i love this show. these are really well made superhero stories.
Great Episode, but I didn't like the school drama. I loved the Rede Arrow's plot! Seeing Ra's Al Ghul and Lex Luthor was amazing. They are two great villains and it was cool seeing them manipulating the whole thing. For the first time, I really liked Aqualad and I thought he was nice this time. One bad thing was the school drama. I like Superboy and Miss Martian's relationship, but their parts in this episode made me cringe so much. I thought I was watching a high school drama. Well, at least Red Arrow's plot was great!
Mal Duncan's first appearance, some school drama for Miss Martian and Superboy, and the seeds planted for Roy's relationship with Luthor and Cheshire. A standout episode!
Review by Andrew BloomVIP 9BlockedParentSpoilers2022-04-15T21:48:00Z
[7.7/10] This another one where there’s a lot going on, but I dig almost all of it. The concept of a peace summit between North and South Korea (sorry, “Realaysia”), being mediated by Lex Luthor, while the League of Shadows is attacking, and Red Arrow is defending, is one hell of a premise. The various conspiracies and moving parts start to feel a touch convoluted at times, but the scene-to-scene work is so good that you don’t care.
It’s especially nice to get a Red Arrow spotlight episode. We’ve seen him help out on the margins, but as Young Justice’s “sixth ranger” type, it’s nice to see him get a little more shading in action. He has some good Batman/Catwoman-esque back-and-forth with Cheshire, and his prickliness with Luthor hits the right notes of disgust and necessity.
The action is also particularly good in this one. The two-on-two fights between Red Arrow and Aqualad on the one side, and Cheshire and Sportsmaster on the other have some thrilling, well-animated twists and turns to them. Likewise, watching them beat up the various bodyguards and mooks shows off everyone’s talents and hypes up the superheroic clash.
On the character side, it’s nice that despite his solo heroing effort, Red Arrow calls in Aqualad when he needs help, and affirms that he’ll be there for the Young Justice team if they need him. On the story side, it seems abundantly clear that Artemis is the mole, but I like them pulling a Terra and suggesting that there’s more to it than that. (Plus hey, maybe they’ll swerve me.) And the final twist, the the whole assassination attempt was a false flag by Luthor working with Ra’s al Ghul, to convince the Realasyan leaders to mutually “buy into” Luthor’s Mercy-style defense robots, is appropraitely diabolical.
There’s a ton of moving parts in terms of who’s in league with whom, but on the whole, it all works.
The B-story here is Miss Martian and Superboy (adopting the names Megan Morse and Conner Kent) going to high school. It’s appropriately low stakes, and a good chance to have the two aliens deal with a bit of awkward human stuff. M’gaan joining the cheerleading squad seems mostly there for fanservice, which I’m not really here for, but Superboy starting to understand human interactions better, and being there for M’gaan when she needs him, is a good tack for the character.
Overall, this one accomplishes everything it sets out to do, despite biting off a lot, and offers some promising developments among the league’s allies and enemies.