Young Justice: Phantoms Digs Into the Origin of Dr. Fate

| December 19, 2021 |

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This Young Justice: Phantoms review contains spoilers.

Young Justice Season 4 Episode 10

The more I sit with "Ydaer Teg," this week's episode of Immature Justice: Phantoms , the less I like it. It's not the aforementioned unhappiness that I've had with the remainder of this season, though that's definitely there: I notwithstanding hate the motility comic, and I'm all the same pretty mad that the evidence chose to tell the story of Starro the Conqueror's invasion of aboriginal Babylon and murder of Nabu in still frames they nudge across the camera to simulate motion. And I'm getting increasingly frustrated with the Beast Boy pop ins, which this week seemed like an excuse to berate him for his grief.

But his week, my biggest problem was with a defensible storytelling choice and non a budget or storytelling restriction: Sgt. Marvel has an habit problem.

They don't actually say information technology in so many words, just this week's episode essentially treats Mary equally though she has substance use disorder, and the substance she's got a trouble with is her full power prepare.

We again go ii parallel stories this calendar week (along with the tasteless Beast Boy pop in). The motility comic continues to tell Cruel's life story, this fourth dimension focusing on his fourth dimension as Marduk, the Babylonian demigod who fathered Nabu and Ishtar. Nabu narrates this week's motion comic and uses it as a long origin story for the Helm of Fate – how he came to exist a Lord of Order, what his role in the universe is, and how Zatanna's gang came to ask him for help.

Meanwhile, Zatanna'due south gang does ask him for help, and Dr. Fate yells at the kids for trying to get involved with a battle betwixt Lords of Chaos, and and then sends each on a journey of introspection to examination if they're gear up. Traci 13 has to face off with puppet versions of her boyfriend (Blue Beetle), her mentor (Zatanna) and her idol (Beast Boy), along with the voices of her ain self dubiousness and imposter syndrome, before she yells at them and says she deals with this crap every day and Fate should endeavor harder to knock her off her game.

Khalid's journeying is pretty solid. Information technology has him slowly drowning, betwixt the demands of being a superhero in training, existence a medical doc in grooming, being a magic user, and being a faithful Muslim. He reconciles all his different identities through that religion, hugs his parents, and gets back in the fight.

Mary does battle with her self doubt in the form of her fully powered grade, and gets her ass handed to her – Mary can only apply one power at a time, while Sergeant Marvel (ugh) has admission to the full suite. But Mary'south peace comes from Baton telling Sgt. Marvel that Mary was losing herself to the powers, and then she had to limit herself to only one. Which…

I know superhero stories are supposed to be metaphors for real world problems, just those metaphors fall autonomously once they become straightforward enough to be similes. The mutant metaphor in X-Men works because you can run across then many different disempowered identities in the X-Men'south struggle. Legacy heroes piece of work because everyone tin meet themselves struggling to live up to an ideal. Aforementioned for the League as a whole.

Go back to that paragraph about Mary's internal battle, and bandy in every use of "power/s" with "pill/s". Information technology's too shut to a real world problem that too many of us have had to bargain with (either in ourselves or loved ones) for the resolution to exist this tasteless. You're non going to ready an addiction problem by only using a little bit of cocaine at a time. And it's pretty gross of this show to suggest it, even past accident.

PHANTOM PREMONITIONS

The Vandal Savage stuff in Babylon is a mild retcon of a agglomeration of erstwhile YJ stuff. The Light was born in ancient Babylon, but it was presented as Babylonian demigod fighting alongside his son Nabu and daughter Ishtar to defend the realm from Starro. This episode tells the states that Savage was in on it.

I don't think Khalid'south mom being Inza Nelson's niece has ever been established anywhere else. I'm of two minds about this: information technology totally works with what the show is trying to do with magic users in this universe to make Khalid have a magical pedigree. Khalid's mom mentions that she gave up magic to convert to Islam and ally his dad, which firmly establishes both of them equally Homo magi, the magical race descended from Savage. That said, I kind of similar it when super heroes, especially legacy ones, aren't nepotism hires.

Reminder from season 1: Zatara took over as Dr. Fate to save Zatana. The hosts we meet at the end of the episode are the concatenation of hosts the kids fed to the captain – Kent Nelson first, who passed abroad; then Wally West, Kaldur, Zatana, and finally Zatara.

The Justice Society has only been mentioned once before, fashion dorsum in flavor one during a Red Tornado episode (remember him? Can't believe nosotros don't have more sad robot content in a world where The Vision is so popular he's a base ingredient for a bunch of memes).

RIP in peace Teekl. The episode ends with Flaw snapping Teekl's neck, and Klarion discorporating back to his anarchy ~~emerald~~ ruby course. Maybe if Klarion had spent more time buttering you lot, you wouldn't have been and then like shooting fish in a barrel to catch.