Young Justice: Invasion – "War"

Director: Mel Zwyer
Writer: Jon Weisman

On May 26, 12:00 UTC (Coordinated Universal Time, four hours ahead of Eastern Time), Mongul has taken his large, planet-like ship known as the Warworld to destroy Earth to prevent it from falling to the Reach. He even goes so far as to tell the Justice League that if they knew what the Reach had in store for them, they'd thank him for putting them out of their misery. He opens fire on Earth, but the Justice League is able to deflect the missiles.

While the Justice League keeps Mongul occupied, Blue Beetle's scarab is able to bypass Warworld's security and sneak the Team inside. Alpha Squad (Superboy, Wolf, Wonder Girl and Arsenal) is tasked with taking down Mongul. Beta Squad (Impulse, Blue Beetle and Beast Boy) heads to the key chamber to take the crystal that enables Mongul to control the Warworld. Gamma Squad (Bumblebee, Guardian and Sphere) is sent straight to Warworld's power source. Delta Squad (Robin and Batgirl in the bio-ship) is aiding the Justice League outside, while in camouflage mode.

Beta Squad makes its way down a hallway (with Beast Boy as a hawk), but they're suddenly attacked by the Warworld's security probes — diamond-shaped floating robots that fire lasers. The probes are easy enough for our heroes to destroy, but there are a lot of them. The other squads also have to deal with the probes. Alpha easily gets past them, but is promptly defeated by Mongul, who retaliates by firing even more missiles at Earth, forcing the Reach to reveal their fleet of ships to protect their "investment."

Gamma reaches the power core. Sphere holds off the drones, while Bumblebee shrinks down into the machine to try to deactivate it without destroying Warworld and the Earth. And it turns out that Bumblebee is the real hero of the day. When she deactivates the power source, an electrical shock is sent back to Mongul, knocking him and turning all the probes and weapons off. Blue Beetle still takes the crystal key, though, for "safekeeping."

The Team reunites in a hangar to load up in the bio-ship to come home. They have a brief moment to celebrate their victory before Blue Beetle knocks out Impulse with the crystal key and starts systemically attacking his teammates. Arsenal panics and opens up the escape hatch, which pulls out Sphere and most of the oxygen in the room. Blue Beetle closes the hatch, and Arsenal is the only hero to get away, retreating back into the catacombs of Warworld. Blue stands triumphantly over his unconscious teammates and shows the Reach he has the crystal key.




Bart didn't speak in this episode, but he did accomplish a lot in this huge, shocking and fun ride. I loved the coordinated attack on Warworld — a perfect balance with so many different characters and missions, all working toward one goal. But all that is overshadowed by the betrayal of Blue Beetle. Jaime had Green Beetle supposedly fix his scarab a full month and a half before this attack. Bart did not seem happy by that, and it seems like he spent the next few weeks avoiding Jaime. Or at least not sticking by his side every single day like he was doing previously. Did he suspect something was wrong? We'll find that out soon enough. But if he did, one wonders why he didn't warn anybody and ask that Blue Beetle be left at home so he wouldn't betray his teammates. But then again, this is the same team that still lets the clearly unstable Arsenal go on missions, so I doubt Bart's warning would have prevented this. And you have to give credit to Blue — taking out the speedster first is sound strategy.

Next time, we return to Smallville: Season Eleven.