Young Justice 1.04

Drop Zone

The team is sent on its first official mission by Batman. Their orders are to investigate the island of Santa Prisca. What they know going in is that Santa Prisca is the location of a factory that manufactures the drug known as Venom. Shipments from Santa Prisca have mysteriously dropped to zero in recent months.

Unbeknownst to the team, Santa Prisca was invaded by the cult of Kobra a month before their arrival. Bane used to run Santa Prisca now he is struggling to regain control of the island. They arrive and quickly witness a firefight between Bane's troops and the troops of Kobra. After Bane is captured by the young heroes, he offers to help them infiltrate the factory. Things go south quickly. Robin strikes off on his own, despite being the nominal leader of the team, without telling the others what he is up to. Kid Flash takes off looking for Robin. The others get into a fight with the forces of Kobra.

Robin picks up some valuable information after breaking into the factory's control center. The factory is now being used to manufacture a hybrid drug that combines Venom with the formula for the drug manufactured by the scientist of Project Cadmus, Blockbuster. This drug was seen in 1.02 (Fireworks).

The team regroups but then gets trapped in a tunnel. Robin bristles at Aqualad's attempt to provide constructive criticism on his style of leadership. Robin suggests that Aqualad lead. Aqualad humbly accepts the burden, which is exactly how he characterizes the role. He leads them quite ably. They tangle with another supervillain, Sportsmaster, who shows up in a helicopter to pick up a shipment of the hybrid drug. They manage to blow up the shipment and the factory but Sportsmaster escapes with one vial of the drug. His bosses, the council known as the Light, are happy enough and believe they can reverse engineer the drug now that they have a sample.

The team of heroes gets back to Happy Harbor. They expect to be given a hard time by Batman because they diverged from the original plan. Instead he congratulates them for the work they did.

There's a lot that my summary doesn't cover. There's a lot going on in this episode. It all flows together very nicely.The team is still learning to function as a team. Robin seems to think that he is the natural leader of the team but he doesn't seem to know what leadership means. He takes off without a word to the others on at least two occasions. He smirks at the idea of having Kaldor, Aqualad, lead but agrees to it anyway. He is far from the most likable member of the team. Kid Flash isn't much better than Robin. Both are very rash.

Superboy is still learning. At least he has an excuse. He grows a bit in this episode, emotionally speaking. He listens more than in the past but still lacks some of the tact or discipline that he should be exhibiting as a hero. Miss Martian definitely has a crush on Superboy, It was apparent before this episode but there's more of it here. She compliments him a number of times but he doesn't seem to notice. She blushes the one time he compliments her.

Aqualad is by far the most professional member of the team. He takes his role as a hero very seriously whether he is leading the team or not. Maybe he could stand to lighten up a little bit but considering how sloppy the others are it is refreshing and provides hope to see that there is at least one level head on the team.

This is by far my favorite episode so far. It reminds me a bit of the Task Force X episode from JLU. It doesn't feel like a standard superhero cartoon. Things are a bit gray as the heroes work with a villain, Bane, for most of the episode. I love watching the team develop and how their interactions change over time.