Young Justice: Invasion – "Intervention"

Director: Mel Zwyer
Writer: Peter David

In Blüdhaven on March 30, 6:21 EDT (hours after our heroes were rescued from Warworld), the bio-ship brings everybody back to their temporary headquarters. Impulse confronts Nightwing, saying he knows finding the missing crystal key is important, but he says they need to focus on Blue Beetle. Nightwing turns on the news, which just happens to be talking about Blue, who is about to be presented with a medal by the United Nations for taking down the Warworld "singlehanded."

Robin angrily derides all this good press for a traitor, but Bart says they can't blame Jaime, claiming he's as much a captive of the Reach as they were. And Bart says they need to set Jaime free before he conquers Earth and enslaves all mankind.

In Metropolis on June 13, 20:28 EDT, Blue Beetle easily defeats the Toyman before hamming it up for an interview with Cat Grant. But during all this, we learn that Impulse was right — Jaime is not in control of his actions. The Reach Ambassador is essentially using Blue Beetle as a puppet from his command ship in New York City, even controlling his voice. But what the Reach doesn't realize is that Impulse and Batgirl were spying on him during all this.

Meanwhile, Miss Martian heads down to Poseidonis to finally break up with the insufferable Lagoon Boy (see screenshot).

In El Paso on June 13, 20:40 MDT, the Reach has sent Jaime home, who loathes having them pretend to be him in front of his family. Batgirl suddenly shoots a grappling hook around Blue Beetle's ankle, which holds him in place just long enough for Impulse to run up the cable and hop onto Blue's back. Bart vibrates Blue's jetpack until it shuts down and he crashes on the ground, where Batgirl has a knockout gas bomb waiting for him.

But Blue is not knocked out (you'd think Impulse would have told the Team that scarabs don't need to breathe) and he staples Batgirl to the wall. Impulse starts zooming around Blue Beetle, repeatedly knocking him down. Eventually, Blue's scarab figures out Bart's pattern and staples him to the wall, too. Jaime begs to go home, but the Ambassador orders him to kill Batgirl and Impulse.

Right before he delivers the killing strike, Rocket places an energy force field around Blue Beetle. Before he can break out, Zatanna reinforces Rocket's bubble with her magic. Zatanna then frees Batgirl and Impulse, while Jaime silently mocks the Reach for falling into this trap. Our heroes load up into Sphere, pulling Blue Beetle in the magic/energy bubble behind them. And all the Ambassador can do is shout idle threats.

In Bialya on June 14, 5:19 UTC+2, our heroes arrive at their destination — a secret underground lair controlled by Queen Bee and the Light. Rocket worries that she can't maintain the bubble around Blue Beetle and deal with Bee's soldiers, but Impulse says he can easily handle them. Zatanna slightly steals Bart's thunder by taking away the soldiers' guns, but she lets him knock them out. Impulse easily breezes through the troops, until he runs into the large, super strong woman known as Devastation. She lifts Impulse up by his ankle, while Mammoth and Shimmer attack the others on Sphere. Zatanna and Batgirl are able to redirect the three villains into taking each other down a hole Shimmer created, which Batgirl seals up with some fast-hardening foam.

Our heroes head deeper into the caverns, reaching the ruins of an ancient temple. Impulse asks Zatanna if she has enough power for this, and she admits she doesn't, but can summon the power from those who do. They then place Blue Beetle in the middle of the temple and begin a ritual. Suddenly, Green Beetle attacks.

Rocket is still maintaining the bubble around Blue, and Zatanna is in a deep trance, leaving just Sphere, Impulse and Batgirl to deal with Green Beetle. Bart worries about their odds, but Batgirl reminds him that this Beetle comes with his personal kryptonite. She throws a small explosive at Green's feet, and Impulse promptly whips up the flames into a large inferno. But Green phases through the ground and pops up behind Batgirl and Impulse to knock them down with a sonic blast.

A little lizard falls on Green's head, then quickly transforms into a large elephant. Green pushes Beast Boy off him, but Bumblebee grows into size right in front of him and blasts him in the face. Wonder Girl ensnares Green in her lasso from behind, and Robin swoops in with a kick. The Reach Scientist says they need to send in Black Beetle to help, but the Ambassador refuses to take him away from Warworld.

As Green Beetle fights back, Zatanna calls upon the powers of Isis of the scarab. A small scarab flies off the temple's wall and attaches itself to her forehead and the image of a large mystical woman appears behind her. Zatanna then rebuilds the temple, including a very large scarab that casts everything in a blue light. Rocket drops the bubble around Blue, who immediately aims to shoot at Zatanna, who chants, "Esnaelc eseht snoipmahc!" Green frees himself from Wonder Girl's grasp and also aims at Zatanna.

But before the Beetles' blasts can reach Zatanna, Impulse grabs the lasso still around Green's waist and throws him in front of both his and Blue's energy blast. Both the Beetles are knocked down on the dais as a beam of light engulfs them. The Beetles scream out in pain, and the Reach loses connection with them. Once the ritual is complete, Impulse catches Zatanna and asks if it worked. Zatanna decides not to take any chances and casts a spell ordering the Beetles to reveal who controls their scarabs.

Blue Beetle turns back into Jaime Reyes, and Green Beetle turns into B'arzz O'oomm. They both say they're free of control from the Reach. And Robin even pulls up some sort of electronic reading that shows there's no external signal interacting with the scarabs. Bart congratulates Jaime and offers a high-five, but Jaime walks right past him to give Zatanna a hug. The scarab also congratulates Jaime, but Jaime questions aloud if it's really happy. Bart thinks he's talking to him and swears he is happy by this. The scarab explains that it never liked being a slave of the Reach, and Jaime says he believes it. Bart answers this with, "Of course you do." And he finally gets his high-five.

As everybody flies home, Jaime asks them how they knew how to cure them, saying that temple wasn't even on the Reach's database. Batgirl says she and Bumblebee came across it months ago on another mission. She noticed the scarab imagery decorating the place and recorded a holographic file of the hieroglyphics. Dr. Fate was able to translate the runes, which revealed a mystic ceremony the ancients had used to cleanse the scarab of the Reach's control when it first landed on Earth 4,000 years ago.

Zatanna explains that the magic used in the ritual are of human origin, meaning that Dr. Fate couldn't use his Lord of Order magic on it. While Zatanna prepared that ritual, Batgirl and Robin went digging through the files of the late Ted Kord, the previous Blue Beetle. Kord recorded that an archeologist named Dan Garrett was the first to discover the temple and the scarab in 1939. The scarab fused with Garrett, making him the first Blue Beetle of modern times. When he passed away, he left the scarab to his protege, Kord, who discovered it was alien technology and refused to let it fuse with him. He locked the scarab away and opted to become the second Blue Beetle without any superpowers.

The Light tried to steal the scarab, and Kord was killed in a fight with Deathstroke and Sportsmaster. Jaime happened to be riding his skateboard past Kord Industries when it exploded, which sent the scarab right to him. Jaime admits he wasn't what the Light or Reach had in mind that day, then asks why everyone kept all this from him. Zatanna says it took her several months to learn the ritual, and Jaime realizes she couldn't risk letting the Reach find out about the temple until she was ready.

Jaime then incredulously asks Bart how he managed to keep his mouth shut. Bart seriously reminds him that making sure he stayed a hero was the main reason he came back to the past, so he was motivated to take his mouth "off mode." He then playfully advises Jaime to not get used to his silence.




These kind of episodes are equal parts thrilling and frustrating. It's great to finally have everything come together and answer all questions. But it's also a little too convenient how neatly everything fit together. And it's frustrating to learn how much crucial material took place off screen. We were given no indication that Bart, Batgirl and Zatanna were secretly working on this plan until this episode. We saw that Bart suspected Green Beetle early on, but that was it.

But at the same time, I can't be too mad, since this episode does help explain everything Bart did since "Bloodlines." Bart didn't know exactly how to help Blue Beetle, other than stay as close to him as possible. When Green Beetle got involved, Bart started distancing himself from Jaime, and this was probably when Zatanna and Batgirl filled him in on their plan. It's unclear if anyone actually knew Blue was under the Reach's control when Mongul invaded. We know at least Bart suspected, but we're not sure if he told anyone. He for sure didn't tell Nightwing, and at the end of the day, everything did work out. You could even argue that it would have been impossible to stop Mongul without Blue Beetle and the Reach, despite their nefarious intentions.

All in all, this is very tight storytelling. I can't find any plot holes or continuity errors. But I am sad that this show likes to keep so many crucial moments off screen. Episode after episode, it seems like our heroes have no idea what's going on. And then at the very end, in one massive exposition dump, they reveal that they knew everything the whole time and had a plan for it. Sadly, next episode, "Summit," will be another one of those times.