The Plot Thickens!

I'm of course, referring to the plot of Young Justice! This week marks Season 2's mid-season finale and boy is it a wild ride with it's fair share of twists and turns. It's my pick of the week.

We not only have the introduction of Carol Ferris, but also Nightwing and Artemis' long awaited return to the front lines! In "Depths" we have the Gamma Squad protecting a new martian communications satellite from the likes of Aqualad and Black Manta's troops. Let's just say it doesn't exactly go according to plan. I won't spoil it here but the end of this episode is a real game changer, and the fact that it's now going into hiatus is excruciating.

Aqualad is sinister and badass. He really does make a great villain; and his character progression was the most interesting part of the show up to this point. Speaking of budding villains, the sub-plot between Superboy and Miss Martian continues to unfold. More and more it seems they are prepping Megan for a turn to the dark side. Her moral choices are questionable at best, and the implication that she is erasing the memories of the entire team to cover up her "mind-rapes" is appalling. It's an interesting turn for the character that shows just how willing this show is to push boundaries beyond your average "children's cartoon".

As far as the rest of DC Nation goes, we have a repeat of Green Lantern and a couple new DC Nation shorts. First up was "Sword of the Atom: Part 3". I'm not really a fan of the Atom, but it was interesting at least. Since the story seems to be long-form, breaking it up into a bunch of one to two minute shorts was a bad idea. I would have rather seen this as a full-length pilot.

The opposite holds true for the other short, "New Teen Titans: Taped Before a Live Studio Audience". It was the very cliche premise of arguing friends dividing their belongings with duct tape, but it worked because it was merely a one minute gag. I'm a little worried that this new tone won't be able to sustain a full-length show. I'm guessing that when "Teen Titans Go!" does begin airing next year, it won't be as popular as the execs predict because it will be based off these shorts and not the original acclaimed show.

Marvel Universe was complete re-runs through and through, so I won't go into it. What we did have though, is the return of Iron Man: Armored Adventures! The show has been on hiatus so they could time its return with the theatrical release of The Avengers. I think it's a case of too little, too late because there seems to be only seven episodes left in the season.

The episode this week was actually a bit different depending on where you watched it. On television was premiered the episode "Iron Man 2099" which was a great episode. The problem being that I saw that episode on the Nicktoons website months ago since I watch everything online. For the website-goers, we got the episode "Ctl-Alt-Del"; a rather underwhelming episode featuring The Controller as the villain. Basically, the Controller brings Tony into a VR sim and tries to coerce Extremis out of him. That's pretty much it. Not bad, not great either. It doesn't help that the Controller is a wholly uninteresting villain. I don't think Marvel really knows what to do with this show, but here's to hoping it goes back to how great it was in Season 1.

And that's it for the shows this week. With multiple shows on hiatus, the urge to watch through these animation blocks is waning. They really need to get their act together with new episodes, or at least show re-runs of classic shows like JLU or Batman: The Animated Series. But that would be CRAZY

Until next time comics fans, stay golden.