Young Justice: Outsiders S03E08 Review: Innuendos Everywhere

Young Justice: Outsiders, Season 3, Episode 8: Triptych

This episode is an... interesting one. The comparisons to the Light, where various different standalone episodes end up being pieces in the Light's bigger plan, is definitely apt. The episode takes place with three different sets of the cast recapping about their various escapades against the meta-human trafficking ring (totally run by the Light, but we haven't actually gotten confirmation yet), all of which is told in a reverse-chronological order with Shade's evolution tying them all together. And to the show's credit, I didn't catch that the bearded man in the JLA segment and the bald man in the Robin segment are meant to be the same person until the episode's final scenes clued me in. Turns out that various members of the Justice League, Batman Incorporated (guess that's what we're calling it) and the Outsiders are in contact with each other, working together to give the other teams plausible deniability. It's basically a combination of what the Light and the Team were doing back in the first season, only on a larger scale. The episode itself is set relatively well, working pretty neatly as a standalone episode while also building up into something bigger. 

Also, being mostly standalone gave the writing team the opportunity to sneak in a whole lot of fun innuendo, which isn't something I tend to take note of, but this episode had a particularly large quantity of them, I think. From the whole "fence" discussion between Superboy and M'gann, to every single line spoken out loud by Livewire, to "Mad Pants-ter" to the now-memetic "you've never had black lightning" line... yeah. I love it. It's fun. 

Anyway, let's talk about the episode itself. The first part of the episode, as told by Oracle and Nightwing, is a recap of a simple battle between the Outsiders and a group of villains doing the most supervillain thing ever -- stealing a chunk of fancy machinery from STAR Labs. We get a couple of pretty fun villains, including fan-favourites from other DC cartoons Livewire and Shade. And Mist! And, of course, I have to give a shout-out to Shade's redesign for this show. which features an absolutely fucking creepy porcelain mask with black eyes and glowing red pupils. A lot of fun, great dialogue between the three of them, too. 

Livewire, Shade and Mist do their thing and battle against STAR Labs' goons, and their backup, Cheshire, ends up getting shot. The Outsiders are assembled in response to this robbery, and they take off towards the airport where the bad guy squad are with Dr. Moon, who's treating Cheshire. This is one of our first proper outing for the newer members of the Outsiders, and they get some pretty badass scenes! Geo-Force uses molten rock to stop the plane from flying off, and everyone joins into a fight. We get Black Lightning fighting against Livewire for some requisite "we have the same powers" scene. Nightwing fights the very reluctant Mist, and ends up freezing her just as she's chocking him. The Exile Hivebros fight against Shade, and it's... it's pretty badass. Shade's usage of shadow teleportation ends up with some fun visuals, and his taunting over 'keeping' Geo-Force in the shadow realm ends up causing Halo to unleash a burst of... blue light? White light? It ends up burning Shade so much that he ends up spitting out Geo-Force and retreating. Success, and we get a pretty thrilling action scene out of it. 

Meanwhile, after punching Dr. Moon in the face, we get a fun conversation between Artemis and Cheshire. The conversation starts off with more business than anything, with Cheshire telling Artemis that while she doesn't know who, exactly, runs the League of Shadows, we get the revelation that it's ran out of Santa Prisca, the island prison. We also get a pretty great scene from Artemis telling Cheshire to "GO SEE YOUR KID", because, well... Cheshire isn't the best mom out there. It's a surprisingly tender scene where Cheshire admits that she still loves Lian, telling Artemis to "hug her for me", but at the same time puts the mission as an assassin as her priority first and foremost. A pretty interesting motivation for this recurring character, actually! 

And then we cut to the second 'story', with Robin reporting back to Batman. Especially exciting is the fact that this is actually the first time we've seen the Batman Incorporated group actually do anything. This time around our focus is on a group I'll be affectionately calling "Robin's Angels", where Robin leads a group of new characters -- Spoiler, Arrowette and Orphan (!!!) -- to hunt down classic Batman enemy Mad Hatter, who's apparently released on parole. 

I don't think the show really ends up doing a particularly good job at making the other three feel like proper characters, though. Orphan's mute and pretty reckless, and she's probably the one with the most unique personality out of the three girls. Spoiler and Arrowette are competent and badass, but that's about all there is to them -- it's the same problem that the B-team back in season two has, and something that's still plaguing poor Tim Drake here. 

Still, the sequence of events is pretty cool, as they quickly discover that 'Mad Hatter' is actually a mind-controlled Clayface. We get some pretty fun visuals as Orphan makes liberal use of Clayface's non-fleshy body to do some pretty interesting action scenes that involve a whole ton of dismemberment. We get a fun bit where Spoiler yells loudly at the mind-controlled Clayface to fool him into returning to protect Mad Hatter.

And Mad Hatter, as always, is pretty creepy. Not as creepy as the version from Gotham, but still a pretty creepy character as we focus on him brainwashing a bald metahuman (who we later learn is Shade, prior to the Outsiders mission). It's countered with a fun undertone perfectly delivered by voice actor Dwight Schultz. "You had to protect me? From what?" -Robin's Angels arrive- "OH OH OH! YES! PROTECT ME!". Another stand-out line is "what part of Maaaaad Hatter don't you get?" Hatter actually manages to escape with his thrall, causing the building he's based out of to blow up with self-destruct bombs. Robin's Angels manage to escape, and we get quick confirmation from Robin that Clayface's parts are reforming, so he definitely isn't dead. Great moment from Robin trying to save Clayface, though! As entertaining as Hatter is, though, this is probably the most boring out of the three sequences. Doesn't help that Robin, Spoiler, Arrowette and Orphan are kind of undeveloped characters -- Robin in particular, considering he's been around since season two and we haven't really learned a whole ton about him. 

The final 'story' is told between holo-Diana, M'gann and Kaldur'ahm, who note that their report involves something that happens several weeks ago -- and the presence of Brick places this right after the Bowhunters episode, where the prisoners are being transported to Belle Reve when they're attacked by motherfucking Sportsmaster. Turns out that the whole convoy is actually a Justice League sting operation, and it's actually pretty neat to see the JLA actually do something after being neutered for the majority of season two. We get some great lines from Flash and Captain Marvel... even if they do admittedly get fucked over by a hockey puck. A sonic hockey puck, but still. 

Sportsmaster and Abra Kadabra attempt to free the two prisoners -- Brick and a bearded man who we learn is, again, Shade -- but despite the arrival of Rocket and Aquaman (it's so weird calling Kaldur that!) to help subdue Brick and Kadabra, Sportsmaster ended up absconding with Shade in an alley. Poor League! We get a fun delivery from Brick moaning about his bad luck, while the superheroes note that he's actualyl dodged a bullet. 

And then, after this story, we pan out to see that all of the conversations between the Bat Family, hologram Diana, Miss Martian and Aquaman are actually taking place in the Batcave, and we learn that the three events are interconnected via a three-step plan of acquisition (Sportsmaster liberating existing meathumans from prisons), coercion (a.k.a. Mad Hatter's brainwashing) and utilization (using them to do evil shit like steal STAR Labs machines), with the added confirmation that Clayface, Livewire and Mist were all prisoners that were abducted by Sportsmaster. This ends up sort of tying into the whole bit where all previously-seen metahumans have been mind-controlled. 

As a fun little coda, we get a short flashback to Robin using Mad Hatter's control machine to free Clayface from any future mind-control, and the relieved sigh from Clayface is actually pretty heartwarming. 

We also get the surprising debut of a new villain that has been sponsoring this particular sequence of villainy -- Stagg Industries! Which is definitely a familiar name for anyone that's familiar with the Outsiders. We learn that the evil corporate businessman Simon Stagg has been orchestrating a lot of this, and has basically taken the place of Baron Bedlam. Apparently Superboy and Miss Martian, presumably after the aforementioned "mending fences", has arrested Stagg off-screen.

It seems to be case closed for this particular villainous group, except that Stagg apparently wanted to steal a Reach device that reads "metahuman failsafe", something that's probably going to play heavily into bigger episodes down the road. Stagg himself ends up meeting Shade -- in a full suit and tophat getup after being freed by Cheshire -- and presumably getting killed for using him. 

Meanwhile, Wonder Woman ends the episode with an armour-piercing question. It was badass and all to see the good guys pull a bit of a chessmaster plan and disrupt Stagg's plans in all three phases, but Diana also points out that what they're doing isn't different from the Light, making use of different teams that don't know that they work together (specifically citing Cheshire and Sportsmaster from this episode's villains), and Robin's particularly poorly-phrased note that they're the Anti-Light ends up causing Wonder Woman to compare them to a darkness creeping amongst the heroes, especially when Batman outright notes that this is all for plausible deniability for their more illegal endeavours. Right now what they're doing is still in pretty good taste, but it's the same question raised as the first two seasons of Young Justice -- at what point do the black ops team go from pragmatic solutions to criminals themselves? 

Roll Call:

• Heroes: Oracle, Nightwing, Black Lightning, Tigress, Geo-Force, Forager, Halo, Batman, Robin, Orphan, Aquaman II, Miss Martian, Wonder Woman, The Flash, Captain Marvel, Rocket
• Villains: Shade, Mist, Livewire, Cheshire, Doctor Moon, Clayface, Mad Hatter, Brick, Sportsmaster, Abra Kadabra, Simon Stagg
• Others: Helga Jace, Dr. Silas Stone, Casey Klebba, Harvey Bullock, Rene Montoya

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• The Shade, a.k.a. Richard Swift, was a Flash villain that was famously featured in one of the first crossovers between the Golden and Silver Age heroes, menacing the first and second Flashes (Jay and Barry), forcing them to cross Earths to fight him. He had an ability to control shadows with his cane, but later retcons would have him as a far more intricate villain, being an immortal from the Victorian era that alternates between being a villain and a hero, with his main enemies being various incarnations of the Flash and Starman. 
• Livewire, a.k.a. Leslie Willis, was a 'shock jock' that often badmouths Superman on air until an accident involving a lightning bolt channeled through Superman's body transformed her into a being that can manipulate electricity. While initially introduced as a one-off supervillain for Superman: The Animated Series, she ended up popular enough that she was adapted into the mainstream DC comics. 
• Mist, a.k.a. Nash Nimbus, is based on the second incarnation of the Mist. The original Mist, Kyle Nimbus, was an enemy of the superhero Starman, with the ability to transform his body into a gaseous form, an ability inherited by his daughter. She was far more conflicted against battling Starman compared to her father. Most infamously, she was the mother of Starman's daughter after drugging and raping the superhero. 
• Dr. Moon is a minor but constantly recurring Batman villain, basically acting as a surgeon for various villains like the Joker, Dr. Cyber, Tobias Whale and the Suicide Squad whenever they need a doctor. 
• Mad Hatter, a.k.a. Jervis Tetch, is one of Batman's classic enemies. A twisted, friendless man, Jervis Tetch had an obsession with the works of Lewis Caroll, particularly with kidnapping young women and making them the 'Alice' to his 'Mad Hatter'. In addition to his twisted attempts to recreate Alice in Wonderland, Mad Hatter's modus operandi tends to revolve around his love for hats, as well as implanting mind-control technology within said hats. 
• Orphan is one of the many, many alter-egos adopted by Cassandra Cain, most famously known as the second Batgirl. A mysterious, mute girl with extremely high abilities of martial arts, Cassandra Cain is apparently the daughter of the world-renowned assassin David Cain. Refusing to become an assassin like her father, she ended up looking up to Batman and Orcale, and ended up using a modified version of the Batgirl suit to become the second Batgirl. 
• Simon Stagg, boss of Stagg Industries, is the main villain for the comic-book Outsider superhero Metamorpho (who's the only 'main' Outsider member in the comics to not have shown up at all in the show). Stagg is a recurring enemy to Metamorpho, the Metal Men and other superheroes, and relatively recently showed up in live-action in Flash's first season. 
• The two officers that arrest Simon Stagg are not named, but bear heavy resemblances to Harvey Bullock and Rene Montoya, two recurring police officers from Gotham City that often show up in Batman-related material. The two being paired together is likely a reference to how the two of them functioned as a unit in Batman: The Animated Series. 
• Dr. Silas Stone is, of course, the father of Victor Stone (a.k.a. Cyborg) in the DC comics. 
• The STAR Labs guard is identified by the credits as Casey Klebba, who is a supporting character for Vibe in the New 52 reboot. Like his role here, he's also head of security of STAR Labs. 
• Wonder Woman mentions off-handedly that the Justice League's spaceship that she is using to contact them is called the Javelin, a reference to the JLA's ship from Justice League: The Animated Series and Justice League Unlimited. 
• It's been confirmed via supplementary material before, but this episode makes it explicit that the Clayface in Young Justice is Matt Hagen, who in the comics is the second Clayface.