[7.2/10] This one is a little better, but still feels a bit clunky in what it sets out to accomplish. Again, I like the idea that Kaldur has been taking on responsibilities his entire life and is almost intrinsically incapable of slowing down and let him process all the trauma and difficulty he’s been through. But do we really need a wooden exposition dump/flashback to lay that all out in no uncertain terms. Sometimes it feels like Young Justice just has its characters speak in descriptive essays rather than have human dialogue.
I’m also a little comme ci, comme ça on the prophecy business. When you’re a crusty old fan of genre stories like me, you get tired of prophecies and fabled chosen ones and all of that stuff, especially when it's just sort of shoehorned into the Atlantean corner of the show rather than something we’ve ever heard about until now. Giving a famed prophecy at the beginning of the episode and then having it come to pass at the end of the episode doesn't do much to build anticipation or catharsis.
That said, the leftover “red water” from Child’s attack is a suitable crisis for the crew to have to solve. Mera, Oceanmaster, and the hooded stranger coming together to magic it away makes for a good setpiece, and I like the political/personal angle of King Orin feeling powerless to help. The show’s still slinging the inequality angle with Poseidonis, which gives the proceedings some heft. And I’m particularly intrigued at the reveal that the mysterious stranger is Aryan, Vandal Savage's first immortal son. When we got his backstory in the magic arc, I thought it was odd that he was supposedly immortals and yet also died, sos the fact that he’s still around, but was apparently drifting around in self-imposed exile suggests he has an interesting story to tell and a part to play, especially since he seems to have a mystic claim on the crown.
The visits to Superboy in Limbo aren’t much to write home about. I do appreciate that we get a little more detail here, including the fact that the girl he’s hauling around, Ghosty, is in fact one of the Legionnaires. (Granted, I probably should have put that together from context in the last episode, but still.) Him avoiding some big scratchy monster by controlling his anger is solid, if standard stuff. There’s some unity between thought and action in this realm that’s interesting, but it’s all still fairly vague at this point.
My favorite storyline in this one, though, is the Legionnaires reaching out to Superman. We finally get some insight into their mission, which was apparently to save Conner from destruction on Mars. They not only failed, but lost one of their own, and now find themselves stranded in the past. Their trying to get Superman to stand in for Conner in that fateful, future challenge, with the poetry of Superboy modeling himself after his mentor and brother, is a more potent prophecy. More to the point, the fact that it doesn’t seem to work for them given that the timeline stays the same gives the show room to surprise us. Plus hey, bioship coming back is pleasant, even if it feels like it was only gone for five minutes.
Overall, this arc isn’t off to the best start, but there remain some intriguing elements at play.
I stopped pretending to follow all the date stamps a long time ago but it’s always fun to see that they’ve had a plan all along. Very excited to see the Legion coming into focus.
Review by Andrew BloomVIP 9BlockedParentSpoilers2022-08-26T04:58:13Z
[7.2/10] This one is a little better, but still feels a bit clunky in what it sets out to accomplish. Again, I like the idea that Kaldur has been taking on responsibilities his entire life and is almost intrinsically incapable of slowing down and let him process all the trauma and difficulty he’s been through. But do we really need a wooden exposition dump/flashback to lay that all out in no uncertain terms. Sometimes it feels like Young Justice just has its characters speak in descriptive essays rather than have human dialogue.
I’m also a little comme ci, comme ça on the prophecy business. When you’re a crusty old fan of genre stories like me, you get tired of prophecies and fabled chosen ones and all of that stuff, especially when it's just sort of shoehorned into the Atlantean corner of the show rather than something we’ve ever heard about until now. Giving a famed prophecy at the beginning of the episode and then having it come to pass at the end of the episode doesn't do much to build anticipation or catharsis.
That said, the leftover “red water” from Child’s attack is a suitable crisis for the crew to have to solve. Mera, Oceanmaster, and the hooded stranger coming together to magic it away makes for a good setpiece, and I like the political/personal angle of King Orin feeling powerless to help. The show’s still slinging the inequality angle with Poseidonis, which gives the proceedings some heft. And I’m particularly intrigued at the reveal that the mysterious stranger is Aryan, Vandal Savage's first immortal son. When we got his backstory in the magic arc, I thought it was odd that he was supposedly immortals and yet also died, sos the fact that he’s still around, but was apparently drifting around in self-imposed exile suggests he has an interesting story to tell and a part to play, especially since he seems to have a mystic claim on the crown.
The visits to Superboy in Limbo aren’t much to write home about. I do appreciate that we get a little more detail here, including the fact that the girl he’s hauling around, Ghosty, is in fact one of the Legionnaires. (Granted, I probably should have put that together from context in the last episode, but still.) Him avoiding some big scratchy monster by controlling his anger is solid, if standard stuff. There’s some unity between thought and action in this realm that’s interesting, but it’s all still fairly vague at this point.
My favorite storyline in this one, though, is the Legionnaires reaching out to Superman. We finally get some insight into their mission, which was apparently to save Conner from destruction on Mars. They not only failed, but lost one of their own, and now find themselves stranded in the past. Their trying to get Superman to stand in for Conner in that fateful, future challenge, with the poetry of Superboy modeling himself after his mentor and brother, is a more potent prophecy. More to the point, the fact that it doesn’t seem to work for them given that the timeline stays the same gives the show room to surprise us. Plus hey, bioship coming back is pleasant, even if it feels like it was only gone for five minutes.
Overall, this arc isn’t off to the best start, but there remain some intriguing elements at play.