YJ: Revelations - Review and Cameo Spotting

[espanolbot]

Overall I thought that it was a good episode, which managed to begin tying the various plotlines from the season so far together into a single storyline while at the same time demonstrating as to why the JL is good as an international superhero team as opposed to just a nebulous group of older heroes that they've been protrayed as recently.

The callbacks were cool, and the characterisation behind the new villains was interesting... which a few exceptions. I'm not really feeling their version of the Joker yet, but if I give it time I'm sure I'll come around to this version. Wasn't really a big fan of how Black Adam was pretty much just dumb muscle in the episode though, but that might just have been based a previous protrayal that I'm not familiar with, a la the current status of the Martian race being based on the Silver Age idea them NOT being extinct.

Nice to see Artemis and Kid Flash start to slowly warm up to each other, as well as ALL the team working together to even spread out the awesome moments, which was nice. Artemis' kicking Poison Ivy in the face was a particular highlight.

And then we come to the cameos. Compared to last week's episode, which wasn't exactly cameo heavy except for some of the Captain Marvel cast, Mallah and the Brain and the Mayor of Gotham from BTAS, this one was EXTREMELY dense in the references.

Here are the ones outside of the obviously ones like the main team and Batman.

The Injustice League - (From left to right) Count Vertigo, Poison Ivy, Black Adam, Wotan, the Ultrahumanite, the Atomic Skull and the Joker.


Captain Marvel (who was introduced last episode) and Zatara (Zatanna's dad, though she's yet to appear)


Cat Grant returns once again as the journalist who always seems to be around when disasters happen.


Hawkgirl and John Stewart (yes, they have more than one Green Lantern in this continuity, as you'll see later).


Oh, and Hawkman too, I guess.


J'Onn and Aquaman


The Flash


Blue Devil


Captain Atom


Green and Red Arrow


Black Canary


Guy!


Plastic Man!


...I don't know. Agh, my Comics-Fu has failed me!


Same. :( He definately looks familiar though.


The return of Dr Fate/Nabu. AND HE HAS NO INDOOR VOICE!!!!


And finally: the actual Light Organisation, featuring...

Um, Vandal Savage? I guess?


Circe... I think. If it is then they made a good casting choice, what with Mariana Sirtis being Anglo-Greek and all.


Oceanmaster and Ra's al Ghul


The Brain, Klarion and Lex Luthor


Huh, that's actually a pretty good comprehensive group. Kudos to the writers. Not sure what their actual plan is though yet, whether it's to take over the world or bring Darkseid to Earth (hinted in the amnesia episode).

For legality,

Comments

[theredhood]

The two you didn't know seem to be Rocket and Icon, recently brought into the DC fold from Milestone. Shoutouts to Dwayne McDuffie, perhaps? Dunno if he created them.

Very cool stuff... but I still hate Cilian Murphy Joker.

[runespoor]

According to Wikipedia, he did.

I hear you on the Joker.

[darkknightjrk]

Icon? I thought it was Black Lightning.

And Joker's voice was a little weird--like the guy was both trying to sound like Heath Ledger and yet trying to not sound like him at the same time.

[lieut_kettch]

The ones you can't identify look like Icon and Rocket. I hope that means we might see Static in YJ soon.

[strannik01]

Since Time Warner doesn't actually own Static, it's the question of whether or not they're willing to license him. Heck, I'm surprised they are willing to go through the trouble of licensing Icon and Rocket for one quick cameo - unless Milestone and Time Warner have some kind of a media licensing agreement I'm not aware of.

[cloud_wolf]

That's not Circe, but Queen Bee, btw! And yeah, like the others said, that's Rocket and Icon. Rocket seems to be set up to become a member, possibly.

[eyz]

Woah!!
There's new episodes around??

Besides the way Blue Devil looks, love all o' 'em!! :D

[darkknightjrk]

Yep--since the middle of September. XD

[star_of_airdrie]

For the denizens of the US, they are On Demand on cable - Verizon here for all the new episodes and check iTunes.

(or YouTube but I have issues with the stealering although it has already aired so go forth and miss out on the commercials!!)

[runespoor]

According to TVTropes, she's Queen Bee and not Circe.

I am so excited at the possibility of more Rocket. It'd be awesome to have her guest-star in an episode, see the YJ team interact with her, maybe compare her place to Roy's. (For those not in the know: Rocket = sidekick who convinced her hero-person Icon to become a hero in the first place, and single teenage mother. According to Wikipedia, at least.)

I have to say, though, about some stuff in the episode, that the Injustice League need to be seriously oblivious with regards to the Joker. Whose portrayal I'm not convinced about. At all.

[espanolbot]

Yeah... although I've heard the Queen Bee thing too, until they same otherwise I'm going to assume that she's Circe, as she looks more Greek-themed than bee themed.

Though I guess it would be hard to look menacing in the outfit she normally wears if she WAS Queen Bee.

[cloud_wolf]

But they confirmed that was Queen Bee in the series and on Ask Greg! She's ruler of Bialya and Batman shows her image in the episode where the team is dropped in Bialya.

[cloud_wolf]

Besides, she could just as convincingly be an Arab. Her army men wear the arabic letter B as their symbol.

[werehawk]

This sure seemed like a season finale. I wonder what they are going to do with the last two episodes.

[fleur_de_liz]

Well, I know Zatanna's going to show up in the next episode. I don't think the episode synopsis has been posted for the last episode yet.

[espanolbot]

Someone's gonna die, Zatanna and possibly Wonder Girl'll show up, and POSSIBLY an appearance of the New Gods, from what I've been hearing and reading.

[rdfox]

My money's on Zatara being the one to bite it... they've used him enough to have an effect on people, but they won't be killing off an actual member of the team. That, or it's going to be Conner getting fridged temporarily before Kryptonian DNA kicks in and he regathers enough solar energy to come back to life (a la Supes '92).

[demonprawn]

Pretty awesome stuff this episode but the Joker was terrible. Shoulda got Dimaggio back.

[icon_uk]

Dimaggio's Joker never worked for me, it was too much of trying and failing to sound like Mark Hamill, with random touches of Bender.

[espanolbot]

Huh, really? I heard it more as a more toned down, malevolent version of his natural speaking voice.

[icon_uk]

I rather liked the Joker, he's not the zany Joker, nor the big scenario Joker, but a very, very smart, completely sociopathic Joker works for me. And the way he says "The more we get to have our... jollies" was a nicely creepy moment.

Loved the appearances by Rocket and Icon (no relation), and I do have to believe that that's in honour of Dwayne, because those two SHOULD be in the JLA.

[mullon]

I would have enjoyed the cameos, but I was too distracted by how godawful that Joker was.

And I'ver had it up to here with "Ha ha, our plan succeeded anyway." bullshit.

[espanolbot]

Hey, they have Luthor, Ra's al Ghul and the Brain in the leading group, with that brain trust they should in the least be able to construct multiple scenarios in which they'd benefit the most.

Like Xanatos in Gargoyles, which I believe was made by the same people, who'd have several schemes working at once so he'd get at least SOMETHING out of it even if more or two of the schemes flopped.

[auggie18]

I was... whelmed by the Joker. Not the best Joker ever, but not a character I have strong feelings about one way or the other. (Last time I really liked him was way back in Batman TAS.)


All is forgiven by the inclusion of Guy, though.


Also, I was almost 100 percent sure that the episode was gonna end with them having to give Nabu Zatara to get Kaldur back.

Kinda can't wait for them to start fighting more non-Light enemies. Kinda getting a little tired of "Bwahaha, we lost but really we won."

[icon_uk]

I find the "Bwahaha, we lost but really we won." worthy of these level of villains. They're not robbing banks or the like, they're co-ordinating a plan with redundancies and failsafes and double blinds to maintain their security.

[shadowpsykie]

Circe... I think. If it is then they made a good casting choice, what with Mariana Sirtis being Anglo-Greek and all.

he always did like the Star Trek actors. he used... what like 8 of them? in Gargoyles

[dr_archeville]

She's not the only ST:tNG crew on there: that's Brent Spiner voicing the Joker!

[shadowpsykie]

OMG! Oooh he can go from giddy to creepy in no time flat! I bet there will be more!

[icon_uk]

that's Brent Spiner voicing the Joker!

Darn, I should have spotted that.

[aeka]

Joker looks like a pimp in that photo, but if this series features many DC characters, I'll have to check it out sometime. :x

[kenwyn89]

I like the joker, I felt that the time was too constrained for him to be in his element- if anything, it's not the writing of the voice I found off, his design was a little too 'normal' with the tight suit and david tennant haircut and the not big enough grin. But I think it's a interpretation which is different and I don't see as being too far from the core character- I'm just a mark hamil girl.

[jaybee3]

Didn't like the way Black Adam was handled either. He was treated like Bizarro Superman in a Shazam suit. He's a guy who's thousands of years old, has led his own country, been a hero to his people, is endowed with the power of the ancient Egyptian Gods (including Wisdom) and doesn't take orders from people who's behind he can kick with his little finger. He'll work with the bad guys from his own purpose but would NEVER take the fall for any of them or serve as their proxy.

[sigmund_droid]

Sweet Mother of mercy Icon and Rocket!

Alright fine I'll watch this show

[rdfox]

And to add in the line from this week's "Howinhell did they get THAT past the CN censors?!" file:

"I feel naked. And not in the fun way." --Artemis

If they used the time-honored "completely, outrageously over the top decoy line" trick to get that one through, I'd *love* to know what the decoy line was... had to be something pretty spectacular for the censors to let THAT slip!

[grazzt]

Alternatively, that was a decoy line that actually got missed by the censors.

[star_of_airdrie]

my friend double checked this:

Artemis: "Naked and not in a fun way."
And Aqualad said "We will make our own fun"

[star_of_airdrie]

It is PG, not PG-7 in spite of it's 'are we even going to be home yet?' time slot.

It went over my 9-year-old's head thankfully...

[tacobob]

They do that with 'Adventure Time' all the time. :D

[strannik01]

I was rather surprised to see Milestone characters. Unless I missed something, Milestone Media still owns all the copyrights, so Time Warner would presumably have to license them from Milestone Media. I don't see Time Warner licensing the characters just for some quick cameos, so I assume there might be a bigger plan. Or, at least, I hope so.

[long_silence]

Jeez, the whole Justice League had to be seen fighting the plants around the world but Wonder Woman didn't show up at all?

[thatnickguy]

I'm in the minority, but I dug the hell out of this Joker. He was more the quiet, creepy, sociopath that some comic writers have played him as. Plus, the Society did the smart thing: they let HIM handle the civilian bodycount, so he got to do a LOT of killing. Clever way to keep the Joker in check.

Also, for old school Gargoyles fans, did anyone else catch Woton shouting "Fomonos benete!" I probably butchered the spelling, but that was a very, VERY common spell that the Arch Mage liked casting.

[runespoor]

I personally think putting the Joker in charge of controlling your weapons is A-grade stupid. I hadn't thought of it as handling the civilian bodycount, which mitigates the situation.

[proteus_lives]

Looks fun!

I love comics 'toons.

I can't wait for the new season of Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes.

[droolfangrrl]

Ahem, that would be "Klarion... Bum... Bum... Bum... The Witch Boy".