Young Justice 1.05

Schooled

There's a subtle focus on Superboy in this one. It opens with a traffic accident on a bridge in Metropolis. Many lives are in danger. Superman shows up and immediately does what he can to repair the bridge and save lives. Superboy also shows up. He tries to help but he is reckless. Once everyone is safe Superboy tries talking to Superman but Superman gets a call from Green Arrow about another emergency and has to leave. It is very clear that he still is uncomfortable with the fact that Superboy exists.

Bruce Wayne observed the whole bridge scene from the Wayne building. He was going to step in to help out when he saw Superman arrive on the scene. I'm not sure what good Batman can do in a situation like that. Just before he decides to sit this one out, he lifts the head off a bust of Shakespeare and presses a button hidden beneath it which opens a drawer in his desk where a Batman costume is kept. This was a nice nod to the 1960s Batman series.

Later in the episode Bruce and Clark meet to talk. Bruce is obviously not happy with how Clark is handling the situation. He can see that Superboy needs some guidance or at the very least to make a connection with Superman. Superman ends up storming off. He doesn't want to talk about it, with Bruce or Superboy.

Black Canary pays a visit to to Mount Justice. She give the group a lesson in hand-to-hand combat. First she takes on Kid Flash and then Superboy. She knocks both of them down. Superboy takes it personally and is not amused. The training session gets interrupted by a call from Batman. He has an assignment for the team. The league just finished battling Amazo, the android who can duplicate anyone's superpowers. They have dismantled Amazo and are transporting its parts to two different labs (far apart from each other) for analysis. Batman wants the team to guard the two shipments. Superboy and Robin guard one shipment. Miss Martian, Aqualad, and Kid Flash guard the other one.

Amazo was built by Professor Ivo, who sends an army of flying monkey robots or Mobile Optimal Neuro Quotient Infilrators (MONQI) to retrieve the two shipments. The young heroes try their best but they are overwhelmed by the monkey-bots. Superboy gets impatient and leaps after the monkey-bots. By the time he catches up to them they have already delivered their cargo to Ivo who has reassembled Amazo.

The fight moves to Gotham where the group reassembles and fights Amazo. Superboy keeps insisting that he doesn't need any help despite the fact that Amazo seems to have no problem dealing with him or the rest of the team. In the end it is a lesson that Superboy learned from Black Canary, earlier in the episode that helps them to defeat Amazo.

Robin is once again shown to be fairly immature. He giggles when Superboy is knocked down by Black Canary. Superboy seems to grow over the course of the episode and by the end of it he is ready to resume training with Black Canary.

Gotham City is in Connecticut, according to the map that shows the routes for the two trucks. There is a photo of Dick Grayson at Gotham Academy where the final battle takes place. Robin's secret identity has not been officially revealed but this seems to suggest that this Robin is Dick Grayson.

Artemis has yet to make an appearance on the show but that has to have been her that shot an arrow at Amazo when it was about to crush Kid Flash. When Robin learns that the arrow was not one of Green Arrow's he assumes that it belongs to Speedy aka Red Arrow.

Not my favorite episode but it has its moments. The flying monkeys were crazy annoying. They were super powerful but not impossible to destroy. The laughing noise they make has to be infuriating to anyone that has to deal with them. Still not crazy about the way the older superheroes are portrayed, namely Superman, Batman, Green Arrow, and Martian Manhunter. I still prefer them on Justice League and JLU.