Young Justice: Outsiders brings together a formidable group of villains

Young Justice: Outsiders brings back more familiar faces with three new episodes and things are starting to heat up.

While Young Justice: Outsiders hasn’t quite hit the quality of the original two seasons, it feels like it’s starting to get there. Not every moment is a hit in these episodes, but there’s enough of them to keep me intrigued and wanting to watch more of it. I do love that we’re getting this a few episodes at a time instead of having it drawn out with one episode a week.

“Evolution”

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Vandal Savage returns in two different ways in this episode. His daughter is learning about his past, which shows us some of those moments in flashbacks. He’s also part of the present day story and we see him on a call with Lex Luthor.

However, one plus to his presence is that he actually wants to save Earth. The downside is that he asks for help from Darkseid. Two villains of that status working together is usually never a good thing.

When he realizes that the star creature is behind the massive attack, Vandal takes it upon himself to defeat the main one that was controlling the others. With the ship just out of range, Cassandra is left to take over Warworld, which is basically his own Death Star.

Brion, Forager, and Halo continue to improve their skills as they start training even more with Dick Grayson, Conner Kent and Artemis Crock. I understand that the show wants to focus on the new characters, but for the most part, I haven’t found them too interesting just yet. They’ve all been exiled in one way or another. Halo’s powers are the most interesting to me because it feels like they’ve only touched the surface of what she’s capable of.

“Triptych”

Mist, Livewire, and Shade make a trip to S.T.A.R. Labs in Detroit, where they see a large piece of equipment. Cheshire makes a timely appearance just as the three need to make their escape. However, she’s pretty banged up by the time she gets on the getaway plane.

The heroes get back on track with the meta-human trafficking mission that began several episodes ago. They’re able to get Mist and Livewire, along with the doctor, but Chesire and Shade make it out. Artemis and Chesire have a complicated history to say the least and I’m glad that they see it through in Outsiders instead of dropping it altogether from the show’s previous seasons.

As the episode name implies, we’ll be focusing on more than one group in this episode. The next set of heroes we see consists of Robin (Tim Drake), Spoiler, Arrowette, and Orphan. Their mission is to tail Jervis Tetch, who actually ends up being Clayface. He ends up leading the team right to the Mad Hatter, who ultimately gets away.

The third team we see is able to keep Brick from escaping and they capture Abra Kadabra. All three teams fail to capture all of the villains that they are up against, but it gives us something to follow up with at a later time. Each team shares their knowledge because there’s a connection between the incidents. Shade was present for all three and he’s what ties them together and he was being mind-controlled thanks to the work of the Mad Hatter.

What I found most interesting about this episode was how these three teams of heroes have been leaving the Justice League in the dark. Aquaman and M’gann show up representing their teams and Wonder Woman gives her input by way of hologram. Batman and Nightwing’s teams might be on the outside, but they’re both still just trying to do what’s best, even if it doesn’t conform to how the Justice League gets things done.

“Home Fires”

The third new episode of the week takes us to Greater Bialya and returns to Vandal Savage’s story. He has something in the works with Queen Bee, but we don’t know what it is just yet. From there, we go to Rimbor and Lobo makes his debut for the season. He almost immediately accepts a contract and while we don’t get the details, we know it’ll send him to Earth.

The Justice League is involved in setting up a meta-human youth center, which Lois watches from her television at home. While the Allen household is bringing in a slew of parents and kids for a playdate, someone is keeping a close eye on them. Lady Shiva shows up just before Orm wants to destroy all of them and takes him out. Killing the families of the heroes would be the nuclear option and it’s not one the Light wants to use right now.

There’s something suspicious about villains doing things for the greater good in these few episodes. First, Savage wants to save Earth and then Granny Goodness is teaming up with Wayne Industries to support the youth center. My suspicions proved correct when we see Vandal Savage with his own team of villains who are prepared to take on the heroes, specifically Dick Grayson’s team.

Lobo’s contract is to kill Forager, but he attacks when the rest of the team was around. He holds his own against them and thinks that he’s completed the contract, but Forager pulls one over on him by shedding his exoskeleton. However, Queen Bee is aware that Lobo failed and they didn’t really need him to succeed to begin with.

By the third episode this week, I’m sold on what Outsiders is looking to accomplish. They’ve done a lot of set up, but with Vandal Savage working with Queen Bee, Lady Shiva, Lex Luthor, Granny Goodness, and other villains, things are heating up.

Young Justice: Outsiders airs on Fridays on DC Universe.