A Certain Pair Cameo in the New Young Justice Episode...

[espanolbot]

Mini-review, so spoilers.

There were two main plotlines in today's episode, with a story involving mainly Roy Harper trying to work out who is trying to kill the negotiator for a peace agreement between the DCU versions of North and South Korea.

And the other involved Superboy and Megan beginning their integration into human society by signing up to the local high school, where they meet a number of characters you can kind of recognise from both the Teen Titans tv show and the comics.

You might recognise these two, for example,


Overall, I thought that it was a fairly good episode, with the school stuff balancing out the political intrigue of Lex and the League of Shadows pretty well. The references to the Teen Titans in Conner and Megan’s school were pretty cute, and I liked the shows depictions of Ra’s and Lex. The Cass Cain/Artemis parallels continue to grow, with a definate David Cain/Lady Shiva vibe being produced whenever the two are together, amongst other things. We’ll see where that plotpoint is going, I guess.

For legality, here is a picture commissioned by Wizard Magazine of Cass and Babs getting into a fight.

Comments

[venatosapiens]

Boobs in the face? Yep, that's Wizard.

Also, new Young Justice! A DC universe reinvention that I actually rather like!

[espanolbot]

I was kind of wary at first, though I do admit that it's growing on me as time goes on.

Their decision to seemingly make Cheshire into Lady Shiva, Sportmaster into David Cain and Artemis into a mix of Arrowette and Cass Cain is kind of interesting, though I'd prefer it if they'd just use Cass instead.

[venatosapiens]

I'd honestly be a bit astonished if Cass didn't show up. This is exactly the kind of show she'd do very well in. I say we won't be seeing her this season, but in the next one, I think we will.

[espanolbot]

Ehhhh... Enough parts of her character seem to have been transplanted into Artemis to make an appearance by Cass to make it kind fo redundant.

- She was evidently trained by the League of Shadows/Assassins to be some kind of weapon, like Cass.

- She's a Eurasian girl, whose parents (IF Cheshire is her mum, which seems to be what they're implying) have a very similar relationship to David and Sandra (she says that she'd kill him if they weren't on a job together)

- She's living/lived in Gotham with a wheelchair-bound lady, who if SHE isn't her mum she at least acts in the same role.

- Her dad, pretty much explicitly said to be Sportsmaster at this point, apparently used to kidnap people for Artemis to hunt as "training".

- She kind of acts in the role that Cass does in relation to Steph in her relationship with Megan... though that's pushing it a bit.

- and the relationshop that Artemis shares with Cheshire seems to heavily riff the Shiva/Cass dynamic, though with both sides knowing who the other is in the relationship from the get go.

[kenwyn89]

Don't think she will, at least as Batgirl, seeing as this is a take on an early DC Universe... even if they have messed around with the ages a bit.

[espanolbot]

Eh, we're kind of in a continuity no man's land.

As if they were going to have the generational subsections as the current DCU, then Megan, Conner and Dick wouldn't be on the same team.

[kenwyn89]

True. But I suspect we'd see Babs first at some point even if it was just a cameo, they wanted Dick because he was the first incarnation of Robin.

[pepperspray101]

whut....are you serious? They did that? omiLKFJSDLFJADF. Fuck this shit. Try as I can, I JUST can't get into this show. A pity, cuz the animation is lovely and it has Greg W working on it...but ugggh, no. Fuck this shit.

[icon_uk]

Aw c'mon, take the spoilers out of the first paragraph at least please!

[espanolbot]

I did put a warning. :( Took the spoiler out anyways.

[icon_uk]

Sorry, that came out snarkier than I intended. and I hadn't noticed the warning bit before the actual "spoiler: this is the spoiler" section.

[icon_uk]

Also cameos by Mal Duncan and Karen Beecher

[schala_kid]

I FRICKING LOVED WENDY'S LOOK! I want it!


Also

SPOILERS!




I think Bumble bee cameo'd too, the scene with the cheerleaders.

[icon_uk]

Yup, Karen Beecher and Mal Duncan are Bumblebee and Mal/Guardian/Hornblower/Vox respectively.

[espanolbot]

Yeah, initially I thought that he was going to be Vic Stone, as he seemed a lot bulkier than I associate with Vox.

[mullon]

So, is that supposed to be Megan or what?

[icon_uk]

In the picture above? No. But we do find both Superboy and M'Gann's secret ID's in this episode.

[venatosapiens]

Also, it's becoming more and more obvious that M'Gann watched huge amounts of fifties sitcoms. "You're...carrying my books?"
*Blank Superboy stare.*
"...Yes. Did you want them to get all wet?"

[espanolbot]

They pretty much said in the promotional material that Megan learnt about Earth culture purely from watching tons of TV, which is both where she got that annoying "HELLO, Megan!" catchphrase from (they had canned laughter to it in the show she saw, so presumably she adopted it thinking that it'd continue to be funny) and her idea of what human girls do are similarly effected by this.

Hence her baking cookies for everything and acting extremely stereotypically girly, which could be taken as her acting that way because the TV shows she saw were very old fashioned and had a poor portrayal of women in it (causing Megan to unintentionally keep the ideas in circulation) because of this, OR she copied it because "that's how girls act" but she genuinely likes baking and the like.

Nothing wrong with that, not everyone is Artemis or how Babs was in the DCAU, BUUUTTTTT... the kinda meta way of protraying Megan was kind of lost on a lot of people.

The idea of a female character acting kind of one dimensional and stereotypically "girly" because the fictional depictions of woman acted as such and, presumably her culture doesn't have the same entertainment values as us,would presumably be a bit of a complicated thought process to follow.

She has got better as the show's gone on now, she acts more like a person in the newer episodes as opposed to a person playing a "character", if that makes sense.

[kenwyn89]

heh, too clever writing for their own good. Excellent post.

[espanolbot]

Another feature that I like about their version of Mars in this show, is that apparently they're keeping the same idea behind J'onnz's Mars as his original appearance.

In that Mars hasn't gone the way of Krypton, and there is apparently a thriving society of Martians on the planet still. Megan makes reference to having nine sisters or something.

Plus I like the little details that they include every now and again. Like in the episode about Dr Fate, Klarion and Co. Megan makes reference to the Sorcerer Priests of Mars, who sound like the most Metal thing I've heard of in ages.

And and the implication that White Martians are apparently second class citizens on Mars, though it's not entirely sure whether Megan IS one yet, though one did appear in her flashback in the previous episode,

[kenwyn89]

Yeah, I like that idea too. All other races that tend to appear in comics and/or tv with Earth directly involved are either too primitive for space travel or long dead. And you've managed to make M'gann interesting to me now that you've put it like that- I've never really read any title with her in. I've been a little bit sceptical of her and Artemis as the only female characters on the team so far, probably because I liked Raven and Starfire on the Teen Titans show.

The way they're building up the plot is very good too and everything is done very realistically- ultimate-verse(ish), except kid friendly. I was a little surprised to see a North/South Korea allegory in it -.-' but I think it could be in a lead up to a Luthor presidency.

[espanolbot]

Yeah, the Korea thing was kind of obvious, right up to the head of the North Korea-stand-in looking a little like Kim Jong-Il and being referred to by a reversal of the third part of Kim's name: Li.

Overall, although I found the initial couple of episodes to be kind of disappointing, once they got to the Bane episode the series really hit its stride and all the characterisation is chugging along at a respectable pace.

Now if only they stopped Megan using that annoying catchphrase...

[kenwyn89]

Yep, hopefully it'll fade away like most early character gags do and only be used for irony.

[zechs80]

Huh.. I'm surprised you didn't post the possible Teen Superhero homage: Bumblebee, Cass, M'ggan, Proxy, Empress, Mary Marvel, and Cassie (though maybe Steph or Stargirl? Given Cassie is supposed to actually appear on the show next season).


Plus Herald and Snapper Carr too.

[espanolbot]

Yeah I was going to post some of the other cameos, though I got distracted. XP

I have to say that I did like their version of Lex Luthor. It was hybrid of Clancy Brown, James Marsters and Kevin Spacey, softspoken, intelligent and menacing.

I'm not sure if the blonde is meant to be a reference to Steph though, as she generally has longer hair than that.

[icon_uk]

Agreed, I loved that Luthor never raised his voice, but was calm and analytical throughout. His reasoning was also very logical indeed.

[aaron_bourque]

That might be Katana, not Cass.

[espanolbot]

If they're meant to be references to teenage superheroines, it might be Traci 13, Katana is meant to be significantly older than her... except in Brave and the Bold. There her costume is a reference to Gogo from Kill Bill.

[zechs80]

Can' a person dream this is Cass's second animated venture?

[espanolbot]

I'm my view it already is.

What with Artemis essentially being Cass and all.

[calvision]

Have they confirmed that it's Cassie appearing next season? I was personally hoping for Donna.

[long_silence]

Well Cassie was the one who was actually in the comic version of Young Justice, but that didn't help Tim or Bart. And even though comics Cassie had that relationship with Superboy, the creators have been shoving Superboy/Ms Martian down our throats since the pilot.

Though Cassie's origin is a lot less complicated than Donna's.

I think it could be either Wonder Girl at this point.

[calvision]

Yeah, I would have been sure of Wonder Girl being Cassie had the cartoon used Tim and Bart, but since it's Dick and Wally (and Roy) I kind of started to expect Donna.

Or they might do a Donna with something like Cassie's story? Since Donna's is so complicated.

[long_silence]

Plus they even have Garth running around. Just add Donna and you've got a full set of original Titans, for the first time ever on TV.

They didn't even use the actual Arrowette. They used some strange combination of Tigress and Cassandra Cain. Cassie's chances aren't looking too great.

[eyz]

Woah! Awesome!
'need to check out this episode it seems^^

[red_menace]

Show of hands, who clicked on this hoping for Fite'n'Maad?

[wonderwomanhero]

One of the team is going to die in this season finale...I wonder who?
Did Lady Shiva show up or something?

[pyrotwilight]

...Their was a new episode?

[long_silence]

Cartoon Network put a video of the episode up on their website. I think it's been taken down since then.

[arbre_rieur]

I'm sure if the latest episode actually was the best yet or simply felt that way because it's been so long since the last one, but I thought it felt like the best yet.