Monsters of Television

“No capes. No tights.“

Well, that was better than last week.

I’m still having problems getting a bead on Young Justice despite talking about being patient last week. Certainly “Drop-Zone” is a great deal easier to watch than “Welcome to Happy Harbor” (M’gaan is, thankfully, only in her awful civvies at the end of the episode), and it does a better job of using characters, plot, and theme to create a more fully realized unit of story.

I still quibbles, but I suspect that they have more to do with what I expect from the show than what the show actually will involve, given target demographics and, well, the age of the characters involved. Yes, I’m not crazy about the ‘shipping that is shaping up.

But let’s talk about the good first. The issue of leadership of the group comes up as the team is given its first mission by Batman. While it was announced pretty early on that Kaldur would be the leader of the team, the episode does a very fine job of not only creating that tension between Robin and the rest of the team, but making Kaldur seem like a natural choice through his decisive action, even temper, and tactics (despite his assertion that Robin “was born to lead” the group).

And it happens at a respectable and entertaining pace as well. I like that it takes Robin going off on his own twice, expecting the team to know what to do without him saying so (“None of us are mind readers, you know. …Well, I’m not anyway.”) and that the episode takes the time to explain not only why he thinks he’s fit to lead (trained by the goddamn Batman) but that because of his training and defined role with Batman, he’s unfit to lead. It’s good character work on the show’s part.

Hopefully, however, now that he’s the leader, Kaldur will be a bit more interesting to watch. Stoics are always a tricky character to make interesting, and the show hasn’t done the character any favors by sticking him with the dull task of spelling out the theme of the episode for the audience, so I’ll be curious to see how the burden of leadership affects him. Khary Payton, thankfully, sells its pretty well. If I didn’t know he had voiced Cyborg on Teen Titans, I probably wouldn’t be able to tell.

But onto what wasn’t working: the ‘shipping. I get it, I do. They’re in their teens, they spend a lot of time together, it’s natural that they’re going to be all awkward and adorable around each other (“You do have great ears.” BLUSH.). That being said, while this episode thankfully doesn’t overplay the gender stuff like “Happy Harbor” saw fit to do, I’m not interested (and I’ll add “yet” to that since it could happen) in the triangles forming up, with M’gaan interested in Kon-El while it seems each of the boys (but particularly Wally) is interested in her.

I’ll be happier when this begins to form into something beyond random crushes because then the show will allow characterization to drive the romance and not the mandates of appealing to demographics. Right now, the romantic aspects  feels artificial and shoe-horned in and unnatural instead of charmingly awkward. Again, perhaps Artemis’ arrival (when is that happening?) will help sort some of this out.

Which leads to one last point: I’m building up Artemis a bit too much in my mind, I think, as a linchpin that will help solve many of my problems with the show. This obviously isn’t the case, but the show feels like it needs another character on the team (and I know more regulars are coming after Artemis joins) to round out the dynamics a bit.

FINAL THOUGHTS

• I like characters like Sportsmaster (or Taskmaster in the Marvel universe) with photographic reflexes, but the character design was way too Casey Jones for me.
• Along those lines, I appreciate that Bane’s design wasn’t over the top and that they allowed the character to show that he wasn’t all muscle, but brains as well.
• Eager to see where the series goes with its Cadmus plot. I liked the idea great deal to mix the venom drug with the blockbuster serum, the two are an organic fit.
• “I am plagued by mosquitoes.”
• Villains this week, by the way, that I didn’t mention: King Snake, Shimmer, and Mammoth. I kind of knew King Snake, but Shimmer and Mammoth were new to me. I’ll try and do this each week since the show is digging deep into the DC Universe for villains, which I totally approve of.