GUIDES – EPISODE REVIEWS – “DEATH AND REBIRTH”
#98 Death and Rebirth (Season Finale)
Original Airdate – June 9, 2022
The very next final battle for the planet Earth…
Written by Greg Weisman
Directed by Vinton Heuck
Review by Michael Tanaka
Media by Warner Bros. Animation
Review and Observations
Written by Michael Tanaka, Edited by James Harvey
Things did not start well, and I didn’t like the first four minutes. On one hand, if you’ve been watching Young Justice from day one or really anything in the spy genre or even private detective or procedural in general, you’ll know that Nightwing wasn’t dead and they were going to do a quick reveal at the start of the season finale. The genre lives on what perspective the audience gets. We didn’t see Nightwing’s improv to cut his forehead because of the wide camera angle blocked by the falling debris. A lot like last season’s Batman can long distance lip read Deathstroke, we learn after the fact that Nightwing knows how to slow his heart rate.
That should’ve been handled better. Same with Saturn Girl and Miss Martian pulling off the illusion in time thanks to the former knowing the Emerald Eye of Ekron. And being able to fool even Ma’alefa’ak, who supposedly improved himself between seasons to rival Miss Martian. All these terrible things happening in succession in the penultimate episode of the season? Of course, they’re okay. At least with Saturn Girl, we got a hint last week that they might have been able to pull off an illusion.
Then there’s the big problem I had was just the structure of it. Pressing rewind on the opening scene to five minutes prior then doing a quick info dump to recap things and in-universe for Nightwing and Miss Martian to catch up to each other’s arcs does come off clunky and a necessary evil to propel the episode into the big fight and end said fight with enough time for a conclusion we’ve been all been waiting for for almost 12 years, Conner and M’gann getting married, and then of course close the episode and season with an update on Vandal and Darkseid’s game of space chess with a shocker.
We just had a rug pulled out from under us already with the reveal way late in the season that Phantom Girl somehow got to Conner in time and they were accidentally phased to the Phantom Zone rather than someone from the original Team being killed off again. So on that other hand, it can feel like the audience was duped again and it cheapens the producers’ stance on death is permanent in lieu of Wally West’s death in season two. However, if you ever remember anything that happens on this show or saw any spy show or movie, you’d know never to trust the writer or the director. Still, that doesn’t justify some clunky choices.
While I had mixed feelings on the first minutes of the episode, the pay off is a wonderfully entertaining final battle in Metropolis with the clock ticking to end it before sunrise. We see what the original Team does best, fight together in unison against seemingly insurmountable odds sprinkled with big moments we’ve been chomping at the bit to see happen: Miss Martian restores Superboy, Kaldur gets snippy, Superman is saved, House of El vs. House of Zod, Miss Martian cuts loose with her full power, Ma’alefa’ak getting his comeuppance, a callback like the West Maneuver, and the other heroes amusingly showing up late to the party.
And the cherry on top after the big fight was the big wedding. After two painful and bittersweet season finales in a row for the heroes, it was a welcome change of pace for them to go out this season on a happy and celebratory note. Conner and M’gann are back together again and more importantly, finally married and the milestone is shared with those closest to them. And Icicle Jr. as well, ha! If this is the last episode, it’s such a positive note to end the show on.
In retrospect, it was there in broad strokes but once Dru-Zod gave his speech to the world at the beginning of the episode I could see he eerily has the same goal as Vandal Savage: elevating their chosen home world to reign supreme in the galaxy. And Vandal can’t have a usurper and his army all complete with Superman’s powers running around. The majority of them being back in the Phantom Zone wasn’t enough for him and he locks every single one of them in the Warworld stasis chambers, well except Ursa and Kara. With a person as dangerous as Ursa, both a Kryptonian and current Emerald Empress, you would think the Light or Apokolips will try to take her off the board as well.
But back to Vandal, he doesn’t necessarily have an outright win but he preserves status quo in a way with keeping the House of Zod on ice. Darkseid is the one who gains some ground this season. The Justice League has the Team, the Outsiders, and the a reserve system. The Light has their puppet state of Markovia farming up a metahuman army. Darkseid is expanding his own teen army with the addition of Black Mary and Supergirl to his Furies.
As frustrating as it was to see Ma’alefa’ak being spared permanent banishment to the Phantom Zone, the implications of him being given the planet Durla as a new home for the A’asheenn and the question of how that leads to the shape shifting Durlan race in the 31st century is intriguing. At least he was doing it for his people and wasn’t doing it just for another gene bomb.
Lastly, Lor-Zod. Man, did he get what was coming to him! Don’t mess with Metron, I think is the lesson here? It was genuinely a full circle moment for the season, figuratively and literally. Killed off in the moment that set things off this season and rewarding our skills of deduction when it came to if we believed that was Conner’s ash shadow or not. However, in a Young Justice way, this is only the last we’ll see of this version of Lor-Zod. How this second version of Lor-Zod will turn out in a “single parent household in the 21st century,” we shall see.
The episode had another great assortment of callbacks and references. Aside from the recaps of this season’s arc, it was rewarding to see what Conner remembers this time around. We got to see for the first time how he met Jonathan and Martha Kent and how he met Jonny then the lingering question of what does he see when Miss Martian tries to restore him to normal again? Some were obvious, others a bit more deep cut.
To quickly sum them up, Conner recalled them meeting at the end of “Fireworks,” their moment in the kitchen in “Downside,” the first kiss in “Terrors,” the kiss in “Auld Acquaintance”, their chat at the end of “Endgame,” the proposal in “Princes All,” others made sense from this season the levitating dance in “Needful,” and the kiss under the altar in Ma’ayava’ana Ma’ak at the end of “Volatile” and lastly, the ‘oh yeah, those are some good choices’ goes to the blush mid-mission in “Drop Zone” when Superboy compliments her role in the Mister Twister incident and Artemis filling Wally in about them in “Coldhearted.” Other notable callbacks were Chameleon Boy shouting he wanted a rematch in reference to losing to Ma’alefa’ak in “Beyond the Grip of the Gods!”, the West Maneuver, and Clark and Lois having to amend what they told Jonny in “I Know Why the Caged Cat Sings.”
The coolest DC references of the episode? Well, hands down it has to be Conner adopting the shaved head look that he kinda had for a bit on comicsand Black Canary’s idea has got to be alluding to Sanctuary from 2018’s Heroes in Crisis, a mental health facility set up for the Justice League in Nebraska.
We got some big doozies during this episode! The biggest ones have to be the debut of Mary’s Black Mary phase and first appearance of Kara Zor-El (after some references to her earlier this season).
The finale of Young Justice: Phantoms begins with a time honored gotcha exposition that veteran fans of the series or the spy genre should expect by now but still gunks up the pacing and overall enjoyment of the finale. Still, Young Justice: Phantoms ends strong with a thrilling action packed final battle and a truly happy ending for our heroes for once. The open ended nature of this season’s finale is not enough to dampen what felt like the most satisfying conclusion in the series’ history so far. But the war continues. So about that renewal, HBO Max…
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