Now that season 3 is on its way it’s the best time to rewatch the show, preferably on the DC Universe streaming service if you’re in America as that helps support the show directly and hopefully get us more than just season 3. This Re(af)Watch series is not quite a review, more of an opinion piece about each episode as I rewatch them. Covering all 46 episodes of the show’s first 2 seasons, and maybe more. Continuing on with season 2 episode 11 Cornered
Written by: Nicole Dubuc
Directed by: Doug Murphy
Episode synopsis: With the Team’s headquarters gone they move into Nightwing’s temporary warehouse, meanwhile another alien has his sights set on matching his skills against Earth’s mightiest. Despero arrives, with his robot announcer L-Ron, at the Hall of Justice and seals everyone there inside as he fights them all. When everyone is down Mal suits up as Guardian to keep him busy as they figure out how to defeat him. As Despero is taken out the smarmy Reach Ambassador deactivates the shield around the Hall and reveals the League’s secret orbital base. While all that was going on the abductees from the Reach are in counseling with Black Canary and Blue Beetle reveals the bad future awaiting him.
Here we see that Earth’s superhuman population has gained interest from not just those studying the Meta-Gene but other aliens as well, ones with not so subtle approaches. Just a good ol’ alien attack on the Justice League from someone wanting to prove himself, Despero just had the misfortune to attack when half the League wasn’t there. If he had some more patience he could have waited and got to fight the big heavy hitters of the League, but he doesn’t seem the patient type. I do have to wonder though, Despero’s information came from the Kroloteans so did they sell that information after they were driven off Earth? Was it to recoup some of their loses of their failed incursion of Earth, or it could be a way for them to get their own back against the League and Earth in general? Could be both.
A thought did occur to me when thinking about the Team’s temporary living space, not only is the League stretched thin with half their roster in space and the rest dealing with the Reach, but they don’t have access to Bruce Wayne’s money either. The warehouse is likely a re-purposed safehouse of Nightwing’s, and he’s done a good job with it given the time constraints even if it’s still a warehouse in Blüdhaven. Mount Justice was the original headquarters of the League, that the League spent some time fixing up before the Team moved in, and it’s not like the League had another abandoned secret base. They might’ve had a better, more upmarket, warehouse if Batman was arranging it.
We have the return of the Black Canary counseling sessions which we saw in season 1 was great, I like that the League cares about mental health. After all, being abducted, poked, prodded, and experimented on, is not something to just brush off, even for the superheroes. Virgil even calls it torture, it wasn’t some science experiment to him, just pain and more pain. Even saying he saw more kids that went into the Reach’s labs and never came out again, who knows how many they saw die. That’s a traumatising experience. It’s good to see the League recognize that and provide free health care to these kids, and it’s reasonable to assume this isn’t some special occasion but something they do on a regular basis.
Now someone who could use some counseling is M’gann. She is not dealing with her existential crisis well at all, it hasn’t been long since it happened but she could’ve requested to speak to Black Canary too. Realising the trauma she’s caused to her victims has made her doubt every use of her powers, worried about what will happen to the people she inflicts them on. Even someone like Despero. Which does imply she has learned her actions were wrong no matter who she was doing it to, no arguments and justifications of only needing use it on “real bad guys.” No easy way out here, acknowledging her actions were not justified and she did some real harm is a good first step, now she just needs to take some more. Opening the door to Conner at the end is a good start, implying she’s going to talk to him about it. Because she definitely needs to talk to someone.
The Reach Ambassador is proving to be a really smarmy and shrewd operator. He knows how the game is played and what to say to implicate others so the public is talking about them and not about what the Reach is up to. Give a vague half truth and deflection onto the League with another half-truth, making Captain Atom have to clarify what the League’s been doing rather than getting the chance to put the spotlight on the Reach’s abductions. The Ambassador cast doubt on all the witnesses along with smearing the League so any proof they get against the Reach needs to be airtight or else it’ll be dismissed. The Reach is one step ahead of them yet again.
G. Gordon Godfrey is at it again, this time disparaging a private meeting Captain Atom, the Ambassador, and UN Secretary General Tseng have. The idea is to make perfecting normal things sound somehow sinister, because of course the UN Secretary General is going to have private meetings as that’s just part of the day to day routine. But people like Godfrey spin that routine easy enough, suggesting because it’s private the League have something to hide, and if they’ve got something to hide then they must be bad. Which is a very real world tactic we’ve seen used a lot in recent decades.
The glorious one’s second appearance this episode was at the end talking about the League’s orbital Watchtower. Notice how he jumps to making wild accusations about what the Watchtower is, claiming they are using it to spy on the Earth despite no real evidence for that, the Ambassador just said it was a headquarters. Using the fact that the League kept something secret gives him the opening to just make things up, to lie, because his audience has already hooked onto his bait of the League keeping secrets from them. So now he is the only source of “true information” and the League are “secret keeping liars” if they say anything to contradict his “facts.” So the League can tell the truth, it’s just a base in orbit, not a spy satellite, but Godfrey can spin that as “well of course they’d say that, they are trying to keep the truth from you as I’ve already proven.” He’s blocking off any chance at his audience learning facts and truth, only what ever he tells them are the “facts,” leading them deeper down the rabbit hole to only rely on him and that anyone speaking contrary to him can’t be trusted.
Despero is the revamped villain of the episode, he’s a long standing enemy of the Justice League, going all the way back to the 1960s. He’s grown and changed over the decades and there have been many variations. From a thin mind controlling chessmaster to a hulking powerhouse brute, he’s been through it all. This version is looking to collect trophies (heads or skulls it seems) as he bests the strongest opponents of the worlds he goes to, something like The Predator except less of a hunter and more like a gladiator or wrestler. His hypnotic third eye is still his trademark no matter what variation he’s in.
L-Ron is with him this time. He’s a robot that has a connection to Despero, but not like this show used him. He was given to the Justice League for returning Despero to the alien Manga Khan, this was in the 80s in the Justice League International period where things were a little bit less serious. So L-Ron was a regular recurring character in the Justice League comics. L-Ron even swapped bodies with Despero for a period of time. In Young Justice he’s Despero’s announcer, his “hype man” as it were, and assistant, he’s also the best part of this episode. He has all the best lines, calling out the “poor sportism” of the heroes for not fighting Despero one at a time. He was just so much fun. I’m going to miss him.
This episode was another lighter one to let the plot simmer a bit after the rather heavy two-parter. Giving some breathing room to let the Reach grow into main big bad status because they’ve just arrived on Earth and we need to see them slowly accumulate power. It also gives more space to do the counseling scenes and to have M’gann struggle with her inner conflict. Those things are better done in episodes like this than in plot heavy episodes.
Little things I liked: Mal hamming it up as Guardian, he’s great in this, especially his summoning the “strength of the Earth” that felt like a line lifted right out of a 70s or 80s cartoon. Mal mentioning his Black Canary training, where we see him take on a bigger and tougher opponent like she was teaching the Team about in season 1. Seeing the slightly older Billy Batson. Having Captain Marvel do his Shazam move of calling down his transformation lightning that seems like his go to finisher move in most things, and then it not working on Despero. The Hall of Justice is still the Hall of Easter Eggs, and you get to see some of the original Justice Society costumes if you pause the episode at the right time. M’gann also has a flip phone like Jaime has, clearly in the alternate reality of Earth-16 Smartphones either haven’t been made yet or weren’t a big thing and so in 2016 people still used flip phones. I imagine Smartphones will have finally caught on in whatever year season 3 is set in. (also it’s because this show was made in 2011 and they couldn’t predict what 2016 was going to be like, it’s just funny to see the cast use flip phones.)
Quote of the episode:
“Might make this warehouse feel more like a warehome.” Nightwing
Classic Dick Grayson word play, I’ve missed that this season.
Quote that takes on a new meaning after watching the series:
“to cultivate the gene, and weaponize it.” Black Canary
Some foreshadowing for how the Meta-Gene will be used.
