Young Justice: Invasion – "Bloodlines"

Director: Mel Zwyer
Writer: Peter David

On June 2, 2012, the world finally was introduced to the first (and so far only) animated Impulse. Sadly, the Young Justice animated series has very little in common with the Young Justice comic series by Peter David and Todd Nauck, so we didn't get any Impulse in the first season of the show, or any of the subsequent tie-in comics. But in the sixth episode of the second season (which has the subtitle of "Invasion"), Bart Allen got to join the show. And who better to write his debut than Peter David himself? (OK, Mark Waid and Todd Dezago would have been great choices, too, but David is right up there with them.) I know I'm rambling, and that's because I'm so excited, I don't know where to begin! I guess I should start with the episode.

We open on a gray, desolate scene with ash falling from the sky. A bald man in an orange jumpsuit and power-suppressing collar approaches a teenage boy with brown hair, green eyes and fingerless gloves working on some sort of device. The man says he wishes he could go with the boy, but he's told there's only room for one.

We then cut to Mount Justice in Happy Harbor, Rhode Island, on February 28 and 10:07 Eastern Standard Time. Nightwing, Robin and Beast Boy are discussing their recent battles with a group of aliens called the Kroloteans, who are apparently abducting humans to research what Nightwing dubs the "Meta-Gene." Suddenly, the computer warns them of an "unknown energy impulse." There's a loud rumbling, a fancy lightning show, and the device from earlier appears out of thin air, falling to the ground with a thud. The door opens and the boy with brown hair, now wearing a red-and-white jumpsuit, leaps out with a triumphant, "Ta-da!"

Nightwing immediately has the computer lock down the cave, while Beast Boy says he thinks they've found their unknown energy impulse. The intruder latches on to the word "impulse," calling it "crash." He likes that it's catchy, dramatic and one word, like Nightwing, Robin and Beast Boy. But as soon as he says that, he realizes Beast Boy is two words, like Blue Beetle. He asks if Blue Beetle is here, too, but before anyone can answer, he starts to take off, vowing that Impulse can find that out for himself. Nightwing tells Beast Boy and Robin to take him down, while he remains behind to ponder Impulse's use of the word "crash."

Impulse runs into the showers, commenting on the retro faucets as he turns them all on. Beast Boy, hot on his trail as a cheetah, slips on the water and slams into the wall. Impulse zooms around the kitchen and playfully ducks under an attack from Robin's bo staff, calling it "limbo time." Nightwing throws some steels balls on the ground in the next hallway, but Impulse easily avoids them by running up the side of the wall. He pauses for a moment to boast of how he can't be caught that easily, when Nightwing manages to knock him down from behind and promptly places cuffs on Impulse's wrists and ankles. Nightwing says that was crash, but Impulse laments that he's "feeling the mode."

The three heroes begin interrogating the intruder, having a hard time believing his story of being a time-traveling tourist. Impulse claims that half the "meat" at Comic-Con are from his era, a comment that only further perplexes Robin and Beast Boy. So Impulse reveals that he's Bart Allen, grandson of Barry Allen, the Flash. Beast Boy says he still doesn't believe him, so Bart points out that he has the Flash's speed and his "amazingly good looks." He says he can't wait to meet his grandfather, before hastily adding he wants to meet the Flash when he was in his prime.

Nightwing brings Impulse a glass of water, and as Bart drinks, he realizes that Nightwing is actually collecting a DNA sample. Bart helpfully spits into the glass, calling it a "Dick Grayson thing to do." Bart proves he knows things only a future boy would know by also revealing Robin's identity as Tim Drake and Beast Boy's as Garfield Logan. This came as news to Beast Boy, prompting Bart to apologize for the spoilers and remark on the retro nature of secret identities. But Bart assures his three new friends that it's crash if they call him Impulse, Bart, Bart Allen or Bart Impulse Allen.

As Tim asks Dick if it's possible for Bart to be telling the truth, Gar gets in Bart's face (as we saw in the screenshot above), and demands to know when he becomes leader of the Team, a member of the Justice League and the star of his own reality series. Bart apologizes for not being the best history student, while adding that they can't risk altering the time stream, since that would make them all feel the mode. He explains that nothing is worse than the mode, and it's always better to crash the mode, but Beast Boy is still confused by this slang.

The computer then announces the arrival of Malcolm Duncan. Realizing that means a door is opening somewhere, Impulse easily vibrates out of his cuffs and takes off. Beast Boy turns into a peregrine falcon and chases after him, but both Robin and Nightwing know he doesn't stand a chance of catching up to him. Nightwing pulls up a large map, revealing that he snuck a micro-tracker into Bart's drink (as Tim points out, any other kind of tracker would have fallen off at that speed). Seeing that Impulse is making a beeline to Central City, Dick pulls out his phone to call a friend.

In Central City at 12:03 Central Standard Time, Barry and Iris Allen are having lunch with Jay and Joan Garrick to celebrate their 70th anniversary. Barry gets a phone call that makes him ask about an impulse and another speedster. While still standing by the open front door, he asks, "He says he's my what?" Right on cue, Bart runs through the front door and happily announces himself as Barry's grandson, Bart Allen, aka Impulse. He quickly gives the perplexed Barry a big hug, saying he's always dreamed of doing this, before hastily adding that he means he always wanted to hug his grandpa when he was young and he didn't have to worry about breaking old Gramps.

Before Barry can react, Bart moves on to the rest of the room, greeting his Grandma Iris with another big hug, before embracing both the Garricks, whom he proclaims his "honorary great-grandparents." Jay asks Barry if he's been meaning to tell them something, but Barry insists Bart is not his grandson, saying he and Iris don't even have kids. Iris speaks up, saying she found out this morning that she's pregnant, and was planning on telling her husband later that night, in private. Bart awkwardly leans in toward Iris' womb and says hello to his dad and Aunt Dawn. Barry and Iris are shocked to learn they're having twins and Bart is forced to once again apologize for spoilers.

Wally West then enters the house, telling Bart to be careful of what he says, or he might crash the whole time stream. But Bart actually wishes he could crash the time stream. Wally explains that Nightwing called him, so he decided to come out of his semi-retirement to help with this mess. Bart gives Wally a big hug, recognizing him as his first cousin once removed. Wally pushes Bart away, choosing to emphasize the "removed" part of their relationship.

When Iris' phone begins to ring, Bart warns her not to answer it, before playfully saying they shouldn't interrupt the reunion. But Iris answers the call anyway, since it's her boss at GBS. She finds out the police are evacuating downtown because a new super-powered lunatic is wreaking havoc and calling for the Flash's blood. And sure enough, we see a man in a red suit use an energy blast to destroy the Flash's statue, while cascading waves of energy ripple through the streets.

Barry quickly puts on his Flash outfit, but Bart urges him to let the Justice League handle this, pointing out how rare it is to have a relative from the future show up at his door. Barry tells Bart he'll deal with him later and he takes off, vowing to be back in a flash. Bart asks the others if Barry says that often, and they all sigh in exasperation at the cheesy pun. Wally coyly asks Bart if he's going, too, to which Bart replies, "Doy," and runs out the front door.

As the villain blasts everything in sight, sending cars and debris flying through the air, Barry rescues a woman and her baby, telling her to head to the shelter on the corner of Fox and Gardner (named after legendary Flash creator Gardner Fox). Barry then moves in toward the villain, but is knocked out of the air by the villain's waves of energy. Impulse catches the Flash's fall with a cushion of wind, saying his dad taught him that trick, after learning it from Barry. The two speedster easily dodge a few more blasts from the villain, prompting Impulse to mock the "meat" for thinking he could hit them. But Flash points out that they're at a standstill because of the villain's waves energy, which start up before the previous wave dissipates. Barry then remembers that he told Bart not to come, but Bart says he couldn't resist watching his grandpa beat the bad guy in his prime.

We then cut to a couple of unseen aliens watching the battle from a secret facility disguised as a warehouse. They say the test is "on-mode" and they have complete control over subject Neutron, who is performing almost too well against "the meat." They are worried that Neutron's energy will crash the mode.

Kid Flash arrives on the scene, warning the police to stay back. An officer begins to argue with him, calling Wally "Speedy." Bart and Barry join the conversation, and Bart corrects the officer, saying Speedy is a different hero, although the history book were unclear on why. Barry gets the conversation back on track, telling the officer the best way they can help is to keep the civilians safe. Bart completes his thought, by saying they'll handle Neutron. Barry is surprised to learn the villain's name is Neutron, and Bart claims he heard the villain shout out, "My name is Neutron! All of you will die!"

Bart asks Barry what their plan is, so Barry suggests replicating Bart's earlier trick with the wind funnel, but on a much larger scale. As they talk, their voices get higher and higher as they slip into a super-speed conversation, speaking too quickly for even Wally to understand them. Barry asks Wally if he's on board, but he confesses all he heard was something about funnel cake. So Bart tells Kid to just follow their lead, which makes Wally rather grumpy.

The speedsters begin racing around Neutron, and Wally becomes even grumpier to see both Barry and Bart are easily lapping him. The funnel lifts Neutron high up into the air, and the secret aliens observe that the mode is crashing. Soon, Neutron bursts into a huge explosion, and Bart and Barry have to rush Wally away to safety (an act he decries as "humiliating"). Once the explosion is clear, Bart begins to walk forward, saying he just wants a closer look, believing that Neutron has "totally felt the mode." Wally checks out the scene with this telescopic goggles and reports that Neutron is putting his body back together from scratch.

Once Neutron's muscles and skin have regrown, he begins to panic and asks what's happening. The secret aliens lament that their control device was destroyed in the explosion, so they abort the test and destroy the warehouse on their way out. Wally switches his goggles to infrared vision and speculates that Neutron was wearing a containment suit and without it, he's likely to blow up again, maybe even bigger than before. Barry borrows the goggles and reports brief fluctuations between Neutron's energy levels. When Wally says he didn't see that, Bart mocks him for not having the Allen family eyes, prompting Wally to say, "Don't make me hurt you."

Barry times the fluctuations at less than a microsecond, but says that should be enough time for him to grab Neutron and race him out to the desert to minimize the damage of the impending second explosion. Bart's not so sure about this plan, but Barry rushes forward anyway, promising again to be back in a flash. But as he runs, Bart suddenly appears next to him. Right before they reach Neutron, though, Bart trips and knocks Barry down. Neutron's begins to erupt again, and Wally and Jay come out of nowhere to save Bart and Barry at the last second.

Wally chastises Bart for nearly getting Barry killed, but Barry says Bart actually saved him. He explains that Neutron's overload accelerated, and he never would have made it to the desert in time. Barry then asks Jay why he came out of retirement, pointing out that he could have died. Jay laughs him off, saying his wife's going to kill him anyway just for putting on the tin hat. While they talk, Bart surreptitiously slips away and runs straight down to the reforming Neutron.

As muscles begin to form over Neutron's skeleton, Bart throws a small blue ball at him. When the ball touches Neutron's finger, it absorbs into his body, and blue lines form all over him. By the time the other speedsters arrive, Neutron has reformed as a normal teenage boy, who is bald, naked and very confused. Barry finds a blanket for Neutron, and Bart claims ignorance of the whole affair, suggesting that Neutron simply "ran out of juice."

That night, everybody meets back at the cave, and Nightwing confirms that Bart's DNA matches up with both Iris and Barry. Also, that Bart's time machine is giving off both Zeta and Chronotron radiation, which Wally says would be the necessary ingredients in a theoretical time machine. Barry takes all this as evidence that Bart is exactly who he said he was. Bart says it was crash, but now the future awaits. As he prepares to leave, he tries out a bad pun of his own: "I gotta run!" Barry gives him one last hug, saying he can't wait to meet Bart for the first time and watching him grow up. Bart solemnly says that will be pretty crash, then steps into the time machine.

When nothing happens after several moments, Beast Boy suggests Impulse is traveling forward one second at a time. Bart angrily kicks the door open, saying the whole thing is fried. Barry asks if he can fix it, but Bart claims he's a tourist, not a chronal expert. Bart laments being trapped in the stupid past and calls himself "so moded."

We then return to the desolate landscape we saw at the beginning. This time, we realize the bald man is an adult Neutron (or Nathaniel as he prefers to be called) and he warned Bart that the trip to the past will fry the machine's circuitry. Bart says this future isn't one worth returning to. And he works, we get a time stamp, saying they're at the smoldering remains of Mount Justice on February 28, 10:05 EST, forty years later.

When Bart finishes his work, he says it's time to "get in character." He throws on his Impulse outfit and collects the small blue ball from Nathaniel, who tells him that saving the Flash's life and curing him is only the beginning. Bart says he understands he has a big mission with lots to do, and steps into the time machine. As soon as Bart disappears, Nathaniel's collar disappears and his prison jumpsuit changes to normal clothes. He praises Bart as being "so crash" before sadly realizing that his surrounding hasn't changed. Nathaniel says it all should have changed at once, that the mode should have crashed, and he falls to his knees in despair.




Now that was something. After 18 years, Impulse finally got the multimedia representation he deserves. Bruce Timm almost put him in the Justice League animated series, but changed his mind at the last minute. The Teen Titans animated series did have a Kid Flash make a few cameos, but that was decidedly a Wally West Kid Flash. Yes, Kyle Gallner did show up on the set of Smallville a handful of times, but that character barely felt like the Bart Allen we know and love. But this Bart, voiced by Jason Marsden, feels like the real deal. Like ... 90% there. In any case, he feels much more like the original Bart than the New 52 imposter that was disgracing our comics at this time. It is really sad that any fans of this show who would have wanted to see Impulse in the comics wouldn't be able to find him on the shelves. They would have needed to go digging through the old issue bins, hoping to be able to find something from a decade ago. That's what I had to do, and it was quite a chore.

Anyway, let's start with our voice actor. Jason Marsden has had a few live action rolls over the years, but he's a much more prolific voice actor. Perhaps best known for voicing Max in the Goofy movies, he also has extensive experience in the superhero world. Marsden played a young Clark Kent in Superman, Snapper Carr in Justice League, and Static's best friend, Richie, in Static Shock. As Impulse, Marsden knocks it out of the park. So much so, it's almost impossible to imagine anyone else voicing Impulse. Granted, no one else has yet, but still ... Marsden is just perfect in the role. He actually sounds like a teenager, and an overly enthused one, at that. He put genuine love and enjoyment into Bart meeting his family, cocky playfulness into his "escape attempt" from the cave, and, most importantly, a serious side to balance everything out. It feels like Bart is putting on a performance for most of this episode, and that's because he is. And Marsden masterfully displayed that distinction.

Yes, this Bart is from only 40 years in the future instead of 1000. Yeah, his eyes are green, not yellow.  But the biggest difference, by far, is the fact that Bart's "impulsive" nature is all an act. He is a rather serious boy on a long, serious mission. Everything he does is calculated. Every word is planned. Even his little "slip-ups" are all part of his plan to make people think he's just a goof ball and not suspect him of actually, deliberately changing history. It is impressive that Bart's able to pull this off, but at the same time it is a little disheartening.

Part of the fun of Impulse was that he didn't think. He was the "single synapse theory" and all that. Just an innocent, lovable goofball who tried to do the right thing but often messed up. As much as I would have loved to see that version of Impulse on screen (and I still would), he really wouldn't have fit in this very serious Young Justice show. Yes, there's room for fun and a little bit of comedy, but not on the level we had in the comics. So instead of mourning the fact we don't have our lovable idiot Impulse, I will gladly take what little bits of him we see in this show — even if it is mostly an act. At the end of the day, Bart's most admirable qualities — love, loyalty, bravery — were on full display here.

Much like Bart, the show itself is very careful in everything it does and shows. It was no mistake that when Bart arrived in the cave, one of the first things he asked was where Blue Beetle was. And the battle against Neutron will feel hauntingly familiar in the season finale (not to spoil a seven-year show). For both good and bad, this show has a very tight story that demands its viewers to not only watch every episode in order, but preferably to view them multiple times to catch all the details. That can be a double-edged sword, though, when the show allows itself to be slightly sloppy. The animation is very good — I had so much fun pausing this episode to see all the expressions on Bart's and Beast Boy's faces. But when characters aren't moving or speaking, it stands out like a sore thumb. And if you really analyze those official-looking timestamps, you might be a bit confused. In this episode, Bart arrived in Rhode Island at 10 a.m. Eastern Time, which meant it was 9 a.m. Central Time. But Bart didn't show up in Central City until it was after noon Central Time. Why did it take him three hours to get there? It didn't seem like he spent that much time in the cave. And it certainly didn't seem like he took the scenic route there. In fact, Nightwing barely had enough time to give Wally and Barry a heads up.

But the story was very well done. Let's look at what would have happened had Bart not shown up. Barry would have been killed on the same day his wife found out she was pregnant and his mentor was celebrating his 70th anniversary. And Wally likely wouldn't have been there to help, since he only came out of retirement to deal with Impulse. Barry's death would have been doubly devastating for the Flash family under such circumstances. And let's not overlook the incredible significance of putting the four generations of the Flash together on screen for the first time. I'm still blown away by this remarkable debut Bart was granted. Instead of being an overlooked side character like Tim Drake on this show, Bart got to be front and center in an episode that celebrated all things Flash.

And Bart actually looks pretty good, too. Yeah, his costume is more streamlined, which makes sense for animation, but it still feels like Impulse. I do wish he had fingerless gloves and yellow eyes and bigger hair and bigger feet ... but then again, this show takes itself very seriously, and some of those characteristics are just a bit too goofy for it. One interesting thing is the red stripe down the middle actually isn't a lightning bolt. It looks more like the design of Blue Beetle's outfit. He has blue "legs" sticking into his black torso, nearly identical to how the thin bits of white stick into the red on Bart's front. That can't be an accident. Anyway, I love how short Bart is, how expressive and loving he is. How he can vibrate and literally run laps around Wally. (I never liked Wally on this show, so I'm very glad to see him get shown up like this.) And most of all, I love how Bart just does things fast. The super-speed convention with Barry was rather novel. And all throughout the show, he is just doing things fast. No one can keep up with him. He's everywhere at once, moving on to the next thing before anyone can react.

Bart's futuristic slang is ... interesting. In the comics, nobody could decide whether Bart was supposed to share the Legionnaires' slang word of "grife." But here, Peter David went all in on the words "crash" and "mode," never letting us forget them even for a minute. It is understandable, but rather odd how Bart (and Nathaniel) picked up these words from the secret aliens, who were only using those words in their most literal, scientific sense. But against all odds, the slang actually does work. And it spread like wildfire, both on the show and among the fan community in real life.

Now, I guess it's time for me to talk about the one element of this episode that wasn't so "crash." At the very end, when Bart went back in time, Nathaniel turned into a human, as expected. But nothing else changed. Mount Justice is still in ruins. The landscape is still desolate. Ash is still falling from the sky. Look, every time travel story follows different rules. I was surprised that we even got to see Nathaniel after Bart took off. But since he did see him, we have to follow this show's logic and assume that Bart failed in his broader mission. Although he did successfully turn Neutron back into a human, everything he did in the ensuing 40 years did nothing to prevent the devastation that Nathaniel is still surrounded by. And if that's the case, then why bother watching the rest of season 2 or 3 or the recently announced 4? Our heroes are going to end up losing in the end, right? That's the only way those final 30 seconds make any sense.

Personally, I have to pretend those final 30 seconds don't exist. Because this was a great episode, and this is a good show. And I'm going to have so much more fun reviewing these episodes than the New 52 issues of Kid Flash.

Next time, we'll take a very quick look at the next episode of Young Justice: Invasion.