western animation as it is in Japanese anime. And Young Justice's second season took a particularly huge one that I remembered being a huge surprise to me when I first watched this. Not being someone who particularly pays attention to any of the dates given in cartoons, I was surprised to find out that the story has jumped forwards not just one year, not just two, but five whole years. In the meantime, some of our characters have graduated from the Titans The Team and joined the Justice League. There are more members in both the League and the Team than what we were familiar with at the end of the first season. Some plotlines hinted throughout the first season -- like Garfield Logan becoming Beast Boy, for example, or all those cameos in the high school in season one adopting their superhero personas -- have taken place off-screen, Robin has adopted a new identity as Nightwing, and we've got a huge amount of new members that were recruited and integrated into the team. Perhaps far more shockingly to shippers, Superboy and Miss Martian are apparently no longer dating.

Young Justice is a TV series that likes to run pretty quickly through its story, and I think this timeskip is perhaps the biggest showcase of that. Its second season, Invasion, clearly wanted to tell a story that centers more about an alien invasion, in contrast to the first season's focus on the formation of the Team and the character interactions within them. But they didn't just want to slog from point A to point B, hence the time skip. After a brief recap of the events of the finale -- the six Justice League members that were brainwashed and sent into deep space by the Light -- we go straight into action as the episode sorts itself out. And, sure, a good chunk of the episode is just a wham-bam train of changes that have happened over the past five years, as well as introductions to new members of the Team, and us, the audience, just sits back and sees where everyone is.

And perhaps the bigger question -- where are everyone who isn't. Conspicuously missing from the Team are Kid Flash, Artemis and Aqualad (and also Red Arrow), all of whom will have... interesting answers down the line. Meanwhile, out of our main cast from the previous season, Superboy and M'gann are still on the team, while Robin has became Nightwing. This last one probably threw some people who aren't super-familiar with DC's superheroes off, even with the extremely awkward introdump of Lagoon Boy going "you trained hard as Robin, and then as Nightwing". Rocket and Zatanna have since graduated and joined the Justice League, whereas the role of secondary members of the Team are filled up by Beast Boy, Blue Beetle, a new Robin, Lagoon Boy, Bumblebee, Batgirl and Wonder Girl. Oh, and Malcolm Duncan, the future Herald, mans the computers.

Other than the recapping, we jump pretty quickly into things, although I do like the fake-out of the opening, which begins with Superboy, Miss Martian and Robin (and you may be forgiven into thinking this is Dick in a new suit) taking down Clayface in the sewers, a neat bit of generic superheroing... and then Nightwing steps out of the shadows, and the show quickly starts with its rapid-fire status quo changes. New members! Miss Martian and Lagoon Boy are dating! More new members! And then we jump straight into another set of action scenes, featuring DC comics fan-favourite Lobo as he battles Batgirl and Wonder Girl and rips an UN official in half... only to reveal that the UN official is, in fact, a tiny little green lizard alien that pulls something out of Men in Black and is controlling the dude. Lobo heads off with his bounty while the superheroes stand around confused.

And this is apparently going to be the hook for this season, because apparently aliens (Kroloteans, specifically) have infiltrated Earth's society. They stole Zeta Beam teleportation technology from the planet Rann. After a brief introduction to a Justice League ally, Adam Strange (who you might recognize from his newest outing in the live-action Krypton), as well as some exposition about Zeta Beams and Rann, Adam Strange tells the League and the Team that apparently the six members that were missing in season one have done some crime in space while mind-controlled that have caused an APB out on Justice League members in space... but not the Team. All this Adam Strange stuff is interesting, but other than M'gann's team going with Adam Strange to Rann, it's all not going to be explored in this episode.

Instead, the majority of this episode focuses on the Team being split up to track down the Kroloteans hiding all over the Earth. While we get glimpses of the new members' personalities here and there -- Beast Boy's taken over Wally's role as the trophy collector, Mal's the guy in the chair that handles communications, Lagoon Boy is boisterous and really likes the phrase "Neptune's beard" -- the episode smartly chooses to keep its focus on three people, namely Lagoon Boy, Blue Beetle and the new Robin. Robin and Nightwing have a bit of a conversation about giving Robin command over the 'gamma squad', which Robin dismisses as either Nightwing picking a safe, no-risk mission to send him out on, or that he's so short-handed it doesn't matter.

It's an interesting hook, but other than the two of them sharing a chuckle over it when it turns out that Robin's team hit the mother-lode, it's sadly not built up that much. The third act is just some neat superhero action as we are treated to some neat visuals of Lagoon Boy's ballooning up superpowers, as well as Blue Beetle's strange beetle-suit. Jamie Reyes is one of the most interesting new superheroes that DC has introduced in the past decades, considering how resistant the geek community is to change (guilty as charged myself) but the execution and utilization of Blue Beetle in this season of Young Justice is pretty awesome, and I do like how the nature of Blue Beetle's alien suit is hinted at pretty early on when he is able to converse with the Kroloteans in the base.

Before we close this off, I do want to note the neat little segment of G. Gordon Godfrey being this angry pundit who spreads this huge talk about "ALIENS ARE EVIL!" after the Lobo segment. Besides the obvious foreshadowing regarding Godfrey (who's an actual character in the comics with far more sinister intentions than just being an angry TV man) it's also a very neat little running plotline throughout the Invasion storyline about how the superheroes and aliens look to the public.

Ultimately, other than exploring a bunch of alien stuff and incorporating some neat ways to sneak in exposition dumps, this episode is pretty all right. It's not spectacular, but it certainly works to the standards set by the first season of Young Justice and is visually and story-wise pretty appealing. Great start to perhaps one of my favourite seasons of superhero material ever. 

Roll Call:

• Heroes: Superboy, Miss Martian, Robin II, Beast Boy, Blue Beetle, Bumblebee, Lagoon Boy, Nightwing, Malcolm Duncan, Wolf, Captain Atom, Wonder Girl, Batgirl, Superman, Martian Manhunter, Zatanna, Rocket, Catherine Colbert, Batman, Green Lantern (John), Adam Strange, Wonder Woman, Hawkwoman, Flash, Hawkman, Red Tornado, Icon, Captain Marvel, Black Lightning, Green Arrow, Plastic Man, Black Canary, Dr. Fate, Aquaman, the Atom
• Villains: Clayface, Lobo, other Kroloteans
• Civilians: Secretary Tseng, Gordon Godfrey, Catherine Grant, Sardath of Rann

DC Easter Eggs Corner:
Wow, I do have to talk about a lot of characters this time, huh?

• As any DC fan worth his salt knows, the original Robin, Dick Grayson, would quit from being under Batman's shadow, lead the Teen Titans and eventually adopt the mantle of Nightwing.
• Blue Beetle, a.k.a. Jaime Reyes, is the third person to bear the mantle of Blue Beetle. After finding the mysterious talisman known as the Scarab which gave the first Blue Beetle (Dan Garrett) his powers, the Scarab revealed itself to be an alien robot that latched on to Jaime's back and manifests in a transforming super-suit around him. Blue Beetle's origin story will be explored throughout this season, so I'm not going to delve deep into it. 
• Lagoon Boy (real name La'gaan) is a minor character in the pages of Aquaman and Young Justice, although his biggest fictional roles is in this cartoon. He's basically from a sub-race of Atlanteans with more obvious fish-like features. Lagoon Boy previously appeared in the season one episode "Downtime" as a brief cameo. 
• Batgirl, a.k.a. Barbara Gordon, is the daughter of Gotham City's police commissioner James Gordon. Inspired by the heroics of Batman and Robin, she would adopt the mantle of Batgirl and impress Batman enough to work with her directly. Barbara has appeared in episode 12 of the first season as one of Dick's schoolmates.
• Tim Drake is the third person to be called Robin in the comics, succeeding Jason Todd and Dick Grayson. Tim Drake was one of the members of the comic-book team called "Young Justice" alongside the generation of Superboy, Impulse and the second Wonder Girl. As he grew older, he would be part of the Teen Titans and eventually lead that team as well, and eventually shed the Robin costume and adopt the alter-ego 'Red Robin'.
• Wonder Girl, a.k.a. Cassandra "Cassie" Sandsmark, is the second superhero to call herself by that name, succeeding the original Wonder Girl, Donna Troy, who would adopt the persona of Troia. Cassie Sandsmark is the daughter of the Olympian god Zeus and an archaeologist, and gained superpowers at a young age. Working as a sidekick to Wonder Woman, she would join the comics' version of the team called Young Justice, and upon its disbandment, join the Teen Titans. Wonder Girl's costume here is based on her first Young-Justice-era costume. 
• Bumblebee, a.k.a. Karen Beecher, is a lady who built a bee-themed suit that allowed her to fly, and was offered membership into he Teen Titans West in the comics. Her shrinking powers (undoubtedly based on Marvel superhero Wasp) was given to her by the 2003 Teen Titans cartoon, which was imported to her comic-book counterpart. Karen and her boyfriend Mal first appeared in episode 10 of the first season, and have made multiple appearances as cameos or minor roles throughout the first season.   
• Adam Strange is one of DC's more oddball superheroes, being a normal human man who discovered a strange cosmic phenomenon called the Zeta Beam (which, in Young Justice continuity, powers the League's teleporters) which allowed him to be transported to the distant planet of Rann. Adam's unique attunement to the Beams allowed him to travel back and forth between Rann and Earth, and he his time on Rann donning a jetpack and saving Rann from extra-terrestrial dangesr. 
• Mentioned in Adam Strange's quick dialogue is the planet Rann and his scientist ally (and eventual father-in-law) Sardath, both of which are featured majorly in the next episode. 
• Lobo is an anti-hero that has been featured in many, many DC works, due to his immense popularity. His usage in DC media varies between being ultra-violent, ultra-gritty and ultra-serious... or a parody of the tropes associated with those sorts of characters. Lobo is the last surviving member of the Czarnian species, a species that was as powerful as Superman (who he fights a lot), and had wiped out the entirety of his race. While he tends to be villainous, he works on his own strange code of honour as a space bounty hunter. 
• G. Gordon Godfrey is the alias of the supervillain Glorious Godfrey, a media mogul who spreads anti-superhero messages and manipulates the media and creating public unrest against superheroes in general. As mentioned above, revealing more about Godfrey would spoil a twist at the end of the series. 
• Catherine Cobert is a supporting character in the Justice League International/Justice League Europe era of comics, where she is a UN liaison to Justice League Europe. She apparently has a similar role here, shooing away nosy reporters.
• The Kroloteans are a recurring enemy of the Green Lantern, being a race of gremlin-like aliens (actually called "Gremlins" in-universe) that perform genetic experiments on subjects and modify them to create super warriors. They are responsible for the creation of Green Lantern enemies like Hector Hammond and the Shark, and have allied with other evil alien races over the years. 
• The alien language that Lobo speaks is Interlac, a fictional alien language that is used by many alien races in the DC universe, most notably featured in Legion of Super-Heroes and Lobo stories. 
• The Justice League title that shows on the screen behind Godfrey is derivative from the logo of the Justice League animated series, albeit with enough alterations as to not provoke copyright problems. 
• Clayface notes that electrical attacks "won't work on (him) anymore", referencing to how he was defeated with a similar trick in "Downtime", the eighth episode of the first season.

Agents of SHIELD S05E21 Review: The Needs of the Few

Agents of SHIELD, Season 5, Episode 21: The Force of Gravity

Well, when all the ominous talks about having to choose to save Coulson or to save the world, I was expecting something more metaphorical... but it's apparently a literal (albeit slightly convoluted) choice. At the end of this episode, the fact that the Centipede serum is unique, and that they have the last of the Serum, means that they can only use it for one of two things -- create the cure for Coulson to prolong his life, or to use it as a way to inject the poisonous Odium into Glenn Talbot's system. And the SHIELD team has seen the future and they know that if they end up doing the wrong thing, the Earth gets cracked in half. The pacing throughout this season hasn't always been good, but the season did build up to this moment and it's a pretty great moment as it's got not just the force of a season behind it, but five.

The rest of the episode plays out like a great penultimate episode. We've got Daisy fighting against Taryan in a battle of the mind, where Taryan gloats that trapping Daisy in her own mind to be 'broken' as his Inhuman pet... only for Daisy to use the literal strength of will to break the device holding her comatose. Exit Taryan and the rest of the silly Kasius family, they've overstayed their welcome. Meanwhile, May, Coulson, Deke and Davis (oh, Davis) try to survive on board the Remorath ship while Talbot steals the Quinjet to return to Earth. Agent Kim (a.k.a. the one that's not Piper or Davis) dies, though. This leads to some pretty cool scenes, like the long-awaited kiss between Coulson and May -- which happens behind Coulson's arm-shield and gets witnessed by Daisy who reacts very appropriately with a "seriously, guys, now?" expression. May and Qovas also get to have a huge martial arts fight while Deke screams unfunny-funny jokes about symbols in the background. They end up managing to hack Qovas's ship and get him to essentially blow his own ship up, taking Qovas out of the equation as well.

Meanwhile, Glenn Talbot continues to be horrifying, going down to search for more Gravitonium. He meets up with Carl Creel in a hospital, and Creel is nothing but grateful and loyal to see Talbot back... but begins to notice how strange Talbot is acting. Credit where credit's due for the writers, they at least allowed Adrian Pasdar to actually act and look conflicted yet resolute as he tells Creel how this is "needed" and the pain will only last a while, before tricking Creel into turning into Gravitonium and 'eating' him. Poor Creel. But while I'm pretty sad at Carl Creel's death,with him being a very fun supporting character all season long, the big emotional punch comes when Talbot arrives at his family house.

And at first, everything's fine. He shows off his superhero powers to his kid, who's confused but glad to see his dad alive. But his wife ends up saying the wrong things, and coupled with her earlier betrayal when forced by Hale, it got Talbot to really lose his temper. The show stops short from having Talbot actually kill his wife in front of his son, thank god, but god damn if it isn't a tense scene. Mack, Yo-Yo and a bunch of soldiers show up, but bullets, cars and even Yo-Yo's super speed can't work against Talbot's Graviton powers. Honestly, the only thing saving SHIELD from being cubed is the fact that Talbot is still trying to maintain the facade of being a hero in front of his son George, who keeps asking him why he's fighting the good guys. It's pretty heartbreaking, but it's clear that whatever humanity within Talbot has been pretty perverted by his lust for power and the madness that Hale's brainwashing and the Gravitonium had turned him into. Talbot then continues to go with his plan to obtain more Gravitonium, with his justifications of it being for the good of mankind or for the sake of him being a protector of Earth wearing more and more thin with each sentence that comes out of his mouth, culminating in this episode with him kidnapping Robin Hinton.

The rest of team SHIELD is just getting us to the point in the climax, though. After dealing with Qovas, Coulson basically just falls over ill. Coulson gets to angst about how he's responsible, partially, for Talbot's madness. Fitz and Simmons end up working to come up with the plan to deal with both Coulson and Graviton, but they can only choose one. Although Fitz notes that they could break the loop by actually saving Coulson instead of "trying to", which... okay? Overall, though, it's a pretty great penultimate episode, and definitely builds up for a pretty explosive final episode. 

Marvel Easter Eggs Corner:

• The aftermath of the New York battle in Avengers: Infinity War play in the news reports Mack is watching. For obvious reasons, no superheroes or supervillains are actually seen. 
• Coulson's robot arm holo-shield thing finally returns after being absent for basically the entire season. 

Gotta Review 'Em All, Part #24: Axew to Volcarona

The penultimate part of our journey through Unova! Not much really to say in this opening, although this is the last bit before we jump straight into the fifth's generation's gigantic cornucopia of legendaries.

Click here for the previous part.
Click here for the next part.
Click here for the index of every single one of these articles.
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#610-612: Axew, Fraxure & Haxorus

• Types: Dragon [all three]
• Japanese names: Kibago, Onondo, Ononokusu
• Categories: Tusk [Axew], Axe Jaw [Fraxure/Haxorus]

I have shown that my personal tastes in Pokemon lean more towards the weird, but I have an intense amount of appreciation for the cool dragons. And Haxorus is as cool as they come! But he's the third stage of a three-stage evolutionary line, and... well, I've never really been as enamoured with its pre-evolved stage, unlike how I was with the awkward, stern Bagon and the adorably goofy Gible. Axew is a little green baby dinosaur, and its face and eyes are cute enough, and I do like that dark green horn, but the weird little light-green scarf-life bit seems out of place. The more I look at that scarf the more I think it's weird. I bet I'll like it better if it's in the same dark green shade as his head-crest? It's otherwise a neat little baby dinosaur-thing. Axew's whole deal is that its two sideways-pointing tusks are supposed to be like an axe, but in practice they don't really look threatening or practical at all. Hell, the first time I saw Axew I thought he was chomping down on a baguette. Axew's... okay, but I've never really liked him. He has an insane amount of presence in the Unova anime, being the main pokemon of Iris. I haven't watched Best Wishes, though. Maye I'll like Axew more if I did so? Eh. 

Fraxure is a grown-up Axew, with its upper body being covered in a harder green armour, and it's gained a lot of red on the tip of its tusks, claws and tail... but those goddamn tusks still look silly as ever, especially considering that thanks to the art, they don't really look attached to Fraxure's beak in an organic way, and looks more like a pair of hovering blades that just end up hovering approximately around Fraxure's upper jaw. I've never really liked Fraxure either, although the mouth-blades at least look somewhat threatening this time around. Fraxure's dex entries are essentially the same with Axew's, just being territorial little dinosaur-dragons that mark their territory with the tusks. The rather disconnected design ends up feeling a wee bit too cluttered, and I'm not a particularly big fan on how the green chunk just awkwardly cuts off halfway down the body. It's not a bad design, but not one that I would really care about if it didn't turn into...

 3/6 for Axew and Fraxure. 

HAXORUS! It's honestly a bit weird since both Axew and Fraxure are distinctly mainly green, whereas Haxorus is an insane beaked theropodal dinosaur-dragon plated almost entirely in golden scales, but Haxorus's most striking part are her two gigantic face-blades, which finally end up looking like the blades of an axe. Axew and Fraxure have never quite impressed me or endeared themselves to me, but Haxorus? By god, this thing looks badass, and the way those plates on her neck just overlaps is pretty neat. Haxorus is just a big angry territorial dragon, and those face-blades can instantly cut through steel, which is pretty damn cool. Part of me is slightly sad that Haxorus doesn't actually gain the Steel typing, though, and wonder if maybe this was supposed to be a Metal Coat style of evolution. The pokedex kept emphasizing how Haxorus's blades are as sharp as steel, and how its armour plates are stronger than steel...

Oh, and Shiny Haxorus just swaps the gold for black, which just looks badass. As much as I express disdain at how many dragons appear in the later generations and ends up making the Dragon type feel not as special... if the tradeoff is that we get badass monsters like Haxorus, I'll gladly be happy about it. Haxorus is an amazing design... shame that its two younger stages are so bland. Thankfully, Haxorus ends up being one of the straight-up coolest dragons in the Pokemon world. 

 5/6.

#613-614: Cubchoo & Beartric

• Types: Ice [both]
• Japanese names: Kumashun, Tsunbea
• Categories: Chill [Cubchoo], Freezing [Beartric] 

Oh, hey, it's "Just A Polar Bear". Cubchoo and Beartric are the second Ice-types in this region after the Vanillite line, and are encountered in an icy mountain range. And they're... I'm not a huge fan of Cubchoo. It's a baby polar bear, and baby polar bears are kinda cute even if they're not my thing, but Cubchoo is just that... with a snot dripping down from its nose. As familiar as I am with Asian culture, I will never quite understand Japan's perception of dripping snot as endearing. Clean that up, jeez! Cubchoo's snot is apparently a permanent fixture, and it's always frozen -- if it's sick, the snot drip gets watery and its ice-type moves get weaker. Apparently it's always sniffing the mucus up to retain the raw material in that mucus? I don't like Cubchoo. I don't like its weird  colour palette that just cuts off randomly at the neck, I don't like that its design is just a simple bear with frozen snot, and I especially don't like...

Beartric, who is the most generic looking bear monster ever. Like, even compared to some of the worst offenders like "just a bird" Unfezant or Fearow, the only thing that really makes Beartric stand apart from a real-life bear is that disgusting beard made up of icicles. And since Cubchoo's thing is made out of snot, Beartric's is... made up of... saliva? I don't think I would mind Beartric as much if they actually took this concept and made something out of it. Wouldn't it be cool if Beartric actually had a proper Viking or Santa Claus beard out of those icicles? Instead he just looks like he dribbles a lot and those saliva dribbles just froze over. The dex notes that he apparently uses its frosty breath to augment his claws and fangs, but couldn't we have seen this in the official art in some fashion? Add that to the very bland and boring body and the weird triangular shape it has, and I've always thought that Cubchoo and Beartric felt like two of the more forgettable designs from the Unova dex. 

 1/6.

#615: Cryogonal

• Type: Ice
• Japanese name: Furijio
• Category: Crystallizing

Cryogonal is another pure Ice-type, the rarer encounter in the Twist Mountain where Cubchoos and Boldores run rampant. Cryogonal's just a giant snowflake with a disapproving face, and it's actually pretty pleasant looking,with a lot  of interconnecting faces and multiple shades of blue. The little black mass seems to be its 'real' face, and the glowing blue eyes and mouth formed of glowing beads always seemed somewhat striking to me. Cryogonal's always felt more throwaway until I actually saw it in action in the manga and some episodes of the Unova anime that I managed to catch, where it can extend those little mouth-ice-balls into a chain of ice, which the pokedex also describes it as being able to do, using said chains to immobilize prey. Apparently, when its body armour goes up, it turns into steam and vanishes into thin air until its body cools down and it reforms, something that ends up looking pretty cool as the Cryogonal used by gym leader Brycen in the manga just turns into vapour in response to fighting a fire-type, making it untouchable. So it's a creature of ice that can transform into steam if heated, and attacks and hunts prey with icy beard-chains -- a lot cooler than 'snowflake with a face', for sure!

Cryogonal is one of those pokemon that looks a lot better when animated, because there's when you see the ice chain beard deal. It's honestly a pretty cool concept for a creature that's biologically comprised entirely of ice, feeling like it came straight out of some old sci-fi stories. It's not a creature that I have much of a personal investment of, but it's actually a pretty neat concept!

 4/6.

#616-617: Shelmet & Accelgor

• Types: Bug [both]
• Japanese names: Chobomaki, Agiruda
• Categories: Snail [Shelmet], Shell Out [Accelgor]

Holy shit, this is like, halfway through the pokedex down from Karrablast. Why are these two related lines not placed next to each other, or reasonably close together? The Unova Pokedex really likes to do this, like randomly splitting up their legendary trios for no real reason. Shelmet is the snail that Karrablast hunts, and like Karrablast, it's such a weird and unconventional design for a snail. It's this weird pink-and-green blob with kissy mouths, stuck inside a weird steel helmet that makes it look more like a bivalve. Honestly, other than the ingrained mentality that snails are soft creatures that hide in hard shells, as well as that spiral on the back, it's hard-pressed for me to call Shelmet a Bug-type at all. 

It's apparently a bug that shoots out poisonous spit, which isn't anything new... but the pokedex gives us the additional fun info that it can close its knight helmet, and then shoot the poisonous spit through the eye slits while still remaining protected, which is pretty awesome. It's pure Bug-type, which I kinda thought was weird... shouldn't it be Bug/Steel, since it has that metallic helmet? I guess they don't want people to abuse Shelmet's superior typing, though, by putting an Eviolite onto him and ignore the whole evolution gimmick. As someone interested in taxonomy, just like the crustacean-based Dwebble earlier in the Unova Pokedex, Shelmet is classified as a 'Bug' type despite being a mollusk. Both mollusks and crustaceans are consistently defaulted into "water" type by the Pokemon world, although I suppose Shelmet is really our first land-bound mollusk Pokemon? Eh. 

It's really weird that the later generation dexes and their official depictions don't actually play up anything about Karrablast being Shelmet's predator, but rather just note that when the two come together, they are bathed in "strange energy" that trigger their evolution. I feel that it's really silly -- even if they want to play down the fact that they try to murder each other, why not make Karrablast "steal" Shelmet's shell, or if we're going for a friendlier route, for Karrablast to help Shelmet shed that big, cumbersome shell?

Because, well, Shelmet evolves into Accelgor after shedding its shell, becoming one of the fastest pokemon ever, and also a ninja to contrast with Excavalier's jousting knight deal. And... I really want to like Accelgor, I really do. There's a lot of things going on here, from the awesome way that the dark space in its face doubles as the ninja-mask-bandana thing as well as the inner part of its kissy-face mouth. The pink and green main body makes a very pleasant colour scheme, and the weird membrane wrappings are a believably organic way to put clothing-like features into a Pokemon. But there's, again, very little to inform us that this is supposed to really be a snail, and I think the first reaction I have when I saw Accelgor is "what the fuck is this supposed to be?" The only remaining hint of Accelgor's snail origin is its curved ponytail. It's a great concept, but no one can probably quite get what Shelmet and especially Accelgor are supposed to represent without having someone explain it to me. It's still all right at the end of the day, especially paired with Karrablast and Escavalier, but I feel this is the weaker line of the two. 

 3/6.

#618: Stunfisk

• Types: Ground/Electric
• Japanese names: Maggyo
• Categories: Trap

People harp on Stunfisk as much as they do on the ice creams, the trash bags and the gears... and what the hell, people? Stunfisk is adorable! Stunfisk is dumb-looking, yes, but that's the whole point of its design. It's meant to be the Slowpoke or the Lotad of this generation, and it's based on an actual fish -- the flounder, who is actually flat and have had both its eyes migrate to one side of its body so it can peek out from the sea floor. It's one of the world's ugliest yet most fascinating fishes, with the way its face metamorphoses throughout its life cycle, turning it into a weird walking carpet that hides in the gravel of the ocean floor to ambush smaller fish. Just like Eelektross, they mix the whole flounder aspect with another electric-generating animal, this time the electric ray (Torpediniformes order), which plays into the whole "flat fish" deal that Stunfisk has going on. And I can get behind that! Not sure why he has a beak, though. Stunfisk apparently lives in the mud near seashores, waiting for fools to step on it before it delivers a jolt of electricity. 

Like Eelektross, though, despite being a combination of two interesting fishies, Stunfisk isn't Water-type, but rather Ground/Electric. It quite boggles me because even if the rationalization is that it's a mud-dwelling monster and not like real-life flounders, even the likes of Quagsire and Swampert have water-typings. I dunno... the Water typing really feels like an afterthought in the design of the fifth generation thanks to its lack of surfing areas, and considering that they admittedly forgot to include generic fish pokemon in the game which led to the lazy execution of Basculin... yeah. Stunfisk's pretty hilarious in the few times that I've seen him in the movies, just blasting fools with electrical blasts while having that satisfied herpaderp face on. It's a perfect-looking dumb Pokemon, and it looks just so satisfied in all its animations. I genuinely don't understand how people can hate this funny-looking flatfish. Of course it looks kinda dumb. It's meant to be. I've grown to love it. One of the more hilarious and more charming entries, to be honest.

 5/6.

#619-620: Mienfoo & Mienshao

• Types: Fighting [both]
• Japanese names: Kojofu, Kojondo
• Categories: Martial Arts [both]

I keep forgetting Mienfoo and Mienshao are part of the fifth generation instead of the sixth, mostly because they never really left any sort of impression on me. They are pure-Fighting weasels, with a vague Chinese kung-fu motif given to them. And they're honestly actually quite well-designed, Mienshao in particular, being very organic looking while still having the silhouette of a martial artist dressed in traditional garb. It's not particularly my thing -- Fighting types tend to be uninteresting to me unless they're paired with another type, but Mienshao and Mienfoo are one of the few that lines that are just... pleasant. Mienfoo's not particularly super-exciting design wise, but its combination of pink and yellow is very pleasant looking.

Mienshao definitely plays up the elegant aspect, being a very nice shade of gray and purple, with extended sleeves over their real arms to whip people with. There's not really that much about the evolutionary line beyond that, but they're definitely not a family I associate with the fifth generation, even though Marshall of the Elite Four uses one... but as far as Mienshao and Mienfoo go, I'll always associate them more with Lysandre of the sixth generation's Team Flare. I dunno why Lysandre's speedy little Mienshao always gave me more trouble than any specimen I've encountered in the fifth generation ever did. There's not much to talk about Mienfoo and Mienshao, but they're elegantly designed and clearly have more thought put into them compared to something like Beartric up above. Pretty, neat, now that I think about them a bit more. 

 3/6.

#621: Druddigon

• Types: Dragon
• Japanese name: Kurimugan
• Categories: Cave

Dragons in the Pokemon world either range from super-crazy reality warping abominations, a bunch of ultra-awesome designs, and then a bunch of unexpected inspirations for dragons like Kingdra and Altaria. And when I first saw Druddigon, I went "aw, this sucks! It's not cool like my Garchomps and my Haxoruses and my Hydreigons! But I guess we've never actually had a traditional, roaring lizard-monster that dragons tend to be typecasted as back in the old days where they're just powerful beasts for knights to slay and Tolkien and D&D didn't turn them into actually intelligent ancient creatures. And in that aspect, Druddigon kinda functions quite well as the archetypal evil, brutish dragon ogre thing. This thing lives in caves dug by rock-type pokemon, sunbathes to power itself up like a lizard, and is just a strong predator. I used to absolutely rant about this thing due to how crudely it's designed -- and that criticism still stands. But nowadays, I think I'm a bit more chill. It's still over-designed, don't get me wrong. The wings are ugly and seem more like spiky tumours than actual wings -- although I guess that's why it can't fly -- and its head still looks ridiculous, like it was lifted and pasted on from another creature... but it's... eh, it's there. "Eh" is mostly how I feel about Druddigon nowadays.

It's a pure Dragon-type, and pure Dragon-types only exist in pre-evolutions prior to the fifth generation... but even in Unova, Druddigon is going to be completely classed out by the far cooler Haxorus, Hydreigon and the legendaries. Poor Druddigon. There's some things that make Druddigon neat and unique, like its long gorilla arms, but this creature really looked like it needed some more time through the editing process, really. We've never really had a proper classic dinosaur-dragon before, I don't think. It fills a niche, and it looks a bit better and more impressive outside of Generation V, but I kinda felt like they could've done something to make Druddigon more memorable. 

 3/6.

#622-623: Golett & Golurk

• Types: Ground/Ghost [both]
• Japanese names: Gobitto, Gorugu
• Categories: Automaton [Golem in Japanese]

Ooh, ooh, these two are cool as well! Golett and Golurk are the final entries for ghost-types in Unova, and so far we've got a haunted soul-burning chandelier, a sarcophagus shadow monster that evolved from the souls of dead humans, and a group of royal jellyfishes that drag people down to their deaths. And it's genuinely surprising to learn that Golett and Golurk are actually ghost-type the first time. Like the Regi trio from the third generation, Golett and Golurk are based on the legendary Hebrew golems, but these are far less just animated rocks and ice, but are truer to the fact, making them feel more mundane than the regis but at the same time giving them a neat air of mystery. Golett is a pretty cute little golem, with bindings around its round little body, and cute little arms and legs. The slight bent left eye actually gives Golett a fair bit of charm that Klink tries and fails to get. Golett, like many other pokemon such as Claydol and Sigilyph, are the remnants of yet another ancient, mysterious civilization, being clay automatons powered by a mysterious energy that modern science cannot identify yet. Golett's cute, just this waddling spherical clay golem carrying a msyterious purpose, and I've always loved how you can see into his glowing core from the holes that his arms stick out from.

Golett evolves into Golurk, who just looks straight-up awesome. It's not just a haunted clay golem, but it also looks like something out of an 80's giant robot show. From its giant, spiked shoulders, to the giant fingers, to the gigantic barrel chest... add those fun genie gauntlets to his arms and legs. It's a cool giant robot, and our first proper humanoid robot... and it's a golem! How cool is that? I really love Golurk's design. From the tiny head on top of that giant superman body, ending in chiseled yet short legs... Golurk's dex entries notes that removing the seal on its chest makes its energy run out  of control, apparently causing it to destroy towns. Love that there's already a crack of energy running diagonally across his chest, and that this is also a reference to the legend of the Golem of Prague. 

Best of all? It's only hinted at in the games through its Black entry, which tells us that it "flies across the sky at Mach speeds", and Golurk does indeed learn fly. I've always thought that Golurk just flies around like Superman, for no real good reason... then I watched the Zekrom-Reshiram movie, and easily, without contest, the best part of the movie was when the Golurk there suddenly retracts its hands and legs, and then uses them as jet boosters to fly around and WHAT THE FUCK THAT'S SO COOL! This creature is so cool. A haunted clay golem with a mysterious energy, created by an ancient civilization, with rocket boosters hidden in it? So many fifth generation pokemon get so much fun gimmicks thrown into them, and some are just "yep here's a bunch of monkeys with types sticky-taped onto their heads". Golurk's awesome. Clearly the ancient civilization collapsed under the weight of inventing the pinnacle of awesomeness that is Golurk. 

 6/6.

#624-625: Pawniard & Bisharp

• Types: Dark/Steel [both]
• Japanese names: Komatana, Kirikizan
• Categories: Sharp Blade [Pawniard], Sword Blade [Bisharp]

Chess Pokemon! I'm honestly a bit disappointed that all we got was a pawn and a bishop, and that we don't actually run the gamut of the entire chess board the way that Digimon's chess monsters do... but I suppose we could be saving potential knight/rook/king/queen evolutions for later down the line, huh? Regardless, I was actually unprepared that they decided to make Pawniard a Steel/Dark Pokemon. How weirdly creative is that? Chess tends to bring to mind organized gameplay and noble knights and all. Pawniard? Pawniard just looks like a weird little hoodlum with that glorious mouthless face, a horned helm, and blades everywhere. Blades for arms! Blades on his face! Blades jutting out of his chest! Spiky tiny toes! The black-silver-red paint scheme really works well for Pawniard too. Pawniards apparently act like literal pawns, obeying the orders of their Bisharp commanders heedless of damage done to themselves. 

Pawniard then evolves into Bisharp, who still manages to look cool despite his design looking like he just got rejected from auditioning as the newest Ultraman. Bisharp's sadly marred a bit by those hideously thick thighs, but everything else from the waist up looks neat. From Bisharp's neat crescent face-blade, to the shoulder things, to the blades jutting out from the sides of their lower arms... Bisharp's one of those designs that looks just objectively cool, and he's got a rather mean-looking expression on his eye that still tells us that this is a dark-type, even if it doesn't quite communicate this quite as well as Pawniard did. It's got some personality, mind you, being a leader that commands Pawniards to lock down a prey with sheer numbers, before it swings in and deliver the finishing blow. 

Also, I didn't actually notice the pawn -- sorry, I mean pun -- behind Bisharp's name and how it's really supposed to be pronounced until way, way too late. Overall, though, one of the cooler entries in the game.

 5/6.

#626: Bouffalant

• Types: Normal
• Japanese names: Baffuron
• Categories: Bash Buffalo

Ugh. I hate this thing. Like everyone else out there, I kinda thought that this was going to be an evolution to Tauros. And thank god it isn't, by the way. They're both bulls, they're both the same shade of brown... but thank god Tauros doesn't evolve into this. Tauros is a boring bull whose only real feature of note is having three tails, but at least he's not as stupid as this godawful monstrosity of a design. I'm not someone who really likes to hate on things -- even with designs I don't particularly agree like Druddigon above, I try to see something positive about it. But Bouffalant? How I hate this thing. A bison pokemon is appropriate for an American region, of course, but then they decided to randomly slap a humongously ridiculous afro on Bouffalant, then make the horns look like they're not connected to Bouffalant's proper head, and slap random rings on it. I'm not even going to try to point out the racism because unlike Jynx, this is most likely unintentional... but god damn this thing is dumb. Oh and by the way, this thing is actually pretty fucking strong, which means I actually can't ignore it and tell it to piss off like the monkeys since this thing can legitimately fuck my party up. So yeah. Fuck this thing. I believe I've gone on record on saying Bouffalant is my most hated Pokemon, and if I'm allowed to completely erase one Pokemon from existence it's this dumb afro bull. Give me just-a-cow any day, please. Give me fifteen more variations of elemental monkeys and a generation full of over-cluttered personifications-of-godlike-powers nonsense legendaries. This one is just pretty nasty. 

 0/6.

#627-628: Rufflet & Braviary

• Types: Normal/Flying [both]
• Japanese names: Washibon, Woguru
• Categories: Eaglet [Rufflet], Valiant [Braviary]

Okay, after all that rambling, we've finally reached the final lap with the Pokemon found on Unova's Victory Road, and our final pair of version exclusives. First up are these eagles exclusive to White, perhaps the most 'Murican Pokemon of them all. Based on the USA's mascot animal, the Bald Eagle, and bearing the colours of the flag and a head feather reminiscent of native Americans, you can't get more American than these unless the next generation introduces, like, an evolution of Braviary that carries a cheeseburger and an American flag. Rufflet's actually really cute, with that inquisitive look and the fuzzy down that many baby birds have. It's a scrappy little clucker, apparently, who likes to challenge other enemies to try and get stronger. And good luck, because this thing evolves at level 54! Lots of the later Unova Pokemon evolve at ridiculously high levels compared to anything that came before and after it. 

Rufflet then evolves into Braviary, an eagle with American colours. Hear the screech of freedom! I do love how the feathers splay out on his face, and I am definitely a big fan of the ridiculously long legs that Braviary has, matching the real-life animal. They're brave warrior birds that like to show off their scars, which is pretty neat. It's a bit weird, though, that Braviary and Rufflet are a species that is 100% male. I guess it's because the line's supposed to be a counterpart to the 100% female Vullaby and Mandibuzz, but breeding them always produces Vullaby eggs all the time, so the population of the freedom bird can only be sustained by Dittos, apparently. 

Overall, not my thing. I'm not American so the patriotism thing does nothing to me, and most other early-route birds already look like eagles of sort, but it's a very competently done design, and a neat addition to the dex. 

 3/6.

#629-630: Vullaby & Mandibuzz

• Types: Dark/Flying [both]
• Japanese names: Baruchai, Barujina
• Categories: Diapered [Vullaby], Bone Vulture [Mandibuzz]

Eagles and vultures are very iconic birds that we've never gotten made into pokemon, although you could argue that the likes of Pidgeot and Fearow kind of already take on the roles of the eagles and vultures of the pokemon world. Of course, while Braviary and Rufflet are neat representations of eagles, Vullaby and Mandibuzz are far more creative in their execution. Vullaby is known as the 'diapered Pokemon', and is a weird-looking funky baby bird with a sassy expression... until you look at the diaper and realize that... oh. It's a skull. This fat baby bird uses the top half of a human skull as a diaper, using the eye holes as to have its legs poke out, and the nostril hole makes a funny little heart symbol. That's fucking morbid is what it is. Naturally, Vullaby is Dark/Flying. And that skull looks like a pretty human-shaped skull too. I mean, they could be using Machoke skulls or something, but still. Vullaby is apparently a bit too weak to fly, so they guard themselves with the bones collected by their parents, while they relentlessly bully weaker pokemon while waddling along in their silly little bone diapers. 

And then it evolves into Mandibuzz, which fails to impress me and I brushed off as "ugly vulture" while playing through the fifth-gen games. When I saw Mandibuzz's 3D model, though, which has her soaring, I grew a bit more appreciation for her as an actually pretty cool looking vulture with wide wings, a snakey neck and that hilarious skirt made out of bones. She uses a bone to do her hair, too, which is a special kind of morbid. And like real vultures, they are carrion feeders, chomping down on corpses or near-dead animals, and they decorate their nests with bones. The seventh generation adds a couple extra creepiness to Mandibuzz's story. Apparently, they adorn themselves beautifully with bones to attract males, but no male specimens of Mandibuzz exist. (Don't worry, though, they can still make Vullaby eggs with any male pokemon from the same egg group). 

But worst (or best) of all is the detail that apparently Mandibuzz's favourite prey is Cubone, who cries a lot due to his lost mommy. Mandibuzz, you... you absolute heartless jackass, you! You murder the little orphan, then use their bones to decorate your nest and make diapers for your babies? By god, this is actually a lot darker than all the ghost pokemon stories we've covered throughout the entirety of these reviews. Mandibuzz is more 'not my thing' compared to Braviary, but she gets an extra ball for creativity and flavour. 

 3/6.

#631: Heatmor

• Type: Fire
• Japanese name: Kuitaran
• Category: Anteater

Ah. I forgot this dude exists. About time we had an ant-eater pokemon, I guess? I've never appreciated how much weird little details go into Heatmor's design, by the way. From the tongue of flame being analogous to an anteater's literal tongue (it's actually able to manipulate it to that degree), to the streaks of lava running through its body, to its mean-looking claws and the weird furnace gauntlet it has around them... and its tail is a fucking chimney! This is a lava anteater, and really the only thing I don't particularly like about this dude is its face. It's sort of slightly-too-cluttered, but I honestly don't mind quite as much. Heatmor's whole deal, of course, is that it's a pure Fire-type that targets its 'rival', Durant, which ends up being its prey. I've don't think I've actually ever appreciated how neat Heatmor looks. It's kind of a one-trick pony, defined almost wholly by being a Fire-type predator to the 4x-weak-to-fire species, but it is an adaptation of a brand-new animal, and a pretty well-realized one. Pretty cool overall, though, the more I look at it. 

 4/6.

#632: Durant

• Types: Bug/Steel
• Japanese name: Aianto
• Category: Iron Ant

The Bug/Steel Durant is the other side of the coin to Heatmor, and they're pretty cool-looking metal ants. There's not really that much going on about Durant other than the fact that our very first ant Pokemon (!) are giant ants with giant jaws, and they're also made up of metal. Durants apparently dig their nests in the mountains, and the intricate network of tunnels that form the Unovan Victory Road? It's actually a gigantic Durant nest, which explains the gigantic amount of Durants that live there, and also why you really need a fire-type to get through the Victory Road unmolested. It's such a cool backstory to the otherwise constantly appearing "final cave dungeon" Victory Roads, and the Durant colonies are apparently very intent on assigning roles to individuals to drive around the Durant invaders that will melt their armour to get to the juicy, crunchy bug bits inside. It's definitely a bit of a shame that Durant doesn't evolve or have a queen counterpart, but there's always future generations, or future possible ant pokemon. Pretty cool relationship between Durant and Heatmor, honestly, although I really wished that's not all that the two have going. 

 4/6.

#633-635: Deino, Zweilous & Hydreigon

• Types: Dark/Dragon [all three]
• Japanese names: Monozu, Jiheddo, Sazandora
• Categories: Irate [Deino], Hostile [Zweilous], Brutal [Hydreigon]

Finally, we get to our pseudo-legendary! Nope, Haxorus wasn't one, but that's okay because we've got another three-line Dragon monster. Starting off with the weird little baby brontosaurus, Deino. Deino's a weirdly frumpy design, with a gigantic chunk of black hair around its face, neck and chest. Apparently Deino is completely blind, and that it's not just a fashion statement that he has such long bangs. Deino ends up being forced to tackle and bite everything around him, leading to a wound-covered body, presumably represented by those weird purple patches. This kinda reminds me of cave salamanders, who have adapted to cave lives so well that their eyes have regressed. Poor Deino is far larger than a salamander, and doesn't have the same echolocation that Zubat has, leading it to just rampage around because he's a miserable, blind baby dinosaur. Poor thing! Oh, and Deino's Dark/Dragon, which I've always thought was weird. Violence doesn't inherently make you dark-type, and I really wished that it gained its Dark typing only when it evolves. Small nitpicky point, there.

Deino evolves into Zweilous. It's just a two-headed Deino, with two weird tail-wings that stick to the side, and a body structure with more splayed-out legs. I also kinda like it that Zweilous's two heads have extra ponytails. Zweilous actually feels like a proper dark type, with both heads constantly being in conflict, and that they just lead a life of laying waste to one area before moving to the next. There's really not that much to go on for Zweilous, except he's gained some pink markings under his belly. Apparently, originally Deino, Zweilous and Hydreigon were designed as tank-cyborg dragons (the pink markings are remnants of the tank treads from the design), which would have been equally cool... but then we'd miss out on these dudes. So.

Their final evolution, Hydreigon, drops the blindness deal and has Zweilous's hairstyle splay backwards like some sort of insane flower. And I would be a bit pissed that they dropped the blind-dragon design choices from the first two stages, except Hydreigon is so goddamn cool. The three headed image of the hydra is absolutely classic, and I absolutely love how apparently in fightin for dominange, one head wins out and gets more developed snake curves and fangs, while the 'hand' heads look like they've regressed. The six wings look hauntingly beautiful and just so different from the normal bat-like wings Pokemon gets, and I really like how its lower legs and tail look like they've been ripped off, highlighting Hydreigon's brutal, fighty status.

Hydreigon is a brutal motherfucker that attacks everything in its path, and apparently the dex notes that the two hand-heads don't even have any brains left after evolution. Overall, there's not much more to Hydreigon other than being a rampaging hydra dragon, but it does that so well, looks so goddamn awesome with the striking black-blue-purple colour scheme, and honestly still retains a bit more personality with its design that makes it look unique. Really wished that they did something about the blindness gimmick, though -- kinda felt wasted on that part. 

 5/6 as a set; Hydreigon alone is an easy 6/6.

#636-637: Larvesta & Volcarona

• Types: Bug/Fire [both]
• Japanese names: Merauba, Urugamosu
• Categories: Torch [Larvesta], Sun [Volcarona]

The final non-legendary pokemon in the Unova dex is encountered in a way that is honestly felt like it's meant to be one. Volcarona only appears after the endgame of the original Black/White games at the end of Relic Castle, with said dungeon being a very plot-relevant location housing the mascot dragon, located in the very mysterious desert populated by Yamask and Sigilyph, and Volcarona resides in the final chamber of a labyrinth. Volcarona even looks intimidating and cool enough to be our very first Bug-type legendary... but alas, we instead get the stupid horse musketeers instead. Ah well. Volcarona's one of the most powerful Bug-type Pokemon regardless, and this is honestly one of the best generations for bugs, with multiple very strong entries in the categories of design and usability! And obviously, I love Volcarona. I love her design, I love how she's encountered... and I really love her often-ignored little baby Larvesta as well.

Larvesta is a fat little slug-like caterpillar with six stubby limbs and a mass of white hair covering its front half. I don't think it's based on a specific caterpillar (the wiki states the atlas moth, but Larvesta doesn't look like that at all) but more on the generic tropes of having hair and looking like a slug. It has these red horns growing out of its neck like some sort of image of the sun, and apparently the anime shows that Larvesta can shoot flames out of these horns to kind of fly. Hell, Larvesta's dex entries really make it feel like it's written for a legendary, doesn't it? A pokemon borne from the sun, who in ancient times are said to actually build nests in the sun, whose body is engulfed in flames like a phoenix upon evolving? These are also our first Bug/Fire Pokemon, and I am genuinely pleased that they didn't go cave in for the obvious pun of a firefly. 


Yeah. It then evolves into the majestically named Mothra Volcarona, this gloriously fat bastard of a moth with a very pleasing set of flame-coloured wings, and an appropriately alien face. With those red fat antennae forming some kind of crest around its face, and the eyes with X pupils, Volcarona instantly grabbed me as a design. It looked legendary, it was encountered at the end of a dungeon at a very high level, and I was soul-crushed to learn that, no, this majestic creature is in fact just a normal pokemon.

Listen to its pokedex entries! "When volcanic ash darkened the atmosphere, it is said that Volcarona's fire provided a replacement for the sun." "A sea of fire engulfs the surroundings of their battles." "It was feared by the ancient people, who referred to it as the Rage of the Sun". Hell, it's even got a signature move, Fiery Dance, which is the sort of rather-overpowered move that deals damage while buffing yourself. Volcarona is majestic, and even taking my bug bias out of the equation, Volcarona's backstory is badass enough and she's frankly far more regal-looking than a good half of the ridiculous gauntlet of uninspired legendaries that we'll review next week. Oh well. Volcarona's really cool.

 6/6.

_________________________________

That's a long article! Next week we'll be talking about the Unovan legendaries, and as you can probably already tell... not impressed. There's a slightly bit less legendaries in the Unovan dex compared to Sinnoh, but there's just a lot of them that just are just not my thing.

(Also, while re-editing this article, good lord, past me really screwed up the html on this page.)