Young Justice: Invasion – "Darkest"

Director: Mel Zwyer
Writer: Jon Weisman

In El Paso on March 23, 18:18 Mountain Daylight Time, Impulse surprises Jaime Reyes by showing up at his front door. Apparently, the two of them had enough fun hanging out the other day, Bart decided to stop by for what he calls "chillanging" (chilling and hanging). But to Jaime's dismay, Bart is not only wearing his Impulse uniform, but is openly calling Jaime "Blue, BB, Beetle, Bee-tell."

Jaime doesn't want to put his secret identity at risk, and his scarab agrees, saying, "The Impulse is trouble. Destroy him." Only Jaime can hear his scarab, so when he responds to it, "Overreacting won't help," Bart thinks he's talking to him, and apologizes for still not getting used to the retro obsession with secret identities. He asks what's the point in hiding how crash they are, to which Jaime says, "If you don't know, I can't explain it." He activates his Blue Beetle armor and suggests they get out of here before someone spots them.

They head out into the Texas desert, where Blue Beetle shows off his powers by blasting large boulders. He calls Impulse "Hermano" and asks him to top that. Bart concedes the boulder's definitely feeling the mode, but he tells his "amigo" that one thing he learned in the future that it's easier to destroy than create. He runs around real quick then stops to strike a pose, while crying out, "Ta-da!" The scarab says, "The Impulse has created nothing. And its premise is faulty. Tactical destruction is more effective than creation." Jaime asks what the "ta-da" is about, so Bart says, "Curb the attitude, get a little altitude, Hermano." Blue Beetle flies up and sees that Bart has rearranged a bunch of rocks on the ground to form an enormous self-portrait, striking the same pose he's still holding. Bart calls his work of art "Impulse by Impulse," and Jaime has to admit that it's totally crash.

Suddenly, Jaime is attacked from behind by Tuppence Terror, who leaps hight into the air and smashes Blue Beetle into Impulse's self-portrait. Bart laments that he spent 1.6 seconds on that masterpiece, then quickly dodges an incoming attack from Tigress. But he didn't see Tommy Terror right behind her. He knocks Impulse down, giving Tigress time to shoot a net around the speedster. As Aqualad climbs to the top of a nearby rock formation to survey his team's efforts, the Terror Twins hold Blue Beetle in place for Icicle Jr. to freeze him in a block of ice.

Impulse calls out for Blue and vibrates out of his net before Tigress can react. Blue Beetle uses his sonic blaster to easily break out of the ice and knocks down the four villains around him. The scarab recommends "evisceration," but Jaime says that since they're outnumbered four to two, they should strategically retreat. Bart agrees, but wonders how the villains found them.

As he talks, he spots Aqualad perched up on a rock, and runs up to him. Bart confronts the former hero, despising him for working with the bad guys now. He sees Aqualad holding a strange device in his hand, which Bart deduces is alien tech to track Blue Beetle. Impulse easily dodges all of Aqualad's attacks, while angrily telling him that is actions are not crash at all. He then steals the device from Kaldur, rejoins Blue Beetle and tells him they can retreat now, knowing they can't be followed anymore.

Blue Beetle and Impulse arrive at Mount Justice at 21:05 EDT (less than one hour after Bart rang Jaime's doorbell). The computer recognizes Blue Beetle as B-2 and Impulse as B-23 (he's official now!). Bart brags about how they left the villains in the dust, but Nightwing is immediately suspicious of the device in Bart's hand. Bart calls it a souvenir, but Jaime tells his "Ese" that souvenirs are Beast Boy's thing. Bart (correctly) thought it was Kid Flash's thing.

Nightwing impatiently tells them to get to the point, so Jaime tells him all about their attack, saying he recognized all the villains except for Tigress, whom he dubbed "a ninja girl." Bart proudly says he took the device to make sure they can't track Blue Beetle again, but Nightwing calls it a rookie mistake to bring foreign, possibly alien tech into the cave.

As they analyze the device, Aqualad and his team used it as a Trojan horse to bypass Mount Justice's security, sneak in and knock out Beast Boy and Superboy with power-suppressing collars. The villains then ambush the control room by throwing Superboy at Nightwing. Icicle Jr. creates a sheet of ice on the floor, but Impulse sees this as an attempt to take away his traction. He easily dodges the ice, runs up the side of the wall, and hits Icicle Jr. with enough speed to send him bouncing off the opposite wall.

Impulse sees Tuppence walking by with the unconscious Beast Boy over her shoulder. Bart tries the same trick with her, but finds out the hard way she's a lot stronger than Icicle. Impulse bounces off Tuppence and right into the hands of her twin brother. Bart tries punching Tommy, but only hurts his hands. When he asks Tommy what he's made of, Tommy jokingly says, "Snips and snails and puppy dog tails." He slaps a collar on Impulse's neck, who tries to vibrate out of it, but finds his powers have immediately been shut down. Tommy then knocks out Bart, as Tigress takes down Nightwing.

With Blue Beetle the only hero left standing, Aqualad convinces him to stand down by setting up a large bomb that will destroy Mount Justice if his finger slips off the trigger. Jaime allows them to place a collar on his neck, and Aqualad has him, Impulse and Beast Boy loaded up into their jet. He chooses to leave Nightwing and Superboy behind, since Dick is a human and Conner is a half-Kryptonian, which aren't of interest to their partner.

As the villains head out to their jet, Jaime's scarab defies his wishes by taking control of the armor, disabling the collar and fighting Aqualad. This causes Aqualad to drop the bomb's trigger, but just as the scarab predicted, Kaldur was bluffing and the bomb does not go off. Jaime's so surprised and angered by this, Aqualad is able to get in a powerful electric attack, fused with mystical energy that actually tears open a hole in the Blue Beetle armor. Tigress shoots a tranquilizer dart at Jaime's exposed chest, which promptly knocks him out.

Impulse and Beast Boy wake up on the plane, just in time to see Aqualad order Tigress to press the real trigger. Our heroes are horrified to witness the large explosion, and Bart mournfully cries out, "Oh no!"

We cut to the Atlantic Ocean on March 24, 3:17 EDT. Bart, Gar and Jaime have been placed in red pods and are unconscious as they're wheeled onto Black Manta's ship, en route to meeting up with the Light's partner.




This was a pretty big episode. We got to see a little bit of what super-powered teens do in their free time, hear some great lines from the scarab, and got to see Impulse in combat for the first time. He is actually a pretty effective fighter, hampered only by the occasional "rookie mistake." But it's not Bart's fault he got captured and the cave was destroyed. The whole event was a carefully orchestrated plot between Nightwing, Aqualad and Artemis (disguised as Tigress). But none of the kids who were captured know this, and one would imagine they won't be happy to find out they were merely pawns in this falsified tragedy. I still think almost everything Bart says and does is part of a rehearsed act, but his reaction to the destruction of Mount Justice felt genuine. He only knew that place as a desolate crater in his time, and probably truthfully believed that his plans would prevent this.

At the end of the episode, Wally berates Dick for pulling off such a dangerous stunt. Dick mentions Wally's lost souvenirs, but, surprisingly, nobody has mentioned Bart's time machine since his arrival. I know he fried the circuits on his journey, but with all the great scientists connected to the Team, you'd think that at least one person would try to get it running again. Well, it's too late now. For all intents and purposes, the time machine was also destroyed in the explosion.

Sadly, we won't get another episode until January. This stretch right here is perhaps the biggest reason that Young Justice was cancelled after two seasons. After going on a three-month hiatus in the summer, the show returned at the end of September for just two episodes before beginning another three-month hiatus. No show can survive such a haphazard release schedule, especially one with a dense, connected story like this.

Next time, we'll head back to the comics with Superboy #14.