The future isn’t what it should be, and changing the past to fix it is only going to cause more problems.
What They Say:
Bloodlines
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
With the way Young Justice kind of plays with familiar events from the comics over the years, bending them and twisting them a bit along with a whole lot of acceleration, it can definitely be fun if a little off-putting at times. Such is this episode where we get the hint that the Kroloteans have been checking out humanity to find the metagene, something that makes sense to the long time fans to be sure. But all of this is just something to tease at the start as the real fun is the arrival of Bart Allen, aka Impulse, as he lands right inside Mount Justice when Nightwing, Robin and Beast Boy are talking through some of their discoveries. With them having dealt with speedsters before, he’s a challenge but not too much of one all things considered.
Bart brings a whole lot of future timeline fun here as he knows a whole lot of their secrets and kind of spills a few of them too, which helps to reinforce that he may be who he says he is. There’s a lot of fun with this as it brings Barry into play as well as others, from Iris and Jay as well as Wally coming in to help with it all. Naturally, you can’t have this many heroes together in one place without some bad things happening, which is why Neutron shows up and lets us have a slew of speedsters getting into the fun. Not that they work together well at first, but that’s half of the fun right there, especially with the way Impulse plays up the whole banter angle a lot more than most of the present day heroes do.
Dealing with Neutron is obviously the big action part of the show, but seeing the trio work together is a lot of fun, especially as the whole situation just goes over the top with what happens. It’s the kind of devastation that you don’t quite expect at first and you instantly start figuring time travel will come into play with it. But seeing how Neutron is dealt with and the manipulations with the Kroloteans keeps it uncertain about what’s going to happen. There’s a lot of mysteries introduced here, especially with what Bart is really doing here, but it brings in a lot of very good stuff as well, including the old school awesome Flash in Jay for a bit. The scale of the problem being dealt with is given a bit more due here with Bart’s arrival and that offers up a lot more potential.
In Summary:
Young Justice: Invasion provides a really, really good episode here as it introduces one of my favorite characters from years ago with Bart Allen. The character lost his way in the comics far too much over the years, so going back to the basics here with him working with the others in the Flash Family is spot on. I didn’t care for what happened to Central City though as that felt like it was just too much destruction and potential for death that’s glossed over too lightly. The show also brings in a subplot with Red Arrow and Chesire as they go looking for the original Roy with the League of Shadows, but it doesn’t captivate like the whole time travel side of the storyline does and the use of so many of my favorite Flash characters. Very, very fun stuff here.
Grade: A-
