Monsters of Television

“Hello Megan!”

Um. Yeah. No. That wasn’t good.

Red Tornado is totally photo-blocking Young Justice's big damn heroes moment.

I’ll grade on a curve since the episode does have the difficult task of still establishing the foundation of the team’s dynamics and introducing a new character (and we still have one more team member to introduce (when does Artemis join up, and can it be sooner rather than later?) only makes me a little nervous about the show) in an episode that doesn’t allow much room to breathe, and what breathing room there is isn’t very well done.

What it boils down to is that the show itself hasn’t figure out the dynamics of its core cast yet. And this is different from the characters not having their dynamics figured out yet. One is poor planning and murky writing while the other is drama.

But is only the third episode, so there’s still time to figure all that out.

Part of the episode’s challenge is that it needs to introduce Miss Martian (aka M’gann aka Megan) into the group, which is difficult. In the pilot episode, there was no explanation of the powers of anyone. Here, though, we cycle through Miss Martian’s abilities (telepathy, shapeshifting, flight, organic jet (but no density shifting)) and it frankly feels more than a little blocky. Everyone in the show already knows a Martian’s abilities (Manhunter is mentioned), so to cycle through these within the diegesis is a tad unnecessary.

I, of course, understand the reason why the show does this: Manhunter isn’t as well-known a character as his more prominent colleagues, and younger or newer audiences to the DC Universe may not familiar with him and his abilities, making the showcase necessary for newcomers. I would’ve just liked it to feel a bit more organic.

But dynamics within the group likewise make things feel off. It’s one thing for them to be unorganized during battle with Mister Twister, but when the cold open shows them handling Brick and his weapons smuggler with nary a discussion of teamwork or conflict, that they’re unable to better work together, or take a minute to form a strategy, seems forced. Did Miss Martian throw them off that much?

I’m not at all familiar with the character of Miss Martian from the comics, and to my knowledge she never appeared in Justice League (given that J’onn was the only Martian survivor in that series, it seems I would be correct), so I only have this to go on. I go back and forth on what I thought of Miss Martian’s portrayal here: one the one hand she’s trying very hard to fit in among these established crime fighters (and Superboy) but on the other, they play up the ditz a little too often for my taste. Hopefully this scales back or the show at least provides a foil for this at some point, someone who isn’t invested in wooing her.

As for the villain, I like their android approach for Mister Twister (way better than a dude with a wand (and voiced by John de Lancie!)). And if there’s one thing that Greg Weisman does well is setting up storylines to pay them off later. So having Bromwell Stikk and T.O. Morrow working together to discover Red Tornado’s location, and thus be an on-going threat to the team, is a nice way to set up stories for the future.

And that’s one thing I need to keep in mind: The show is still in the foundation stage. And the writers and producers have considerable experience with long-form storytelling, both with original and established content. I suppose I should be a little more patient with the show’s growth. So even though I didn’t enjoy the episode all that much, I’m sticking around to see if it improves.

FINAL THOUGHTS

• Miss Martian is cute and all, but, guys, Black Canary is your combat trainer. Aim higher.
• “I have a heart. Carbon steel alloy. I also have excellent hearing.” Oh, Red Tornado. The ultimate deadpan snarker.
• “Mimicking boys is a lot harder.” (Don’t want to know how many fans squee’d at the sight of Dick Grayson with breasts.)
• I feel pretty awful for Happy Harbor. Power plant kind of demolished, municipal buildings totally demolished. I doubt that place, given its location, has a great economy. Hopefully they’re insured for supervillains.
• Happy to have Jeff Bennett on the voice cast. Always a treat.