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scans_daily With the Young Justice/Teen Titans crossover on the horizon, Link Text, I thought that we could have a brief look at the tie-in book, which really didn't get enough props when it was being published, frankly.
The story starts just after the third episode, with M'Gann and Superboy (he hadn't adopted the Conner name at this point) are exploring Mount Justice having just moved into the former JLA HQ built within.
Left alone for the first time since his rescue from CADMUS Labs, Superboy thinks that he can her laughter and someone running around the facility. He follows the noise, finding a panicking teenager within. The distinctly 90s looking kid tells Superboy that he's not supposed to be there, right before vanishing as soon as Superboy turns his head to look for the source of the laughter.
Hey, it's Brent Spiner's Joker! Who due to the show's shortened run only appeared in the cartoon all of once (though his impact is felt offscreen in YJ: Invasion, but I'll get to that later...).
Next issue, Superboy is drifting in and out of consciousness as he and the kid, Snapper Carr, are bound in duct tape as the Joker readies a trap for the League. The League, oddly enough, aren't at all suspicious of the sudden giant present in the middle of their base...
Unfortunately Batman isn't able to stop Barry, and soon everyone is knee-deep in green Joker monkeys.
Barry grabs the canisters strapped to the monkeys and tries to get them outside, only to quickly get knocked out by the gas leaking from them. After making sure that the Flash is fine, J'onn tries to read the Joker's mind to try and find what he's going to do... which turns out to be a mistake, as what he sees manages to stun him. The Joker then just shoots him and Hawkman with a laser weapon he happened to have stashed somewhere.
Annoyed even more than he usually was at the beginning of season one, Superboy tries to jump the Joker, only for this to happen.
The monkeys start exploding, with the force of one of the blasts throwing Superboy across the room into one of the zeta-beam teleporters. He then realises something, as soon as he got close to it, it identified him, yet when the rest of the Leaguers appeared nothing happened.
Working on a hunch, Superboy ducks out into the melee, grabs Aquaman (apologising while he does so) and bungs him at the machine... which remains silent. Realising that nothing he's seen or felt is real (hence why the Joker was able to subdue him), Superboy punches the ground, disrupting the illusion.
The creature is a G-Gnome, a telepathic create that CADMUS created to mindcontrol folk, including Superboy. His presence here isn't particularly welcomed, especially considering it was making Superboy imagine he was being beaten up.
Later, Red Tornado returns to take the G-Gnome back to CADMUS, explaining that it must have escaped during the reconstruction efforts following the events of the opening episodes. Having been with Superboy for the entirety of his life, the creature had felt a connection with him and sought him out because it was lonely. Said connection was so strong that it made the illusions Superboy was feeling seem real, because that was what the G-Gnome was DESIGNED to do.
With the acknowledgement that people actually might like his company, Superboy uses this as a reason to start being more social towards his housemate M'gann, as previously he'd just walk off while she was in the middle of a sentence. Yay!
--
Context within the show: The attack on Mount Justice was what lead to the JLA moving to the Hall of Justice in Washington DC, in addition to the construction of the much more secure Justice League Satellite. Snapper Carr continued to have a close relationship with the team, as in the years that followed he ended up a teacher in the school that Conner and M'Gann would later attend, in addition to tutoring Beast Boy once he entered the frame (his appearance and powers made regular schooling an issue). His being tricked by the Joker into revealing the JLA's hideout was actually taken from the comics themselves though.
I said previously that the Joker in this show had an impact beyond his appearance in the episode Revelation, where he was a member of the Injustice League, a group formed on the sly by the Big Bads the Light as means of drawing attention away from itself (the Team knew that there was an organised group of supervillains out there, the Light intended that they would think that the IL was that group). The impact?
Well, in the five year gap that happened in between Young Justice and Young Justice: Invasion, the Joker managed to do something that only one other animated version of the Joker had done: Kill Jason Todd.
Interestingly, the YJ version of the Joker is probably the most openly murderous out of the television incarnations thus far, what with him attempting to stab the Martian Manhunter to death in his guest issue and his outright gassing people to death in the show itself. In his DCAU appearances, people often quote the fact that the creators there couldn't actually have the Joker openly murder people, though this is sometimes misconstrued as Hamill!Joker not killing anyone at all, when really he was just as murderous as some modern versions in the comics.
Nostalgia goggles, I guess. Oh, and as for my opinon of Teen Titans Go... Although there are occasional funny moments, original flavour Raven sums up my opinion pretty well.
The story starts just after the third episode, with M'Gann and Superboy (he hadn't adopted the Conner name at this point) are exploring Mount Justice having just moved into the former JLA HQ built within.
Left alone for the first time since his rescue from CADMUS Labs, Superboy thinks that he can her laughter and someone running around the facility. He follows the noise, finding a panicking teenager within. The distinctly 90s looking kid tells Superboy that he's not supposed to be there, right before vanishing as soon as Superboy turns his head to look for the source of the laughter.
Hey, it's Brent Spiner's Joker! Who due to the show's shortened run only appeared in the cartoon all of once (though his impact is felt offscreen in YJ: Invasion, but I'll get to that later...).
Next issue, Superboy is drifting in and out of consciousness as he and the kid, Snapper Carr, are bound in duct tape as the Joker readies a trap for the League. The League, oddly enough, aren't at all suspicious of the sudden giant present in the middle of their base...
Unfortunately Batman isn't able to stop Barry, and soon everyone is knee-deep in green Joker monkeys.
Barry grabs the canisters strapped to the monkeys and tries to get them outside, only to quickly get knocked out by the gas leaking from them. After making sure that the Flash is fine, J'onn tries to read the Joker's mind to try and find what he's going to do... which turns out to be a mistake, as what he sees manages to stun him. The Joker then just shoots him and Hawkman with a laser weapon he happened to have stashed somewhere.
Annoyed even more than he usually was at the beginning of season one, Superboy tries to jump the Joker, only for this to happen.
The monkeys start exploding, with the force of one of the blasts throwing Superboy across the room into one of the zeta-beam teleporters. He then realises something, as soon as he got close to it, it identified him, yet when the rest of the Leaguers appeared nothing happened.
Working on a hunch, Superboy ducks out into the melee, grabs Aquaman (apologising while he does so) and bungs him at the machine... which remains silent. Realising that nothing he's seen or felt is real (hence why the Joker was able to subdue him), Superboy punches the ground, disrupting the illusion.
The creature is a G-Gnome, a telepathic create that CADMUS created to mindcontrol folk, including Superboy. His presence here isn't particularly welcomed, especially considering it was making Superboy imagine he was being beaten up.
Later, Red Tornado returns to take the G-Gnome back to CADMUS, explaining that it must have escaped during the reconstruction efforts following the events of the opening episodes. Having been with Superboy for the entirety of his life, the creature had felt a connection with him and sought him out because it was lonely. Said connection was so strong that it made the illusions Superboy was feeling seem real, because that was what the G-Gnome was DESIGNED to do.
With the acknowledgement that people actually might like his company, Superboy uses this as a reason to start being more social towards his housemate M'gann, as previously he'd just walk off while she was in the middle of a sentence. Yay!
--
Context within the show: The attack on Mount Justice was what lead to the JLA moving to the Hall of Justice in Washington DC, in addition to the construction of the much more secure Justice League Satellite. Snapper Carr continued to have a close relationship with the team, as in the years that followed he ended up a teacher in the school that Conner and M'Gann would later attend, in addition to tutoring Beast Boy once he entered the frame (his appearance and powers made regular schooling an issue). His being tricked by the Joker into revealing the JLA's hideout was actually taken from the comics themselves though.
I said previously that the Joker in this show had an impact beyond his appearance in the episode Revelation, where he was a member of the Injustice League, a group formed on the sly by the Big Bads the Light as means of drawing attention away from itself (the Team knew that there was an organised group of supervillains out there, the Light intended that they would think that the IL was that group). The impact?
Well, in the five year gap that happened in between Young Justice and Young Justice: Invasion, the Joker managed to do something that only one other animated version of the Joker had done: Kill Jason Todd.
Interestingly, the YJ version of the Joker is probably the most openly murderous out of the television incarnations thus far, what with him attempting to stab the Martian Manhunter to death in his guest issue and his outright gassing people to death in the show itself. In his DCAU appearances, people often quote the fact that the creators there couldn't actually have the Joker openly murder people, though this is sometimes misconstrued as Hamill!Joker not killing anyone at all, when really he was just as murderous as some modern versions in the comics.
Nostalgia goggles, I guess. Oh, and as for my opinon of Teen Titans Go... Although there are occasional funny moments, original flavour Raven sums up my opinion pretty well.
no subject
Date: 2015-02-22 12:02 pm (UTC)I had low expectations for the show, knowing it was basically a Teen Titans reboot (where they couldn't use the TT name) and being worried about the characterisation, but the massively positive response meant that when it popped up on Netflix I was interested enough to check it out. The complex, series-length plotting was well thought out, the new takes on old characters (like the Red Arrow / Arsenal thing) were fun and the new characters were great additions I wish had made it over to the comics. Jumping forward in s2 to introduce the actual YJ characters was a nice nod to the fans of the original comic without overloading the canon they were building for the show.
In terms of the characterisation of the original YJ team, half the problems came from the contemporary comics versions, especially Kon's broodiness and the Tim/Cassie 'ship (though the show made it work better than the TT comics did). At least Bart's characterisation was much closer to Impulse than he was as Kid Flash, where he basically had no personality beyond occasional comic relief (the simplification of the Bart/Tim/Kon friendship to Tim/Kon massively frustrated me because it was all about Superman/Batman and nothing about the previous characterisation of the actual characters involved).
For me, the YJ show had more in common with the YJ comic than Teen Titans had had for years, and I really appreciated it for that. The plotting was better than the TT comics, the relationships more thoroughly explored, the characterisation deeper. And then it got cancelled because girls liked it. Damn my gender! ::shakes fist at sky::