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Original Airdate – January 18, 2019
The Light has hired an intergalactic assassin, but who is the intended target?!
Written by Greg Weisman
Directed by Vinton Heuck
Review by GregX
Media by Warner Bros. Animation
Review:
Another fun episode of Young Justice: Outsiders that is answers questions, lays some more groundwork and features one of the series’ most chilling subplots.We open in Greater Bialya where all seven members of the Light have gathered, and by the episode’s end, we will have the entire line-up of the cabal. I do enjoy that just as the Team and the League’s membership expands and changes with each season, so to does the Light’s. At the closing of the episode, we find out that Ra’s al Ghul has been replaced with Deathstroke, the Brain has been replaced with the Ultra-Humanite, and Black Manta has been replaced with… Granny Goodness?
The A-plot of the episode consists of Vandal Savage hiring Lobo to attack the Outsiders, while they’re training, to kill Forager. We get a pretty exciting fight scene, for the most part. Unfortunately, my only complaint with the episode takes place during this sequence. I think Halo’s deaths are beginning to get gratuitous. It’s happened twice prior to this, and both deaths served a larger purpose. Here it feels like it’s happening because there aren’t any S&P executives around to say no. And don’t get me wrong, I’m glad there’s no S&P, but it just didn’t feel necessary. I’m not saying never do it again, just don’t kill her off in an episode just for the sake of it.
Lobo seemingly succeeds in his mission before jetting off into space, only Forager released his shell and that’s what Lobo destroyed. It’s a nice moment, nice that we see the Outsiders really bonding and becoming friends. It’s been said before, by others, that the Justice League are co-workers (that do maintain friendships with each other), but that the Team are a family… and seeing the Outsiders become a family unto themselves is a wonderful part of the episode.
The B-plot for the episode is interesting… several of the superhero parents and their children getting together for a playdate. Will Harper (almost typed ‘Roy’) is present with Liane and she needles Will about his relationship with Artemis (I am hoping this isn’t a seed being planted for a triangle between Will, Artemis, and Jade but we’ll see). Red Tornado has even become a parent, bringing a young girl he’s adopted (and I’m assuming is a Quraci refugee). Impulse continues to address his young biological father as “Dad” much to Iris’s chagrin, and… very interesting, we finally meet Earth-16’s Lois Lane arriving with her and Clark’s son, Jonathan.
I have to confess, the first time I saw this episode and I saw Lois and Clark’s child, I was thrown off by the fact that I believe it should be impossible. Clark and Lois come from different planets. How are they genetically compatible? But I admit that I may still be carrying baggage from that mediocre Superman Returns movie. Should we get a fourth season and beyond, I have little doubt that Jonathan will be a better character than that little bastard, Jason White (that haircut alone should be considered child abuse). And hey, we saw Damien Wayne a few episodes ago. Will the Super Sons eventually join the Team? We can hope.
Throughout this subplot, a mystery man is inside the house across the street. He soon reveals himself as poor, disgraced Ocean Master and prepares to use the Trident of Neptune to kill all the super parents and their children…. only to be stopped by Lady Shiva, the newest enforcer for the Light. In a tense scene, Orm and Lady Shiva converse, with Shiva giving Orm the opportunity to spare his own life. But Orm has spent six years in an Atlantean prison and is obsessed with vengeance… enacting the Light’s nuclear option. In the most chilling scene of the entire series, Lady Shiva swiftly decapitates Ocean Master while we hear the sounds of children laughing as the play date continues mere feet away, no one the wiser as Lady Shiva removes the corpse, cleans up the evidence and disappears.
The implications here are scary. It has long been speculated that the Light knows most of the Justice League and the Team’s secret identities, Greg Weisman has confirmed as such online, but now we have on screen confirmation. I personally believe that the Light discovered this information back at the end of the first season when they Starro-teched the Justice League and, presumably, had access to their memories. We’ve seen since then that the Light has no intention of killing the various League members as they’re of more use the Light alive than dead. They’re a big gun that the Light can point at Darkseid when the final conflict comes. Also, should the Light pull the trigger on the nuclear option, the League would come down on them like a hammer. But the fact that the nuclear option exists is nightmare-inducing as it is.
To delve further into Granny, we find out that she’s a philanthropist that owns Goode World Studios under the name, Gretchen Goode, and is responsible for the Goode Goggles that we’ve bee seeing here and there throughout the season. Nothing ominous about that, the reviewer typed with sarcasm. Here is is voiced by Deborah Strang (Aunt May from The Spectacular Spider-Man) who turns in a performance that is disarming and chilling… very Dolores Umbridge. Her presence on the Light raises other questions… in the comics, Granny is from Apokolips and one of Darkseid’s highest ranked minions. While Vandal Savage and Darkseid are allies, we know from “Evolution” that this alliance will end once Earth and Apokolips conquer the galaxy. I do wonder if Darkseid insisted on Granny’s induction into the Light, to keep a closer eye on his investment. Throughout the first two seasons, the Light have been a very cohesive unit… is this the first sign of trouble in paradise? Time will tell.
Now, I have seen people lament that this version of Granny Goodness isn’t voiced by a man, like the Timm-Burnett version of Granny was, and magnificently by Ed Asner. Well, for starters, Granny is currently a public figure. Ed Asner’s voice wouldn’t work in this capacity. But, also, this is the year 2019. Casting like that might be seen as transphobic. Now, I’m not accusing Superman: The Animated Series of being transphobic, I don’t believe it was. But the late 90’s were a different era. The culture just wasn’t sensitive to the plight of trans-Americans. Today, trans-people are fighting for their rights to exist. I don’t think the culture needs a monster like Granny Goodness to be voiced by a man in 2019, not in an America where “bathroom bills” are on the agenda in state capitols. I do need to stress, that this isn’t me vilifying the casting decision of Superman: The Animated Series, as I said, it was a different time and I wouldn’t censor that anymore than I would take The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn out of the library. But times change and we evolve as a society, this is a good thing.
Final note: I do not trust Helga Jace.
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