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
