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[personal profile] ravenswept
In an effort to distract myself (and something I really meant to do last week anyway) I want to start posting reviews of the new Young Justice animated series on Cartoon Network; thank god for Youtube.

This is for two reasons; a) I can't make Youtube videos, and b) I want to start review stuff for when I finally get Uneducated Opinion going. Also, I just like cartoons.

Until I figure out how I want to pace this, I'll probably be experimenting with different formats. So basically, I have no idea what I'm doing.

Episode Summary
"Welcome to Happy Harbor" is the "second" episode, following the premiere two parter, and the first with all the new team. Robin, Kid Flash, and Aqualad offer walkout Speedy a chance to join the team, now that they're being given more responsibility; Speedy throws it back in their face, saying they're just being controlled and kept in place.

At Mount Justice (wow, subtle), the team gathers in civie clothing for seemingly the first time. They believe they're there for their first mission, but Red Tornado, their League advisor and resident, says that's not his job and to be patient. So the dejected team "tours the clubhouse", lead by lone female member Miss Martian, who along with Superboy live at the HQ.

Thoughout all this, KF is constantly hitting on MM. At the same time, Robin is sticking it to KF with verbal jabs.

Miss M shows off her spaceship, and takes the guys on a flight around the harbor. She also demos her powers, including telekinesis, telepathy (which doesn't go over so well, due to past episode's experience), and shapeshifting. She also states the inability to turn intangible or copy males well.

Tornado gives them a jingle, saying there's a distrubance (thank you, how vague of you) at a power plant and why not check it out "covertly". They do check it out (I'm not sure how covert they are, considering they jump right in) and find this episode's villian, Mister Twister wreaking havoc. He's not after anything, doesn't seem to have any real goal, but the team tries to stop him regardless; hey, he is destorying stuff. Aaand they fail; epically. They have their butts handed to them.

Miss M, once assured that reading the minds of villains is acceptable, attempts to do so, but finds him blank and unreadable. Since she read inorganics, and Red Tornado is a robot, she comes to the conclusion that Twister is Tornado. Thinking he is merely testing them, and sick of being thought of as children who need to be kept busy, the team backs down from fighting and tell him they know his game. Twister then laughs in their face, and pimp slaps them into submission to prove them so very very wrong.

The guys then turn on Miss M, saying she's too rookie to be a help in this situation, and run off to try again. That doesn't really do much. She tries to convince Tornado to intervine; he coldly tells her that it's not his job to handle their responsibilty for them. He does question Twister similar powers, as well as his inability to be mind read. Miss M, in what undoubtly will be her cute character quirk, slaps herself and says "Helloooo Megan" which is her thing when she thinks she's figured something out (it happened before when she concluded Twister was a disguised Tornado).

Back at the fight, the guys continue to suck. Miss M contacts them telepathically, quickly telling them to shove it as it's the only way to tell them her plan. As guys prepare to attack again, Red Tornado appears and tells them to back off. They insist they can can take him, but Tornado says it's time for the adults to handle things. There's some back and forth between the dueling twister powers, until Tornado gets beaten down. Twister gloats and starts to attempt to reprogram Tornado; who then grabs the contacts and reveals herself to really be Miss Martian in disguise. The guys them come out of the wood work; Kid Flash and Superboy, who helped fake Tornado's powers for MM, along with Robin keep Twister disoriented and push him into the nearby water, where Aqualad was waiting with a boat anchor and some electricity. Miss M finishes the deal by destory the Twister suit, revealing a man inside who pleads for mercy. Miss M smashes him with a rock.

Okay, she's not really that cold, the guy too was a robot; that was why she couldn't read his mind, it was a robot in a suit. As the team celebrates their win, the scene pans from still functioning robot to the controllers. The creator, T.O. Morrow, points out how good an idea it was that he, Brom Stickwell (Mister Twister in the comics) wasn't in the suit himself. While Brom is worried about the lose, Morrow says not to worry; Tornado, their real target, is still highly probable to be in the area, and even this lose was not without it's own discoveries.

The episode ends with Tornado saying it's not up to him to solve the teens problems, nor they to solve his. And Superboy apologizes to Miss M for being an angsty douche eariler.

Character Analysis
Robin: Not too much of a change from Ep1. He's still the first to jump into the frey, with his trademark "disappearing act with ghost laugh" bit. He and KF seem to be the closest of the team, with Robin constantly poking fun of Kid Flash for his crush on Miss M. We also find out that Batman has forbidden Robin from revealing his real name to the team.
Kid Flash: Wally West. He has a heavy crush on Megan, and is not subtle about it at all. Still gets embarrassed by Robin pointing out when he says something crushy. Seems to be the most into the whole team thing, trying to keep a light mood. That or he just wants to stay on Megan's good side.
Aqualad: Kaldur'ahm (Kaldur to his friends). Still stoic. Still the most clear headed. Not really much of a change.
Superboy I pegged him from the first episode has going to make having anger issues his thing, and I nailed it. Granted, when Megan spoke in his mind he clearly had the right to be pissed, given what happened to him in Cadmus, but as soon as he snaps at her he goes and broods. He also continues to be extremely straight forward in regards to fights, his whole tactic being to jump in swinging. Superboy as of this time has no name, just going by Superboy, so they're saving that for some touching moment later in the season.
Miss Martian: M'gann M'orzz (Megan Morse for Earth). Her first real appearance in the show, not counting the last two minutes of the last episode. Seems to be relatively new to Earth customs, not knowing how invasive it is to mentally speak to someone. Is extremely eager to please, and has a very up beat personality; she's almost exactly like Starfire from the Teen Titans series. She knows that she's the newest to hero work, so takes it hard when she messes things up further. But also bounces back quickly with her peppy spirit. It's hinted she might have a crush on Superboy, but it's hard to say whether it's that or if she's just trying to be nice to him since he's like her and so new to this world. Hasn't really made much of KF's feelings towards her, so either she's oblivious or is being really polite about it. She also has the keys to the team bus, apparently, which is her spacecraft.
Red Tornado: the team's resident League oversight. A robot with tornado and flight powers, is very hands off with the team and expects them to handle things themselves. Probably not going to be much of a mentor (granted each pretty much has their own anyway) but doesn't look like he's going to play much into any given episode. Which is as it should be, he's not really on the team, he's there to be a supervisior.

Episode Analysis
With how strong the first episode was, following it was going to be difficult. And unfortunately, this was not a strong showing. And I don't think it had to be that, just they fell into the trap of having to introduce a new character. Miss Martian needed to be given an episode to intergrate her with the guys, and she's not exactly the strongest in personality. Her whole "Duh, Megan" routine will get old very quickly. It's hard to say how she'll be down the line, but being Miss Naive is gonna grate on some people quickly. Being the only female doesn't help either, but she won't be joined by Artemis until Ep6.

And maybe it's the 22 minute time limit, but this was not the strongest written episode either. Everything comes off as if this is the first time the whole group has really gotten together, and it's been at least two weeks since their Superboy recover (the show says it's going to keep heavily to it's internal time frame, so you know exactly when things happen). I'll buy that Superboy keeps to himself, but two weeks with Megan should at least have him saying that she annoys him with how much she talks about things he doesn't care about. Instead, it's like they were living entirely seperate while in the cave.

The villain was the best thing of the episode, because he clearly didn't give much regard to the team or what they were trying to do. He mopped the floor with them several times, and only lost when he let his guard down and they caught him by surprise. Twister was intimidating, powerful, and kinda fun to watch. That he manages to smack them around so hard says a lot about how much they need to come together as a team, but that's a good thing. They aren't just naturally filling roles and they aren't just immediately good together. Robin still does his own thing first, Superboy still is anger, and Aqualad is still wondering if this is a good idea or not. Hopefull the next episode brings things more together.

Final Thoughts
Down the line, this will most likely be seem as one of the weaker episodes. While that's neither here nor there, it is so much less than what it follows. Hopefully this is not a trend.

I did like that Megan was the one that came up with the final plan (and a rather creative one at that), but fear that this won't be a regular thing. This was very much a "Miss Martian" episode, and so I'm wondering how much this will carry over as the show goes on. Most of the guys are fairly well know, being essentially younger versions of their adult counterparts, but Megan isn't well known, nor exactly is Martian Manhunter. So I'm worried that the writers will treat her as a girl first and not a hero.

The villains are going to rock in this show. Twister, a pretty low-teir villain, was jacked up and made into a good menace for the youngsters. He also was very much a legitimate threat to them, so if that can be done with him, I'm looking forward to seeing what comes next.

I'm hoping that each non-mission episode doesn't become a character episode. Yeah, it'll be easier to focus more on personality when the team isn't in someone's crosshairs, but then it'll become really predictable. And if this episode is anything to go by, the down time aren't going to be the ones to bring in new viewers.

I'm still a fan, but now I'm more wary of things to come.

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January 2013

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