Young Justice: Invasion – "The Fix"

Director: Tim Divar
Writer: Greg Weisman

In Taos on April 9, 00:20 MDT (just hours after our heroes met the Green Beetle), Impulse, Blue Beetle, Robin, Arsenal and a handful of others have gathered to watch Miss Martian probe Green Beetle's mind to confirm his story. But nobody fully understands M'gann's reluctance to perform such a task after her disaster with Kaldur. She eventually does give it a shot, but Green Beetle can sense her hesitation, so he ends up "volunteering" all the information. M'gann tells everyone Green Beetle is on their side, and that seems to be good enough for the group.

Green Beetle then tells everyone that the additives found in the Reach's sports drink are designed to be addictive and gradually make people placid, incapable of revolt. Nightwing says this confirms what the Flash and Atom found in their analyses, so Green Beetle tells them something they don't know — the additives also contains a meta-gene tracer, allowing the Reach to identify and isolate potential superpower individuals.

Blue Beetle wants to take this information public, but Nightwing says he'll run it by Captain Atom and the Justice League. Dick then dismisses everybody, and Bart immediately rushes over to Jaime, saying the night is young. Jaime pushes Bart away, arguing that the night is over, but he does offer to meet up first thing in the morning (noonish). This appeases Bart, who promptly takes off, leaving Jaime alone with Green Beetle.

Meanwhile, Tigress, aka Artemis, is forced to kidnap Miss Martian to have her try to repair Aqualad's broken mind. And if you ask me, that's an appropriate punishment for her — fix the problem you caused. Of course, that still lets Nightwing off the hook, but what can you do?

Anyway, the next morning (I'm assuming around noonish), Bart rushes back to S.T.A.R. Labs, saying he stopped by Jaime's house, but his mom said he never came back home. To Bart's displeasure, he finds Green Beetle tinkering with Jaime's scarab. Impulse pushes "Greenie" away, chastising him for being "totally up" in Blue's grill. But Jaime tells Bart not to be upset, saying Green Beetle fixed him. Bart's happy, but confused, so Jaime explains that the scarab is now silent. Jaime rejoices that this means the Reach can't touch him and he's permanently free. Bart says this is crash, but the look on his face suggests it's anything but.




This was a quiet, but significant episode for Bart and Jaime. Bart's perhaps the happiest, friendliest character on this show. And whenever he's not smiling, you know something is seriously wrong. Of course, this is another example of Bart withholding some key information, not just from Jaime but also us, the viewers. This fits in naturally with the show's overall theme of the dangers and necessities of secrets. It's part of what makes this show so compelling and sometimes frustrating. Nightwing's secrets almost ended in complete disaster for Aqualad and Miss Martian. Bart's secrets balance the fate of the world, though. But at the end of the season, I don't think anyone can blame Bart's actions in this particular episode.

Next time, we head back to Death of the Family with Teen Titans #16.