Young Justice: Outsiders S03E11 Review: Where Nightmares Began

Young Justice: Outsiders, Season 3, Episode 11: Another Freak

This episode's a pretty great origin story for Cyborg, yeah? I mean, again, it's an origin story that I had been exposed too a couple of times over the course of the past few months, but it's still told well here. Even if, admittedly, the reason that the alien machinery blowing up apparently being caused by poor cable layout does feel a bit silly in an otherwise pretty dramatic scene.

It's pretty well-played, with Victor demanding that his father pay attention to him, while his father just gives him a non-committal "there are bigger things in this world than you or I" and taking a condescending tone throughout the entire conversation. I'm honestly sure Victor would probably be more understanding if Silas said something along the lines of helping the Justice League fight aliens or whatever (which is more important than a football game), but the combination of keeping Victor locked out of the loop, being a general condescending ass and all that really end up making Victor's story really relatable.

Of course, after the argument, we get the little fritzy part of the alien machinery in STAR Labs finally breaking, causing the huge explosion that claims half of Victor's body. Kudos to the animation team for really making that injury with his exposed skull and shit look utterly horrifying -- turns out Halo doesn't hold sole membership over the "we can show gruesome wounds on this character" club. Jeez.

And Silas's desperate insistence that the Father Box, able to fix Parademons, WILL WORK on fixing Victor's body. It's an interesting twist to make this a desperate moment where Silas has to save Victor right now since he won't survive the trip to a hospital instead of the more deliberate "let's slowly graft machinery to my son" that previous incarnations of the characters has done. Khary Payton might not be voicing Cyborg himself, but as Cyborg's dad he's doing a remarkably great job at making him sound emotional. And, of course, after a couple of scenes, the Father Box fuses with Victor and turns him into Cyborg. Turns out, though, that this Cyborg suffers from some nasty split personality that is triggered by his anger, changing his lights from red to purple and causing him to try and murder everyone. More on that later, though.

The other huge plot running across this episode is that of the Outsiders. We get the sense that some time has passed, with Forager's skin having grown back after the Lobo debacle, and Brion getting into a neat argument with Nightwing over the whole Tara situation. Dick does tell him about Team Batman finding information that Tara was at Infinity Island in the past, but Brion gets angry at the perceived delay. Interestingly, though, while this does lead to the expected non-lethal fight as Brion rages about how 'everyone wants patience', Dick does manage to maneuver Brion to realize that part of Brion's frustrations isn't just about Tara (since he knows everyone's doing their best to find her), but also the fact that Brion is also frustrated about the political situation at Markovia. Nevermind the fact that Dick is hacking and monitoring Brion's browsing history! It's actually a neat showcase of the subtle manipulation that Dick does to keep Brion under his control, which is definitely interesting, even if it isn't exactly malicious.

Forager, meanwhile, continues to be adorable even if I'm not sure whether he's genuinely innocently sarcastic, or if he's very clever at obfuscating stupidity. With the aid of the same glamour charm necklace that Artemis uses in season two, they give Forager a human appearance, allowing him to be "Fred Bugg with two G's", a very appropriate comic-book civilian name, and I absolutely LOVE the fact that Forager continues to refer to himself in the third person as Fred Bugg with two G's. Not sure why they see the need to send Forager to a public school, though. Like, Halo I get, and, sure, you can make the argument that Megan and Snapper Carr working in the school as teachers (a nice, subtle little character nod for Megan, too) means that they are there to help monitor Forager and Halo... but eh.

We get a whole lot of fun dialogue from Fred Bugg with two G's and Halo, and they befriend a cool girl called Harper Row, who's pretty cool, even if we don't see much of her. Harper Row basically goes on a fun high school plot tangent of 'embrace the fact that you're a quirky freak', which is neat. She does end up giving Forager the funnier nickname of "Fred Bugg With Optional Two G's", which I like. Halo, however, ends up reacting to Cyborg's transformation into a rage-machine somewhere else in the country, and activates the indigo light -- the ability to create a Boom Tube.

And this is where Halo shows up in front of Cyborg, and we get a fun little banter of Father Box Cyborg identifying Halo as an abomination, but Halo, remembering what her friends told her, self-identifies as a 'freak', and she's damn proud of that. Halo speaks in her alien language, and reverts Cyborg back to his original red-light state, returning him to sanity. And after a quick nod to the fact that Halo can't actually revert the mechanical parts, Cyborg ends up going with Halo to wherever the other freaks gather -- although I do like the little nod that this isn't just Cyborg being an angry teenager running away from his father, but in acknowledgement that he could very well hurt and/or kill Silas, because the anger does come from Victor himself.

We get a genuinely touching moment as Cyborg gets Boom Tube'd back to where Forager, M'gann and Carr are waiting, and there's a fun bit where we realize that the scenes have been taking place under the bleachers on the football field, which has to be a figurative gut-punch to poor Cyborg as he realizes he can never go back again.

So... yeah. All the Cyborg and Halo origin story being interconnected is pretty great! Cyborg, I feel, ends up feeling more emotional and better done, but that might be because he gets a lot of focus in botht his episode and the previous one, while Brion and Halo's respective growths were more gradual over the eleven episodes, and this is just the latest in a series of altercations. They're all pretty well done, though, and I definitely appreciate both setting up Cyborg and Halo to have some tie-in with the whole Mother/Father Box storylines. I am honestly a bit tired of Darkseid being the generic space-invading baddie, but the way that Young Justice handles the buildup is honestly done pretty dang well.

Roll Call:

• Heroes: Cyborg, Forager, Geo-Force, Tigress, Halo, Miss Martian, Superboy, Nightwing
• Civilians/Others: Dr. Silas Stone, Casey Klebba, Snapper Carr, Dr. Sarah Charles, Lenore Parris, Harper Row

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• As mentioned in the previous episode, the events of this episode basically retells Cyborg's New 52 origin story. The idea of Cyborg having to fight sort of an evil split personality is a combination of the New 52 backstory of having a Motherbox be the source of his cyborg parts, as well as the period of time in the comics where Cyborg was combined with an alien mechanical race and became Cyberion. 
• The ancient alien entity within Halo that merged with a human corpse has been changed from the 
• Sarah Charles, Victor Stone's original love interest from the New Titans comic, appears as one of the staff member of STAR Labs that witnesses Victor's transformation into Cyborg. 
• Harper Row is a supporting character from the New 52 Batman comics. Initially a punk living in the streets of Gotham City, she ended up slowly being inspired by Batman's heroics and befriended Red Robin and eventually adopted the superhero mantle of Bluebird. 
• The teacher, Lenore Parris, is apparently based on a minor character from the Super Friends comics, the schoolteacher for the Wonder Twins.