Young Justice Episode 22 – Review

By: Kevin Hopps (writer)

The Story: Joining the League is not unlike joining the Plastics in Mean Girls.

The Review: To the show’s credit, the writers have done a careful job focusing on the young team itself, despite the constant temptation of the Justice League appearing tantalizingly on the fringes of stories.  Still, we’re constantly reminded the League is the real aspiration here.  Sure, the YJers have tackled every mission before them with as much energy and professionalism as you could hope, but their eyes especially light up at anything to do with the big boys and girls.

This may be the first episode where we get a real in-depth glimpse into the actual workings of the League, and the timing can’t be better since now is the time they’ve chosen to reconsider their roster.  Among the many illustrious candidates for membership are our very own YJ kids—exciting, no doubt, though a bit odd considering it wasn’t all that long ago (in the time frame of the show) that full indoctrination was a no-no for these eager, teenaged heroes.

But the episode also informs us that bigger stakes motivate this sudden recruitment process.  We’ve seen the villains have become more organized and collaborative, and so the League must be pitch-perfect to handle that.  Hopps thus does an excellent job spelling out the thought process of evaluating each potential Leaguer.

Some of these discussions are just there for humorous effect.  Flash’s suggestion of Guy Gardner as a useful powerhouse receives a resounding chorus from fellow Lanterns Hal and John: “No!”  “But we could really—”  “No!”  Other issues receive more serious treatment, especially when they concern shake-ups within the current roster.  Now that Zatara has taken on the mantle of Dr. Fate, no one how wise it is to retain such an unpredictable force on the team, even if only to keep “a close watch on us,” as Zatara/Nabu claims.  Then, too, there is the recent discovery of Captain Marvel’s true age; though he insists he never lied, Wonder Woman accurately points out his omission was still a deception, proving that despite having the wisdom of Solomon, there’s still a kid’s brain in that big, brawny hero.

Supergirl #64 – Review

By: James Peaty (writer), Bernard Chang (artist), Blond (colorist)

The Story: No way is Supergirl going to play these mind games with a horny freak!

The Review: In comics, like in most other fiction, corniness and clichés aren’t crimes as long as they’re done sparingly, or with some kind of irony or self-awareness.  In fact, they can inject some good humor or lightness to a comic that takes itself too seriously.  But that’s only when you have a writer who knows how to use them in a crafty sort of way; in the hands of the non-honed, they turn any story into a cringing mess.

Peaty seems like he thinks he can actually get away with lines like, “M-my powers…wh-why aren’t they working?!?”  (The use of “?!?” really brings that one over the top.)  The stammering villain backed helplessly into the corner is not only older than probably most of us, but it’s also the least flattering gimmick there is for a character.  Any respect you may have had for “Alex” pretty much goes out the window once you see him babbling like a kid caught in the cookie jar.

But then, Alex lost credibility as a villain long ago, once his actions became less meticulous and more erratic and senselessly vengeful.  You can’t even tell where his thirst for revenge comes from, nor where it’s directed.  Once Peaty revealed him as a Dubbilex-clone, the gates opened for all sorts of senseless developments: Alex’s loss of Kryptonian genes (no sign of which gets seen in this story arc at all), his Oedipus complex for poor Catherine Devereux, etc.

The only vague indication of Alex’s goals is when he offhandedly mentions “breaking…the Man of Steel’s heart.”  Putting aside for a moment the random leap to targeting Superman, this change in goal ultimately hijacks the focus of the story away from Supergirl.  Considering Peaty himself has been trying to make this arc about elevating Kara’s heroism to her cousin’s level, suddenly turning her into more of a means to hurt Superman seems like a humiliating demotion for her.

And anyway, from the start Alex never intended even Supergirl to be his sole, or even his primary target.  By now you may have forgotten about the Flyover app—a great idea that never got a chance to take off—but its original aim was to help Alex kill off all DC’s young heroes.  But along with the stakes of this story arc, Alex apparently scaled down his mission hardcore, now content to use Blue Beetle and Robin as a “bio-base for my next generation of drones.”

Supergirl #63 – Review

By: James Peaty (writer), Bernard Chang (artist), Blond (colorist)

The Story: Honestly, Supergirl’s had it up to here with clones.

The Review: In a Newsarama interview, Nick Spencer described his departure from DC and subsequently Supergirl as differences in conceived direction for the character.  He didn’t go into much detail as to what those differences entailed, but you can figure it out by comparing how this story arc started and how it’s turning out now.

This arc introduced the Flyover app, which was meant as a tool for the public to track their most beloved superheroes, and in doing so unintentionally assure the heroes’ destruction.  The idea is classic Spencer: smart, true-to-life, yet still a blind to something even more insidious.  But two issues in, the app idea lost focus; while Alex claimed to target all teen heroes, it seems the Flyover plot has been completely abandoned.

Instead you get more standard telepathic clone hijinks, which certainly don’t have the twisted subtlety of the Flyover app.  Still, it’d be entertaining enough if Peaty had tried to tie it into Spencer’s initial ideas a little more craftily, but he doesn’t.  The fact that such a central concept could be dropped midway through the arc indicates just how forcefully Peaty is attempting to switch gears on this story.

He does it none too gracefully either.  Catherine Devereux is a character whose part should’ve been done after Alex kills off her cancer-stricken son in the arc’s first issue.  Instead she returns to give Lois a midnight-hour confession of new facts on top of the confession she already gave before: Alex is actually a Cadmus experiment she developed a bond with and ultimately freed—which makes you wonder why he so cruelly hurt her in the first place.