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.