#yj spec

[emilyarmadillo]

[mattzerella-sticks]

I’m curious about the main villain for this season of Young Justice, especially since we have the Legion of Super Heroes stepping in.

Like - of course, as always the Light/Apokolips will be behind the scenes as the main villains and it’s not like they’ve resolved the meta trafficking plot line... but the season villain is up for grabs as I doubt the Legion has come back for that. They might be, but I have another idea.

Mainly, inspired by a recent 4-issue comic I finished that featured a crossover between the Legion of Super Heroes and Titans that featured Saturn Girl as a main player, going up against a relative of hers. This relative gained control of their home planet Titan, moon of Saturn, and then took control of Earth before being stopped by Saturn Girl and, at the time, Lillith going back in time - psychically - to stop the chain of events that would bring the Titans to the future.

Of course, there would be changes. Instead of the Titans being thrust into the future, this deals with the Legion being sent back in time to keep the present unchanged. I also see M’gann taking on the Lillith role, the transplanting of Mars and Earth - sowing the discord there - subsceding the oringial mini-series plot with Titan and Earth. I can also see the M’gann and her sister replacing the conflict between Kori and Komand’r that appeared in the books.

And the fact that we had a scene of the Outsiders facing a group of cultists trying to brainwash people, very similarly to how the Titans ended up in the future (a failed assault against Brother Blood and the Blood Cultists) could have been a clue.

This is all speculation of course...

[emilyarmadillo]

Dick's death was oddly neat considering the amount of gore in season 3. Just a cut and some blood. And the Kryptonians heard his heart stop, but I'm remembering a time when Dick convinced Conner that Artemis's heart stopped, and she wasn't really dead...

[emilyarmadillo]

Putting this on my blog tonight for good luck ⚡

[emilyarmadillo]

Bart stole five inhibitor collars. That can't be for no reason. So here's what I'm picturing: Wally, breaking into the bioship at super speed, grabbing the two remaining collars and putting them on M'comm and Lor-Zod, paralleling the scene where Bart tries to do that and blowing our minds because Wally is fast enough that Lor doesn't stop him. I would like this next week please thank you.

[emilyarmadillo]

Wally busting into the bioship from the timestream and seeing this

[emilyarmadillo]

Here're my interpretations of the arc 6 watchlist:

Episodes: 4.14, 4.15, 4.17, 4.18, 4.19, 4.20, 4.21

Importance: Conner in the Phantom Zone

Episodes: 1.10, 1.11, 1.25

Importance: Early Supermartian moments that I think Conner will either hallucinate before he gets out of the Phantom Zone, or will appear in his memories if M'gann needs to go into his mind to de-brainwash him after the zone sickness/Zod/everyting.

Episodes: 3.3, 3.13, 3.14, 3.19, 3.20, 3.24, 3.26

Importance: All involve Violet and/or the Markovs. I don't know how Markovia ties into the Conner plot, but it definitely seems like Violet will get more screentime. If they had a new rainbow power that worked as a Phantom Zone projector that would be very helpful /hj

Episodes: 1.19, 3.25, 4.9, 4.13, 4.21

Importance: Zatanna. She's instigating the arc by bringing Dick the mystery (4.21). I also think that Artemis is going to learn that Zatanna and M'gann lied to her in Overwhelmed (3.25). The others on this list are a little harder to explain. If Doctor Fate is involved, that could explain the inclusion of 1.19, 4.9, and 4.13. It's also true that 1.19 is a big episode for Captain Marvel, and 4.13 has the after-credits scene of Mary going dark, but I seriously doubt that that is going to be addressed this season. There are just too many other things going on.

Episodes: 1.10, 1.25, 4.8

Importance: I know a lot of people want to read into these that Jade and the League of Assassins and maybe even Jason and Damian are going to make an appearance. Me included. But I don't see it happening. As I said above, I think the season one episodes are there for their Supermartian B plots. 4.8 includes the scenes with Jon and Clark reacting to Conner's death. If the League was going to show up, all four episodes of Artemis's arc would probably be on the list, not just one.

Episode: Performance

Importance: Dick-centric episode for the Dick-centric arc. If you show me Flying Grayson flashbacks I swear I will cry.

Episode: Independence Day

Importance: Remember when the team released Superboy and he attacked them because of the brainwashing? I sure hope nothing like that happens again 👀. I just want to see the founding members of the team together again.

I ⚡ can't wait ⚡ to see ⚡ how everything ⚡ works ⚡ out ⚡⚡⚡😉

[emilyarmadillo]

Get traught and mark your calendars because we are going to see Wally West on June 28th. The titles of the last four episodes of season 3, Terminus, Into the Breach, Overwhelmed, and Nevermore, can give us an idea of what’s going to go down and who’s going to be there- and Wally will be there.

Episode twenty-three: Terminus. As many people have already noted, Terminus is the Roman god of boundaries. This could represent the division between the normal universe and the timestream/speedforce*. But here’s another thought: terminus, like terminate. Terminate, a verb meaning ‘bring to an end’. Synonyms would be conclude, finish, or cease. Recall what Blue Beetle’s scarab said: “In sixteen seconds, the Kid Flash shall cease.”

Picture this: the episode opens by replaying Wally’s last moments before he Ceases. But surprisingly, he doesn’t disappear- Bart and Barry do. The episode continues from Wally’s perspective. After he disappears, Wally’s lost in the speedforce/timestream/whatever and trying to find his way back through a jumble of scenes from the past and from possible futures. Terminus as a boundary to the place of the terminated, the place of the ceased. As a bonus, an episode in the timestream would be a great opportunity to throw in any extra flashbacks they want to fit in leading up to the finale (Tara’s past? Jason’s resurrection?). That’s one episode to see where Wally’s been. The next episode, to bring him back.

Episode twenty-four: Into the Breach. A breach is a gap or breakthrough. Could it be a break through the boundary, the terminus? By the end of this episode, I hope to see Wally back on our plane of existence. Somehow, they find a way into the timestream dimension. It might make sense if this is a new function of Violet’s Boom Tube power, but it’s also possible that it will involve Vibe. If you watch The Flash, you know his power creates “breaches” into other worlds. Also, we saw him just a few episodes ago (Victor’s classmate Cisco), so they may be setting up for that. Another way to look at it: Into The Breach is an idiom, meaning to provide sorely needed help. This could be Wally if it turns out that he’s the key to solving the season’s climactic problem- more on that in a little while. From Wally’s perspective, he could be leaving the remoteness of the speed force to dive into the breach- back into the chaos of the real world.

Episode twenty-five: Overwhelmed. That’s over, plus whelmed. Whelmed is one of YJ’s oldest and most beloved jokes. In the first episode, Wally is overwhelmed, Freeze is underwhelmed and hey, why isn’t anybody ever just whelmed? Whelmed is the team. Like Hello Megan, Crash, and Moded, current and former members of the team share Dick-style unwords as part of their vocabulary. So what is overwhelmed? What does it take to get someone to admit that they are over-whelmed?

(What is it with you and this whelmed thing?)

As I said, in the first episode, Wally is overwhelmed. Dick makes up whelmed, and the joke continues as the team heads to Cadmus for the first time. Hopefully, this episode will call back to that mission. I would love for this to be an episode driven by the original three, Dick, Wally, and Kaldur, finally reunited. This would be pretty epic- remember the season 2 finale, when Dick comments that he strongly feels Wally’s loss from their trio. It would also be, undeniably, overwhelming. So Overwhelmed is (1) a reference to the three sidekicks who started the team, (2) the overwhelming joy of being reunited, and, I’m guessing, (3) the heroes being overwhelmed by the coming disaster. There’s hardly time to hang out and catch up when they’re trying to prevent the Anti-Life Equation from being let loose. So Wally comes back only to be thrown into another crisis. Despite the teams’ best efforts, the Equation will likely be released by the end of this episode.

Episode twenty-six: Nevermore. First, a few notes about the Anti-Life Equation. I’ve never read/watched any media with it before, but here’s what I’ve learned from my research: the ALE is a mathematical explanation of the futility of life, and once a person is exposed to it, they lose the will to live and basically become zombies who will do whatever they’re told. When you look at the title Nevermore, you may be reminded of Edgar Allen Poe’s poem The Raven. The poem ends like this: "And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor/Shall be lifted—nevermore". Poe is describing the feeling of having your heart sink- and never lift back up again. This may be referencing the moment a person is exposed by the ALE, when they lose their will.

Another thing I learned about the Anti Life Equation is that having electricity powers can make someone immune to the equation, because if effects the brain, which is an electrochemical organ. Knowing that, you can see why they made Black Lightning a major character this season. By this episode, we’re going to be losing allies to the Equation as heroes become infected, and Jeff could be one of the ones who escapes it. Maybe he could even use his powers to free others from it. But there’s a big difference between curing people one at a time to saving a whole species if we’re thinking the entire Earth’s going to be infected. Not to state the obvious, but the Flash and other speedsters are associated with lightning. If Jeff (and maybe Virgil) can countermand the effects of the equation, maybe Wally and the other speedsters can somehow distribute the effect on a planetary scale. I’m imagining a special sort of lightning Jeff generates that can hitch a ride on the speed trails of Flash and Kid Flash squared, particularly if Wally came back with special speedforce energy. It’s also possible that Barry and Bart will have already been infected and it will be up to Wally alone to spread Jeff’s electrical cure. In that case he would be the key to saving the world.

One more meaning - after everything, with the world saved again, there’ll be time for other things. Wally can reconnect with his family and friends (Supermartian wedding?). And he can make a promise: He’ll nevermore be away from who he loves. If this is an end, let it be the end of separation and sadness.

To recap: Terminus, what’s beyond the boundary to the place of the ceased. Into the Beach, reaching through the barrier to find help. Overwhelmed, a big episode for members of the original team, and a big buildup to the finale. Nevermore, confrontation of the Anti-Life Equation, and hopefully triumph over it.

And if that’s where we’re headed… I’m a little overwhelmed.

  *on the speedforce and whether it exists in YJ: on one hand, I totally get the denial that there’s a speedforce expressed by some of the showrunners. I prefer the ideas that speedsters have increased metabolic rates and mutated muscular mechanisms that allow then to move at superhuman speeds than that they have access to some weird god-like Fast Energy (which sounds very dumb). On the other hand, the speedforce as a concept has a tendency to get intertwined with the timestream and/or spacetime continuum. Time travel definitely exists in YJ (hello Bart) and if there’s a zone outside of normal time that a time capsule can travel through, I’m willing to believe that a speedster is capable of entering it in certain circumstances. Nonsense physics aside, I have a concept of a zone in which time can be experienced in an alinear way, and that’s to what I’m going to be referring.