Official Synopsis:
“A conqueror from another world becomes a wild card in an intergalactic game of supremacy — placing planet Earth square in the jackpot.”
If you have not seen this episode yet and don’t want to be spoiled, do not continue reading!
REVIEW
It really gets difficult to be critical when you don’t know whether the writers for the show knew that their show would get cancelled or not. “War” left me scratching my head for some of its actions.
After having been absent for twelve episodes since their departure for Rimbor way back in the third episode, we finally see the away members of the Justice League on trial. Despite having some satisfaction in seeing them back on the show, one can’t help but wonder whether they will be back for the show’s final episodes. I hope that they will at least be in the finale, because that plot has been going on for too long and too much off screen.
One of DC Comic’s familiar villains made his debut in the Young Justice universe: Mongul. Compared to his appearances n Justice League/Unlimited and the Superman/Batman: Public Enemies film, I felt that he had a more impacting presence here. While his battle against several of our young heroes did give us some great and enjoyable action sequences, I was struggling with the thought of whether this was a good choice of character for the overall plot or not. He seemed be just one of those “one-time-appearance” villains, instead of a villain that might play a big part of the overall plot. If he does show up again, though, I will definitely be cheering.
I have enjoyed so many of the relationships on this show, like Wally/Artemis and Superboy/Miss Martian, but if there is one that I have been genuinely bored by, it’s the Mal and Karen relationship. These two characters haven’t been well-developed, and aren’t that engaging when they give cheesy lines or have arguments that really aren’t relevant or enjoyable to watch. Despite being somewhat useful in this episode, they have been as useless as Lagoon Boy.
Like the cliffhanger from ”Runaways,” we got another shocking strike by the beetle in blue with a lot of suspense. Will Blue make them prisoners of the Reach so that they can’t discover and spread the Reach’s true intentions? Will he just leave them there and make it official that he is now an agent of theirs?
Again, I have to struggle with the whole ”did they or did they not know about the upcoming cancellation during the time of writing and producing this episode?” feeling as Blue’s action seemed a bit too early. At the same time—due to the show’s situation—it’s fitting right into the build up for the last episodes. I will be disappointed if the Blue Beetle-plot gets left unresolved in the finale, as well as several untied knots.
Overall, “War” was a fun and engaging episode that ended with another big cliffhanger. Hopefully it will only get better and better as we get closer to the series finale, which will have been greatly built up by the last episodes of the series.
ODDS & ENDS
- I can see why heroes like Superman, Martian Manhunter and Wonder Woman would agree to be handcuffed during the trial, but someone as stubborn as Batman would probably not be as easy to convince. that would had been a conversation/scenE I would had loved to see. (For the record, how did Vandal Savage get up there?!)
- Despite the way I felt about the two of them in “War”, I was actually laughing hysterically when Mal told Karen, ”Woman, when are you not in the middle of a mission?!” At the same time, I’m really not digging him wearing the Guardian suit.
- A part of me does admit that the song “War” (by Edwin Starr) was playing in my head during the whole episode. You are lying to yourself if you wouldn’t have enjoyed having that song being played during the fight against of Mongul.
- At this point, I wouldn’t have mind seeing Roy wearing a baseball cap like he does in The New 52, because I don’t like that haircut at all.
- I’m going to do this until he does show up again: where the heck is Wally West?!
Young Justice airs on Saturdays, 10:30 AM on the DC Nation block on Cartoon Network.
1 Comment
I am absolutely sure that the writers didn’t know that this show was gonna get canceled when they wrote these episodes because they wrote the last episode months ago and Greg Weisman said that they had an infinite number of seasons planned. I wouldn’t be surprised if this season ended with a cliffhanger. Hopefully, we can convince Cartoon Network to renew “Young Justice” by the time the season finale airs.