Review: Young Justice: Outsiders “First Impression”

Finally, the show is living up to its title.

The episode begins with Beast Boy (Aka Garfield Logan) expressing concern before their superiors that despite their best efforts to preserve a good image before the public, proposes a public-facing version of a young hero team in an effort to combat the negative press around meta-humans and the Justice League that Lex Luthor has been trying his hardest to mercilessly smear the League, and the worst part is he’s succeeding which you could argue is social commentary on media-fueled racism and discrimination of sorts. (Since the Meta-Humans are DC’s equivalent to Marvel’s “Mutants” Racism parable.) Beastboy even has a handful of teammates on-board who are more than willing to help in his cause, and in response to this, Kaldur decides to split the Young Justice Team into two groups: The Covert-Team will remain and function in secret while the public facing Team lead by Beast Boy will answer to Miss Martian. The entire episode so far is spent on Beast Boy basically covering their bases with an actual headquarters akin to the Iconic “Titans Tower”, which is a nice touch of fanservice, but of course, it isn’t shaped like a “T” with Dr. Jace as their chaperone.

Earlier before the Intro, a small air-fleet of Ships belonging to an alien race called “The Reach” (Season 2 Villains) shows up in Maine to cause havoc prompting Beast Boy to finally make their team’s presence known and they proceed them in a decent action sequence that inspires hope and given that this is supposed to be the Social Media generation, of course, it creates a lot of positive buzz, along with a surprising twist on who’s really piloting the Reach Ships. But instead of getting the chance for an after-party, The town mayor demands that Gar and his team get arrested for vigilantism which gives you an idea on how some parts of the world still perceives superheroes as menaces due to Lex’s twisted propaganda.

But much like that Courtroom Ghost attack scene from Ghostbusters 2, The Mayor is begrudgingly forced into a compromising position where he has to change his mind for better or worse when an even larger problem in the form of a Giant Reach Ship on autopilot rears its ugly head and the Team proceeds to resist arrest to handle the situation, The scene itself succeeds the most in terms of tension and suspense as they figure out a solution to disable the damn thing without it hurting people in the process. In the aftermath, Beast Boy before the media and after earning the admiration and respect they deserve from the town despite the Mayor being a jackass publically makes it clear that their team doesn’t answer to bureaucrats or play by the ‘insiders’ rules’ earning their team name the “Outsiders”. Everything seems fine & Dandy, but like most episodes, there’s an unexpected twist at the end even I didn’t expect…

Our Take

Aside from the obvious plot-twist involving Terra, Dr. Helga Jace is slowly coming off as a shady character, and it remains to be seen who the fuck she was trying to call in the previous episode but does she really have good intentions when it comes to these kids?

As usual, the episode is not only sprinkled with decent action scenes and consistently good writing, what made this episode also shine the most was how much it screamed fanservice to comic readers of DC lore but in the best way possible. From Teen Titan nods & references to the “Outsiders” name which is also an 80’s comic reference to “Batman and the Outsiders” only it felt more like an “I see what you did there” moment since that particular comic is a completely different storyline.

After that twist ending, I’m curious to see where it’s going to lead towards next or if everything that’s happened will have consequences later on.