Review: Young Justice Phantoms “Over and Out”
Overview (Spoilers Below):
You can go home again… but beware of hitchhikers.
Our Take:
Things just went from bad to worse for our heroes in the season’s second-to-last episode. The Kryptonians have finally escaped the Phantom Zone and reunited with Lor-Zod while the team is held captive by the Kaizer Thrall. Their next step is to retrieve their army from the Phantom Zone and take over Earth, which is no surprise considering Zod’s nefarious motives. However, the only ones that continue to stand in their way are the Young Justice team and the Justice League.
“Over and Out” made sure to pack plenty of punches (literally) in the superhero team’s fight for humanity, and what better way to do that than with Superman’s greatest foe: Zod. Additionally, the episode continues the formula from the previous chapter, which focuses more on the season’s central plot. Since most of its subplots have been resolved, aside from Brion, it’s appropriate for the season to focus on the team stopping Zod’s reign of terror. The result is a thrilling, white-knuckled chapter that effectively prepares viewers for the season’s upcoming shocking finale.
What makes this even more exciting is that it left us questioning the fates of some of its characters. One of them is Nightwing, who’s severely knocked out by Lor-Zod, leading us to believe that he might be dead. Another character that got me concerned is Rocket. The Young Justice team managed to escape the collapsing boom tube during their confrontation with Zod’s army, except Rocket, who stayed behind to hold the enemies off. For the sake of my sanity, I’m holding on to hope that these two characters make it out of these situations alive in the season finale.
But, of course, none of them can compare to Connor, who is still far beyond the heroes’ reach due to him being influenced by the House of Zod. After the Zods capture Superman and take over the city, Dru-Zod commands Connor to kill Superman for everyone to see, an order that Lex Luthor gave Connor during his early days. So it appears that Connor’s hallucination of him snapping Superman’s neck may be coming into fruition unless someone prevents that from happening in the finale.
Overall, “Over and Out” showcases one of the series’s greatest strengths aside from the action and character development. It’s the high stakes given to its specific characters that leave us questioning whether they’ll make it out alive or not. While the writers wouldn’t dare to actually kill off popular characters like Nightwing (unless I’m proven wrong), it’s still exciting to see them get caught in life-or-death scenarios like this. The path is set for next week’s finale, which I can already tell will be the biggest showdown of the season.
