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.