Young Justice: "Bloodlines" Review

Full superhero sidekick spoilers follow.

It's good news/bad news with the latest Young Justice episode, "Bloodlines." The good news: Impulse has joined the show. The bad news: Impulse has joined the show.

It's an ongoing issue with Young Justice and one that clearly isn't going away. The show's creators insist on continuously adding new characters to the roster, which inevitably means that main players get short shrift (cough, Wally, Artemis, cough) that the newly inducted players are never fleshed out (hack, Rocket, Zatanna, hack).

Having said that, it is undeniably fun to see a character like Impulse in animated form. And the writers and producers more often than not handle these new faces with humor, faithfulness to their comics inspiration (even when reinterpreting them to fit into the YJ timeline, as with Impulse/Bart), and a general kick-ass-ness.

Anyway, "Bloodlines" is a fun Flash Family adventure, and how can it not be when it features not just Impulse -- arriving from the future allegedly to visit his eventual-granddad Barry Allen -- but also Barry himself, Wally's return to the Kid-Flash costume Jay Garrick -- who must be pushing 90 here -- donning the old metal skullcap again, all in a bid to save good old Central City!

Aside from the banter and geek thrills that come from a Flash grouping like this, there are several other nicely handled bits. Among them: Barry's slow-motion (from our perspective) quasi-POV, complete with heartbeat thumping, as he chugs along at "near lightspeed" to stop Neutron; Wally's inability to keep up with Barry and Impulse, including his admission that he can only make out "every fifth word" of their super-fast conversation; and Flash's costume ring, complete with a kinda-musical-callout to the live-action 1990s TV show.

Of course, this is all in service of an ever-deepening puzzle surrounding the Season 2 "Invasion," which it now seems clear is going to take some time to actually get to the real invadin'. Metagene experimentation is taking place, we learn here, supporting several of you alert readers out there who speculated last week that Tye Longshadow and the rest of those kidnapped kids were actually going to be modified to become super-beings. But still, it's all with the mystery and shadowy figures when it comes to who is masterminding this plot. We viewers continue to know more than our heroes, but still not much at all. Ho-hum.

Elsewhere, Red Arrow has cleaned up his act -- being a husband and father will do that to you -- and, together with his nuclear family, actually tracks down the original Roy. Though this is the B storyline of this episode, it definitely has some well-played moments, as when Cheshire tells her husband, "I need you be real. Our daughter needs you to be real." Damn straight! I also love how Cheshire brings their baby with them on a covert op -- and still manages to outfight the bad guys with the kid in a Bjorn the whole time. Mainly, though, it's great that the real Roy has finally been found so that this storyline can move forward now. But wait… that means another new character on the team, doesn't it?

The episode finale is pretty creepy too, as we realize that Impulse actually knew he was on a one-way trip to the past, all in an attempt to save the devastated future world he's from. Perhaps his glib attitude is more of a front than it at first seems. And seeing Neutron in that future, actually working with Impulse to alter the past, is also a nice touch -- though I'm not sure I get why he would remember that Impulse had to alter the past once the past was altered so that, from his perspective, said past never happened in the way that would've Impulse to alter it in the first place. Time travel!

Some notes: Can anyone explain to me what "crash the mode" means? "Such a Dick Grayson thing to do." Very cool how Neutron kind of pulls a Doctor Manhattan when he reconstitutes his body (and who said Watchmen wouldn't show up in this show?). "Your name's Tim? And yours is… Dick?!" Comic-Con is full of people from the future. It all makes sense now!

Source : http://www.ign.com/articles/2012/06/04/young-justice-bloodlines-review

Young Justice: "Earthlings" Review

Full superhero sidekick spoilers follow.

O.K. then, everyone who was worried that all the questions raised by last week's five-year time jump would go unanswered can rest easy. For the most part. If "Earthlings," this week's episode of Young Justice, is any indication, the show hasn't completely abandoned these matters.

With the bigger plot business of this season set up last week -- the whole Justice League as galactic outlaws and alien invasion is imminent thing -- we can pause to catch our breath, if only slightly, with a fleshing out of what exactly went wrong between Miss Martian and Superboy during the previous five years.

- Warner Bros./Cartoon Network

The answer: Well, technically we still don't know! But Conner does fill Adam Strange's girlfriend Alanna in -- and by extension, us -- with some vague details. It seems that Superboy was designed to not physically age past his current appearance, and as Alanna notes, a shapeshifter could be the perfect partner for such a person. But Megan apparently left Conner "no choice" but to break up with her at some point… Is it because she likes to mind-wipe folks nowadays, as she did to that poor Krolotean sucker at the end of "Earthlings"? Alien drool for the win… I guess.

Meanwhile, it's pretty cool seeing
Adam Strange come into his own as a superhero type this episode. When we met him last week, he was just a lab coat, but give a guy a jetpack and a sweet wardrobe and it'll do wonders. I'm no Adam Strange expert, but I liked what I saw here, including a typical Young Justice redesign of his costume. It actually makes sense that the guy would wear such a thing.

- Warner Bros./Cartoon Network

And then there's
Beast Boy, a fan favorite character of course who I really took to this week. Not only is he kinda funny, but it turns out he can really kick some ass when need be. The climactic action scene when he (in gorilla form) and Superboy (in Superboy form) were tearing that alien ship apart from the inside was pretty great. Also, we got a better sense of his origin and connection to the team this time out as a quick psionic flashback revealed that his mom (last seen in "Image") is no longer with us, the result of some nasty business orchestrated by Queen Bee. But before that happened, Megan was adopted into their family (either legally or in spirit; in either case, Garfield calls her "sis" and the two have obviously forged a strong bond in the intervening years since they first met).

(Though by the way, is that a violation of Garfield's privacy when she probes his mind to see what's upsetting him at the lake? Just saying…)

Ultimately, it's a relief that we got semblance of character and back story in this episode, but it all still feels outweighed by the heavy action and plotting. And we're left with a few of question marks as well -- what did Megan do to that Krolotean, and has this become a common trick for her these days? Is her darker White Martian side coming out? And what did she learn this week about the Justice League's missing 16 hours?

- Warner Bros./Cartoon Network

Some notes: Does the team's setting out to bomb the Krolotean facility's Zeta tubes equate with the planned murder of said Kroloteans? That's what bombs do, right? Kill people? Looks like Beast Boy has picked up where Wally left off, and is now in charge of collecting the team's souvenirs. Makes sense. And speaking of which, no sign (or mention) of Kid Flash, Aqualad, Roy or Artemis again. Give it time, I think. Oh, and are we getting a Bat Family episode next week?!


Source : http://tv.ign.com/articles/122/1224447p1.html