YJ: Image - Review and Recap, and a Look At Season Two

[espanolbot]

Spoilers Obviously.

- Recap,
The episode begins with Dinah Lance and Ollie Queen being called to Mount Justice, apparently because of something important. It turns out that the supervising members of the JLA in charge of looking after the group have video tape of Black Canary making out with Superboy... yeesh. Well at least Dinah looks as suprised by everyone else at this.

Title sequence.

And it turns out that the Dinah in the video was actually Megan, which Ollie thinks is hilarious but Dinah is understandably upset by this. J'onn tries to explain that this is apparently a common "game" on Mars, as people can call read minds and shapeshift, so there is no falsehood in such things. Dinah, however, points out that they're not on Mars, and goes to yell at Megan.

Megan, meanwhile, is watching the tv show that inspired her human appearance and mannerisms. Dinah gives her "the talk", which is thankfully skipped over, and tells her to just be herself, which draws a bad reaction from Megan.

Batman calls the team for a mission, it seems that the democratically elected ruler of Qurac is going to step down in a few days, as he's suddenly gone from being a humanitarian to backing Queen Bee's claims that his country and her own, the neighbouring Bialya, were once one country, and that they should be united as one under her absolute rule.

Batman, a friend of the president of Qurac in his civilian guise, is understandably concerned about this. Understandably the natives of Qurac aren't that happy about this as they're fully aware of the brutality of Queen Bee's rule, leading to protests that seem all to familiar from the past year or two. The president responded to the protests by banning the press in his country and enforcing martial law, causing different sorts of images from the protests from the last couple of years.

Robin points out that Queen Bee must be controlling the Quraci president somehow, and asks Batman if it's true that she has the power to enthrall most men? Batman replies "And some women." HA! Lesbians and bi folk confirmed in the YJ-verse by Batman! Batman puts Robin in charge of the team as Aqualad is apparently busy doing something with Aquaman, and sends them out to investigate what's going on in the two countries.

The team arrive in Qurac, just in time to see Bialyan tanks rolling across the border, causing a herd of gnus to stampede. Turns out that the land the tanks are rolling across is the Logan Animal Sanctuary and the tanks are rolling towards a woman and her son who are taking care of one of the sick animals, which probably means that Beast Boy is in the immediate future.

Robin orders the team into stealth mode, and they manage to stop the tanks and save the woman and kid at the same time. Yay. Hey, Gar's mum looks like an adult version of Megan... oh. Gar's mum is annoyed that Superboy injured the wilderbeast (not a gnu sadly) that was going to trample them, but says that she guesses it was unavoidable. Megan asks that she stay and help fix fences with Ms Logan while Robin and co hang out with Gar, which they both grudgingly agree too.

Back at the sanctuary, Garfield is giving them to tour. Superboy, keeping with his theme, is attacked by a monkey. The show is also keeping its theme of literal animal names, with the oryx called Oryx and the monkey called Monkey. Gar points out that it's kind of rude for Megan to look exactly like his mum when she was on her tv show as a teenager, which causes it to dawn on the guys in the team that maybe Megan's human appearance and behaviour might not actually be what she's really like...

A drone from Bialya attacks the Logan's house, and despite Garfield being ordered to say inside the house by Robin, he goes to their barn and his promptly exploded. The team openly destroy the drones, but it's definite that the Bialyans know that the Team are involved now.

Gar apparently is in shock and needs a blood transfusion, and it appears that the nearest hospital with a guarranteed supply of his rare bloodtype is too far away, even at Kid Flash speed. Megan steps in, apparently her shapeshifting occurs at a cellular level and by shapeshifting into Gar, or something, he can have a blood transfusion from her.

Ah, so they're riffing the She-Hulk origin for Beast Boy in the YJverse,gotcha.

While the transfusion is going on, the team try to find a news station to watch because, you know, the plot. But instead they turn on the VHS of the sitcom Hello Megan! instead... which reveals on top of Megan looking identical to the female lead, the male lead looks identical to Superboy but with 1990s hair. Also Rita Farr was in it, yay! The others sound familiar, but I'm not sure if they're DC characters or not.

Conner is understandably weirded out that Megan's entire persona is duplicated from a Saved By the Bell! rip-off. And the themesong is hilariously awful. And it turns out that Conner is named after the male loveinterest from the show. HAHAHA! Just as Megan walks in, transfusion complete, the boys quickly change the tape off revealling that Psimon, the bloke that gave them amnesia the last time they were in Bialya, is the one controlling the Quraci president.

The Team infiltrate the Quraci presidential palace, where it turns out that on top of brainwashing him, they'd also kidnapped the presidents daughter too. Just as they start talking to him though, Bialyan troops burst into the room with New Gods weaponry, saying that they're basically going to assassinate the president and pin the blame on the Team.

Invisible Megan flies off to fight Psimon, while the team stay behind to rescue the President. Psimon, looking something like a Dragonball Z villain in casual clothes, begins the psychic battle by knocking her out of the air. He then decides to use Megan's "greatest fear" against her, and forcibly turns off her shapeshifting power, causing her to revert to her White Martian appearance. Which, if people complained that Klarion was too creepy, is definately up there in the "scaring kids senseless" stakes.

Meanwhile, the male part of the team save the president and his daughter, yay. The Team run to Megan's rescue, but she knocks them unconcious herself to keep from the looking at her in her regular clothes. And it turns out that her red chestbands are her psychic clothes, huh. Psimon reveals that her transformation was being recorded as evidence against her, and her decision to knock out her teammates rather than admit the truth was REALLY the worst thing she could have done in that situation.

Psimon knocks her back onto the psychic plane, and he essentially mentally dissects her, showing her fears that if her true identity is revealled she'll be kicked off the team, be deported back to Mars by J'onn and loose Conner all in one swoop. Megan basically responds to his blackmail attempts by going all Yu-Gi-Oh and mindcrushing him, leaving him catatonic.

Later, Queen Bee is angrily yelling about why the Quraci president isn't meeting her as planned, on live internation news too. The president responds by yelling back (out of range of her sexy powers) that he didn't do it of his free will and that his country will never come her her rule. Bee responds by responding like a stereotypical supervillain, again, ON LIVE INTERNATIONAL TV. Gar is watching at home with his mum, and his eyes have turned bright green, uh oh.

In fact, it turns out that Queen Bee was actually Megan in disguise, which in fact explains the... lack of subtly involved. Back at the Logan estate, the team are watching Bruce Wayne meeting up with the Quraci president on tv to offer humanitarian aid to the country, causing Wally to loudly start implying that he knows who Bruce secretly is. Robin jabs him in the ribs, and tells him to go and collect a souvenir. He chooses the Hello Megan! VHS, and asks Megan to explain what her deal is.

She explains that growing up on Mars, it wasn't a happy time for her, but she watched the broadcasts that J'onn sent from Earth to teach Martians about their "Sister Planet" it made her happy through a lonely childhood, so she when she had to chose a human form she went with Megan's. If that makes sense. Dick then raises the question as to what Megan actually looks like, and she responds with... her regular human form, but bald and with J'onn's eyebrow-ridges. Oh, I'm so disappointed in you young lady.

Megan asks Ms. Logan to not be mad for her face plagarism, getting the response that actually she's honoured because Megan helped save Garfield. She now says she considers her to be a part of their family now. Aww. She goes to Garfield's room to check up on him, only for it to turn out that Queen Bee is in bed with him.

The Queen starts stroking him creepily, and starts talking about how she could "get her little thrawl here to start damaging himself". Megan powers up to get all mind destroyery, but the Queen responds with the double threat of if anything happens to her then Garfield dies AND everyone will find out what Megan actually is.

*Dramatic sting*

- Review
Well, I now have another new favourite episode. This episode manages to both fully off a somewhat believable supervillain scheme, with the final threat being used by the Light to control Megan in the end being reflected by the one used to control the Quraci president, while managing a significant piece of character development for Megan.

Also, I thought that it was kind of cool that the piece of fanon that I came up with to describe the kind of stereotypical behaviour of Megan turned out to be kind of correct. By it not being the writers writing her intentionally as being stereotypical and flat, but that Megan was acting that way because she thought that was the way humans kind of acted.

Kind of wondering if Kid Flash's somewhat superficial treatment of Megan might have contributed to her terrifying self-image concerns though`111111111111111111111111`1

And on a minor note, yeah, it might have been a throwaway line, but damn I'm happy that they acknowledged gay or bisexual people exist in the YJverse. ^^

- Cameoes
Queen Bee


Garfield Logan and his Mum


TV Conner


Rita Parr, aka Gar's adoptive mother in the regular universe, as well as a member of the Doom Patrol,


The rest


Psimon


Megan's real face,


And the trailer for this half of the season and a bit of Invasion,

http://dcwomenkickingass.tumblr.com/
Bits I picked up? Match looks like he's going to be appearing. A team-up between Barbara and Dick. More Cheshire/Roy Harper stuff. The possible unveiling of Conner's relationship with Lex? More on Dick's backstory. Wonder Woman's voice in a JLA scene? Lobo! Clayface! Jaime Reyes! Lagoon Boy! John Stewart!

For legality, and because it was Mother's Day in the UK yesterday, here's a bit from from the DCAU about a somewhat undeveloped character in the Batman canon,




Seriously, why is all of the backstory on the parents mostly about Thomas? Martha is kind of underdeveloped with the exception of four stories,
- Batman: the Ultimate Evil - where it was revealled that she was involved in trying to crack down on child sex rings in Gotham, which may have resulted in her being murdered to shut her up.

- Batman: Family - a friend of his mother shows up, and tells Bruce that she was steal from a charity that she set up (turned out to be lies, but again the theme of Martha being involved in charity work shows up).

- Streets of Gotham - in a cool story towards the end of the run that shows how Thomas, Leslie Thompkins and Martha all met each other, with Martha working as a volunteer worker in Leslie's clinic whose father's fortune was stolen by a Mafia con scheme. I liked this story, she had personality in it.

Comments

[dewinged]

This episode...my word.

After all the griping I heard about M'gann's catch phrase, it turns out to be a serous point about her character. Greg Weisman, you magnificent bastard.

And Tiny!Gar. Augh, adorable! And so cheerful, considering how heart-attack serious the rest of the show is. Interesting variation on the Beast Boy origin, though.

To protect her real identity, M'gann psi-blasts her teammates, then turns Psimon into plant life (I swear, he was staring off into space and drooling after his Battle In The Center of M'gann's mind; I might be wrong. Gee, I'll just have to watch it again, poor me.)

Queen Bee is intmidating (I also caught the 'and some women' line. Nicely done), and Marina Sirtis kicked butt in the role. Very Demona-ish.

[dewinged]

Also, some bits.

Jonathan Lord: Silverblade

Sandra Stanyon was also a character in the Silverblade series.

Paul Sloane? Also known as Charlatan. Considering he's Megan's love interest and Conner and M'gann...

The creators did their homework. I love it when creators do their homework...

Hello Megan!

[anamnesis]

I always hated the griping and visceral, knee jerk reaction that catchphrase brought out in some fans.

The whole Hello Megan thing had been hinted, several times in previous episodes with near explicit mentions and her characterization throughout the entire series so far. The idea that her personality was primarily a construction of an 80's sitcom wasn't that hard of a stretch to realize.

[icon_uk]

Garfield cuteness to one side... and he WAS a cute lil thing (I loved Robin and Gar's mother's exchange - "I ordered him to stay in the house". "He's eight, he doesn't DO orders") I'm not sure I'd say I was disappointed with M'Gann's decision.

She does not consider herself a White Martian, she rejects that part of her life vehemently, and has chosen a new form to be her baseline to the world. Seems to me that's her right.

Without wanting to wander into delicate areas that I have a bad habit of being tactless about, there might even be a hint of a transgender subtext here (albeit a very sci-fi superhero-y one). She's chosen the form she considers to be her true form, her White Martian form is more or less an accident of birth.

SHOULD she tell the others about her past? Good question... to which the answer would seem to be "Why should she?" (Aside from getting things off her chest might make her less stressed about it)

Come to that, what does J'onn look like in reality?

[sadoeuphemist]

I don't see the connection, her rejection of her white martian heritage seems to be based more around the fear of social stigma, not as an internal identification as human. I mean her entire knowledge of human culture came from old tv shows, one of which she lifted her personality from wholesale.

Tbh, she seems closer to an otakukin than anything.

[rdfox]

All I'll say is that I actually did *two* doubletakes at the Robin/Batman exchange in question.

Because after Batman's line, Robin's exact wording sank in. "Enthrall most men." Yep, they acknowledged gay men existing, too!

This might not be known to people outside North America, but Marie actually said that Gar considers M'Gann his "blood sister" now, in reference to what, at least when *I* was growing up, everyone "knew" was a Native American tradition for friends to bond themselves forever by opening small cuts on their wrists, then holding them together so that their blood intermingled. Is it a real one? No clue. But that's the story there--in many ways, it's seen as being closer than family, given the commitment you have to show to actually cut your own wrist to carry it out.

I'll admit, Monkey *really* misdirected me at first; it had me completely convinced that they were gonna go with the standard sakutia angle for Gar's origin story (though nothing prevents them from doing so later, and saying that M'Gann's blood is what mutated the sakutia into rewriting his DNA).

Writing-wise, this was damn near perfect, methinks--EVERY plot hole was thoroughly filled by the writers. Even how Queen Bee knew to go after Gar--notice the half-second of footage from the drone Conner smashed? Her people knew where that drone was, and she would recognize Conner, so...

Seriously, folks, if you're not watching this, you really should. The female characters are some of the strongest on television (at least until Korra starts), the writing is the same sort of "don't talk down to anyone, don't sugarcoat things, just show a little bit of discretion in *how* you address it" writing that results in the best children's programming, and the animation is just plain beautiful.

Kind of like AtLA was, actually. And, of course, the Timmverse, particularly *before* the Bat-Embargo partially emasculated it. (...that's a verb I'm allowed to use figuratively around here, right?)

Basically, THIS is the sort of "dark" that comics should be. Tense and gritty, but not grim, depressing, and gratuitously gory. If you liked the writing in 52, you'll like this show, methinks...

[icon_uk]

Gay men, or, like many comic heroes, those with a strong enough will to resist her DESPITE the attractions, of which Batman is probably one (or certainly would be in Robin's eyes, this is his DAD he's talking about after all)

[silverzeo]

What bugged me is that Conner never made any expression outside of scowling and angry. His girlfriend has base everything about herself as well as his given name from a sitcom and he doesn't even raises an eyebrow at that...

[icon_uk]

Perhaps because he understands her situation of creating a persona for herself. That's what he's had to do too after all. She went with the sitcom, he's still working his out.

And presumably he knows that though he may look like the character in the TV show, their relationship is founded on more than that.

[gamerguy]

Conner may well not know what a sitcom is.

[bazor]

Actually, I'm wondering if Connor's 'kinder personality' is his own or if its entirely a fabrication of Megan's powers on the blank slate of Superboy to make her perfect boyfriend.

[icon_uk]

Interesting, though that would be singularly skeevy (akin to what Saturn Girl did to a comatose Cosmic Boy back in the post ZH Legion)

[kazeno]

Psimon forcing M'gann to revert back to her White Martian form is going to haunt my dreams for a while. I've always found M'gann to be endearing, and this episode certainly does a great job of exploring the darker side of her character.

On the other hand, this episode along with some of the other M'gann-centric episodes leave me wondering if she's really fit to be on a team like YJ. This isn't the first time she's charged into an unknown situation against a powerful enemy, and in "Image" Robin was explicitly telling her not to go. Over and over again she proves that she's not capable of keeping her emotions or her powers in check in high stress situations, and this time the result was that she actually knocked out her own team in the middle of mission. She could have gotten them all killed.

Otherwise I enjoyed this episode, including the tweaking of the origins of Beast Boy's powers. "Blood transfusion from shape-shifting alien" does make marginally more sense than "bite from green monkey and then saved by untested serum." Sort of.

[sadoeuphemist]

Nah, she fits right in with the team. Robin kept pulling his ninja disappearing trick and leaving his teammates on their own, Superboy kept flipping out about things, Kid Flash is Kid Flash. Heck, in this episode they tried to do a covert rescue mission by outright opening fire on the Bialyan troops.

[tauruschick12]

Everything was perfect in this episode.

Acknowledgments of LGBTQ people, BB's 'new' origin oddly makes a lot more sense (in terms of turning green and shapeshifting), M'gann's voice actor did fabulously, and M'gann's white martian form is badass.

I can see the sci-fi trans* subtext, but to me, it came off more as self-hatred of one's race thanks to prejudice making M'gann hate herself and feel unlovable.

[shadowpsykie]

(in terms of turning green and shapeshifting),

but if Megan is a white martian, shouldn't Gar turn white?

[dr_archeville]

I loved the ep, with one exception. Some outstanding character development and revelations about M'gann, and her White Martian form was more terrifying than I'd expected.

I really like this take on Beast Boy's origin.

A subtler Easter Egg: the credits for Hello Megan list it as being created by Greg Vietti & Brandon Weisman. YJ is created by Greg Weisman & Brandon Vietti.



The one point I didn't like was at the end, when Queen Bee said she'd already 'programmed' Gar to harm himself if she have the word, of if M'gann did anything to her. Now, I know there's the "heroes have to do dumb things/forget their powers in order for the plot to advance" thing, and the case could certainly be made that M'gann was so shocked she wasn't in her right mind, but it still bugs me. M'gann's been shown to easily manipulate multiple things at once with her TK, so why not pin both Bee (to detain her) and Gar (to prevent him from harming himself)? Even if they couldn't arrest her for anything, she could separate them long enough for the team to get Bee out and use her telepathy to undo Bee's enthrallment of Gar.

[sadoeuphemist]

Gar hurting himself is not and was never meant to be a serious threat. It was just to make M'gann hesitate long enough to spring the blackmail on her.

[icon_uk]

Even leaving the fact it was a short term distraction to one side, M'Gann may well not have trusted her talents to be able to undo the sort of programming a skilled, manipulative and ruthless psi like Queen Bee specialises in, especially in an eight year old recovering from serious trauma. Who knows what booby traps Bee might have laid inside his head?

[shadowpsykie]

her regular human form, but bald and with J'onn's eyebrow-ridges. Oh, I'm so disappointed in you young lady.

I can't say i am disappointed in Megan, in fact i understand her completely. She is scared and confused, and has just had her worst fears confronted with her. As a gay man who has yet to come out to his parents, i understand her completely. this isn't a simple case of being uncomfortable with who she is. this is a legitimate case of being utterly terrified that those you have come to love and see as family will turn their back on you and reject you. That they will look at you and be utterly disgusted by what they see. its a fear that is crushing. and i don't blame her for not telling the truth

[tauruschick12]

THIS.

[shadowpsykie]

where did Babs and dick appear? i didn't see them....

[kazeno]

Babs didn't appear in the episode, but if you watch the trailer Robin is saved by a redhead at about 1:57.

[ian_karkull]

This was a great way to set up Beast Boy's origin (regardless of whether they'll use him or not) and deliver a pay-off for all the "Hello Megan!" stuff from early on. It kind of makes me regret complaining about the constant repetition of said catchphrase early on, clearly they where going somewhere with this.
I'm not sure how I feel about setting up both Megan and Artemis as possible traitors now, it seems to be part of the "setting up way too much tension to be resolved satisfactory" thing the show seems to have going on sometimes.
But, since my earlier criticisms of the show have all been resolved now, I'll hold off judging it too harshly. It's highly entertaining and something to look forward to every week.

[shadowpsykie]

I'm not sure how I feel about setting up both Megan and Artemis as possible traitors now

they are also setting up Superboy as one too. and really, with his connection to lex (and the scene they showed) i think that is more likely than either megan or artemis.

it could be a double blind and it be all THREE of them. all three against thier wills...

[big_daddy_d]

This is a surprisingly awesome episode. It's definitely among my favorites now. Lately these character focused episodes have been among the best in the series, period. First Zatanna/Zatara/Captain Marvel, then Kid Flash, and now Miss Martian. I look forward to the others, specifically the Artemis/Red Arrow episode.

As for this one, it was just flat out amazing. I loved every single moment. The beginning with Ollie and Dinah felt like a true Green Arrow and Black Canary moment and it brought on the giggles.

As for Megan, I loved getting into her head. Learning her insecurities, vulnerabilities, and what drives her. This is the episode where you learn who Megan is.

[nyadnar17]

YES! I felt such a moment of genuine joy at Ollie's laughter that it shocked me. I had no idea how much I missed some of the "true" incarnations of these characters till they appeared in this show. I love YJ.

[eyz]

Things are looking great!

Leaks

[kenwyn89]

Just thought I should let people know - All the young justice eps up to 25 have been leaked online in spanish, with english subbed available. So spoiler wary people beware!!!