Young Justice: Outsiders, Season 3, Episode 17: First Imprsesion
So this episode is the big "Beast Boy goes public with a team" payoff and culmination to both the major themes of the past couple of episodes, with Beast Boy finally taking a more solid stance at being a public hero, and... and the "Outsiders" team finally being formed. Which, when this season started, I definitely wasn't expecting the Outsiders to basically be basically Young Justice Jr! Which... again, I'm not faulting the show for. It's gone so far in integrating its Teen Titans/Young Justice characters and taking them to different directions. Their development this way makes sense, which is all I'm asking for.
And it's interesting how this episode ended up being set off, with the little faux setup of a random Reach warship coming to life. And with the Reach being the main villain of the second season and this one setting up to include more and more space politics with Darkseid's forces being more involved, it's not out of the realm of possibility for the Reach to actually return.
But, of course, it's not the focus of the episode. Again, the episode's focus is Beast Boy wanting to make a public 'face' of the team, and he wants to basically want to make a splinter faction that is associated, but doesn't really answer to the Justice League -- allowing them to help people in ways that the League's hands are tied up due to political fumbling.... basically, Beast Boy points out that the League and Lex Luthor's publicity war isn't something that the League's going to win any time soon, but with the media basically taking Beast Boy as a new, popular face of superheroism (thanks to that one Not-Twitter picture upload), he's basically intent on starting a new social media revolution. Which... to the show writer's credit, does actually sound like what a modern-day young superhero would think up of, especially a high-profile one like Beast Boy who's known all over as "Tork" as much as he is as a superhero. And so... we have our Outsiders, with Blue Beetle (who was pretty public in season two when he's controlled by the Reach anyway), Static, Kid Flash, Geo-Force and Wonder Girl being the heroes that have no secret identities left to lose.
And, of course... the 'starter villain' for the Outsiders end up being the Reach warships attacking Brooklyn, Maine, at which point we meet what's one of the more surprising guest stars of this season, which is a gender-flipped adaptation of the Newsboy Legion -- a series of characters that I genuinely didn't think would ever appear in animated form. They don't really do much, basically just a bunch of bystanders that fall into the whole "youths inspired by superheroes" movement and just kind of give a voice to the younger citizens that don't necessarily agree with the views of their elders. And... and it's a bit on the nose for sure (particularly the later scene with the unreasonable mayor arguing with his daughter about arresting the superheroes), but the situations that Young Justice presents us are far-removed enough from any hotbed political issues that it doesn't feel preachy. It's a neat little theme of the younger generation perceiving news in a different way compared to the older one, and the concept of a group of superheroes inspiring a younger generation is definitely one that's pretty well-done, even if "Gabby" really could've stood to be a bit less... narrator-y, y'know?
The action scenes are pretty cool, and we get to see a lot of some characters that don't get a lot of time to shine -- particularly Cassie and Bart. I really do kinda wish that the members actually got to show off a bit more of their personality than being "kinda heroic", since other than Gar and Bart, everyone else on the team was all business. I guess they were being professional and friendly throughout the entire mission, but still. We get a fun montage of other characters witnessing the Outsiders fight the Reach be live-streamed by the Newsgirl Legion, and it's a neat sense of basically showing off this world that the showrunners have built... although that random scene with Jay Garrick next to a sick Joan on a hospital was random and such a punch in the feels.
And, well, turns out that the Reach ship aren't really the Reach, but are members of Intergang led by good ol' Whisper A'Daire trying to do a weapons demonstration... but in their little scuffle, they accidentally call on a mothership from where it's parked in the depths of the ocean, giving a convenient, bigger threat for the Outsiders to defeat just to basically show up the asshole mayor. Again, it's a wee bit convenient, and the scene of Beast Boy being oh-so-cooperative is played out a bit, but eh. It's all right. The action scenes against the larger warship is fun, and we even get a wacky bit of 90's cartoon as the mayor complains all about the damage to the lake while the sheriff and the citizens are basically on the side of our heroes.
Thus with the power of media, livestreams and hashtags, Beast Boy ends up declaring the team as the Outsiders... and it's certainly an interesting outing for them. This episode definitely ran a bit long, and played off kind of like a more generic pilot episode for a superhero team. And I think it's a bit intentional? The dialogue felt a bit too forced at times, but, again, I kind of feel that it's intentional. It's important, after all, to really sell the concept of this new team for a new generation, and to show them at least be accepted by some of their target audience before presumably the likes of Granny Goodness and Lex Luthor come to smear campaign poor Garfield's efforts down.
More interestingly is that Terra's still playing the long con, hanging out with Artemis and baby Lian and cheering all along, before reporting that the Outsiders are part of the Team/League to presumably Deathstroke. We also get the first meeting of the superhero team leaders for a long, long while... and I'm not sure that random backstory about how Intergang got the little War-bugs from the submerged Reach ship was all that enlightening or necessary (we did get a L'gann cameo), other than the slight revelation that Kaldur'ahm basically 'threw' the fight so the Outsiders could look good. But then they stop short of actually including Beast Boy in their little cabal, and even Miss Martian doesn't think Garfield is ready for this, and... and it's interesting. Overall, I'm not as impressed about this episode as the previous ones, but it's definitely necessary development and we did need this screentime for the Outsiders to really be sold as a concept both in-universe and to the audience.
Thus with the power of media, livestreams and hashtags, Beast Boy ends up declaring the team as the Outsiders... and it's certainly an interesting outing for them. This episode definitely ran a bit long, and played off kind of like a more generic pilot episode for a superhero team. And I think it's a bit intentional? The dialogue felt a bit too forced at times, but, again, I kind of feel that it's intentional. It's important, after all, to really sell the concept of this new team for a new generation, and to show them at least be accepted by some of their target audience before presumably the likes of Granny Goodness and Lex Luthor come to smear campaign poor Garfield's efforts down.More interestingly is that Terra's still playing the long con, hanging out with Artemis and baby Lian and cheering all along, before reporting that the Outsiders are part of the Team/League to presumably Deathstroke. We also get the first meeting of the superhero team leaders for a long, long while... and I'm not sure that random backstory about how Intergang got the little War-bugs from the submerged Reach ship was all that enlightening or necessary (we did get a L'gann cameo), other than the slight revelation that Kaldur'ahm basically 'threw' the fight so the Outsiders could look good. But then they stop short of actually including Beast Boy in their little cabal, and even Miss Martian doesn't think Garfield is ready for this, and... and it's interesting. Overall, I'm not as impressed about this episode as the previous ones, but it's definitely necessary development and we did need this screentime for the Outsiders to really be sold as a concept both in-universe and to the audience.
Roll Call:
- Heroes: Beast Boy, Superboy, Miss Martian, Aquaman II, Tigress, Kid Flash II, Blue Beetle, Static, Wonder Girl, Geo-Force, Halo, Traci Thirteen, Forager, Cyborg, Bio-Ship, Flash (Jay Garrick), El Dorado, Batman, Robin, Nightwing, Oracle, Wonder Woman, Lagoon Boy, Wyynde
- Villains: Lex Luthor, Whisper A'Daire, Scorpia A'Daire, Cairo Defrey, Bruno Mannheim (flashback)
- Civilians/Others: Terra, Dr. Helga Jace, Gaby Gabrielli, Patrick Maguire, Antonia Rodriguez, Tommi Thompkins, Joan Garrick, Livewire, Windfall, Mist
DC Easter Eggs Corner:
- The "Newsgirl Legion" is a gender-flipped version of the Newsboy Legion from the comics, a group of young kids that supported the original Golden Age Guardian. In modern-day stories, they were cloned by Project Cadmus and ended up being recurring characters in Superman stories. Four of the characters here were based on the original four 'core' members of the Newsboy Legion, with the change of genders and the locale being changed from small-town Brooklyn, Maine, from Brooklyn, New York. In addition, the designs of the characters, as well as some dialogue, are homages to Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated.
- Tommi Thompkins is based on Thomas "Tommy" Thompkins, the leader of the Newsboy Legion. Her father here is called Thomas, although the comic-book Thomas is clearly a lot more appreciative of heroes.
- Gaby Gabrielli is based on Johnny "Gabby" Gabrielli, the member of the group that never stopped talking.
- "Big Words" Antonia Rodriguez is based on Anthony "Big Words" Rodriguez, the smart one of the group that used extremely ponderous sesquipedalian loquaciousness for the express purpose of pontification.
- Sheriff Patrick Maguire is based on Patrick "Scrapper" Maguire, the tough guy of the team.
- Two new Intergang members show up, in addition to Whisper A'Daire and Bruno Mannheim (albeit the latter only in flashbacks):
- In the comics, Cairo DeFrey is a high-ranking member of the terrorist organization Scorpio, which menaced minor DC hero teams the Challengers of the Unknown, as well as Peter "Thunderbolt" Cannon. Neither the Scorpio organization nor DeFrey had any affiliation with Intergang in the comics.
- Scorpia A'Daire is a character based on a minor member of Scorpio. She's related to Whisper A'Daire in this incarnation, apparently. She battled the superheroes Green Lantern and Skyrocket.
- Wyynde shows up in the background of the Atlantean scenes, and in the comics, he's a supporting character of the Atlantean sorcerer Arion, hailing from the Khe-Wannatu people whose culture resembled modern-day Native Americans. Wyynde showed up in Young Justice tie-in comics as a minor character all the way back in 2012.
- The Outsiders in the comics was a superhero team formed when Batman quit the Justice League and its more prohibiting international laws in order to form a group of his own able to tackle international threats while still basically being vigilantes. Among its original members are Metamorpho, Katana, Black Lightning, Geo-Force, Looker and Halo.
- The alarm system in the Hub is nicknamed "Troub-Alert" by Beast Boy, a reference to the alarm system of the same name from the Super Friends cartoon.
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