Young Justice: Drop-Zone   Rewatch 
November 16, 2016 6:50 PM - Season 1, Episode 4 - Subscribe

The team is sent on their first covert mission, but in order to complete their mission, they must first resolve their leadership issues.

I’m going to stick to updates on Wednesdays and Sundays for the time being.

After one of the weakest episodes in the series, the show quickly bounces back with a strong one. Like the best episodes in the series, it never lets up on the action, has well-choreographed fight scenes, yet still manages to move the series arc forward, AND has some important character growth moments. Very hard to do, but this show makes it look easy.

Unlike most of his post-Knightfall appearances, the character of Bane is shown here to be a formidable strategist. Kobra, an evil cult bent on world domination, is DC’s version of Marvel’s Hydra. Sportsmaster, who originated as a jokey Batman villain, is much more serious here, and will be one of the primary antagonists in the show.

The character of Mammoth basically has the exact same origin as Blockbuster in the pilot. The body-morphing theme, which the show will keep hitting on, along with similar themes like cloning, or being turned into a robot, represent the changes that people go through during adolescence.
posted by 1970s Antihero (1 comment total)
 
A fun one. In particular:

* I like YJ Bane. As you point out, he's *smart*, and that's needed in a true Batman nemesis. This Bane is a believable threat, even though he's completely out of his depth here. Being able to make both things true at the same time is good storytelling.

* I like Sportsmaster as a credible menace. I don't want to spoil, but he really is tons of fun going forward. I feel like it's the mark of a good superhero story to be able to mix goofiness and seriousness the way they do with him, starting right here.

* Something I always enjoyed about YJ is that they feel like teenagers. They don't really know who they are yet, but they're mature enough to get that and try to grapple with it in their own ways. They're learning how to be a team, learning how to be themselves, and it's good.

* King Kobra or whatever his name is was hilarious. "Sometimes a god must stoop to conquer." Thanks, bro. I appreciated that he was canny enough to just leave when Superboy and Miss Martian were back in the mix, without dropping the schtick.

* I always loved the fight scenes on this show.
posted by mordax at 1:08 PM on November 18, 2016


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