Young Justice 11 and 12 - The Pit and The Pendulum

[icon_uk]

The Young Justice TV tie in comic was fairly unique insamuch as it works in parallel with the broadcast series. Events from the series were referenced in it and even more unusually plot points from the TV series were revealed or expanded in the comic. (This is probably because the comic was written by Greg Weisman, also the story editor for the series itself and he believes in cross marketing)

Case in point a long time Batman villain who had a new origin, and one which ties into a rather unexpected character; The Daughter of the Demon herself;


Now, I confess I've always found Talia a... difficult character to warm to.

Introduced as an exotic love interest for Batman in the Neal Adams run of the 1970's, and as a means of introducing her father Ra's Al Ghul (Who, on hearing that she was interested in Batman, promptly snuck into Dick Grayson's college dorm, tasered Robin when he came home from patrol, and then sent Batman 8 by 10 glossies to challenge him to a game of "Where in the world is the Hostage Wonder?". Which, y'know, I'm all for on general me-ish principle but that's beside the point)

Since then she's been a touch problematic at the best of times. In the 70's and 80's she kept having to decide between staying with her psycholpathic, international crime lord father, or following her heart and joining one of the world's greatest superheroes because she actually loved him. And yet somehow, despite constantly betratying his plans, she still kept picking Dad (They attempted to introduce her being a LOT older than she appeared and being dependent on regular physical contact with the Lazarus-affected Ra's to maintain her youth, which is a shallow, if explicable, reason but that never really went anywhere. The idea USED to be that surviving exposure to the Lazaus Pit was very rare, Ra's could do it many times, but it was losing it's potency on him, Bruce survived it once, but might not again, and no one else stood a chance. Since then they've become something akin to a freaking Day Spa for the near-deceased but that's another post for another day). Then they introduced her sister Nyssa Al Ghul, which didn't really take, and perhaps the less said about the deranged psychopath that Morrison made her the better (Though I confess I did like her being used as a foil for Nightwing in his Tomasi run. The children of two such... forceful and rival personalities clashed in far more interesting ways than I expected, despite it being such an obvious comparison)

Young Justice picked and chose from the entirety of DC history to make something new, and I wa curious to see what they'd do with with Talia...

Issue 11 featured, at the start a plot of Ra's which ended, as his scheme so often do, with him being killed, but as we all know, that rarely stops him for long, and so...



Ubu is, of course, Ra's primary muscle and bodyguard (It seems there may have been many to hold that title) and the Sensei is a senior member of the League of Shadows (and in some versions Ra's father, but that's not addressed in this case)







Issue 12 was told "Memento" style, the events shown in reverse order, referencing a fight that the team had with Clayface in the sewers below Gotham City from the TV episode "Downtime" . No one had heard of this being before, still less why he was shrieking ""What is happening to me? and "What has she done to me?"

ra's hears the commotion and heads back downstairs...










Ra's is NOT to be underestimated.... Ra's decides to seal him up and ship him to Gotham, which Talia thinks is petty, but Ra's doesn't care. And that is what leads to the events of the TV episode.

We then flash further back... I will add here, rather than interrupt the flow on the scene, that another thing that used to be the detault is that Ra's was prepared to tolerate Batman in Talia's life because A) He was worthy of her and B) He loved his daughter, and genuinely wanted her to be happy. In later iterations he seemed to view her as some sort of Darwinian matriominal experiment, with Ra's not caring about her feelings, but approving of ANYONE who could beat her previous beau... so for a while Bane was his preferred mate for Talia, not for any qualities of his own, but because he had broken Batman... That got old fast IMHO)

Anyhoo....





Now this is a side of Talia I don't think we've seen before, she wants a life of her own... as Talia, not Talia Al Ghul.... and Ra's can't deny his daughter that if it makes her happy, but he is actually being a concerned father.

And so...





Anyone want to guess how well this is going to go?





And if you thought you shouldn't cross Ra's...

This also means that Talia left him to dissolve in there, and let her father revive in a Lazarus Pit which was full of floating bits of Matt Hagen... which is a whole new level of "Ewwww!"

Comments

[lordultimus]

I think Lagoon Boy had more character development in the comic than he ever did in the show.

[scorntx]

Well, lagoons are usually shallow...

[long_silence]

Most of the season 2 additions to the cast didn't get any character development in the show

[icon_uk]

Impulse? Blue Beetle? The super-friends analogs?

Lagoon Boy and Wonder Girl are the only two that struck me as not having much done with them.

[long_silence]

Impulse and Blue Beetle are the only ones I'd say had any significant development. And Arsenal, but I don't think he counts.

Batgirl, Tim Drake, Mal became Guardian and then did nothing for the rest of the season, Bumblebee barely did anything all season. The Super friends analogs were such a joke, most of what the Samurai-analog said was literally just "excuse me" in Japanese and her compatriots didn't get much more than that

[icon_uk]

The new kids like Batgirl, Tim and Wonder Girl got less focus I agree, though we did see Tim moving from his first team leadership role to being more experienced as the season wore on.

I thought the Runaways (or the Metagene Kids got a good deal of development and were fun analogues (I also liked that Asami didn't conveniently speak English and none of the others knew much Japanese because chances are, they wouldn't) . We saw them introduced in some cases, then being abducted, experimented on, gaining their powers, learning to refine and control them and their adventures with Arsenal.

[long_silence]

Tim's development was practically nonexistant. I literally can't think of more than maybe 3 significant scenes he had. He was mostly just there to take up space. He was a glorified seat filler.

Asami not speaking English was fine. Making most of her dialogue "sumi masen" was annoying as hell and reinforces the cliche of the apologetic and subservient Japanese woman.

[scorntx]

So Ra's took a bath in Hagen juices... does that mean he could almost have become a Clayface himself?
That would've been an unusual turn of events.


... Sensei looks astoundingly like an evil Iroh.
It's very disconcerting.
(Keep expecting him to start going on about tea.)

[icon_uk]

If he'd stewed in the stuff long enough, it possible. Ra's normally takes very short dips, Talia ensured Hagen had a much, much longer exposure.

[alicemacher]

So Ra's took a bath in Hagen juices... does that mean he could almost have become a Clayface himself?
That would've been an unusual turn of events.

Heh. I once wondered whether, when Ozymandias regretfully disintegrated Bubastis along with Dr. Manhattan, the latter might've become part-man, part-lynx when he reconstituted himself. Granted, he wouldn't have (and of course didn't), because there's no difference between quantum particles in a human being and those in a lynx. But it was fun to imagine.

[alicemacher]

Sorry. the above was meant as a reply to scorntx.

[laughing_tree]

Are the Snake and the Garden references to YJ stories I'm forgetting? Or are they one of the various mysteries left unresolved when it was cancelled?

[icon_uk]

I don't think it's directly referenced by those names, butgiven the Biblical names it could refer to the later Season 1 episode "Revelation" (another Biblical name), which involved the Injustice League (being used as pawns by the Light) using giant plants to attack the world.

[laughing_tree]

That occurred to me, but it doesn't seem to match Ra's' description that its a contingency plan in case the Light's plans fail. Those giant plants seemed to be very much part of the Light's master plan.

[daningram.insanejournal.com]

IIRC, they were references to Kobra. The Light had some connect to the cult, and used them early on.

[icon_uk]

I think you might well be right, issue #17 and 18 of the comic were focussed on a Kobra plot involving a giant snake referred to as the Serpent.

http://youngjustice.wikia.com/wiki/Uncommon_Dominators

[starwolf_oakley]

In BATMAN ANNUAL #25, Talia droped amnesiac Jason Todd into the Lazarus Pit *while* Ra's al Ghul was using it. IIRC, the narrator speculated that might be part of the reason for Jason's drastic attitude. Admitted, I liked that theory better than "Jason was born bad and Bruce was a fool for not realizing it, stupid Bruce."

[icon_uk]

There is the more general "Anyone who survivies the Pit is insane for at least a short period of time", and who knows what drastic effect it would have had on smeone who had had such severe brain injuries as Jason, who had his head repeatedly struck with a crowbar (Shudder)

[chrisdv]

I can't help but imagine that being like when a dog brings a dead bird to it's master.

...That analogy was surprisingly more appropriate than I intended.

[icon_uk]

I never understood why Ra's didn't return Jason to Bruce's care. He'd be both indebted to Ra's for saving him, and very likely be distracted by caring for him, which is always a help to Ra's plans.

[thatnickguy]

Okay, show of hands. Who else saw "Young Justice" and thought it was the original series?

Because we do not want the wrath of He Who Shall Not Be Named.

[icon_uk]

Believe me, as a Mod, I am aware of that situation and have no wish for a rerun of last time.

[thatnickguy]

No, I know. I was joking.

[ekrolo2]

..... Who are you guys talking about? Did something bad happen with Weisman or something?

[icon_uk]

Not the Weisman series, the original Peter David Young Justice series.

Peter David and Scans_Daily do not have a good history, to say the least, and as a result none of his work may ever be posted here.

[thatnickguy]

We're talking about the writer of the original Young Justice comic that long predates the cartoon with the same name.

The writer of the original YJ - a.k.a. He Who Shall Not Be Named - didn't approve of the idea of Scans Daily. Especially people posting last page spoilers of issues released the same day, like one of his comics at the time (rhymes with Hex Actor).

So he reported the community (then on LiveJournal) and had it permanently removed. We recovered by moving to Dreamwidth, but have a specific rule never to post anything by him. Which is a shame, because he's quite prolific with many great comics under his belt.

[daningram.insanejournal.com]

That rule is probably why people still fondly remember his Young Justice series, despite the characters being impressive douche bags

[randyripoff]

I swear I remember that once upon a time each Lazarus pit could only be used once.

[icon_uk]

I'm pretty sure I remember there being a thing at the start about there being only one Lazarus Pit in the whole world, now it seems like they are only slightly less rare than Starbucks.

[zapbiffpow]

Y'know, interbreeding villain origins (like, say, Joker's origin being closely tied to Black Mask's in the Arkhamverse) seems like a waste of individual roads to villainy, but the quality writing and art here, especially the tragedy of Talia, really takes a lot of the sting from that.

'I blame you for this' is unintentionally hilarious, though.