Black Manta

Black Manta

Tuesday, May 15, 2012

The 5 Year Fix: Young Justice

Young Justice has been arresting animation that's been full of action from the word go. Brandon Vietti and Greg Weisman has put together an animation series that's an instant classic and is already one of the greatest shows ever produced. Each episode has been one homerun hit after the other giving every DC fan exactly what we want from each young titan; and some superfriend backup from the JLA. Which leads right into Alienated. I was a little sceptical of the 5 year jump, especially after Zatanna and Rocket had just been introduced. It was some things that hadn't been dealt with, the focus was moving away from the young justice team and it was a little to much JLA. Well.....all my doubts were put to rest.


The show opens up with Bumble Bee and Blue Beetle chasing a Krolotean. The alien escapes thru the sewers and joins Black Manta on a smaller version of the Manta sub. At home base Ms. Martian returns from the zeta team mission with zeta beam intel and the answers to the missing 16hrs of the seven JLA members that was brainwashed by Vandal Savage.


A disturbing development with Ms. Martian's mindreading abilities has been leaving Kroloteans slobbering vegetables, but it leads the teams to a secret island hideout. This is where it really gets good. The island is crawling with manta men and we get to see the Darkknight detective at his kick ass best. Black Manta is revealed as Kaldur'ahm, he opens up his own can of whoop ass on the team and as it looks like the manta men and Kroloteans might overrun our heroes, Superman and Kon-El burst in with Wonder Woman and Wonder girl to turn the tide.


This episode was so good I have to give a shout out to the director MelZweyer and the writer of this episode Kevin Hopps. They get the highest reconition for this one, the ep. had everything. Aquaman had a good showing,


 Nightwing and the Bat family show all kinds of coordinated muscle and finesse.
















  Aqualad's shrewed leadership and combat skills are on full display as well. But the show stopper was the confrontation between Kaldur and superboy, it  had a grown man jumping off of the sofa like a kid. To see his power progression and character growth amplified my interest in the show and DC as a whole. I always talk about how good Geoff Johns has done with Black Manta. Vietti and Weisman are right there with him running neck and neck making Black Manta into a top flight villain.


Kaldur has now taken his fathers mantle as the Black Manta, hopefully when he really sees the light and return to being a hero he'll come back with a new codename and Garth can become Aqualad.
Nightwing has jumped up the ranks on my favorites list. His smart and empathetic leadership added to his fighting and tactical skills are just ..... plus 10. Even as reluctant rivals Kaldur and Nightwing really don't want to hurt each other. Dick showed this by not ambushing him and trying to talk to his friend about the situation. Kaldur showed the same by not killing Kal-El and telling Nightwing exactly how long he had to evacuate the rest of the team so they wouldn't die in the explosion.
Alienated is tough guy awesomness.

12 comments:

  1. Yeah I've been really digging YJ myself lately. Even more so than GL, only for the really cool storylines/plots. With GL, you kind of know what's going to happen, but with YJ, there's a new twist and turn every episode. Too bad the comics can't be this good!

    Also, loving the fact they went with revealing the true traitor of the team was Aqualad all along, since he's Black Manta's son. We all know(maybe) that'll this will either be a set-up against the bad guys, or he'll switch sides towards the end, but what a ride huh?

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    1. No doubt he will be back to the side of the angels but this was a hella of episode for me. Being an undercover agent would be so predictable and ordinary. Drama! That's what I want, a real relationship (a good one) between father and son but the moral issues of right and wrong to pull my dude from the darkside.

      GL has been ok it's just not intense. Tell me something, when is DC universe classics ending?

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  2. the only thing i don't like about the way they jump ahead in time is that we didn't get to find out (yet) what the Light did with the suspended animation one armed Roy Harper. but i'm other wise loving this show as if you haven't figured that out from the SS blog.

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  3. Yeah I'm curious also. Roy is suppose to show up in the next Young Justice looking a little scruffy from the field. I wonder what are they going to do with him now that the real Roy is coming into the show?

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    1. i'm guessing either some kind of grand act of self sacrifice or he goes and "walks the Earth" like Kane from Kung Fu :)

      by the way OA1 thanks for visiting me at the ROM blog. as you can see i'm a sucker for underdog titles. ROM Spaceknight is to me when it comes to Marvel what the Squad is when it comes to DC.

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    2. Shlomo my man, God loves wonderous variety and so do I. So I am going to come thru and travel the spaceways with ROM.

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  4. Good question Omeg. They damn sure haven't told us if that was the real Roy we saw or another clone mean to fuck with the heads of the JL/YJ.

    What was that DCUC Red Arrow? You say that wasn't you in there? Shit man, shouldn't have stepped out for that cold medicine, you missed the whole thing.

    Yeah I have him, and expect plenty of drug/junkie jokes....you've been warned.

    Omega, DCUC ends with Wave 20, but DC/Mattel claims there's another wave to officially wrap things up until 2013. Don't know if that's true, but check out Itsalltrue.net for all the up to the minute DC/Mattel toy news.

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    1. Thank you good sir for the intel. Maybe this little break will give me time to go back and find the guys and parts I missed. Or make my pockets a little stronger. Drugs, junkies and jokes sounds like good times all around.

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  5. And you know this.....mannnnnnn!
    Gotta' love Friday...the move that is.....

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    1. I saw the new ep.of Young Justice and Roy is in pretty bad shape. Nice reveal at the end.

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  6. I'll have to check it out, need to make room on the DVR....

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  7. This is one of the best episodes yet, if not the best. Make some room my friend. See you back here in a day or so.

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