Young Justice Episode 6 - "Infiltrator"
It's Young Justice time! \o/ \o/ \o/
- The animation continues to be beautifully smooth and clean and all-around top-knotch. I love pretty much all the design elements for this show - thank god for high production values! Too often these days I find character designs in American cartoons to just be...completely unappealing, but I love these so hard. \o/ Everyone looks awesome. None of the guys are as wide at the shoulders as they are tall or have chins that take up nearly their whole face, which is an unfortunate tendency in superhero animation. (I'm looking at you Justice League and Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes 8||) The women are more or less realistically proportioned, and everyone's costumes are great. AAHHHH I LOVE IT.
- “You couldn't bring back-up? What, were there budget cuts?”
|D I actually kind of love this doctor side-character, she continues to be really damn spunky and snarky the whole time. Also, LOL the boat is a rental. Budget cuts indeed! XD Anyway, I was expecting Roy's new name to be 'Arsenal' to go with his badass new costume (which I love ♥_♥) but Red Arrow is just fine. |D Is he actually going by that now in the comics? I have no idea. In any case, I'm glad he's out of the red-and-yellow Robin Hood get-up. Much more adult, much less side-kick-y, which I'm sure is what he was going for. Awesome opening, in any case. Work those arrows, man.
- I like that we're seeing a wider range of the team's lives, not just focused on their group and crimefighting in isolation, but also the League and their mentors, and especially how much we're getting of the kids out of costume. The beach scene at the beginning was unbearably adorable, I want a whole frikkin' episode of that, please and thank you!! (or failing that, FIC *__*) Hahaha, poor Wally. High school sucks, especially when all the other teen superheroes are having a super fun beach day in your absence. Love that they touched on the absolute boredom and inanity of high school for a teenage superhero, especially a speedster!
- Can I just draw hearts all over this sequence? ♥♥♥ (bad quality pic, sorry, but I haven't been able to download the ep in higher quality yet :|a)
- I also like that they're not ignoring the cape-sides of their lives outside of Young Justice, like tonight with Robin back on his home turf in Gotham, panicking about Waynetech being traced back to Batman and having to hide it because his secret identity is still under wraps, and his special Robin override OMG so awesome, and also that Roy is still there on the fringes, replaced, pissed at their mentors, but still vigilantly looking out for his friends, even if he refuses to join the team. Roy ♥♥♥
- On that note, I cannot wait to get more development and interaction on the civilian identity front, especially for Robin and Superboy, because, um...Well, they're the ones it's most pivotal for, right now. |D (And maybe Artemis but I'll get to her.)
- I find it hilarious that comics!Superboy was such a dorky, full of himself hotshot who played it up with the ladies practically from the moment he was 'born' (let's be realistic: HE WAS A HORNDOG), while YJ!Superboy, though also explicitly a girl-magnet hottie, has thus far proven either oblivious or uninterested or both. Yeah, he was only 'born' a month or so ago, but Kon was in the same boat at first - I guess we know one key difference in knowledge they were exposed to in the test tube. XD PLEASE STAY OBLIVIOUS TO BEING PERVED ON BY YOUR GIRL TEAMMATES FOR A WHILE, SUPERBOY, IT IS SO CUTE.
- ...It seems that, regardless of medium, I find Superboy the most adorable thing in the world? XD I'll have to do a retroactive review of last week's episode sometime, because oh god I was flailing all over myself with love and squee and thinky thoughts for it. Kooooooon~ ~ He is just. So ridiculous and awesome. ...Although I will say that I greatly approve of this week's lack of his RAAAAWR!voice. The SUPERBOY SMASH thing has its moments for character development and amusement, but I just can not warm up to the gross thing he does with his voice sometimes where he sounds all Dark Knight!Batman distorted and lame.
- How much do I love it that, so far, when the team divides up, Robin and Superboy usually end up partnered? 8D A LOT. I mean, obviously it's Dick!Robin and not Tim!Robin, and I don't ship them in this incarnation, but it still makes me happy because Superboys and Robins! They work well together!! Brains and brawn >.>
- I wasn't all that impressed by Artemis' introduction, initially - but that's probably because I think the writers tend do a somewhat clumsy job throwing Major Character Traits in the audience's face to establish the newbie's role right away, and then they smooth out the bumps and make them and their relationships more complex as the series goes on. Which I obviously approve of, but I still felt that the in-your-face,-deal-with-it thing with Artemis was overplayed at the start. I mean, I get why they have to do that, half-hour episodes and everything, but still. :|a
...In any case, I guess it's okay because she definitely got more interesting as the ep went on, her interactions with Wally and Megan were pretty engaging (KF's repeating theme of “I haven't heard of you,” “No seriously, who are you?? XDD), and the plot point and mystery that she's introduced are also intriguing. ALSO I HOPE THIS MEANS WE GET TO SEE MORE ROY 8D 8D 8D.
So, Artemis obviously isn't Oliver Queen's niece, I could tell that much before Roy confronted her; from her name and her comment about 'where I'm from, you do this to survive' or something, I can't quite remember, I'm...getting a kind of Amazonian vibe? 8|a Which could explain why Green Arrow and Batman would vouch for her, but not why they'd lie, and it brings up the question of why it wouldn't be Diana sponsoring her, so I don't know.
- I'm already tired of 'Hellooo, Megan!' as a catchphrase. 8| ...This is not to say that I don't find Miss Martian adorable. ...She and Wally are also adorable, and I'm sad that we didn't get to see the actual 'mouth to mouth' XDD
- I am not tired of Megan-telepathically-linking-the-team-for-off-the-grid-communications!shenanigans. Those continue to be hilarious. This show just balances the whole comedy/drama/badass action thing really well, I'm so pleased with it all.
- ...I just went on Wikipedia and came across some spoilers for the line-up later on the series which made me SO HAPPY, so WARNING! SPOILERS BELOW!
AAAAAAHHHH GARTH, ARROWETTE, AND WONDER GIRL!!!1!1 I know Arrowette probably won't be able to stay with the main team because they'll already have Artemis, and same with Garth (OMG so interested to see him play off Kaldur/Aqualad, apparently they're best friends? That should be a great opportunity to explore Kaldur in more depth, I've been wondering how/when they're going to do that), but - Wonder Girl!! Apparently it was legal issues that kept them from using her initially, but that's cleared up now, and I hope that she gets incorporated as a regular team member! ...Although no Superboy/Wonder Girl, please. 8( I love Cassie just fine, but...no. Thank you.
- Another potential spoiler, less happy: … “Changes in the cast are to be expected due to character deaths, including those of major characters.” …..D8 WHAT?! WHAT?! NOOOOO. I mean. NOOOOO. I know that they're going for a more mature tone with this series, and I totally approve, but - but - !! YOU BETTER NOT KILL ANY OF MY FAVORITES, I WILL CUT YOU.
- More spoilers: “...a sixteen-week-old clone of Superman who will eventually assume the alias of Conner Kent.” Darnit. 8| I guess that makes sense for this canon, especially if they skip over the 'Kon-El' naming part, but I like 'Kon-El', and will always think of that as the character's real name. I think this comes from how, in the comics, being like Superman was so important to him, and having a Kryptonian name bestowed on him, being included in the legacy and last family of that race, was so, so meaningful and he was so proud of it.
Whereas the 'Conner Kent' identity? He never wanted it. He never wanted a civilian identity, Clark kinda foisted it on him and he went “>___> okay fine” because it was Superman, he was bored and frustrated in Smallville, hated the glasses and pretending to be normal when everything he'd been made for, everything he wanted was 'saving people and being a hero'. Now obviously he's grown past that and there are absolutely fundamentally valuable lessons that he's taken to heart about family and humanity and relating to ordinary people from being 'Conner' (although arguably most of that growth came from sacrificing his life to save the world, and the perspective that gives a person 8|a), and I do love that he has a home with the Kents in Smallville now. But I still think of him first and foremost and always as 'Kon'. He didn't start out raised as ordinary and then come into his heritage later (Clark → Kal-El/Superman), he started out as Super, went soley by SB/'The Kid' for like two years after being 'born', and then was 'Kon' to his friends and everyone for ages, and from what I can tell the decision to forcibly switch to 'Conner' and the boycotting of his past names was pretty much solely a legal issue over the 'Superboy' name, to begin with.
...TL;DR, I can deal with this, obviously it's a completely different canon and Superboy doesn't really have the same background and personality to keep the significance of the different names...but it still makes me sadface XD.
In other DC news, more most-adorable-things-ever, edition: Tim Drake + hugging.
From Red Robin #9, yaaaay BFFs reunited~ ...Well okay they'd been reunited before this, but as Tim said, he was in a bad place at the time - there was a pretty moving angst-reunion scene at the time, which, although beautiful and heart-achey, unfortunately did not involve bro-hugs... Anyway. Tim is so pretty. *__*
From Red Robin #20, yaaaay team reunion~ (Red) Robin + Superboy + Wonder Girl + Kid Flash 4 eva~
Man I love the art in this title.
...And just because it's hilarious 8Db:
