Batman Beyond Universe #8 – Review

By: Christos Gage & Kyle Higgins (writers); Iban Coello, Thony Silas, & Eric Wight (pencils); Rob Lean, Thony Silas, & Eric Wight (inks); Ulises Arreola & Emilio Lopez (colorists)

The Story: As Brainiac becomes more and more of a monster, Man-Bat realizes that he’s too much of one. Bruce Wayne remains oddly quiet on the matter…

The Review: The final chapters of Christos Gage’s massive Brainiac arc don’t take their eyes off the action for a minute. To be honest, it probably doesn’t need the full twenty pages to resolve the crisis, but Gage wants to play with the myriad toys he’s assembled one last time before they go back in the box. That play takes the form of some very cute character interaction.

If you can overlook how poorly the lumbering Brainiac multi-tasks, you’ll find plenty of fun exchanges occurring around the fringes of the battle. Felich Faust is always good for a chuckle and Barda’s back and forth with Klarion is plenty entertaining. Likewise, Mr. Miracle finally gets a chance to show off a bit, proving to be an essential part of the current League, his tactician’s hope bringing out the best of his more battle-hardened colleges. Still, even this seems insufficient to provide the sense of scope that the story is looking for and Gage throws in an eleventh hour guest star that’s bound to get a cheer from at least some readers.

On an objective level, the story is stalling for time. Gage wants those precious seconds ticking by, making you wonder how they’ll come back from this. He does a good job of it too. While you might realize how much the timescale has expanded, I doubt you;ll be bored and when the moment comes it definitely feels earned.

Young Justice Episode 26 – Review

By: Greg Weisman (story)

The Story: Now is the time for the students to become the masters…too cheesy?

The Review: If you ask me, last episode was really the big, team-centered climax of the season.  Once all the secrets came out and the group became just that much tighter for it, that’s when you really saw YJ as the complete package for the first time.  From now on, they’ll have moments of growth, possibly life-changing ones, even ones that will alter the group dynamic completely, but nothing really compares to that first moment when they all truly come together for the first time.

For that reason, this episode feels a bit more like clean up, an opportunity for the team to wrap up loose ends and show what this new team is made of.  But what an opportunity it is: taking on the entire League, who both grossly outnumbers and out-powers them on pretty much every level.

Young Justice Episode 23 – Review

By: Peter David (writer)

The Story: Imagine hanging with your boo’s ex—that’s the awkwardness we have here.

The Review: I waxed poetic about David in my review of the last episode he wrote for this series, so there’s no need to fall over myself again here.  I just have to wonder, though: how does he really feel about this show that took on the name of one of his most reputable works, yet reflects his tone and concepts in virtually no other way?  How must it feel to adapt himself to characters and conceits that in some ways go against his sensibilities?

These are all rhetorical questions, of course, best left to private but ultimately fruitless musings.  The only thing that matters is how David works the material he’s given—which is pretty darn well, actually.  Watching this episode, it occurs to me that in many ways, David takes the YJers at hand treat them like the ones he knew.

Case in point: Kid Flash and Artemis.  If any of you followed the Young Justice comics back in the day, you might remember the bit of puppy love Impulse had for Arrowette at the time.  Though that particular romance never really panned out, David seems to revive it here through their TV-screen counterparts.  The show has labored to convince us that a Kid Flash-Artemis pairing would be a great idea, but only under David’s writing do sparks actually fly.  It’s a sweet moment when Wally tells Art she has nothing to prove, made even sweeter by his bashfulness and her pleased reaction.  If we get more of this, we can look forward to their courtship.

Unfortunately, the plot throws several obstacles in their path this episode.  Despite Wally’s reassurance, Artemis does let the presence of Red Arrow get to her, though not, perhaps, for the reasons everyone expects.  It’s not about the difference in their skill levels, or even of his long history with most the team.  Artemis set out on her own to rise above the criminals all around her (apparently including her mother—as the Huntress, of all things); to discover the acceptance from her heroic mentor and teammates is unearned and tenuous is a painful experience, indeed.

Young Justice Episode 19 – Review

By: Greg Weisman (writer)

The Story: Well, they do say teens have one foot in youth and the other in adulthood.

The Review: Yes, this review is a bit late in coming.  In my defense, I had no idea the show had returned until just a day or so ago.  The erratic scheduling of this series has been of the few truly frustrating aspects of Young Justice.  No sooner does it come back than it goes on hiatus again.  Consequently, the first season has stretched on for nearly two years now, which is quite an achievement, depending on your point of view.

Anyhow, the five months since our last visit with the team gave this episode the feeling of a season premiere.  That idea must not have been lost on Weisman, since the scope and quality of this episode feels very appropriate for a premiere.  He chooses to adapt Todd Dezago’s JLA: World Without Grown-Ups, the first storyline involving the team later to be known as Young Justice, and a pretty challenging one at that.  As you might figure out from the title, our immature heroes get placed in the awkward position of being the world’s only hope for salvation, mainly because there’s flat out no one else to turn to.

It’s actually quite interesting watching Weisman’s interpretation of the story, because it seems to exemplify some of the show’s standout features.  First off, the episode doesn’t have nearly the humor and slapstick when it was Fonzie-wannabe Superboy, hyperactive Impulse, and straight man Robin (Tim Drake flavor) zipping around.  Here, things feel pretty sober, even tragic in places, and though Weisman writes it with great credibility, it’s undeniably a bummer story.

Yet strangely, at the same time, the episode somehow falls short of the maturity Dezago’s original storyline had, even though technically, the team here acts a lot more mature than the one back then.  Dezago used the absence of adults to satirically play out a world where kids can act on their impulses and desires without restriction, true, but he also dove into the crushing resentment of kids whose parents are merely figuratively absent.  Weisman sort of dismisses that to focus on the more after school special (ASS, remember) side of things: parents and children learning to appreciate each other’s presence in their lives, kids who must grow up fast to take responsibility as necessary, that kind of thing.

Young Justice Episode 7 – Review

By: Thomas Pugsley (writer)

The Story: YJ embarks on a psychedelic journey through the magical world of Dr. Fate—it’s exactly as weird as it sounds.

The Review: Here is what friends do: talk with each other about each other behind each other’s backs, argue about ridiculous, often inconsequential things, and make fun of each other’s weaknesses.  And when the friends involved are teens, these elements pop up threefold.  It’s not necessarily as bad as it sounds.  Without these things, much of the spice of life would be missing.

That’s why it’s such a relief to see the YJ-ers finally ranking and razzing on each other (that’s right—I’m bringing back lingo from the late nineties; in my defense, they were totally solid back when I was, like, eight).  I think Artemis has a lot to do with that.  Besides how she’s naturally sarcastic to begin with, she also allows for a clear separation between the girls and the guys, which opens up a whole new layer of intrigue to the team dynamic.

Up until now, Miss Martian being the only girl, and a sweet one at that, has kind of forced the guys to tiptoe around her a little bit.  But now she has a new BFF, it frees her to show some snap and self-awareness.  It also brings in the inevitable girl talk, which we all know is code for talking about boys.  Fortunately, their mutual attraction to Superboy hasn’t brought resentment to their early friendship—that’s a ship I’d be fine with not sailing.

The best part of Artemis’ membership is her banter with Wally.  Rom-com dialogue tends to lean toward the obvious, especially when writers are obviously pushing for a specific matchup, as they do here.  Pugsley wisely keeps things good-natured, rather than mean-but-secretly-loving-it, and he avoids having them squabble pointlessly over nothing, choosing instead to let Artemis pick at Wally’s hypocrisy in claiming to believe in magic just to impress Miss Martian.