Fans of Young Justice had to suffer yet another unexplained hiatus back in October, but it and the DC Nation block finally returned this past week with a very strong episode.
Official synopsis:
“Shocking secrets are uncovered during a mission by the team, Blue Beetle and Miss Martian.”
If you have not seen this episode yet and don’t want to be spoiled, do not continue reading!
Review:
If this episode had been an official mid-season finale, it would have been a great one for sure, because we got some big cliffhangers. The thing that shocked me the most was Miss Martian’s telepathic attack on Aqualad, as she found out the truth about everything that Nightwing, Wally, Artemis and Aqualad had been hiding from the entire team this season. The question left hanging is whether or not Aqualad is going to survive, because the attack was so big that it’s now left him in a catatonic state.
It didn’t hit me until this episode how dark Miss Martian has become, and I don’t understand how she got to this point. Season 1 ended on quite a good note for her, and so far during this second season, I can’t think of anything that has affected her negatively (aside from the capturing of Lagoon Boy and the “death” of Artemis) so I’m not really understanding what her deal is. I suspect it has to do with the revelation of her being a White Martian; that’s the only thing that I can think of that could have encouraged her to use her mind powers to leave her enemies in catatonic states without feeling remorse, until she did it to Aqualad. I feel that somewhere during this season, the writers missed the opportunity to explain this change. But who knows, it could be me missing something from previous episodes.
The threat that the team (but mostly Blue Beetle) had to deal with in “Before the Dawn” was the Black Beetle, a villain from Blue Beetle’s rouges gallery in the comics. I found the struggle that Jaime has because of the “inner beetle” very interesting, like I mentioned in my previous review. I hope it won’t be long before Jaime has to face Black again, because seeing what those Beetle suits could do was incredible. Black was kind of a fun villain in general.
Something that was also quite intriguing with this part of the episode was the reveal of the main reason Impulse went back to the past: to stop Blue from becoming a bad beetle and bringing on the so-called “Reach Apocalypse.” This is something that I think will play an even bigger part now with the struggle of trusting the inner beetle.
The clever tactic that the Reach played by going public and reaching out to the United Nations while hiding their real agenda was something I didn’t see coming either. Our beloved heroes were incredibly irritated by this, and it didn’t help to also have Gordon Godfrey rubbing it in their faces. I hope the network can air these next 10 episodes straight through now, because this season just got even more interesting.
Overall, “Before the Dawn” was a great follow-up from “Darkest,” with great action sequences and some really good progress in the multiple storylines of this season. We’ll probably have some big confrontations for characters like Nightwing and Wally, while characters like Superboy may confront Miss Martian over the line that she has crossed, because he didn’t look happy in the end.
Small trivia:
- This episode makes me wish even more that the live-action Blue Beetle show could had happened.
- Ted Kord’s company, Kord Industries, makes a small cameo at the beginning of the episode when Jaime is skating by before it explodes. This marks the second Ted Kord mention; he had a holographic cameo in “Satisfaction.”
- The appearance of the Black Beetle marks the first animated appearance of the character, voiced by Kevin Grevioux.
- In the end credits, Mae Whitman , who voices Cassie Sandsmark/Wonder Girl, was also credited for voicing Stephanie Brown. This marks the first appearance of the character in the media since her missing absence from the comics. Stephanie Brown was known as the crime-fighter Spoiler and also was also for a small time the fourth Robin before she became the third Batgirl. Ever since the character got pulled from the comics, Brown has apparently been forbidden of being used at all by DC Comics in any comics, including Smallville Season 11, and other media like video games, too. Could the usage of the character be one of the reasons why this episode got pulled off the air in the last minute?
Young Justice airs on Saturdays, 10.30 AM on the DC Nation block on Cartoon Network.
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