Five Years Later isn’t exactly something some DC Comics fans like to see done to their favorite characters…
What They Say:
Happy New Year – The team battles an intergalactic bounty hunter.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
After a haphazard first season with its airing schedule, digging right into the second season, renamed to Young Justice: Invasion just to screw with everyone who has a DVR, is definitely a big plus. And even better it’s starting off by putting the question out there for the League to figure out what happened during the sixteen hours that they were under Vandal Savage’s control. With his grand scale plans that are often put into effect, the fear that he managed to utilize them in a number of different ways is something that is gnawing at them in a big way. Thankfully, the show focuses largely on the team themselves, first by giving us a look five years into the future with a neat little nod to what they can become.
What makes this show fun beyond the simply comic book geeky moments in seeing the changes made here to the characters, relationships and team make-up is that it runs with Lobo showing up on the scene. The main man is a favorite of mine from many, many years ago when he was used to mock everything that comics had become, so getting to see him go toe to toe with Wonder Girl here in a side story moment that also involves a very fun incarnation of Batgirl is just a treat. Lobo’s arrival brings a new pivot moment for the show as it gives certain news broadcasters a chance to rave on about aliens being everywhere and what kind of threat they are. While Superman is someone they can hold up as a positive when it comes to aliens, there are far more of the bad type and that’s something that can raise the paranoia flags easily.
Lobo ends up revealing a deeper problem on Earth with a hidden group of aliens there and that leads to a bit of what happened five years prior being discovered as the League itself isn’t allowed in the area of space that these aliens came from because they’re all listed as wanted criminals. That puts the non-League team on the move, splitting up to deal with things on Earth first. This lets us focus on one smaller group with the Tim Drake Robin, Blue Beetle and someone else that I’m not familiar with from the comics. It is fun to watch them, especially since we get some interplay with the older Dick Grayson now as Nightwing, but since it doesn’t spend much time overall with the team we spent the first season with, it just feels a little off and disconnected.
In Summary:
The first season of Young Justice ended in a bit of a rushed form but it did a lot of things right and left me pretty pleased with it. Here, it picks up a little bit from where we left off but then shifts five years to the future, doesn’t keep us with all the same characters as some are missing while others have changed, but then wants to work with the link to that story from the past. It’s not a bad idea, but it’s one that in the short time frame here (of this part, it is continued next episode) doesn’t work too well as it just feels overly rushed and missing some key things to smooth over the transition. There’s a lot here that the comics fans will like in seeing with particular characters and the shift to visiting Rann at the end with a smaller subset of the team going there for their mission, but a lot of it just feels like a bunch of interesting scenes thrown together that have a slim connection to each other. I can enjoy it for what it is, but it’s nto an episode that just grabs me and holds me for the story yet.
Grade: B
