Young Justice 2.17

The Hunt

The Reach continue their press conferences at the United Nations. The Reach ambassador emphasizes how Blue Beetle saved the world from War World. He also points out that Blue Beetle's powers are Reach technology.

Arsenal is still on War World. He's on the run from the Reach. He's running out of tricks and there are a lot of Reach soldiers on War World. 

Lex Luthor contacts the four young heroes who escaped from STAR Labs in 2.14. They have been practicing using their powers. Luthor gives them a mother box and sends them on a mission, to War World. He wants them to find Superboy. They are skeptical but go anyway.

Nightwing and Miss Martian try to locate their teammates in the remnants of War World. Miss Martian uses her telepathic powers to scan for them but her powers have their limits. They find nothing and decide to head back to where they started their search.

Virgil, Tye, Sam, and Ed arrive on War World. They are attacked by Reach soldiers. They are spotted by Arsenal who keeps an eye on them and follows them from a distance. The quartet use the mother box to find Superboy and the others. The other heroes are frozen in stasis containers.

Nightwing and Miss Martian return to the spot where their teammates disappeared. They continue to search for clues there. Instead, they find Sphere, or rather it finds them. They ask it to take them to Superboy. It transforms into the supercycle and they take off.

Black Beetle shows up before the quartet can do anything other than take stock of the situation. He takes out everyone except Ed. Arsenal shows up to lend a hand before Black Beetle can catch Ed. Arsenal and Ed work together and keep Black Beetle on his toes. Tye, Virgil, and Sam recover and join the fight. 

The Reach ambassador appears on G. Gordon Godfrey's TV show. Godfrey accuses him of lying to the people of Earth and hiding the Reach's armada. The ambassador tries to emphasize how the Reach saved the Earth from War World but Godfrey responds by playing a clip from early in the season when the ambassador claimed that the Reach only had one ship on Earth.

Deathstroke arrives on War World via boom tube. He steals the crystal key to War World and disappears back through a boom tube.

Arsenal frees Mongul instead of the heroes, which confuses Ed. Mongul and Black Beetle start fighting. This gives the others a chance to free the heroes in the stasis chambers. They all escape while Mongul and Black Beetle continue to fight. They run into Nightwing, Miss Martian, and Sphere who take them to the Miss Martian's Bio-Ship.

An argument breaks out before they leave. Bumblebee accuses Arsenal of screwing things up when he blew open the airlock in 2.15. Nightwing tells Arsenal that he's off the team once they get back to Earth. The quartet don't care for the way that Nightwing talks to them either. They offer Arsenal a ride back to Earth with them via boom tube which he accepts.

The five heroes are contacted by Lex Luthor, once they arrive back on Earth. Arsenal is disgusted to see Luthor's face. The multimillionaire congratulates the four heroes but he also owns up to the fact that he was really after the crystal key. Sam destroys the mother box and the lapto computer through which Luthor has contacted them.

Thoughts

This is a pretty tight episode. I like how it is all woven together. I loved the moment when Arsenal set Mongul free. I didn't see that coming. It wasn't a typical direction for a show like this.

They don't show the end of the fight between Mongul and Black Beetle. I wonder how that ended? The Light seems to be plotting to take over War World. How will the Reach figure into all this. I love how the story seems to be moving towards a fight between the Light and the Reach with the heroes caught in the middle.

I wasn't too surprised when Nightwing and Arsenal started arguing. Arsenal hasn't exactly ingratiated himself to Nightwing's team. Overall this was a lot of fun. I hope the last three episodes in the season are as good a time as this one is.