It’s nice to know that Young Justice can take time out of its busy schedule to let its characters work out their family issues while fulfilling vows of revenge and holding up their reputations. Multi-tasking is hard for most of us, but these guys easily put us to shame. Yes, the name of the game for this week’s Young Justice is “Complications,” which is both true and false. It also feels like “Complications” should’ve been the title of the second season instead of “Invasion,” but that’s just the post-cancellation depression setting in. But how does everything get so complicated? Let’s find out!
Back under the sea (insert your Little Mermaid reference here), Miss Martian is still “fixing” Kaldur under the watchful surveillance of Deathstroke from his ship safely out of range of her telepathic powers. Also, it’s worth noting that the voice actor for Slade has changed in this episode, so don’t be too weirded out when you don’t hear the dulcet tones of Ron Perlman this time around. M’gann and Artemis/Tigress continue to talk about their situation and the inevitable end since M’gann is basically dead once she’s done piecing Kaldur’s mind back together. But wouldn’t you know it, Kaldur’s already fixed and playing brain-dead to buy them some time. When Black Manta puts down a 24 hour ultimatum or M’gann is dead anyway, it’s a great motivator to speed things up. On the now defunct War World, Nightwing beams in and demands to know what happened to his team. The now compromised Blue Beetle lies through his scarab about what happened, presenting a scenario where a boom tube opened under the team once they were all gathered together, pulling everyone through except BB because he acted on instinct and flew out. The crystal that powers War World is gone as well since Impulse supposedly had it. Green Beetle offers to take him home, but Blue asks to stay and help. Nightwing sends him home to rest because the Beetles are just so damn convincing.
I’m gonna confess, I was getting a little peeved by this point because I’ve never been shy about my love for Nightwing. And while I understand that the story demands he be in the dark about this for the moment, when I was watching the episode I was practically yelling at the screen that they were making Nightwing look like an idiot, which he is most assuredly NOT! Thankfully, the episode rectifies this toward the end, but I thought it important you nice people know the level of investment I have in these characters.
Okay, so now that there’s a time crunch, M’gann, Artemis and Kaldur devise a plan to help M’gann escape, but wouldn’t you know it, daddy Sportsmaster and sister Cheshire show up to complicate things. See?! Cheshire busts into Kaldur’s room to kill him and M’gann, sans powers, defends him admirably and uses the attack as an opportunity to cut off Deathstroke’s surveillance, freeing up her and Kaldur to act without exposing their ruse just yet. Artemis, having left under the guise of needing a break, manages to shut down M’gann’s inhibitor collar, but runs into her father as he’s taking down Black Manta and most of his soldiers. Thus, they fight! With everything escalating and more complications arising from Cheshire and Sportsmaster’s vengeance in the name of Artemis, M’gann takes the opportunity to make things less complicated. She brings the whole family together, plus Aqualad, into an old memory of Artemis’s and shows her father and sister that she’s very much alive. And now that they know the secret, they’ll need to work together to make sure nothing appears differently except for the sudden recovery of Kaldur.
Thankfully, in between scenes of daddy/daughter vengeance and cooperation, we have Nightwing doing some actual detective work. Why? Because he was raised by Batman! Scanning the loading dock where the team was captured, Nightwing notices some scratches on the floor as well as one of Robin’s birdarangs 
with traces of Blue Beetle’s scarab. Later on, while re-watching footage of Blue exposing his identity while praising and being praised by the Reach, the leader of Young Justice pieces it all together and he isn’t pleased. If they don’t follow through on this next week or have Nightwing devise an ingenious plot to expose the Reach and Blue, I’m going to be very put out.
Other than Nightwing finally acting more like Nightwing, the best part of this episode is the dysfunctional functionality of the Crock family. Artemis may have her issues with her father and sister, but there’s something heartwarming in knowing that your family will go to such lengths to avenge you, no matter what the reason. It’s also a nice step forward for Artemis and her issues with being under cover with only Kaldur as her lifeline. Now she has M’gann and her father and sister aware of her situation, which in and of itself is helpful to make her situation less complicated. The fewer people she has to hide from, the easier her situation. And now that Kaldur is back in action we can finally get around to ending this thing properly!
DC Nation Short: Amethyst vs The Frog Prince
Favorite Moments:
- I imagine Sportsmaster and Cheshire have some family therapy sessions in their future
- Just the image of Captain Marvel and Rocket standing there “guarding” the control room is hilarious!
- Sportsmaster vs Everyone!
- Black Manta cares not for your explosive charges
- Nice to know your dad can come through for you on occasion
- Mermaid M’gann! (again, insert Little Mermaid reference)
- Because Nightwing was raised by the World’s Greatest Detective!
