Young Justice: Phantoms – “Zenith and Abyss”

Director: Christina Sotta

Writer: Akira “Mark” Fujita

We catch up with Kid Flash, Chameleon Boy and Saturn Girl (seen above) on September 13, 23:00 UTC, still cruising through Subspace on the Bio-Ship as prisoners of Lor-Zod. Even with Bart’s speed powering the Cosmic Treadmill, it took them nearly a week to reach Oa, only to find out the Kaizer-Thrall had already been sent to Earth. So that’s where they’re headed now, with Bart still wearing bandages on his chest and hands. Lor-Zod confesses to Ma’alefa’ak that he’s troubled by the disappearance of Phantom Girl. He knows the Legion flight rings are also communications devices and he wonders if he can hack into them to eavesdrop on Phantom Girl. Ma’alefa’ak has a simpler solution — he imitates Chameleon Boy and Saturn Girl and begins sending out signals from the rings.

Phantom Girl, meanwhile, is on the Justice League Watchtower, explaining to Miss Martian, Superman and a few others that she escaped from the Phantom Zone, but was unable to bring Superboy with her, as he is now loyal to General Zod. Also on the Watchtower is the Kaizer-Thrall, which is powered by the brain of an 11-year-old boy named Danny Chase, a meta-human who was experimented upon by Desaad. While they start working together on a plan to rescue Superboy, Superman uses the League’s computers to try to locate Kid Flash, Nightwing and Zatanna. But his search comes up empty.

When Ma’alefa’ak reaches Phantom Girl, he impersonates Chameleon Boy, Saturn Girl and even Kid Flash, claiming that the three of them managed to escape from Lor-Zod with the Bio-Ship. Phantom Girl unfortunately falls for the ruse and reveals everything, including their plan to go to Trombus — an uninhabited planet orbiting a red sun — to open a boom tube to the Phantom Zone and rescue Superboy.

Forty-five minutes later, Lor-Zod and Ma’alefa’ak reach Trombus. After the boom tube is opened, Ma’alefa’ak takes control of the Kaizer-Thrall and uses it to attack Phantom Girl, Miss Martian, Superman, Orion, Black Lightning, Green Lantern Forager and Prince J’emm J’axx (from Mars). Lor-Zod arrives, dragging an unconscious Kid Flash behind him. General Zod steps through the boom tube with his wife, Ursa, a lieutenant named Faora, and Superboy, who immediately collapses in pain due to the injuries he sustained before and during his stint in the Phantom Zone. Lor-Zod places a foot on Bart’s chest and proudly welcomes his father and mother, telling them the galaxy is theirs.

Once again Bart basically has nothing to do and nothing to say. At least Jason Marsden did get to speak a few lines as Ma’alefa’ak impersonating Bart (he also voiced Danny). But despite Bart’s minimal involvement, I am glad he gets to be a part of this climax. There are only two episodes left of this season, and they promise to be big ones!

Young Justice: Phantoms – “Rescue and Search”

Director: Christopher Berkeley

Writer: Charlotte Fullerton

Our story begins right where we last left our heroes — on New Genesis on August 29, 0:24 UTC. Lor-Zod and Ma’alefa’ak have forced their way onto the Bio-Ship, as seen last episode. But what we didn’t see then was that Kid Flash and Chameleon Boy actually did try to put up some resistance. Bart retrieved a couple of inhibitor collars, but before he could place them on the intruders, Lor-Zod destroyed the devices with his heat vision. As Bart is burned by the explosion, Lor knocked him out with a quick body check, while still holding Saturn Girl in a chokehold.

Chameleon Boy transformed into a large monster, but Ma’alefa’ak instantly overpowered him with a transformation of his own. The Bio-Ship then pointed a blaster cannon at the villains, but Ma’alefa’ak convinces it to stand down to save its three friends. Under Lor-Zod’s control, the Bio-Ship then flies off to who knows where.

In the Phantom Zone on September 5, 23:13 UTC, Superboy’s brain is still addled and he unfortunately becomes an open book for General Zod and Ursa (seen above), telling them basically everything they ask.

In Blüdhaven on September 5, 19:15 EDT, Zatanna has finally convinced Nightwing that Superboy is alive. Dick agrees to spend the next 24 hours trying to save his old friend. But when he boots up his computer, both he and Zatanna are shocked to see that Bart has been reported missing. Dick has returned to life as an acrobat, and Zatanna is busy being Doctor Fate, so both of them have been out of the loop of sorts. Dick doesn’t see any immediate connections between the disappearance of Bart and Conner, but he feels he owes it to them to look for both.

Dick’s eventually able to check Bart’s credit card statements (admitting that his hacking skills have gone rusty since he’s passed most of those duties to Oracle) and he finds security footage of the last store Bart shopped at. Dick and Zatanna don’t recognize the two people with Bart in the store, but we know they’re Saturn Girl and Chameleon Boy disguised as regular humans. Dick’s computer doesn’t recognize the Legionnaires, either, but it is able to find footage of them visiting Clark Kent in Bibbo’s Diner.

Zatanna and Dick arrive in Metropolis at 19:48 EDT, and immediately confront Superman about his mysterious visitors. Clark refuses to tell them anything about the Legionnaires, even when they say Bart’s missing. Clark asks if there’s any indication of foul play, and Dick is forced to admit that all evidence suggests Bart is cooperating with the mysterious individuals, but he still worries Bart may have been coerced by them. Clark puts an end to the conversation, saying he trusts the visitors, but can’t explain why.

Angered, Zatanna and Dick head back to Blüdhaven, where Dick begins assembling a red-string board. He notes that Bart and Clark’s “friends” were buying supplies, so he and Zatanna visit the Watchtower at 20:56 EDT to see if any equipment has gone missing. Tigress reports that five inhibitor collars, a space belt and a zeta-tube power core are all unaccounted for. She pulls up the security footage, which initially shows the items suddenly vanishing into thin air. But when they slow the video down to one frame at a time, they are just able to see Kid Flash’s foot in the corner of the screen.

Artemis officially joins the investigation and returns to Blüdhaven, where Dick’s computer finds another match of their suspects. This one is of Saturn Girl serving Superboy coffee at Bibbo’s on February 28 of last year (as seen in the season finale of Young Justice: Outsiders). The computer quickly brings up another match, this one of Chameleon Boy attending Superboy’s speech at the United Nations on February 17.

Dick realizes the equipment Bart stole suggests his mission was off-world. Artemis reports that Rocket just returned from an off-world mission that involved a time-traveling Kryptonian. Dick notes that Bart is also a time-traveler, so he leads everyone to Dakota City at 20:24 CDT to speak with Rocket. Zatanna helps Raquel revisit her memory, confirming the Phantom Zone projector was destroyed by the camouflaged Bio-Ship. 

Dick speculates that Bart may be on a path parallel to theirs, correctly assuming that Superman’s “friends” were on the Bio-Ship with Bart. Dick also wisely supposes that Superman didn’t tell them anything because he feared doing so could threaten the timestream. Which would mean that Bart is likely with two other time-travelers, who have inside intel about the Phantom Zone and Conner being trapped inside it. Raquel thinks Dick is reaching a bit too far with this theory, but Dick concludes that Bart made a choice and they should respect that. But in the meantime, he believes they should do everything they can to rescue Conner themselves.

Nightwing and Rocket visit Poseidonis on September 6 at 1:36 UTC-2 to recruit Aquaman to join their investigation. Kaldur heads back to Blüdhaven with them and reviews all their data on the disappearance of Bart and Conner. He agrees to help Zatanna summon Klarion to ask for access to the Phantom Zone, but … it doesn’t go too well.

We then check in on the Bio-Ship, which is camouflaged above Supertown on New Genesis on September 6 at 4:22 UTC. It’s unclear whether Lor-Zod has held his captives prisoner for a whole week, or if he used the ship’s Cosmic Treadmill to jump forward in time. Regardless, he has placed the three remaining inhibitor collars on Kid Flash, Saturn Girl and Chameleon Boy, as well as removed their Legion rings. Without his super speed, Bart is still recovering from his burns and has large bandages on his hands and chest. Saturn Girl coldly points out that because Lor greedily tried to bring his parents back now, instead of in the future, he has forever trapped them in the Phantom Zone.

Ma’alefa’ak returns from a reconnaissance mission, reporting that an evil sentient computer Lor was using called the Kaizer-Thrall was taken to the Green Lantern planet Oa. Lor orders Kid Flash to assume his position on the Cosmic Treadmill, threatening to kill the others if he doesn’t cooperate. He also mocks the heroes, saying that maybe they’ll get a chance to turn the tables. With his friends’ permission, Bart steps on the treadmill, only to be electrocuted by Lor to remind him who’s in charge. He then gives Bart his speed back and sets course for Oa.

This season has been a very slow build of a lot of separate plot lines that are finally coming together. And that’s great to see. Unfortunately, as with last episode, Bart had another nonspeaking role. His character truly has been reduced to merely serving as a vehicle to help push the plot along. I’m glad that his disappearance became a crucial element of the show, but I wish he would do more than silently scowl at his kidnapper. 

I’m also confused by the timing in this episode. I’ve often said the precise time stamps on this show do more harm than good, and this is a great example of that. Why on Earth would it take Lor-Zod a whole week to figure out where the Kaizer-Thrall is? And if he did jump forward in time, then why did he jump just a week? Or why not go back in time? Is it because the Cosmic Treadmill doesn’t actually grant time-traveling abilities to the Bio-Ship — just super speed? If that’s the case, then the show didn’t explain that.

I guess we’ll just have to wait and see what happens. I don’t know what my next review will be, but I hope it’s the next episode of this show. Despite all its flaws, I am quite invested in it.

Dark Crisis: Special Edition #0

Dark Crisis #1: Sneak Preview!

Writer: Joshua Williamson 

Penciller & Inker: Daniel Sampere

Colorist: Alejandro Sánchez

Letterer: Tom Napolitano 

Editor: Marie Javins

Our cover by Daniel Sampere and Alejandro Sánchez shows the “old guard” — Diana, Clark and Bruce — standing triumphantly in front of the “new guard” — Yara Flor, Jon Kent and Jace Fox. I don’t know anything about Yara or Jace, and I’m a little worried I’ll need to learn about them in order to understand this event. 

This issue was given out on Free Comic Book Day and is 100% dedicated toward advertising DC’s big summer event of 2022. It contains three short stories, a checklist and a two-page ad for Dark Crisis. The first story is a quick little fight between Wally West and Clayface, accompanied with the news that the Justice League has apparently died. I know Joshua Williamson “killed them” in his recent run on Justice League, but I haven’t read that yet.

The second story is labeled a preview for Dark Crisis #1, so I think there’s a high chance we’ll see these pages repeated in that issue. But since we have them now, we might as well talk about them. Dick Grayson is speaking at a candlelight vigil in front of the Hall of Justice. The crowd in attendance is massive, full of just about every hero (and some villains) you could imagine. We can’t see Impulse in the crowd, but I think there’s a good chance he’s there, since Superboy, Wonder Girl and Robin are. But where we do see Impulse is in a two-page splash of a brief history of superheroes to accompany Dick’s speech.

One week after Dick’s speech, we see Wally and Jon battling Kobra, complaining about how brazen all the supervillain groups have been since the Justice League died. But Jon is even more worried that all of the “big heavies” have been keeping quiet so far.

And that’s it for the preview. The third story is a very brief history of the multiverse. The checklist promises a seven-issue Dark Crisis miniseries with tie-ins to The Flash and a slew of one-shots, in addition to a six-issue miniseries tantalizingly titled Dark Crisis: Young Justice. The whole event promises to wrap up in December. And just for fun, here’s that ad I mentioned:

So … yeah. This is going to be a big deal. And it looks like Impulse will be right in the middle of it. I didn’t like everything Williamson did on The Flash, but I did appreciate how he kept trying to bring Bart back. So I am glad that he’s in charge of this event. And even though I get tired of DC slapping the word “crisis” on every other story, I will allow myself to be cautiously optimistic about this. It’s been a long time since I’ve really been excited about a comic book event.

Luckily, we do have something to entertain us while we wait for those comics. Next time, we’ll return to Young Justice: Phantoms for another quick, but important cameo of Kid Flash.

Young Justice: Phantoms – “Odyssey of Death!”

Director: Christina Sota

Writer: Aaron Sparrow

Don’t let my screenshot fool you — this is an image for Young Justice: Phantoms and not Young Justice: Outsiders. HBO Max just doesn’t know the difference. Also, don’t let the closeup on Kid Flash fool you. He’s barely in this episode. In fact, he doesn’t even speak. (Maybe Jason Marsden’s fee is too high?) However, his role is significant enough to warrant a quick review.

We catch up with Bart, Saturn Girl and Chameleon Boy riding the Bio-Ship through Subspace on August 28 at 0:31 UTC (Coordinated Universal Time) — less than a day after they loaded up in the ship with its own Cosmic Treadmill. So far, they’re just using the treadmill (powered by Kid Flash) to travel at super speed. It took the Bio-Ship a whole month to fly from Earth to Mars. But now it can go from Earth to New Genesis in just a day.

Since the Legionnaires believe they failed to prevent Superboy’s death, their new mission is to destroy the Phantom Zone projector before Lor-Zod can use it to release his parents and all their followers. However, Saturn Girl admits they don’t have a concrete plan to obtain the projector.

Our heroes reach New Genesis the next day, arriving on a rather chaotic scene. Lor-Zod has obtained the Phantom Zone projector and is attempting to release his father, General Zod. Jay Garrick is blocking off access to the portal with a whirlwind, and Rocket has placed Lor-Zod and Orion in a bubble, where the two heavyweights can wail on each other without interruption. While camouflaged, Bio-Ship quickly destroys the projector with a laser blast, and as the portal closes, Saturn Girl senses Superboy and Phantom Girl inside the Phantom Zone. Phantom Girl had been unconscious the whole time she was in the zone, and the months of isolation nearly destroyed Superboy’s mind. General Zod eventually located the pair and easily molded Superboy into one of his devout followers.

Saturn Girl manages to wake up Phantom Girl, but that leaves her unprepared for Lor-Zod’s counterattack. Upon seeing the projector destroyed, Lor throws Orion off him, destroys Rocket’s bubble with a blast of heat vision, and flies straight into the Bio-Ship, even though it was still camouflaged. Miss Martian’s evil brother, Ma’alefa’ak, follows close behind. Lor instantly grabs Saturn Girl and threatens to snap her neck unless Chameleon Boy and Kid Flash unless they help him retreat. Bart and Cham exchange worried glances, but the Bio-Ship ultimately flies away without any of the other heroes below them knowing they were ever there.

Jay doesn’t get back to his home in Central City until September 2, 16:17 CDT. And sadly, Bart is not there waiting for him.

This was a pretty explosive episode for the show. Not so much for Bart, who’s been reduced to a human battery. In fact, I was pretty mad with this show until I saw the next episode. But we won’t be talking about that episode next time because Free Comic Book Day brought me an unexpected surprise!

Young Justice: Phantoms – “Encounter Upon the Razor’s Edge!”

Director: Christopher Berkeley

Writers: Jim Krieg and Giancarlo Volpe

It has been a long time since we’ve visited this show! After a lengthy delay between seasons, the fourth season (Phantoms) chose to wait 19 episodes before finally incorporating Bart Allen into the plot. It’s true, we did technically see Bart a couple of times earlier this season, but he wasn’t really there or didn’t actually do anything. The first couple of episodes involved Beast Boy traveling with Miss Martian and Superboy to Mars for their wedding. Gar was feeling a bit homesick during that trip, and couldn’t help but periodically scroll through photos of the team he founded, the Outsiders. These photos sometimes included Kid Flash, but didn’t reveal anything new.

Later in the season, one episode ended with Saturn Girl and Chameleon Boy knocking on Bart’s door on May 15. But literally all Bart did was open the door. We didn’t find out what the Legionnaires asked of him until this episode. Turns out the two time-travelers were waiting until Jay Garrick took off to attend a peace summit on New Genesis with Rocket (as seen above). This left Bart in charge of the house for the summer and free to assist in any secret missions affecting the fate of the future.

Our story begins in Central City on August 27, 6:49 Central Daylight Time. The sun is remarkably high in the sky for this early in the morning, and Bart is loading a picnic table of supplies into Miss Martian’s old Bio-Ship. Chameleon Boy marvels at how it took them three and a half months to acquire and assemble the parts they needed, but now it’s only taken Bart 10 minutes to install them. Bart apologizes for his slowness, saying that incorporating the rebuilt components from their destroyed Time-Sphere was a real “time suck.”

Bart’s almost finished making Bio-Ship ready for time travel, but he refuses to finish until the Legionnaires explain everything to him. Chameleon Boy worries about upsetting the timeline, but Bart points out that he’s not even from this timeline, which is why they came to see him in the first place. So Saturn Girl and Chameleon Boy agree to Bart’s request, just as a villain named Lor-Zod begins to tell roughly the same story to his henchmen half a universe away.

Bart assembles a large pile of food, including his favorite Chicken Whizees, as Saturn Girl and Chameleon Boy begin their story with the Phantom Zone. The Kryptonians used the extra-dimensional space as a prison, but never intended to keep their criminals there permanently. But this unfortunately became the reality after Krypton was destroyed, leaving no one behind to pull the prisoners back into reality. But in the future, the last Phantom Zone projector was discovered on New Genesis, and the United Planets agreed to parole all the imprisoned Kryptonians and end their sentences, which lasted over a thousand years.

The released Kryptonians were settled on the planet Daxam, which orbits a red sun. But 15 years later, General Zod smuggled his followers to a nearby planet with a yellow sun and began to stage a rebellion against the United Planets. He was ultimately defeated by the Legion of Super Heroes. Zod and his followers were once again banished to the Phantom Zone, with one exception. His teenage son, Lor-Zod, was spared that fate due to his age.

Lor-Zod stole the Phantom Zone projector in an attempt to release his parents, forcing the Legion to destroy the projector. So Lor-Zod turned his attention toward destroying the Legion itself. He learned that the team has credited Superboy as their inspiration (for whatever reason), so Lor-Zod stole the last remaining sample of kryptonite and a Time-Sphere to go back in time to kill the man who also happened to be related (in a way) to Jor-El, who initially imprisoned General Zod so long ago.

Saturn Girl, Chameleon Boy and Phantom Girl tried to stop Lor-Zod from traveling back in time, but they were too late, and ended up becoming engulfed in the Time-Sphere’s chroniton radiation. Bart realizes this made them immune to changes Lor made to the timestream, saying the same thing happened to him. Saturn Girl sadly explains that after Lor disappeared, they discovered that the Legion of Super Heroes didn’t exist in their timeline anymore and General Zod now ruled the galaxy, all because Conner Kent had been killed. So the three remaining Legionnaires took the last Time-Sphere on a quest to stop Lor-Zod.

They tracked Lor-Zod to a significant moment in Superboy’s history — the speech he made at the United Nations a year ago, in which he revealed his existence to the world. The Legionnaires were able to stop Lor from killing Conner that day without anyone noticing, but, as Bart points out, that action wasn’t enough to revert the timeline. Bart sadly adds that he has also experienced that exact same phenomenon. To make matters worse, Saturn Girl continues, was that Lor escaped, leaving the Legionnaires without any idea of when, where, or how he would kill Superboy. So they resolved to covertly track Conner and wait for Lor’s attack. 

Using their convenient powers of telepathy, shapeshifting and intangibility, Saturn Girl, Chameleon Boy and Phantom Girl were able to remain virtually invisible for an entire year, even following Conner to his wedding on Mars. Lor-Zod also went to Mars, keeping his Time-Sphere out of sync with the timestream to avoid detection. He destroyed the Justice League’s Zeta-Tube and a communications satellite to cut off any support from Earth. Lor then separated the Legion from Superboy by creating a cave-in, which gave him enough time to add the kryptonite to a bomb set up by Miss Martian’s evil brother. The Legionnaires split up to find Superboy and Phantom Girl was the lucky one to arrive right when he took the bomb into a pit of lava to save the population of Mars. Saturn Girl and Chameleon Boy both believe Superboy and Phantom Girl were killed in the blast.

Chameleon Boy says that Lor-Zod also destroyed the Legionnaires’ Time-Sphere, stranding them in the past, another thing Bart says he can relate to. But Saturn Girl says they found a lucky break with Miss Martian’s old Bio-Ship, which was scheduled to retire on Mars. Since there was no historical record of the ship beyond this point, Saturn Girl felt confident they could use her without altering the timeline. So the Legionnaires journeyed back to Earth and reached out to the one hero capable of replacing Superboy in their timeline. Bart thinks they were referring to him, but Chameleon Boy impatiently says they went to Superman, telling him as little as possible, but hoping they gave him enough information to become the inspiration for the Legion.

After their meeting with Superman, Saturn Girl and Chameleon Boy visited Bart, dubbing him the “only true space-time expert in this era on this planet.” Which finally brings us to the present and the Legion’s desperate need for Bart’s help. After one final plea for his aid, Bart instantly throws on his Kid Flash uniform and puts the finishing touches on the Bio-Ship’s Cosmic Treadmill.

There’s a scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark where Indiana Jones sits around a table and literally opens up a book to explain the plot to the audience. George Lucas called this scene a necessary evil — and I agree. Every story occasionally needs to sit down and explain things. And that’s exactly what this episode did. Unfortunately, it wasn’t able to keep the explanation as concise as Lucas did in Raiders. Saturn Girl and Chameleon Boy had way too much stuff to explain to Bart — including a lot of stuff that I would have loved to have seen actually play out in real time. But this isn’t a new problem for this show. Ever since it went to HBO Max, it has been burdened with too much plot, too many characters and not a large enough budget for animation or voice actors to tell the story properly. Lots of episodes have extended explanation scenes like this, with a voiceover accompanied by a series of still images. And that’s a shame because the story is almost always compelling.

Jason Marsden returned once again to voice Bart, and even seemed to make Bart sound a little older. He looks almost exactly the same as he did last season, but maybe just a smidge more mature. He still is rather short, as Saturn Girl and Chameleon Boy both dwarf him. We’ve never really known how old Bart is supposed to be, but he is apparently old enough to watch over Jay’s house by himself for four months. (Jay, by the way, celebrated his 102nd birthday on August 27.) Sadly, we don’t know anything else about Bart right now. We have seen Eduardo and Jaime this season, but never with Bart.

I was most intrigued by Bart’s little asides during this episode. They seem to fit into my theory that this version of Bart is a lot smarter than he lets on. And Saturn Girl and Chameleon Boy seemed to acknowledge this, as well. I don’t think they called him a true space-time expert just because he happened to use a time machine one time. It seems like Bart not only knew exactly what he was doing with his initial journey to the past, but he somehow was able to confirm what the end of the “Bloodlines” episode hinted at — which was all of Bart’s efforts to change the future failed. This, of course, raises more questions than answers, but I don’t expect the show to address them this season. This isn’t Bart’s story — he’s just a vehicle (or rather an engine, literally) to help move the plot along. It’s great having some form of Bart to review, but as a diehard fan of this character, I’m left wanting more. As usual.

Next time, we’ll see what Bart and the Legionnaires decide to do with the time-traveling Bio-Ship.

The Flash – “Impulsive Excessive Disorder”

Director: David McWhirter

Writer: Thomas Pound

Well, I wasn’t sure it was going to happen — I was actively hoping it wouldn’t happen — but it did. Jordan Fisher has returned as Impulse to the CW’s Flash. Will this one-off episode be an improvement over that disastrous two-parter that closed out Season Seven? Let’s find out.

Our story picks right up where we left off with Bart and his sister, Nora, attending their parents’ vow renewal ceremony. After Barry’s time-bending kiss and all the guests go home, Bart and Nora have one final quiet moment with their parents. Bart says even though he heard about this vow renewal a million times from Barry and Iris in the future, he still got a little weepy to see it in person. Iris warmly reflects on the future that’s ahead of them, but Bart admits he’s worried they’ve now changed the future. Barry claims to have already checked that, via his futuristic computer, Gideon, and he says there are no changes to the timeline. So the kids give their parents one last hug and race off for Central City in the year 2049. 

Bart and Nora quickly zoom around their house, satisfied that everything seems to be just as they left it. Bart reflects on a bust of Jay Garrick’s helmet, saying that seeing Jay alive in the past makes him miss his mentor even more now. Suddenly a blast of green energy sweeps over our heroes and Jay’s bust disappears. Before Bart and Nora can figure out what happened, Jay himself walks through the front door, carrying several bags of Big Belly burgers. Bart immediately breaks down in tears and gives a perplexed Jay a massive hug. Nora makes it a group hug, telling Jay they’ve missed him so much.

As Jay sets up the food on the table, Bart and Nora have a quick aside. Bart thinks it’s “crash” that Jay is now alive, but Nora insists this is the opposite of crash. She now realizes that green energy was a temporal wave, meaning their trip back in time did, in fact, change the future. Nora does agree that it seems like they’ve changed the future for the better, but she wants to figure out why this happened.

Bart and Nora join Jay at the table, casually asking where their parents are. Jay reminds them that Barry and Iris are in Milan, celebrating the anniversary of their wedding vow renewal. Jay can tell Bart and Nora are acting odd, but Nora assures him they’re perfectly fine. Jay then randomly chooses to thank Bart once again for saving his life from Godspeed several months ago, adding that he knows Bart will make a great Flash one day. Jay then receives a message from his wife, Rose, saying she won’t be able to join them for dinner. Bart and Nora are unable to fully conceal their confusion/panic to learn that Jay isn’t married to Joan.

After dinner, the siblings visit the Flash Museum, and Nora begins to realize that the cosmic treadmill wasn’t built to handle the power of three speedsters at once. Which means that when they chased after Godspeed, their tachyon energies must have caused massive temporal fissures. Nora bemoans breaking their dad’s time travel rules as she searches through a database to discover that not only did Jay never marry Joan, but Joan doesn’t even exist in this reality. She then keeps her brother from panicking too much as she dives deeper into the archives to find the first change to the timeline. Nora skips past references to a corrupt mayor and the Trickster invading Tibet, but she’s confused by a reference to Booster Gold. Instead of looking further into it, though, they keep going, reading about Zoom attacking the Central City Police Department, which references Joe West being the chief of police.

Bart realizes that their grandpa was never chief of police, so they start looking for the moment he was promoted. Nora finds a story about Joe being shot while stopping a jewelry heist in 2013. And she somehow confirms there were no time fissures before this point. So they decide that if they go back to this point in time and prevent Joe from being shot, then all the changes to the timeline will be undone.

So our heroes travel to Central City on December 31, 2013, which technically was before this show even began. Barry Allen was still in a coma after being stuck by lightning and Iris West was thinking about dating her dad’s partner, Eddie Thawne. Bart throws on an outfit (as seen above) that Iris believes belongs in 1913, not 2013, but Bart claims its sexy and incognito. For some reason, Bart and Nora went straight into the police department, where they surreptitiously watch their grandfather try and fail to ask Cecile out on a date. While they’re busy arguing about staying out of sight during this time-travel mission, they’re approached by Detective Thawne, who demands to know who they are.

Luckily, Nora came prepared, handing Eddie ID cards for intern CSIs Nora Moy (named after XS co-creator Jeffrey Moy) and Bart Waid (named after Mark Waid, co-creator of Impulse and XS). Bart tries to lighten the mood by calling themselves crime fighters — with science — and Eddie seems to appreciate this, noting how tense the department has been since the S.T.A.R. Labs explosion (which gave Barry his powers and created a bunch of meta-humans in the area). Eddie even admits that his new partner, Joe, barely speaks to him. So Bart suggests they try bonding over a cup of coffee. Eddie likes this idea so much, he gives Bart his credit card and tells him to pick up coffee for the entire bullpen. Bart hesitates, but Nora accepts the assignment to maintain appearances.

As soon as Eddie walks away, Bart realizes they were just talking to their mom’s former fiancé and the man who sacrificed himself to stop Eobard Thawne. But Nora says that doesn’t matter right now, and she leads him to a small coffee stand on the street, which seems like a terrible place to go for a large order like theirs. There’s a long line at the stand, and Bart begs to use his super speed to grab the coffee, but Nora forbids it, fearing it could change the timeline more. Nora explains that her computer gauntlet will let her know when the jewel robbery will happen and until then, they just need to lie low. Bart’s not convinced though, worrying that every second they spend waiting in line is a second where their grandpa could be getting shot.

Bart becomes so agitated, he knocks into a pretty girl waiting in line behind him. Bart is instantly smitten by this girl named Avery, who just happens to be holding lots of papers on quantum mechanics. He asks how she knows so much about this advanced science and she jokes that it’s because she’s from the future. Not realizing she’s joking, Bart admits he’s from the future and strikes up a conversation about time travel. Avery is an intern at Fast Track Labs, conveniently studying the precise kind of paradox that Bart and Nora are dealing with. Bart calls her the Elon Musk of her generation (which I’m sure he meant as a compliment, even though Musk is not a genius at all), and further confuses the girl by saying it was crash to meet her. Luckily, Nora’s gauntlet interrupts this awkwardness, and she rushes Bart off to go save Grandpa Joe.

Turns out the jewel robber is quite a nervous idiot and his gun accidentally discharged when he dropped it. Bart and Nora arrive at the scene as soon as the bullet leaves the barrel, and Nora initially holds Bart back. At super speed, she explains that if their grandpa was never supposed to be responding to this robbery, then the gun was never supposed to fire at all. And now she’s worried about interfering, as it might cause another temporal flux. Nora claims she tried to tell this to Bart earlier, but he was too busy flirting with Avery. When Bart asks what they should do instead, Nora begins stammering, so he decides to save the day himself. Bart oddly chooses to move Joe instead of moving the bullet, and even takes time to give his grandpa a kiss on the cheek.

Joe easily arrests the crook and Eddie marvels that he must have a guardian angel. Nora tells Bart he made the wrong move, as her gauntlet somehow shows that more temporal particles are in flux. Bart then randomly says that he’s surprised the gunman wasn’t a meta-human, to which Nora bizarrely states that the recent S.T.A.R. Labs explosion created more meta-humans. Of course, the only reason they stated these unrelated facts is so that they could be overheard by a mysterious woman with telepathy, who now realizes she’s not alone.

Returning the conversation to the actual mission, Bart suggests they go back in time and move the bullet instead of Joe to see if that fixes the temporal fluxes. But Nora doesn’t like the idea of using more time travel to fix their time travel problems. Instead, she suggests they review the security footage of the shooting to see what went wrong. They see Eddie has the flash drive and offer to take it back to headquarters for him, but he tells them to go on their coffee run, which they aborted.

So they do go on the coffee run, which gives them enough time to prepare a fake flash drive. And luckily, Eddie helps them out even more by distracting Joe with talk about his former partner dying, Barry being in a coma, and Joe’s failed attempt to woo Cecile. Nora can’t help but tell Joe what Cecile’s favorite flowers are, as she delivers his coffee and swaps out the flash drive. Nora and Bart retreat to an empty room in the building, which just happens to be the still-damaged room where Barry was struck by lightning. Bart takes a moment to relish this history, while Nora fires up a computer.

Once they review the video, Bart instantly recognizes the mysterious woman who was eavesdropping on them. She’s Mona Taylor, aka the Queen of the Royal Flush Gang. Nora uses her gauntlet to pull up tomorrow’s newspaper, which says the Royal Flush Gang killed 30 people in a casino on New Year’s Eve. Bart remembers that in their original timeline the Royal Flush Gang didn’t form until long after Barry became the Flash. Nora quickly realizes that their random conversation about meta-humans gave Mona the idea of a gang several years early, and now 30 people are going to die. 

Bart says they need to stop that casino disaster, and Nora agrees, but also worries about causing more problems to the timeline. Bart laments that their dad would have gotten it right on the first try, and he suddenly breaks down in tears, wailing that everything he’s done today has only made everything worse. With an insane amount of tears pouring down his cheeks, Bart says he’ll never be good enough to be the Flash and runs away.

Nora finds Bart visiting their unconscious father. Bart’s been telling his dad that he’s going to have a complete failure for a son. Nora tells him that nobody’s perfect and she quotes Barry: “No matter how fast you run, life is about the journey.” She assures Bart they’ll fix everything, but just need to take some time to think things through. This calms Bart down and he realizes he’s made a new friend who’s conveniently an expert in time travel and might be able to help them.

Bart and Nora luckily find Avery all alone at Fast Track Labs — even though it’s New Year’s Eve. Avery is naturally concerned with how these two bypassed the lab’s security and armed guards, and she even believes that their meeting at the coffee stand was no accident, since Bart and Nora must have been tracking her to steal her company’s secrets. Bart confesses they actually are from the future, and Nora decides to prove it by pulling up a factoid about Avery’s future on her gauntlet. Bart points out that Avery would have to wait to see if that future came true, thus making that a stupid plan. Luckily, Avery is intrigued enough by the gauntlet itself and, upon a quick inspection, decides the device is futuristic and Bart and Nora are telling the truth.

Nora pulls up the next day’s newspaper to show Avery the casino bombing they’re worried about. But to their surprise, the death toll begins to fluctuate, jumping up to 42 and falling back down to 36. Avery hypothesizes that this means the casino heist has become a fixed point in time, but the deaths are not. Which, theoretically, means that Bart and Nora can still fix the timeline and save the people, just as long as they allow the heist to happen. Avery then asks to go with the heroes to help save the day, but Bart refuses to put her in danger. He does, however, promise to come back to her.

Impulse and XS then put on their superhero outfits for the first time this episode and sneak into the casino after the Royal Flush Gang has already begun their heist. The gang oddly only has four members — in addition to the telepath (Queen), there’s a strong man (King), a guy with laser eyes (Jack) and a girl that can … do backflips? Anyway, XS goes to look for the bomb, leaving Impulse to rescue the civilians, while allowing the heist to still happen.

King and Queen are keeping an eye on all the people in the lobby, while the other two collect the loot. Impulse starts to sneak a few people away two at a time, but it doesn’t take long before King and Queen notice their hostages disappearing. Queen can sense the presence of a mysterious savior, so she picks a random woman and announces that King will smash her head in unless the hero reveals themself. Nora calls Bart up over their comm-link thing and says she can’t find the bomb. Bart tells her to keep looking, while he’s going to enact Plan B to prevent Queen from killing anyone. Only problem is there isn’t a Plan B.

What Bart comes up with, though, is actually pretty smart. He steals a casino manager’s uniform and presents himself as the one who was helping people escape. He tries to make a deal with Queen, saying he’ll let the gang take all the money they want, as long as they don’t kill anyone — since dead people aren’t great for business. Queen, however, is suspicious, saying a casino manager wouldn’t risk his neck on minimum wage. I don’t know why she thinks a casino manager would only earn minimum wage, but that’s not the point. The point is, she believes Bart to be an undercover cop and begins to probe his mind.

Queen quickly picks up on Bart’s concerns about saving the future, but Bart recovers nicely by thinking about Avery being his future. The other two gang members return with big bags full of cash, proudly telling their Queen they’ve collected $10 million. The Royal Flush Gang begins to leave, but for some reason, Bart protests this, earning him a nasty punch from King. Queen tells the hostages to enjoy all the fireworks as she leads her goons out the door.

Bart tells Nora the gang is gone, just as she finally finds the bomb, but immediately realizes it’s too small to level the building like the newspaper article said. Nora begins to panic, as the bombs are set to blow in 30 seconds. Bart says that King broke his arm and he needs at least three minutes to speed-heal it. But he does offer Nora some kind words of encouragement, ending with the cheesy line “get excessive!” Nora instantly finds five bombs in total and runs them to the top of a nearby building, hurtling them into the air just as the New Year’s fireworks go off.

For absolutely no reason at all, Bart and Nora return to the police department in their intern disguises. Bart doublechecks that they’ve fixed all the problems they caused, then he recklessly drags Nora into a group photograph with the rest of the CCPD. Bart then visits Avery, who is still, astonishingly, at her lab. She tells Bart that he hasn’t just changed her research, but he’s also changed her life. Bart thanks her for helping save the day, then begins to awkwardly stammer until Avery pulls him in for a kiss. Nora eventually interrupts the ridiculously long kiss by walking in the room with her eyes covered. So Bart finally leaves, promising Avery he’ll see her again.

Back in 2049, Bart and Nora take Jay to the Flash Museum to finally come clean on everything and explain the whole story, including how he originally was killed by Godspeed. Bart apologizes for changing the timeline, saying he understands if this means he can never be the Flash. Jay laughs at this, saying that not only has Barry screwed up the timeline, but he himself once journeyed back to World War II and fought Nazis. He thanks Bart for saving his and Joan’s life, then says that sometimes they’ll make mistakes that can’t be undone, but they can always try to make things better. Jay then leaves, joking that he has a meeting with President Luthor.

Well, I will say that this episode was better than the last time we saw Bart on The Flash. But it’s still pretty lame. And that’s a shame because this episode did actually have great potential. Focusing on Bart and Nora’s journey home is a good idea. Giving them a mission to fix the timeline is also good. But we need a strong hook. Finding out that Jay is married to Rose instead of Joan is not it. Yeah, it’s sad that Joan was erased from history, but do we really care about her? I mean, she didn’t even show up in this episode, which is odd, considering how she was ostensibly the main reason for this entire adventure. So why did Bart and Nora risk the entire space-time continuum just for her? I mean, maybe this Rose lady is perfectly lovely and deserves to be Jay’s wife.

But seriously, imagine how much more impactful it would have been had Bart and Nora been on a mission to save their dad. They ask Jay if their parents are dropping by and his face falls. “What are you talking about?” he asks. “Barry’s dead.” THAT would have given this show the emotional drama it craves so badly, and often forces in unnatural, unearned ways — like this episode demonstrated so painfully.

This story also failed to be a captivating time-travel story. Avery called Bart “McFly,” referencing one of the greatest time-travel stories of all time, Back to the Future. That movie was built around an effective cause-and-effect conflict. Marty inadvertently prevented his parents from falling in love, thus jeopardizing his own existence. But in this episode, all the events were completely random and unassociated. Racing Godspeed back in time somehow caused Joe to suffer a non-fatal gunshot in the past, which somehow erased Joan from existence? What? Oh, and then we’re going to hastily add on a poor excuse for a Royal Flush Gang because we needed some sense of action at the end. No sense of drama, tension or emotional connection. Wouldn’t it have been cool if Bart and Nora had to make sure Barry got hit by the lightning bolt? And — to borrow an idea from the comics — maybe one or both of them would have to (temporarily) sacrifice themselves to become that fateful bolt of lightning?

But such ideas were too big for this episode. Director David McWhirter clearly had a minuscule budget for this one — there were hardly any special effects. Heck, we were even limited to about 90 seconds of screen time for the Impulse suit! However, that was actually a good thing, since that suit still looks horrendous. It’s such a shame that this show has become so amateurish. And having an episode remind us of Season One — when it was not amateurish — only emphasizes the show’s decline.

I also feel like Jordan Fisher is being underutilized here. He’s a singer and a dancer. Make that part of Bart’s character. Yeah, he sang that cheesy ballad at his parents’ vow renewal, but I’d like to see him constantly singing, dancing, rapping, scatting, humming, drumming — you know, acting like someone full of unlimited energy and enthusiasm. Instead, this script gave us an Impulse that I think can best be described as bipolar. Fisher does not do a good job of randomly bursting into uncontrollable tears over the slightest difficulties, but I don’t think anyone else could do a better job with these awful scripts.

And what was up with Avery? She added absolutely nothing to this plot. Yes, I know Avery Ho was the Flash from China in the comics, but this episode didn’t confirm that’s who this Avery is. Theoretically, she was supposed to be a time-travel expert to help solve Bart and Nora’s dilemma, but she really didn’t tell them anything they couldn’t have figured out on their own. And if this episode really needed an expert, then why didn’t they use Booster Gold? They made a big point of showing his picture early on, only to never mention him again.

The cynic in me says that Avery was only brought in to show conclusively that Bart is straight. His silver fingernails and earrings might have led some people to think otherwise, so this episode quickly and aggressively asserted Bart’s heterosexuality with the first pretty face he saw. Pretty lame if you ask me. Granted, it might be mildly interesting if this show does reunite them somehow. Maybe Avery figures out time travel and comes to the future, or Bart returns to the past one day. There’s potential there … but I don’t have any confidence in this show anymore. I kind of think someone needs to put it out of its misery.

Next time, we’ll return to the animated universe with an episode of Young Justice: Phantoms!