Young Justice: Downtime Rewatch
November 30, 2016 6:38 PM - Season 1, Episode 8 - Subscribe
When Aqualad makes a visit to Atlantis, and contemplates leaving the Team, the undersea city is attacked by Black Manta. Also, a look at family life for Wally, Dick, and Artemis.
This is my favorite Season 1 episode! I love the depiction of Atlantis, which here is like an undersea Game of Thrones, with a big helping of Hogwarts thrown in. Since this Aqualad is a new character created for the show, we get a brief overview of his origins. We get to see Garth, who in the comics was Aqualad instead of Kaldur’ahm, and later becomes Tempest, as we see here. We also get to see Tula/Aquagirl, who unfortunately, we don’t get to see again, since she gets fridged, off-screen, between Seasons 1 and 2, which kind of casts a dark shadow on what is otherwise a great episode.
There’s a lot going on in the background of this episode. We get a glimpse of Lori Lemaris, one of Superman’s exes, and Lagoon Boy, who plays a big role in Season 2.
It’s never explicitly shown here, but if you know anything from the comics, you know that Aquaman’s brother, Prince Orm, is actually Ocean Master, Aquamans arch-enemy. We don’t see a whole lot of him in the series, and he is completely out of the picture by the start of Season 2. For the fate of Ocean Master, you will have to read the tie-in comic, which is written also written by Weisman.
And Mera, as depicted here, is BAD ASS. Whatever you do, you DO NOT want to piss off Mera, because she will FUCK YOU UP with her magical cephalopod water constructs. I hope the people who are making the Aquaman movie saw this and took notes, because DAAAMN.
This is my favorite Season 1 episode! I love the depiction of Atlantis, which here is like an undersea Game of Thrones, with a big helping of Hogwarts thrown in. Since this Aqualad is a new character created for the show, we get a brief overview of his origins. We get to see Garth, who in the comics was Aqualad instead of Kaldur’ahm, and later becomes Tempest, as we see here. We also get to see Tula/Aquagirl, who unfortunately, we don’t get to see again, since she gets fridged, off-screen, between Seasons 1 and 2, which kind of casts a dark shadow on what is otherwise a great episode.
There’s a lot going on in the background of this episode. We get a glimpse of Lori Lemaris, one of Superman’s exes, and Lagoon Boy, who plays a big role in Season 2.
It’s never explicitly shown here, but if you know anything from the comics, you know that Aquaman’s brother, Prince Orm, is actually Ocean Master, Aquamans arch-enemy. We don’t see a whole lot of him in the series, and he is completely out of the picture by the start of Season 2. For the fate of Ocean Master, you will have to read the tie-in comic, which is written also written by Weisman.
And Mera, as depicted here, is BAD ASS. Whatever you do, you DO NOT want to piss off Mera, because she will FUCK YOU UP with her magical cephalopod water constructs. I hope the people who are making the Aquaman movie saw this and took notes, because DAAAMN.
The animation was really lovely in this episode. I tend to be puttering around on my computer or phone a little while I'm watching tv, but for this one I was much more drawn in by how beautiful everything looked.
posted by oh yeah! at 9:22 AM on December 3, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by oh yeah! at 9:22 AM on December 3, 2016 [1 favorite]
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Stuff:
* Normally, I cringe at relationship stuff in superhero properties. Kaldur/Garth/Tula was handled very well though - it was shown as a natural progression, they all still cared about each other, and you could see where each of them was coming from. I wish more superhero properties would put that much thought into romance. Kaldur's final exchange with Garth was more mature than anything that will ever occur on the CW Flash, for instance.
(I was also disappointed in Tula's fridging later - the show seemed better than that.)
* I like YJ-Aquaman. I've seen a different takes on the character that worked - he's an angry guy JLU, he's a Large Ham in BtBatB and he's good in both places - but dignified and regal is appropriate here. He comes across as a very responsible parental figure and role model, which tracks with Kaldur's more mature personality relative to the rest of the team.
* This Mera's great too.
And Mera, as depicted here, is BAD ASS. Whatever you do, you DO NOT want to piss off Mera, because she will FUCK YOU UP with her magical cephalopod water constructs. I hope the people who are making the Aquaman movie saw this and took notes, because DAAAMN.
I sincerely hope they paid attention here, yes. I would love to see a live action version of something like this done properly.
posted by mordax at 12:09 PM on December 1, 2016