This is one of those episodes. I mean that in a good way. It is one of those episodes that you have to give yourself over to. Sink in to it. It seems a little crazy but it in the end it works out.
The team watches as the Justice League are killed fighting off an alien invasion. The team heads to the Fortress of Solitude to intercept some of the aliens. They fight the aliens with more success than the League but Artemis is killed. They head back to the United States where they join forces with the troops led by General Wade Eiling. Aqualad is killed as they attempt to escape an alien attack on the Hall of Justice. Robin and Kid Flash make a discovery that hints that their dead friends may not be dead after all but prisoners who were teleported instead of vaporized.
The team launches an assault on the mother ship in the hopes that they will be able to liberate their friends and others. The mother ship is destroyed but Superboy, Kid Flash, and Robin are killed in the fight. This leaves just Miss Martian and Martian Manhunter, who appeared to have been killed earlier in the episode but then mysteriously showed up at the Hall of Justice. This part of the episode ends with J'onn killing M'Gann which causes her to wake up
Miss Martian discovers that the whole episode up to this point was a training scenario engineered by Martian Manhunter. It was done by mind-melding the team members together. It got out of hand when Artemis was "killed". Miss Martian forgot that it was all a training scenario at that point and really believed she had been killed. It wasn't until all the others had been eliminated from the scenario that Martian Manhunter was able to reassert control and end it.
This is crazy to watch for the first time without any knowledge of what's going on. My recollection is that I knew something was up but I didn't guess exactly what it was. I thought it was a dream. It is also cool because the stakes seem so high even though something seems off considering how quickly and easily the League is killed off.
There are some moments and transitions that didn't make sense to me. Everything was moving so fast that I just went with it. It is hard to say looking back if those moments are badly written or rushed because of time constraints.
An incidental character (Jason Bard) is introduced by name. The name sounded familiar so I looked him up. I don't recall reading any stories in which he appeared but he does have a history in the DC Universe. He seems to have been a recurring character in Detective Comics and Batman (1969-1984) and then later (1999-2009) in Birds of Prey, Batgirl: Year One, and Robin.
Overall this is a much watch episode for me. I don't recall what fallout or follow up there is in subsequent episodes.
I talked about this episode on episode 52 of Dave Talks Comics (11/02/14).
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