Movie Review: Constantine [2005]

Constantine [2005]

Back in 2005, they made an adaptation of Hellblazer starring Keanu Reeves as John Constantine, and... and honestly, it's not that bad of a movie. I didn't become really familiar with John Constantine until I watched Mark Ryan's performance as the character in the NBC series and his later roles in the CW Arrow-verse TV series, before getting acquainted with the full collection of Hellblazer. The thing about faithful representations of characters in live-action is that I can definitely think of Mark Ryan's performance and voice while reading a Hellblazer comic. I can't do so while imagining Keanu Reeves's version of the character. It's no fault of Mr. Reeves, because he actually did admirably with what he was given, and is engaging enough as a protagonist to carry this 120-minute movie.

But this loose adaptation of the "Dangerous Habits" arc of Hellblazer is... it's got a lot going against it. Perhaps taken as a generic exorcist-superhero movie, this movie might've been somewhat better received, although it certainly isn't by any means super-good. It's just that as an adaptation of a pre-existing character, Constantine kind of fails in making a faithful adaptation of it beyond superficial names, and doesn't honestly bring a lot of uniqueness with it. The movie itself is certainly watchable after a beer or two, but it sort of really fails to find its grip and alternates between trying to be a mystical superhero movie or a horror movie or a movie that means to world-build, and arguably doesn't do particularly good in any of those aspects.

Basically, Constantine (played by Matrix's Keanu Reeves) tries to cheat his way out of hell after being doomed there thanks to a childhood suicide attempt, and then finds himself caught in a war of attrition between the forces of heaven, hell and the half-breeds. Demons are crossing over to the material realm thanks to the combined forces of the misguided angel Gabriel (played by Tilda Swinton) and the half-breed demon Balthazaar (Gavin Rossdale) as they try to bring forth Lucifer's son, Mammon, to wreak havoc upon the world. Throw in Lucifer himself into there (gloriously played by Peter Stormare), the plot device lady Angela Dodson (Rachel Weisz), Constantine's kid sidekick Chas (a pre-Transformers Shia LaBeouf), Papa Midnite (Djimon Honsou) and a weird subplot about the Spear of Destiny, Constantine tries to do too much and doesn't manage to fire at all fronts.

Characters that help Constantine out in his journey like the mystical-seeking priest Hennessy (Pruitt Vince) and the mystical-artifact collecting Beeman (Max Baker) are introduced and quickly killed off by CGI demons as the movie builds up its rather ambiguous mythology, while Angela is introduced as this huge character who... never actually does much beyond being a love interest and a plot device to be fought over. Constantine constantly makes expositions about the rules of heaven and hell, and the world beyond the veil, but it's never quite made to be that intriguing and the movie plays hard and fast with its own rules in the service of CGI scenes.

It's honestly not that bad of a movie, all things considered. It's a shit adaptation of the source material, for sure, but it's sort of entertaining enough on its own merits if you remove it from the confines of attempting to be an adaptation of Hellblazer. I enjoyed myself enough watching it, I guess. 

Boomsday Project Card Review/Reaction #6

Bunch of new cards! Not much to say here. This was briefly taken down and uploaded with a way's worth of new cards.

The Soularium: The Warlocks' legendary spell is... interesting? At the point of writing we've barely seen any Warlock cards, only the honestly pretty m'eh Omega Agent, so I'm not sure if we're going to get any sort of huge discard boost. I mean, every time we get a discard warlock synergy card, everyone gets mildly excited only for discard warlock to still be a dud. I mean, the quest, Zavas, Cataclysm and Lana'thel are still in the rotation, so maaaaybe we're getting somewhere? Soularium drawing three cards for 1 mana and discarding them is interesting, because maybe you just want to discard three cards to progress the quest (or maybe there's a Silverware Golem style minion printed in this set) or if it's somewhat later -- or, more likely, if you're not playing a discard synergy deck -- you just get a three-card advantage and maybe you just machinegun them into the board. It's otherwise a pretty mellow legendary spell, I'm afraid.

Void Analyst: An interesting demon synergy card! One of Gadgetzan's Crystaweaver's biggest weakness, I think, is that the Cyrstalweaver himself isn't a demon, which made including him in a demon zoo Warlock deck a bit of a toss-up. Void Analyst is a 2-mana 2/2 demon, but with the deathrattle of giving all demons in your hand +1/+1. In a vacuum, she's an okay card? Hand-buffing has been proven to not be quite that strong, though it is worth noting that most Warlock decks nowadays want to keep your Voidlords and Doomguards in your hand until you can cheat it out with Skull of the Man'ari... but those same deck also run Bloodreaver Gul'dan, who you wouldn't want to bring back Void Analyst with. I guess Even Warlock could play this? They only run Homunculus, Reaver and Dread Infernal, after all. Ultimately an interesting card, but not one I see a lot of potential in seeing play in the current Warlock decks.

Thunderhead: First up we've got a bunch of interesting Shaman elementals. Thunderhead here is a 4-mana 3/5 that after you plays a card with Overlord, you get two 1/1 Sparks with Rush? It's the same effect with Voltaic Burst, which I suppose synergizes with this card, but I honestly think that you don't really want to play Thunderhead with Voltaic Burst -- there are a fair amount of other Overload cards that are better than Voltaic Burst. Yes, there's a lot of talk about how Voltaic Burst is good with Dire Wolf Alpha or Flametongue Totem, but that sort of requires a turn 3 play at best and you overload, which means that it isn't going to do the early-game board control that Jade Claws or Maelstrom Portal used to afford. Thunderhead himself looks decent, and if there are more cheap Overload cards printed might be good, but I personally don't see this happening, and especially not when there are so much better ways to play Shaman -- either Even or Shudderwock -- than a weird Overload synergy gameplan.

Storm Chaser: Storm Chaser is a card who I'm going to reserve my judgement until I actually see the Shaman legendary spell. She's a 4-mana 3/4 elemental that tutors a spell that costs 5 or more. Man, we are seeing lots of card-tutoring effects in this set, huh? At the moment the only expensive spell Shamans have in Standard are Volcano, Bloodlust and the Spellstone. In Wild we can add Everyfin is Awesome to that list. So I'm genuinely quite curious -- a card that guarantees tutoring Bloodlust isn't horrible at all, but probably not worth the tempo loss of playing an undercosted 4-drop. That's not to say Storm Chaser is a bad card, mind you -- it's just waiting for this set to reveal the card that you really want to draw.

Omega Mind: The Shamans also get an Omega card, a 2-mana 2/3. Vanilla stats! And if you have 10 mana crystals, your spells have Lifesteal this turn... which, well, Volcano! Maybe you don't run two Healing Rains, and just keep Omega Mind around. On a faster-paced game you have an additional 2/3 card, and on a slower game maybe you combo this with your Volcanos and Lightning Storms to get a lot of extra health. Certainly better stats than poor, unused Hallazeal, for sure. Even Shaman could use this too, I think.

Dreampetal Florist: Hey, if you're having some second thoughts about what to put into the seven-mana slot of your Psychmelon Druid deck, look no further than Dreampetal Florist! She's a 7-mana 4/4 that, at the end of your turn, reduces the cost of a random minion by seven. WHAT THE UTTER FUCK! I mean, I thought Floop was amazing, I thought Psychmelon was great... But this just pushes Druid over the edge, honestly. Forget Treants, combo druid just got a whole lot easier with this card. It's an end-of-turn effect so you're guaranteed a tick of the Florist's insane seven-mana discount by your next turn, you get a 4/4 body, and, hell, you can even rather reliably tutor this card. It's not even a one-time battlecry, either, so if by some miracle the Dreampetal Florist survives, you get another discount. Great card, honestly. Pretty fucking amazing. Not sure what else I can say... be wary of Florists and Melons.

Meteorologist: Another Hand-Mage card, and this isn't one that I think is going to be as good as the Astromancer. Meteorologist is a 6-mana 3/3, which is horrible stats, and deals as much damage as cards in your hand to a random enemy. Yeah, sure, with an empty board this is potentially 9 damage to the face, but you have to put a 6-mana 3/3 into your deck, and your hand has to be full? Why wouldn't you run like, practically any other huge mage spell? I don't want to say "this is trash" until we see the entire set, because maybe there's something I'm missing... but this is kinda trash.

Necrium Vial: A card given to Rogues... this is... just bizarre, isn't it? It's not even like Necrium Dagger where "it's neat, but I don't see it working just yet". Necrium Vial triggers a friendly minion's Deathrattle twice. Which is a powerful effect! But it costs five mana? Considering Play Dead only costs 1, I'm genuinely not sure what Deathrattle is so valuable that you'd be willing to pay five mana to do it twice. A Carnivorous Cube with Leeroy, maybe? As much as I've enjoyed the Deathrattle synergy given to Rogues, Necrium Vial is one I don't see really working out.

Security Rover: Now Security Rover is an interesting one. He's a 6-mana 2/5 mech for warriors, which, whenever it takes damage, summons a 2/3 Taunt mech. It's like Grim Patron and DoomHogger had a baby, and that baby is a robot! Mind you, you do still have to play a 6-mana 2/5, which is terrible -- but magnetize kind of helps to save this by giving you a way to heal and buff the Security Rover, while you constantly summon little 2/3 Taunt babies. I suppose you can set up Blood Razor to trigger on the turn you play Security Rover, so for 6 mana your play is summoning a 2/4 Rover and a 2/3 Taunt, which... isn't bad? I dunno. On first glance I really kind of wished Rover was a little stronger, but without looking at the full batch of Magnetic minions that Warriors are going to have, I'm not willing to dismiss Rover quite that soon. It's a pretty interesting effect that definitely could be abused.

Replicating Menace: A neutral card and a mech, and... a strange one? Replicating Menace is a 4-mana 3/1, which is pretty crappy, but summons three 1/1 Microbots. Like a very, very bad version of Piloted Shredder. The only real saving grace is that it has Magnetic, meaning you can play this as a buff. It's comparable to Eggnapper, but costs one more and sometimes the stats have Charge... I dunno. Doesn't look that good to me. Yes, it's better with the Dr. Boom hero card since it has Rush,  but so does practically every other Mech out there with Dr. Boom.

Arcane Dynamo: A brain jellyfish? Wait, what? This is an awesome monster design, even if I don't necessarily think it's a particularly impressive card. It's not a beast, but I don't think this is a naturally occurring jellyfish either. The Arcane Dynamo is a 6-mana 3/4 that allows you to Discover a spell that costs 5 or more... and sadly, I really don't think it's going to really see much play. What is it with spells that cost 5 or more, by the way? Storm Chaser also has the same wording. I suppose a good comparison for Dynamo is the Ethereal Conjurer from League of Explorers, who is a 5-mana 6/3 but discovers just a spell, or druids' Raven Idol that's just a 1-mana cost spell. And, sure, Arcane Dynamo discovers from a narrower pool, and especially for classes with the big-bomb legendary spells, you can discover a second copy of Kangor's Endless Army or the Boomship or whatever. The thing is... I'm not sure it's worth running a 6-mana 3/4 for the chance to roll that dice to maybe get the spell you need. Interesting card, but ultimately I think it's too weak.

EMP Operative: Oh, the Crab of this set. Of course it's going to happen. EMP Operative is a pretty simple counter card, as she just straight-up destroys a mech without any fuss. No stat gains like Golakka Crawler or Eater of Secrets, no set damage like Dragonslayer.... she just destroys a mech. And she's a 5-mana 3/3, which honestly is kind of a terrible body. Way too bad to put into your deck 'just in case' in the vein of Skulking Geist. As far as counter cards go, it's not the best but it's neat that this exists.

Seaforium Bomber: It's Iron Juggernaut junior. A 5-mana 5/5 that shuffles a bomb into your opponent's deck that deals 5 damage when drawn. Iron Juggernaut was a 6-mana 6/5 that shuffles a 10-damage bomb, and it never saw play. And, yeah, Augmented Elekk is a thing, but it's not going to help this particular card see any play, really.

Mecha'thun: Wait, what the FUCK? We're getting a robot C'Thun? No, Mecha'thun doesn't actually have anything to do with the C'Thun mechanic in Wild, which is a bit of a doo-doo shame, nor does he actually synergize with C'Thun in any sort of way, but fuck, what a bizarre card! Mecha'thun is obviously meant to be more of a meme/joke card, but it's definitely an interesting minion. A 10-mana 10/10 Mech with the Deathrattle of "if you have no cards in your deck, hand and battlefield, win". It's our second alternate win condition other than the Paladin Death Knight, and it's... it's interesting, for sure. Mecha'thun wants an empty deck, hand and battlefield, and not as a battlecry, either -- as a deathrattle. It has to die as the absolute last minion on board, while you've dumped your hand and deck. Assuming it doesn't get silenced or transformed, of course.

Now obviously we need to acknowledge that Mecha'thun is a horrible win condition. If you want to draw through your deck quickly and then win by some way, there are many, many other ways to do so. Like, Death Knights alone are a simple thing to point as 'change the game to work for a new win condition' cards. It's not even like Rin from K&C because Mecha'thun demands that it be basically the final, last card you kill and not just a mana/tempo investment the way Rin works. But Mecha'thun is a card you'll want to play when you go for the glory, and there are some interesting ways to activate Mecha'thun. Rogues can easily cycle through their deck with Myra's Unstable Element, but there's the problem on how to cheat out and kill Mecha'thun in the same turn, and also getting rid of everything on your side of the battlefield. Druids are another class with an easy way to cycle through their deck with Nourish and Ultimate Infestation (and if you really want to Mecha'thun, put Hemet Jungle Hunter to shoot out any cards that's not part of your combo) and ramp to ten mana. And then it's a matter of playing every single card from your hand, trade away every minion, then play Mecha'thun, Innervate and Naturalize with those as the absolute last cards in your hand. Warlocks are another one -- Hemet your deck, then play Mecha'thun, pray to god it survives, and then play Cataclysm to discard your hand and kill everything on board. Shame Bloobloom costs 2 mana.

Overall, a pretty damn bizarre card, and one I'm positive won't ever see any real competitive play, but god damn if it won't be hilarious the one time you manage to get this to work. If nothing else, the existence of Mecha'thun makes Spiteful Summoner turns and random mech generation to be a bit more... interesting. If nothing else, maybe you can put Mecha'thun into your deck jut to use as a huge 10-mana 10/10 to magnetize things to in order to guarantee a big bomb for your Kangor's Endless Army, or to play with the Boomship?

(I spent way more time talking about Mecha'thun than I thought I would)

A little addendum that I've been quietly adding to this post in order to not clog up the final post.

Luna's Pocket Galaxy: The mage's legendary spell is... interesting? It pushes for an interesting archetype, in any case. A 7-mana spell that changes all the cost of minions inn your deck to one is undoubtedly a powerful effect, but is it worth spending 7 mana to do nothing? Worth noting that this is easily comparable to the Druid Quest from Un'Goro, but Barnabus the Stomper actually gives you an extra body on the board during the turn that you discount your minions, and Druid has access to both Kun and Aviana. Yes, the reveal video (gloriously acted, by the way, worth checking out) notes this potential combo where you discount your entire deck, topdeck Stargazer Luna, and then do a combo with Archmage Arugal, multiple Sorcerer's Apprentices and Archmage Antonidas to do the Quest Mage OTK... but eh. Maybe you use this with Aluneth, but Aluneth sees the most use in aggro mage and while spending six mana to equip Aluneth might be an acceptable tempo loss, I'm not sure if spending turn 6 and 7 basically doing nothing is worth it for aggro mage. Ultimately, a card that's going to be fun if you discover it from outside your deck, but will require some huge deck-building tinkering to make actually work as the 'star' of the deck.

Dr. Morrigan: The Warlock legendary card is... not that good, honestly. 8-mana 5/5 with the deathrattle of 'swapping' her with a minion from your deck? If you really do want the recruit mechanic, why not just play Possessed Lackey, which is cheaper and also recruits specific Doomguards and Voidlords? If you want a minion that doesn't die and is just an inexhaustible resource, Bloodreaver Gul'dan is such a far more stable and less finnicky end-game card. Warlocks just have way too much power on their fingertips at the moment that a card like Dr. Morrigan honestly just looks straight-up bad.

Subject 9: Subject 9 is a pretty unexpected card, honestly. A neutral legendary Beast, Subject 9 is a 5-mana 4/4 that draws five different secrets from your deck. And that's... that's not that powerful, isn't it? Mysterious Challenger was powerful because he's a 6-mana 6/6, not that huge of a statline loss, and also immediately puts all the secrets into play. Subject 9 draws five different secrets, yes, but what deck plays more than five different secrets? Mages tended to just go with three at the maximum or they really dilute their deck. Paladins don't really play more than two or three either, and even then both Mages and Paladins want to cheat these out with cards like Bellringer Sentry and Arcanologist/Kirin Tor Mage combos. That leaves Hunter, I guess, who actually want to play their secrets in order to activate their spellstone, but that's such a slow play! As a hunter you want to play your secrets and upgrade your spellstone before turn 5, so playing an understatted minion on turn 5 and only upgrading your spellstone at turn 6. Nah, this card seems pretty weak.

Also, it's not until this point that I realize that the Nightmare Amalgam and the boss Experiment 3C is actually subtle foreshadowing to the Boomsday Project!


The Storm Bringer: Shaman's legendary spell is another one that fails to impress. It's a 7-mana spell that can be drawn by the Storm Chaser, yes, but its effect is decidedly underwhelming. You transform your minions into Legendary minions. And yes, you're more likely to get bigger minions like Deathwings and Lich Kings more than not -- the odd Chameleos you get out of Storm Bringer is going to be the low roll compared to the relatively okay legendaries you're going to get. But if you have a board big enough to play Storm Bringer, why not just play Bloodlust and kill the enemy? Or to guarantee some increase in value by playing Thrall Deathseer? Not a card that I actually see as particularly powerful, if we're being honest.

Galvanizer: This little feller is a little 2-mana 1/2 mech that reduces the cost of your mechs in your hand by one. He's cute, and a fun possible early-game card for mech decks, but Fire Plume Harbinger is a similar card for Elementals, and that card never really saw play outside of specific Shudderwock combo usage, so while Galvanizer isn't exactly bad, I don't think we're going to see a lot of him. Potentially powerful if we do get a powerful combo that involves a mech down the line, of course. Cute artwork, though!

Prismatic Lens: A paladin epic spell that costs 4, draws a minion and a spell, and then... swaps their costs? I'm just genuinely baffled at what this is meant to do. I guess you draw a secret and a huge minion like Tirion or Ysera, and then play them for one? But then you have a huge, expensive secret just taking up space in your hand. Not the worst play, and not a bad card, but it's still kind of bizarre. Maybe you go the other way around, and swap a Wisp's 0-mana cost for your Kangor's Endless Army or something? Still feels awkward and bizarre, though, because you can't just do something like the Curator or Oaken Summons where you guarantee only two or three of the specific 'wants' that a card tutors is in your deck -- your deck is going to be 90% spells and minions, so this is just a bit of a miss for me.

Dyn-o-matic: A Warrior mech, Dyn-o-matic is... kinda weird? He's like a mixture of Corrupted Seer and Goblin Blastmage, in a way. He's a 5-mana 3/4 that deals 5 damage spread randomly across non-mech minions. It's a decent effect, for sure, and you could take it like stapling a Cinderstorm to a 3/4 body. It's decent, and that's without the whole self-damage deal that Warriors like to do, like with Acolyte of Pain, Armorsmith or Frothing Berserker. It's admittedly on the weaker side, though -- a pretty fair card that I'm not sure really cuts it in constructed or not. It's a card that I won't be surprised to see fail, but not too surprised if it works either.

Movie Review: Fantastic Four [2005]

Fantastic Four [2005]

I thought it would be a nice little break to look at some older superhero movies, and one of them is 2005's Fantastic Four, which tended to not be viewed in a good light... that is, until you compare it to the disastrous and unanimously horrid 2015 reboot.

Now, to be fair, the 2005 movie does have its share of problems, with the biggest problem being that it comes out at a time when standalone superhero movies that aren't already part of an established film series (Batman, Spider-Man, X-Men, to some extent Superman) have some trouble getting off the ground. And Fantastic Four sort of compounds this problem by having a rather extended origin story, albeit one that doesn't quite flunk quite as badly as the 2015 reboot. It's a reasonably energetic movie with a very simple storyline that means to introduce these characters and how they interact, with honestly not a lot in lieu of making them feel unique or different in a good way. In some ways, Fantastic Four's biggest problem is that it's kind of... generic.

Perhaps one of the bigger changes is the origin of Dr. Doom, where they drop a lot of the more occult aspects of the character and have him gain vague metallic and electric powers from the same cosmic storm that transformed the Fantastic Four. And instead of his comic book background, Doom is turned into a generic 'evil' businessman slash rival who's also in love with Susan Storm. And while that love rivalry is a thing from the comics, the way that Reed and Doom pursue Sue feel insanely bland and lifeless, and I don't think that I ever buy that Sue and Reed ever have any sort of chemistry beyond the two of them insisting via spoken dialogue that they like each other a lot. Ioan Gruffudd (Reed Richards), Jessica Alba (Sue Storm) and Julian McMahon (Doom) try their best to work with a relatively weak script and a generic storyline, and while the very basics of the characters are in there -- Doom is possessive and prideful and Reed is smart but loyal to his friends... it's not quite exciting enough to appeal, I guess.

Johnny Storm (a pre-Captain America Chris Evans) is a one-dimensional douche, although he does interact with what is inarguably the best character in the movie, Michael Chiklis's Ben Grimm/The Thing. The Thing gets the best story arc that made this movie elevated slightly from "generic and bland" to "some good stuff is in here", I believe, with the writing of his attempt to deal with being transformed into a rock monster and having the world -- even his girlfriend -- dump him, and having a good chunk of the climax deciding on whether he would rather sacrifice his chance to become human again or to save Reed... it's a shame that the interaction of Doom and the Fantastic Four is muddied and the transformation from "frenemy that we do business with" into "evil megalomaniac draining cosmic powers and shit" isn't particularly smooth.

The movie isn't particularly deep, and is honestly cartoonish at most points (and, yes, to be fair, the Fantastic Four tended to be more cartoony than, say, the X-Men) but while there are perhaps a fair amount of mishandling of the characters, I think this movie at least keeps the spirit and the 'fun' of these characters alive in the way that the 2015 movie completely fucks over. It's a simple movie, but it's a fun one that harkens back to a far more innocent and childlike time. And unlike Fox's other attempts at F4 movies, this one is definitely watchable. 

My Hero Academia 192 Review: Handling Endeavour

My Hero Academia, Chapter 192: The Todoroki Household

Yeah, this was what I hoped would happen -- a scene devoted to Endeavour being confronted by his family and especially by Shouto. 

And this is the sort of good writing I've came to associate My Hero Academia with. Yes, the characters might be... questionable, especially with someone as polarizing as Endeavour. The problem with characters like Endeavour has never been the fact that he was redeemed. It's the fact that commonly, in shonen manga, detestable characters that are redeemed get away with a slap on their wrist, and sometimes not even then, with the authors taking the whole "he cried and feels bad" to be tantamount to atoning to every single one of their heinous crimes. But with Endeavour, the way it's done is pretty well-done.

Endeavour goes home to meet with a dinner with Shouto, Natsuo and Fuyumi, and it initially is set up as "the sons are awkward and don't quite not how to forgive", with a pretty hilarious deadpan from Shouto about Endeavour's scar. But turns out that, no, not everything is swept under the rug. 

Fuyumi tries to play peacemaker, but Natsuo, the eldest son, is the one that explodes first. Endeavour tells him the standard "if you have something to say, say it", which basically triggers Natsuo to go into this rant about how he's never given any shits about them, and how he kept Shouto segregated from the other kids so much that Natsuo doesn't even know that soba is his favourite food until now. (All the while, we keep cutting away to Shouto slurping his soba, which I thought is just hilarious) Natsuo goes into this rant about how, no, trying to come back into their lives and becoming a good dad doesn't mean automatic forgiveness, or the annulment of all the hideous abuse he's heaped on Shouto or their mother. 

And this is something that the anime fandom tends to skim over -- they basically go for "redeem this character and anyone who refuses to accept him is shit!" or "this character is irredeemable, fuck him let him die!" Real life's a bit more complex than that. And while we know that Endeavour's gotten a significant amount of character development in the past couple dozen chapters, and I personally am rooting for the man to truly change, at the same time it also doesn't excuse all his past sins and I actually do like that he doesn't get a free pass.

Hell, even the comparatively more supportive Shouto doesn't completely forgive Endeavour. Yes, he shed some tears for the man a couple of chapters ago when Endeavour fought the Noumu on the news, but being impressed with your dad being a superhero or being glad that he's not dead also doesn't also automatically means that Shouto is suddenly okay with everything. Shouto then plays a bunch of news that show public interviews of Endeavour. Some people are dismissive, but that one kid ends up shouting just how Endeavour's straining himself ragged for the people, and how "Mr. Can't Ya See" ends up being his own brand of inspiration to these people. 

Shouto notes how "Endeavour The Hero" is amazing and remarkable, but everything Natsuo says is still true. He still hasn't forgiven him for everything he's done as Todoroki Enji. Shouto at least gives Endeavour a second chance, to see what kind of father he will become. Shouto himself notes just how he knows how a small inspiration can change a person, referring to his own character development in the earlier arcs. 

And that's a pretty damn great way to resolve Endeavour's story, at least for now. He's given a second chance, but not forgiven. I like that. 

Plus, there's still another huge mistake that Endeavour apparently did in the past, concerning a fourth kid Touya, with Endeavour thinking to himself about the "future I cut short". Is the Dabi-is-Endeavour's-kid theory going strong? It appears that it is. 

Other things happen in this chapter too. We get to see Endeavour and Hawks talking and discussing about the Noumu incident, including an interesting bit where Endeavour notes how convenient it was that they were attacked very briefly after their first meeting. We also briefly get to see Hawks's backstory, where he was recruited into heroing incident after being at the Kamino Ward Incident? And Hawks.... was a kid during Kamino Ward? It's bizarre, and I'm not so sure what to make of it. Some neat scenes of Hawks thinking about his position as a double agent, and acknowledgement that his feathers will grow back. 

Oh, and the final scene, of course, cuts away to Midoriya having a dream... and then that dream apparently being the confrontation between One For All and All For One, the ancient brothers in the past? Huh. Certainly did not expect this. 

Young Justice S02E20 Review: Run, Wally, Run

Young Justice: Invasion, Episode 20: Endgame

I'm not sure just how far in advance the Young Justice showrunners know that their show was getting cancelled after two seasons, because for all of my gushing over just how great the storytelling and buildup have been (albeit at the cost of its secondary characters and villains) the final episode of the season is a bit disappointing. The final episode just tries to wrap up every extraneous plotline, while dropping hints at the Vandal Savage/Warworld buildup that ends up feeling like a bit of a distraction. Add in that scene around halfway through the episode that displays the show's some thirty or forty-strong superhero cast... ramping up for at least a huge montage of them doing generic saving-the-world stuff... and then it shows maybe two, three scenes before going "hey, by the way, all of those other dudes? They've finished their job". Throw in a genuinely poorly-written heroic sacrifice for shock value, and it just felt mean-spirited more than anything.

The episode starts off at Rimbor, with the long-running and honestly ridiculously long trial of the League finally having its conclusion. Not before a bunch of fake-outs regarding how the Tribune will totally not change its decision, though, which I felt wasn't really necessary at all and hurt the episode more than anything. Also, the fact that the season keeps reusing the same scene of the six Leaguers standing on trial really leads me to question -- are they just standing on trial the whole time? Don't they have, like, cells to sleep and eat in? Anyway, this sub-plot ends up being resolved when Superboy, Miss Martian and Adam Strange show up with the brand-new evidence of the Light and Reach's duplicity. This takes like two or three more scenes longer than it should, and honestly could've been wrapped in a "yay we got the evidence, now to get back to Earth!" two-minute scene in the beginning instead of being dragged out through the first half of the episode with an honestly uninteresting set of scenes of Superboy and Miss Martian trying to sweet-talk the corrupt court to preserving their reputation as a fair court.

Oh, we also have a brief scene that will probably excite the shippers, with M'gann asking Conner about Wendy, and apparently Conner's actually playing wingman for Wendy and is helping her in her new relationship with Marvin. It's honestly a bit sudden and I'm not the happiest with how the Conner/M'gann/La'gaan love triangle was handled and how jumbled up it is at the end, but I do appreciate the episode for keeping the relationship at a "maybe" and not just revert it to a "first couple wins".

Meanwhile, as Black Beetle wants to wage war on Earth, the Team continues their streak from last episode, and the entire force of the Team is already attacking the Reach's mothership. The fight scenes themselves isn't actually that bad, and I do like the fast zipping through the monitor with some blink-and-you'll-miss-it scenes of the Team kicking ass. Black Beetle finally faces off against Aqualad, Blue Beetle and Green Beetle, and it's an appropriate trio to face off. Both Beetles have suffered under the Reach's manipulation and mind-control, and last episode established Aqualad and Black Beetle as having some bad blood between them.

The battle ends with Black Beetle killing Green Beetle's scarab, but the shared bond that Jaime and his own Scarab have end up... reversing Black Beetle's attack and destroys his Scarab instead? Okay? While it's certainly thematic, the way this is done felt rushed, especially since Black Beetle's Scarab-destroying powers came out of nowhere, and the balance between Jaime and his own Scarab being the key to avert this also sort of came out of nowhere. It's badass, but it's also an ass-pull. Oh, and of course, Black Beetle has already set in plan a generic summer blockbuster movie to destroy the Earth that cannot be reversed, with a bunch of Reach drones going around the world to activate a doomsday device to blow up the planet.

Again, it's really a bit of a piss-off that we get long scenes of exposition regarding the mechanics of the Reach's doomsday device or Superboy and M'gann trying to bullshit the Rimbor court when it could show some of these heroes in action for the last time. After a montage of the Reach devices activating and our heroes expositioning, we get the very welcome return of the most prolific member of the Light, Lex Luthor, who, of course, has a bunch of anti-Reach devices ready for the heroes of Earth to utilize. Blue Beetle helps to duplicate Luthor's virus, and a forty-strong army of heroes that we've seen throughout these two seasons -- Justice League members, Team members, the Runaways... basically everyone except the Green Lanterns, whose absence is written in.

And this is the biggest cocktease of it all, because out of the forty heroes, the resulting montage maybe shows off like three or four pairs. We basically get Aqualad and Lagoon Boy making up, the latter re-acknowledging the former as a hero after the whole double agent business; Artemis and Kid Flash having a romantic Big Damn Kiss in Paris; and Static and Black Lightning fighting together and Static basically gets a mentor and decides to join organized superheroing.


Oh, meanwhile, on Rimbor, the freed Justice Leaguers walk down the alien planet, when we suddenly have the proclamation by Vandal Savage on multiple news reports, threatening anyone who tries to breach Earth's security with retribution via the Warworld. It's a bit of a "my gun is bigger than yours" game by Savage, but I dunno... telling the alien invaders to fuck off isn't as evil of a plan as the Light stealing Warworld ended up being. And in fact, if we don't already know that Savage is pretty evil, his actions here could be interpreted as that of simply a more morally-gray human hero.

And, of course, while all of this is going on, the rest of the heroes have succeeded in disabling their own doomsday devices, and of course there is one last one. And the Flash family end up zooming in to save the day, with Flash, Kid Flash and Impulse zipping around to use their speed to siphon off the energy. All the hints of Wally wanting to retire, Wally wanting to pass the Kid Flash mantle to Impulse and the Big Damn Kiss earlier in Paris are all pretty obvious death flags, but still... if they were going to kill off Wally, they really should've spent more time with Wally this season instead of giving him a couple of token scenes in these last two episodes, and the way he dies -- just because he's not fast enough and gets absorbed into the Speed Force -- seemed particularly mean-spirited. It's a pretty cheap move from the writing department, too.

The rest of the episode function more of an epilogue... and it's not bad. The Justice League's core members return to Earth. The Reach leave the universe under supervision of the Green Lanterns. Lex Luthor gets great publicity thanks to his role in the crisis and basically succeeds Tseng as the UN head honcho with aspirations of being president. The Team now operates side-by-side with the League from the Watchtower, although with some changes in the lineup -- Nightwing leaves, Static joins, Impulse takes over the Kid Flash mantle, and Artemis reverts to her Tigress persona. And as Nightwing observes his successors do "business as usual", another set of characters are doing the same as we cut away to the Warworld as it arrives next to Apokolips, with Vandal Savage meeting Darkseid, noting that it's likewise "business as usual". (Godfrey's here too!) This Apokolips buildup, of course, wouldn't be followed up upon until more than half a decade later, since it's not until next year that we're getting season three of Young Justice.

Overall, it's... it's a serviceable ending. It's clearly one of the weaker episodes of the season, with the previous episode delivering the huge epic showdown featuring multiple superheroes. This one felt more like the show just scrambling to quickly wrap up all the plot threads, and as such a lot of the things that happen in this episode, chiefly Wally's death but also the superhero team-up and Vandal Savage's plans all end up feeling rushed and uneven.

Overall, though, I can't fault a great season for a lackluster ending, and Wally's death aside, Invasion has been a pretty strong ride all the way through. It's been a wild ride rewatching this, and it's going to be likewise a wild ride next year when Young Justice: Outsiders finally hits the air.

Roll Call:

• Heroes: Batman, Wonder Woman, Superman, Hawkwoman, Green Lantern (John Stewart), Martian Manhunter, Icon, Hawkman, Miss Martian, Superboy, Adam Strange, Blue Beetle, Aqualad, Green Beetle, Captain Atom, The Atom, Nightwing, Dr. Fate, Green Arrow, Black Canary, Beast Boy, Wolf, Sphere, Batgirl, Robin, Wonder Girl, Aquaman, Tempest, Lagoon Boy, Flash (Jay Garrick), Flash, Impulse/Kid Flash II, Kid Flash I, Artemis/Tigress, Red Arrow, Arsenal, Longshadow, Samurai, El Dorado, Static, Black Lightning, Plastic Man, Red Tornado, Captain Marvel, Dr. Fate, Zatanna, Blue Devil, Rocket, Bumblebee, Guardian, Snapper Carr, Green Lantern (Hal Jordan), Green Lantern (Guy Gardner)
• Villains: The Scientist, Black Beetle, Lex Luthor, Vandal Savage, Mercy Graves, The Ambassador, Glorious Godfrey, Desaad, Darkseid. Other members of the Light appear in photographs. 
• Others: The Tribune, Galet Dasim, Tseng Dangun, Rudy & Mary West, Catherine Grant

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• Darkseid makes his first real appearance in the show. As any self-respecting DC fan knows, Darkseid is one of the biggest villains in the DC universe, being a member of the race of New Gods, and ruler of the hell-planet Apokolips, and treated as one of the mightiest enemies of Superman and the DC universe in general. The New Gods were introduced in a single episode of Young Justice's first season, and Darksseid's minion Desaad makes a non-speaking cameo. 
• G. Gordon Godfrey's true identity is revealed, sort of, as a member of Darkseid's court -- Glorious Godfrey. Note how his eyes are glowing in Apokolips! Glorious Godfrey has a similar, if far less subtle, modus operandi in the comics, where he was a pundit that turned public opinion against superheroes before being exposed as Darkseid's agents. 
• Luthor being hailed as the world's saviour and joking that he should run for president is a nod towards the long-running President Luthor storyline in the comics, where Luthor did become President of the United States. 
• Nightwing leaving the Team after the death of a founding member and a close friend calls back how Nightwing disbanded the Teen Titans after the death of Donna Troy in the comics. 
• Robin and Wonder Girl are a couple. I think they dated on-and-off for a while after Wonder Girl's original love interest, Superboy, died? I'm not 100% sure about this. 
• As mentioned before, Impulse did take over from Wally as the second Kid Flash, although the comics takeover didn't quite feature a death. In the comics as well, it was actually Barry Allen that disintegrated into the Speed Force while running quickly to save the world as the biggest-name death during the Crisis on Infinite Earths saga. 
• I'm not 100% sure what Black Beetle's non-Scarab-ified race is supposed to be, although green skin leads me to lean towards Coluan, Brainiac's race. I don't think it's ever confirmed either way by the showrunners. 

Boomsday Project Card Review/Reaction #5

A chunk of new cards, most of them legendaries, and... interesting ones, I suppose?

Zerek, Master Cloner: We start off with the Priest legendary minion, Zerek. Zerek here is the leader of the Priests's cloning laboratories or something along those lines, and is an... interesting minion. He's a 6-mana 5/5, with a Deathrattle that reads "if you've cast any spells on this minion, resummon it". So he's sort of leaning towards a buff priest game? Currently Priest doesn't really have a lot of targeted spells other than Power Word: Shield, Unidentified Elixir, Divine Spirit and Inner Fire, and those last two tended to only be used in combos. You could theoretically cast damaging spells on Zerek, but that's just silly. We do have the new card Power Word: Replicate, which summons an additional copy of Zerek, meaning presumably both of those have a Deathrattle that resummons a 5/5... and there's also the question on whether Zerek returns to life with buffs still active or not. It's one way to play with Quest Priest too, I suppose, although playing Quest Priest as it is, or using Zerek's Cloning Gallery is far, far more efficient, I think, in actually completing the quest. Zerek might see a fair bit more usage in Wild, perhaps? With N'Zoth and Velen's Chosen, there's a fair bit more cards that synergizes with Zerek. Ultimately, though, neat effect, but we really need a fair amount of support to get him to work.

Power Word: Replicate: And one of said support is Power Word: Replicate, a 5-mana spell that summons a 5/5 copy of a friendly minion. This sort of "clone with exact stats is... interesting, which is why Prince Taldaram saw a brief bit of play in decks like Cubelock that really want the effect and not the statline. Oh, and since we're talking about Priest 5/5's, Shadow Essence also does a similar effect, albeit from the deck. While you could obviously use it for a Zerek combo, I'm unconvincced if this is that good -- what makes Shadow Essence so powerful is you cheat out the minion and their effect a couple of turns before your draw and play the actual card, whereas Power Word: Replicate has the rather huge ask of having the minion already on board. On paper, Replicate is a fair spell, but I'm not sure if it's actually good.

Voltaic Burst: A shaman spell that... honestly doesn't look that good? It's comparable to Lost in the Jungle, a 1-mana that summons two 1/1's. The difference is that Voltaic Burst's Sparks have Rush, which means instant board presence, but the spell also has Overload. It's not a card I see ever actually being put into a deck, because Shaman has so many better removal tools -- and their hero power makes bodies anyway. Maybe it's a spell printed just to muck around with Hagatha's consistency? E

Juicy Psychmelon: Druids get a very interesting tutor card, a 4-mana spell that draws, specifically, a 7, 8, 9 and 10 cost minion from your deck. We finally get that proactive C'Thun tutor card we've been begging for! In wild, I can actually see C'Thun decks running this, drawing C'Thun himself, Twin Emperor Vek'lor, Doomcaller and... Ysera or some 9-mana card, I dunno. Other than C'Thun, though, tutoring four cards at once -- four specific cards at that -- is definitely powerful. There's a Togwaggle druid list in Wild, and Juicy Pyschmelon can draw the four cards central to that combo -- Azalina Soulthief, King Togwaggle, Aviana and Kun. As far as standard is concerned, both Malygos and Hadronox are 9-mana minions, so this could just basically read "draw your win condition" for both Malygos Druid and Taunt Druid. Taunt Druid even gets the bonus of the Psychmelon drawing the Lich King or Primordial Drake, too. It's not going to be an easy card to use, and decks will have to probably be revamped to get the maximum value out of Psychmelon, but it's definitely an interesting card that I really am looking forward to see what it does.

Shrink Ray: Speaking of interesting cards, Shrink Ray here is... bizarre, but in a good way. It's a 5-mana spell that not only does Equality on the board, but also sets the attack of all minions to 1 as well. Everything is left as 1/1's, which is... interesting? The problem is that if you just want to clear the board, Equality (and Wild Pyromancer) is strictly better, costing less than half of Shrink Ray. And if you want to turn the board into an equal state, Sunkeeper Tarim is still in the rotation, and you get a 3/7 body with taunt, and if you are in the lead, you buff all your 1/1's into 3/3's that can hit face. I dunno. Shrink Ray on first glance looks neat, but after mulling it over I don't think it's actually all that good.

Myra Rotspring: Like Zerek, poor Myra looks like a card that's nowhere as practical as her associated legendary spell. That's not to say Myra is a bad card, though. Myra is a 5-mana 4/2, but she discovers a Deathrattle minion, which means you draw a card... and she gains its deathrattle. Does this really matter when you kind of have a huge tempo loss by playing a 5-mana 4/2 that draws a card? Maybe. We've seen 4-mana 3/2 that draws cards like Elven Minstrel and Xaril see play. But the problem is that Myra doesn't actually fit anywhere in the current Rogue decks. She's just an okay legendary card that sort of doesn't really have much synergy with anything Rogue does (Miracle, Aggro, Kingsbane and the potential wacky 'shuffle things into your deck' archetype that's still in the air). And the fact that there's a huge possibility that Myra discovers three pretty shitty deathrattles means that I'm unconvinced Myra is super-good of a card.


Necrium Blade: Rogues get a weapon to support the potential Deathrattle synergy with Necrium Blade, a 3-mana 3/2 weapon with the Deathrattle of basically casting Play Dead. But randomly. It's... it's all right? By virtue of being a 3-mana 3/2 weapon with an upside, the card's already semi-decent, but, jut like Myra, the problem is to build a proper Deathrattle deck that can capitalize on synergies from Myra and Necrium Blade. Maybe in wild you can do something with this? I dunno.

Augmented Elekk: It's a really interesting neutral minion, a 3-mana 3/4 Beast (which means hey Rexxar!) that has the passive effect of shuffling another copy of any card you shuffle into your deck. So that Rogue synergy is definitely there. Academic Espionage (although you shuffle copies of the generated cards, so if you whiff on Espionage, Augmented Elekk just makes it worse) and Lab Recruiter synergize well with this card, and Fal'dorei Strider suddenly shuffles six 4/4's into your deck. The Hunter Quest shuffles even more raptors into your deck, if you're still trying to make it work. Note that this is shuffle cards into a deck, by the way, so Weasel Tunneler effects trigger twice if that's your thing. More seriously, in Wild you double the effect of your Entomb, meaning you steal their Sylvanas twice. Forbidden Torch and Deck of Secrets also trigger twice, if that's your thing. Most interestingly, Jade Idol also shuffles a card into your deck, which means Augmented Elekk doubles the amount of Jade Idols you shuffle in -- not super powerful, of course, since Jade Druids doesn't actually have problem shuffling, it's drawing that tends to be the tense part. But definitely a very interesting card, and one that looks deceptively simple.

Young Justice S02E19 Review: Titans vs. The Light vs. Aliens

Young Justice: Invasion, Episode 19: Summit

As the second season of Young Justice wraps up, we get this glorious confrontation between all three big players of this season. We get the Light and the Reach finally meeting each other in a moody little underground cave, with many big names showing up. Oh, and Aqualad and Artemis choose this point to actually outplay the villains... and honestly, at this point I really wished that other members of the Light other than Luthor and Manta had a bigger presence in this season, because I don't really have much of an attachment to, say, Young Justice's incarnation of Ra's Al Ghul or the Brain. But it's a small complaint.

And, granted, while the Summit between the two villainous group ends up being a glorified recap sequence, it's actually neat to see a good amount of the events laid out from the side of the villains, and we get a fun little pissing contest between the two erstwhile allies. Tensions are high when Black Beetle demands that the "whelp" Kaldur'ahm shut up, angering Black Manta. The Reach blames the Light for not protecting the Bialyan beetle-ex-machina temple secure, whereas the Light shrugs it off as "you didn't tell us shit!" And it's not a good look for the Reach. They lost two of their most powerful operatives, the whole soda plan was a bust, their public approval is at an all-time low, and they even failed to keep the Runaways and the Young Justice team members captured. Not to mention that the Scientist is becoming more and more vocal at her disapproval of the Ambassador's methods, even in front of their allies.

And, of course, as the audience, we actually know just how much of the Reach's failure is thanks to the Light's own machinations -- Luthor himself helped the Runaways escape and directed the Runaways to assist in freeing the Team; plus Queen Bee totally knew about the Bialyan temple.

Meanwhile, the Reach's attempts to throw their weight around just like what they attempted to do in Godfrey's show also sort of backfired, demanding that the Reach submit because they and the Earth are the "property" of the Reach, which ends up pressing some buttons in Black Manta. "No agreement exists that makes a slave of Black Manta!" And... and I really wished Manta was explored more as a character in this show instead of just being a nebulous greater-evil above Kaldur'ahm's head. Punches are thrown between Manta and Black Beetle, prompting Light agents Deathstroke and Tigress to intervene... which, in turn, puts Tigress in the pathway of Ra's Al Ghul, who realizes that she's wearing a glamour charm.

And while Kaldur'ahm manages to calm down the combatants long enough for Vandal Savage to go on a talk about how he's responsible for bribing the Rimbor court to screw over the Justice League and that the Reach's claim will waylay the Green Lantern Corps, this complication causes Ra's Al Ghul to unmask Artemis's glamour charm in front of all the villains, which, of course, is another complication in this whole deal. It's hard to say that we're rooting for the Light at this point,  but they are definitely the preferred option in this conflict... and seeing that the Light has been played as fools is not a good look for them this time around. Amidst the argument between Black Manta and the Reach agents, Deathstroke just calmly shoots both Kaldur'ahm and Artemis dead.

Seemingly, anyway, because as a final "fuck you" to the Light, Kaldur'ahm plays a recording that basically exposes both of the Light and the Reach's underhanded methods to undermine the other group to each other. In any case, the Light's many, many, treasonous acts to undermine the Reach's attempt at seizing control is now out in the open, and Savage's anger that this has wrecked his fifty-thousand-year-old plan is pretty damn satisfying. And as the Ambassador and Savage exchange threats at each other (Savage knows damn well the Ambassador can't do shit with the Warworld), we get the revelation that... Kaldur'ahm and Artemis aren't dead after all. It's not that huge of a surprise, honestly, considering how dark it would be if two of our main heroes got executed while in a deep-cover mission just because Ra's spots a necklace... but it was still pretty damn tense, and if Kaldur dies wrecking the plans of two of the show's biggest villains, it's still a good death.

But apparently the Light aren't the only ones great at manipulating events, because Kaldur'ahm and Artemis stand up... and we get the revelation that apparently Deathstroke isn't actually Deathstroke, but Miss Martian, who's replaced Deathstroke (defeated offscreen!) before the Summit even began. And then more members of the Team appear, some disguised as League of Assassin ninjas, some just crashing in for the hell of it, and it's pretty damn badass. Hell, even Kid Flash comes out of retirement! Again, it's an epic moment of role reversal  when it's the Light that finds itself at the backfoot and as pawns in a game, and it's pretty glorious. Sure, Kaldur's speeches about friendship and teamwork might be trite... but that doesn't really undermine just how badass his lines are -- especially that line about how "still you refer to us as children. No wonder our successes mount; you consistently underestimate us."

And the resulting all-out brawl is pretty damn awesome, as the twenty-something full force of the Young Justice team do battle against both Light and Reach agents. There's a lot of great fun scenes to see here, both in regular martial arts, and in fantastical powers. Some highlights include Beast Boy and Monsieur Mallah having a gorilla-to-gorilla combat, and the sudden appearance of Klarion summoning a fire snake to disable Miss Martian. (She gets saved by La'gaan in a pretty damn badass scene) It's neat that Savage actually has contingencies in place, and his talk about "the other members of the Light are indisposed" is apparently bullshit. Klarion and Savage book it, Black Beetle stabs Ra's Al Ghul through the chest and kills him (which, honestly, is kind of every weekend for Ra's), while we get a badass showdown between Aqualad and Black Manta with some really cool bits of water-manipulation. Some neat bit of editing on the episode's part, too, cutting away from the fire-themed conflict surrounding M'gann and the water-themed conflict featuring Aqualad.

The fight between Aqualad and Black Manta's honestly a bit abrupt, and I really wished we had more scenes devoted to just how Manta reacts to all this, but I guess it fits into the whole "swoop in, take them all out in the confusion" mentality of the Team's methods in this episode. What we do get, though, is a neat little reunion between Kid Flash and Artemis after all the separation they've been through. That's nice.

Again, the action scenes move fast and quick, with lots of great action sequences to showcase here. While there are certainly some central conflicts and interactions here (Black Manta/Aqualad; Miss Martian/Lagoon Boy; Artemis/Kid Flash) everyone gets a chance to shine, and despite some of the villains getting away, it's undoubtedly a good win for the Team. The Ambassador, Black Manta and the Brain are all taken down and captured, whereas Ra's Al Ghul is presumed dead. Oh, and the Reach/Light alliance is basically dust, even if they didn't quite get all of the bad guys that make up the Light, as well as getting enough evidence from the recorded conversation to clear the Justice League's name.

Oh, and speaking of which, throughout the chaos happening in the battle, we get a little bit of inter-Reach drama. Neither the Scientist nor the Ambassador really have much of a personality, but we have seen a fair bit of dissent from the Scientist and Black Beetle towards the Ambassador's leadership in the past couple of episodes -- Black Beetle just doesn't care for all the subterfuge and just wants to kill things, while the Scientist has had her concerns ignored one too many. So is it any surprise that the two of them (well, mostly Black Beetle) leaves the Ambassador out to dry? It sets Black Beetle as the real big bad for the Reach, which is appropriate since he is the character we've spent the most time with.

And we get the Team congratulating each other despite all the grief they've had after the deep cover mission, and Aqualad gets to finally become leader again... and then we cut away to the Warworld, where Vandal Savage (and presumably Klarion?) faces off against the three JLA members guarding the Warworld -- Black Canary, Black Lightning and Captain Marvel. We get them beaten off-screen, and, interestingly, not killed. Vandal Savage took the time to open a boom tube and punt the three of them into the Watchtower, before Savage activates the Warworld and takes it off to parts unknown. (Also, yes, Boom Tubes -- the episode moves fast enough that I missed the significance the first time I watched this episode, but it's actually a clever little bit of foreshadowing. )

Meanwhile, after an off-screen information dump by Captain Atom, UN Secretary Tseng rescinds the Reach's invitation. And Black Beetle is far more warlike and is determined to raze the Earth before the Green Lantern Corps arrive, leading to the final episode's conflict. One huge chunk of the season-long plotline is over and done with -- the deep cover mission and the Light/Reach storyline, and we have confirmation that the Justice League will be cleared of their charges soon. So now it's time for the final episode and some good old-fashioned superhero-vs-supervillain showdown!

Again, this episode is mostly just a huge action scene that screams "conclusion!" with the long-awaited battle between the Titans/Young Justice Team against the members of the Light and the Reach, two big bad organizations, and it's pretty damn badass. Sure, I still have my own complaints about the handling of the villains -- I really, really wished that we spent more time with the show's primary villains like Savage and Ra's and Manta, but that's honestly not that huge of a complaint. Ultimately, a great little episode with a couple  of fun plot twists at the end. It's been really fun rewatching this season, and especially reviewing it. Tune in sometime this weekend for my final review of Young Justice... until 2019 brings us the glorious return of its third season, anyway.

Roll Call:

• Heroes: Tigress/Artemis, Aqualad, Miss Martian, Superboy, Guardian, Bumblebee, Batgirl, Nightwing, Kid Flash, Blue Beetle, Lagoon Boy, Beast Boy, Impulse, Wonder Girl, Robin, Black Canary, Black Lightning, Captain Marvel, Red Tornado, Aquaman, Captain Atom
• Villains: Black Beetle, "Deathstroke", The Scientist, The Ambassador, Vandal Savage, Ra's al Ghul, Black Manta, The Brain, Ubu, Monsieur Mallah, Klarion, Teekl
• Others: Cat Grant, Tseng Dangun
• Numerous other characters are shown from archival footage in Kaldur's speech. 

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• Surprisingly, we get a new character! Ra's al Ghul's bodyguard is clearly Ubu, who is introduced in the comics as a fanatically loyal brute loyal to Ra's. Ubu would later be retconned to be the name of a clan of bodyguards devoted to protecting Ra's al Ghul and his children. 
• Ubu's insistence that "the Master will be reborn!" is of course a reference to Ra's al Ghul's whole gimmick in the comics, where he can't die because he has access to the mystical Lazarus Pits, which allows him to regain his immortality at the cost of losing his sanity momentarily. Aqualad even lampshades this. 
• The bit with Kid Flash telling Impulse that he looks good in yellow and red is a reference to how when Wally West became the third Flash, Bart Allen would eventually grow into the role of the second Kid Flash. 

Movie Review: Dragon Ball Z - Wrath of the Dragon

Dragon Ball Z: Wrath of the Dragon [1995]

The final Dragon Ball Z movie to be released before GT, and eventually 2013's Battle of Gods, I'm actually pleasantly surprised by Wrath of the Dragon, by how... oddly different it is. As the 13th DBZ movie, I'm just fallen into a rut with these movies introducing a random new villain without much personality like Cooler and Broly and Bojack and Turles and Slug and Janemba and Hatchiyack, and then just using the excuse plot to fill 40-50 minutes of screentime without actually developing any of these characters. 

Wrath of the Dragon... actually doesn't do that. The introduction of the villain, the ancient skull-smoke-cockroach demon Hirudegarn, is done relatively slowly, with a buildup of the relatively unique (if hackneyed) imprisoned-in-a-magical-music-box story behind it, and how our heroes are just manipulated by Discount Babidi Hoi to releasing one of these seals. Oh, and unlike most movies, which are tenuously slotted into the compact timelines of the manga (sometime in the future I'll probably do a 'movies and their place in the timeline' feature), Wrath of the Dragon has the advantage of taking place after the Buu Saga, allowing the writers to kind of do whatever they want without the audience going "hmmm it doesn't really make sense for two apocalypses to fuck up the Earth in-between the Saiyan and Freeza sagas, wouldn't it?"

I'm not the biggest fan of the huge opening scenes with the Great Saiyaman and... "Great Saiyawoman"? Which is apparently something that's exclusive to the anime? It certainly took me by surprise as neither Fusion Reborn or Dragon Ball Super ever indicated that Videl moonlights as a superhero that fangirls over Gohan at the same time. It's weird. 

Still, the Son/Briefs family end up using the dragon balls to wish for the breaking of the music seal, releasing this edgy-cool alien dude with a mohawk and an ocarina, Tapion. And I mean that as a compliment -- Tapion has that shoehorned "cool dude" deal going on, and actually manages to do it relatively well. He's actually important to the plot, but he doesn't act like he's better than anyone else. In fact, cursed to release the half of Hirudegarn sealed within him if he ever dozes off, all Tapion wants to do is to be secluded and be left alone, and the poor dude's just grief-stricken by the knowledge that he's found himself a couple hundred years from when he was first sealed, and his younger brother is most likely dead.

He ends up bonding with Kid Trunks (fitting, since Future Trunks is another example of a shoehorned "cool dude" anime character), who sees Tapion as a cool big brother, and it's honestly the biggest amount of personality I've seen Kid Trunks receive. It's such a shame that so much of the movies are just "Goku and Friends Save the Day" generic action movies, and the attempt at trying to integrate Tapion with his interactions with Trunks and Bulma is actually pretty neat. 

Hoi continues to menace our heroes, trying to break Tapion's mental fortitude, while Gohan and Videl fight the bottom half of Hirudegarn... which is literally just the bottom half of a demon, from the waist down, and it's just so absolutely dumb-looking... but I actually sort of like that it's actually just the disembodied top and bottom halves wreaking havoc until they get combined. And in practice Hirudegarn is literally just a rampaging kaiju monster that turns into smoke and shit, but honestly unlike most other DBZ movies, this is more of a Tapion movie with Hirudegarn being a literal plot device, so I don't particularly mind the villain being brutish and dumb because... well, we have Hoi to do that for us. Hoi's essentially Babidi, but it's a neat little trope -- a psychotic cultist trying to bring a powerful evil, only to be killed by said powerful evil. Hirudegarn actually feels like just a giant rampaging beast out of control, as opposed to the weird "am I mindless, or am I sentient" deal we had with Janemba. 

Sadly, at 50 minutes it does run a bit too long, and while it does feature some neat battle scenes, it does get repetitive at times with Hirudegarn repeating the same 'disappear into smoke and reappear' deal when fighting every Saiyan (and Videl). We did get a cool scene with Vegeta saving an office building, and Gotenks unleashing a pretty cool barrage attack... but sadly this movie just absolutely fails to stick the landing. While it has been building Trunks up throughout the movie (and if there was a secondary lead, it would've been Gohan), as Trunks tries to use Tapion's sword -- the same make as the one that Future Trunks uses -- to do something, Goku just tells Trunk to STFU, goes Super Saiyan 3, and uses the brand-new move DRAGON FIST to punch through Hirudegarn's stomach. A random time machine is pulled out for Tapion to time-travel with (what the fuck?) and Tapion gives Kid Trunks the sword... which... is a bit weird since this Trunks won't actually grow into Future Trunks.

So yeah. It's a pretty good movie up until the last 10 minutes or so which just insists on forcing the win on Goku despite Goku quite literally not doing anything for the majority of the movie. It's such a shame because between the unique backstory for Tapion and Hirudegarn, plus the large focus on Kid Trunks, this could've been a far better storyline... but instead it just really fails to stick the landing. 

Young Justice S02E18 Review: A Puppet's Strings

Young Justice, Season 2, Episode 18: Intervention

This is the "Jaime Reyes gets redeemed episode", and it really would've worked so much better had the ritual to cleanse the Blue Beetle via magic was actually foreshadowed other than a brief glance of a beetle mural in the Bialyan episode. I'm highly tempted to write off this episode as a big fat deus ex machina episode, and don't get me wrong -- the fact that Zatanna just happens to have a spell to cleanse the parasitic Beetle from the Reach's influence is insanely and awfully convenient, and at the same time bizarre that no one's mentioned this at all before. Thankfully, the rest of the episode isn't quite as bad.

The episode picks up from where we left off in the previous episode, wrapping up the non-stop Black Beetle/Mongul fight, and immediately following up on the events of episode 17 actually kind of helps to build up momentum. Green Beetle shows up to help up turn the tide, put Mongul back on ice, and then together with the Ambassador, they discover that someone's stolen the Warworld's Key. Black Beetle begin to also raise some doubts about how the Ambassador is running things, considering how passive he's been throughout all of this.

Meanwhile, while the Reach might have lost the Warworld's Key, their prisoners and the Ambassador's credibility with the UN, at least one thing is going well for them -- the popularity of Blue Beetle himself, who makes use of Superman's absence to beat up poor, poor Toyman in Metropolis. And while some members of the Team aren't feeling quite as charitable about Jaime, Impulse is quick to remind everyone that is being used by the Reach like a puppet -- and quite literally too. In perhaps one of the less well-done direction that Young Justice has done, we get the revelation that... apparently the Ambassador straight-up just controls how the Blue Beetle body moves around via a literal remote control and a keyboard, instead of just having an autopilot setting? That felt bizarrely awkward, and while this episode makes fun at how PR-hungry Blue Beetle is, in all previous appearances the mind-controlled Blue Beetle honestly just feels like regular Jaime, just more brutal and doing things to further Reach ambition.

We then get a pretty awesome bit where Blue Beetle in a dark alley is ambushed by Batgirl and Impulse, who waylay him with hit-and-run tactics and a particularly awesome visual effect that showcases how Blue Beetle's exhaust vents sort of just splay apart when viewed through Impulse super-speedy point of view. That's actually pretty neat! We also have the brief signs of Jaime's Scarab actually resisting, albeit framed in a way that's ambiguous. Does he really have no way to deal with the force field? Was he prolonging the fight against Impulse and Batgirl by doing things like scraping his blades on the ground, or stabbing the magical barrier intentionally?

Regardless, though, Rocket and Zatanna return for the first real guest spotlight after their graduation into the Justice League between seasons, and a combination of Rocket's alien force bubble and Zatanna's magic allows the Young Justice Team to abduct Blue Beetle and bring him to the underground Bialya ruins discovered in "Beneath". We get some fun bits where Ambassador-Beetle taunts the Team embarrassingly while they all keep quiet, while Jaime mocks the Ambassador through their shared mind-link. Through this all, on the Reach base, we get the Scientist arguing with the Ambassador about how it's too risky to have the Blue Beetle even engage the superheroes, especially since the far easier way would be to just let Jaime die and find a new host for the Scarab.


The Young Justice Team fight the Fearsome Five in Bialya, and beat them up pretty swiftly, before Zatanna unleashes some magic ritual to cleanse Jaime Reyes and the Scarab from the Reach's influence. At this point, Green Beetle swoops in to beat down the Team, but the arrival of hidden forces like Beast Boy (cleverly foreshadowed in the beginning of the Bialyan scene) and Bumblebee end up overwhelming Green Beetle as well. Beetles Green and Blue end up being pushed into the magical bubble while the Ambassador and Scientist argue about whether to send Black Beetle or not, the ritual succeeds, and both B'aars and Jamie have control of their respective Scarabs, free of the Reach.

Also, that awesome move with Impulse and Wonder Girl's lassoo that end up throwing Green Beetle into the magic bubble? Absolutely fantastic. I've spent a significant amount of this review talking about the storytelling aspect, but I must give credit where it's due... the action scenes here, showing the Team fully assembled as, well, a team, is pretty damn great.

And yes, we do get an explanation. We get a recap of Batgirl finding out about the Bialyan ruins and the Scarab imagery. We get a recap of how the very first Blue Beetle, Dan Garrett, found the Scarab after it was purified and put "off-mode" by an ancient group of magicians, while Ted Kord apparently dying in an epic battle to prevent the Scarab from falling into the Light's hands. And it... it makes sense, of course, but I really, really wished that at least some of this backstory is hinted in the past. I don't think there was any real hint or indication that Ted Kord's death was foul play connected to the Light. While a full flashback episode might be out of the question considering how Blue Beetle centric the season has already been, we definitely could've used a lot more foreshadowing here and there.

Oh, and the Scarab is apparently good all along, resisting the Reach as much as Jaime has been -- it's just a bit harder to tell with him considering his penchant for suggesting things like evisceration and stuff. The Scarab never really felt like a villain, and for one, I'm quite happy that he's not killed off.


Interestingly, though, the final scene of this episode shows Queen Bee talking to the Fearsome Five, noting that while they might've been a bit pissed at being ordered to throw the match, freeing Blue Beetle from the Reach's influence is certainly something that the Light wants and was planning for, hence the orders for Shimmer's team to throw the match. Yeah, the Light's definitely planning to double-cross the Reach, and it seems that we're starting this off.

The B-plot in this episode takes place over a couple of scatterd M'gann scenes, dealing with one of the remaining storylines left to tell in this season... her relationship with Lagoon Boy. She shows up in Atlantis, talking with the recovering La'gaan, and basically decides to break up with him. And it's definitely not quite fair to La'gaan... but it is definitely the right thing to do for M'gann to rip off the band-aid if she is indeed not serious about the relationship and is basically treating La'gaan as the rebound guy. There is, of course, some merit to La'gaan's own arguments, that he started the relationship on his own terms and there is a chance that their relationship would become something more... but M'gann ends it anyway.

And, mind you, La'gaan definitely hit the nail on the head when he asks M'gann if this has anything to do with Connner. M'gann denies it, of course, but the literal first thing she does when she gets back to base is to ask where Conner is... and Conner's apparently on a date with Wendy Harris. It's definitely not painting M'gann in a particularly good light, as much as the season one Conner/M'gann shippers would be excited about this, it does shaft poor La'gaan. Overall, though, there's only really one lesson to take away from this -- relationship drama hurts everyone involved. Even when you come to your senses, as M'gann does here, she ends up hurting poor La'gaan anyway.

Overall, it's a bit of a rocky episode. This one has some of the best action sequences seen in Young Justice, and it is pretty neat that we do get a full backstory (as much as the lack of foreshadowing irks me) as well as a full well-thought-out plan on the part of the good guys to get Blue Beetle back to normal. But there are a lot of good things that the episode actually does well, and while the magic-ex-machina is irksome, it's at least a competently directed episode.

Roll Call:

• Heroes: Green Beetle (now a good guy!), Flash, Aquaman, Atom, Wonder Girl, Batgirl, Miss Martian, Superboy, Guardian, Bumblebee, Wolf, Impulse, Nightwing, Robin, Beast Boy, Blue Beetle, Lagoon Boy, Rocket, Zatanna, Sphere, Dr. Fate, Blue Beetle/Ted Kord (flashback), Blue Beetle/Dan Garrett (flashback)
• Villains: Black Beetle, Mongul, Toyman, The Ambassador, The Scientist, Devastation, Mammoth, Shimmer, Sportsmaster (flashback), Deathstroke (flashback), Queen Bee
• Others: Cat Grant, Isis

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• Toyman is one of Superman's classic enemies. There have been multiple villains to adopt the moniker Toyman, but based on his costume, this one is clearly based on the first Toyman, Winslow Schott. Being a Superman enemy, Toyman operates out of Metropolis. 
• The fact that Dan Garrett thought that the alien scarab was actually a mystical talisman was based on the retcon done to the Scarab (originally intended and portrayed as a mystical talisman for years) during the reinvention of Blue Beetle mythos with Jaime Reyes. 
• The goddess that Zatanna summons is based on the DC character Isis (a.k.a. Andrea Thomas), based on the Egyptian goddess of the same name. A Captain Marvel supporting character, Isis-the-superhero drew her powers from Isis-the-goddess, and first appeared in the TV show Secrets of Isis before being brought into the comic-book continuity. Zatanna summons the Isis-equivalent goddess by shouting "Oh Mighty Isis!" backwards, which was the chant that Isis uses to access her powers. 
• The Reach dudes briefly talk about how they are unable to penetrate the energy field of the Cooperative. Rocket's power-generating technology are taken from an alien race known as the Cooperative.