Young Justice Season 3 Episode 7 Review: Evolution

This Young Justice review contains spoilers.

Young Justice: Outsiders Episode 7

Probably the biggest hurdle to the success of Young Justice: Outsiders after six years away was getting everything back together again after everyone went their separate ways, and some things have changed irrevocably. “Evolution” was a terrific episode, one of the finest Vandal Savage stories in any medium, but as good as David Kaye is in this episode voicing him, it’s still a reminder that a ton of time has passed since the show was last on the air and some of their voice cast couldn’t come back.

The two missing voice actors this season are Tim Curry as G. Gordon Godfrey and Miguel Ferrer as Savage, and they’ve both been missed so far this season. Curry’s Godfrey was perfect as the frothing, barely-holding-it-together maniac talk radio host. It was perfectly on point for the character, who was designed as the New God analogue for Billy Graham who morphed into a Morton Downey Senior/Oliver North analogue during Legends. And Ferrer’s Savage was full of authoritarian menace. This isn’t intended to take anything away from Kaye’s performance in this episode, which is terrific. His voice for Savage is all quiet rage, in control but with a depth of feeling that was in line with the variety of emotions they put in the story.

This was a surprisingly deep characterization of Savage. He’s got a lot going on in the comics, but he’s usually fairly one dimensional. Kaye is a huge part of the depth: there’s a real sadness when he kills his daughter, like he thinks he’s doing her a favor but also being kind of a snob, killing her rather than put up with her as her mind further deteriorated.

It pretty much has everything: deep comic continuity cuts up the wazoo; Starro the Conqueror; the Outsiders continuing to be insanely charming; awesome action; Scandal Savage’s badass mullett; an origin story for the Light. And just as a quick aside here, but these new characters are incredible. Halo is delightful, experiencing everything for the first time and being overly polite and enthusiastic about it. Forager is quick to lampshade the ridiculous he runs into, but is really funny when he does it. And the newly named as of this episode Geo-Force could have easily been a one dimensional Superboy clone (haaaa). Instead he’s got depth and strong relationships. He’s become a very good character in his own right.

But it’s tough to shake that lingering sadness that Ferrer (and Curry) isn’t around to be part of it anymore. And while it’s completely unfair to the show as it is presently constructed to complain about this, it’s still sad that he’s not around. As good as Young Justice: Outsiders is, they can’t cheat IRL death.

Outsider Trading Tips

– Cassandra Savage is more commonly known in the comics as Scandal Savage, a member of the Secret Six who’s not always on the same side as her father. She was created by the great Gail Simone and Dale Eaglesham.

– Speaking of, the last time Savage’s kids were a big deal in the comics was back at the end of the New 52, when Superman had to fight a batch of them off in a Greg Pak-

– Steve Lombard is the dirtbag sports reporter from the Planet, and he’s talking about Victor Stone, high school football star and eventual Cyborg.

– Fire of the Justice League designed Geo-Force’s suit! She hasn’t shown

– Any guesses on what Project Rutebega, Klarion’s secret project, is?

– I LOVE Geo-Force fanboying out over Superman and Batman.

-T ons to unpack from the 13th century Genghis Khan-Darkseid meetup.

• I think the two kids with Savage are Thunder and Lightning, Teen Titans villains from the early ’80s.
• With Darkseid are Desaad (his second in command and chief torturer); Kalibak (his adopted son that he got in the baby swap with New Genesis) and I think Steppenwolf (his uncle and chief assassin, who you might remember from the Justice League movie).
• I’m interested to see what they mean by fodder for the Anti-Life Equation. Anti-Life lets the bearer take control of the minds of the hearer, turns them into a mindless drone with no free will. It might be a precursor to Justifiers?

– The Black Lightning-Dr. Jace relationship feels like it’s not going anywhere, so I’m sure it’s going to be important.

– Hot. Lava. Just leaving it there.

– I can’t find a reference to Marduk in DC history, but he is the Mesopotamian god of literacy and father of Nabu, so having Vandal’s kid don the helm of Fate to fight Starro in the ancient past was a nice touch.

– Despero and Mongul were left in War World stasis pods at the end of last season, and I’m fairly sure they’re coming back.

Keep up with all our Young Justice: Outsiders news and reviews right here.