Young Justice Season 3 Episode 9 Review: Home Fires

This Young Justice: Outsiders review contains spoilers.

Young Justice Season 3 Episode 9

Early on in Young Justice: Outsiders‘ return, it was pretty clear that the creators of the show hadn’t missed a step since they left six years ago. That wasn’t an entirely accurate observation, though. In the intervening half-decade, they actually got substantially better at making superhero tv shows, and when you think about how good the show was when they left off, that’s incredible. This latest episode is the proof.

Picking up where they left off last week, we open on a new community center for metahumans being opened by the League in Taos, New Mexico. Aqualad, El Dorado, El Dorado’s dad, and a few others are there to welcome Live Wire and Mist in to help them adjust to having powers but nobody mind controlling them. We spend the first couple of minutes taking stock of a few people – Conor and Megan, Snapper, and the community center especially – and then we start escalating.

First, we find out that the person behind the Good Goggles isn’t Godfrey as I speculated before, but someone WAY worse: Granny Goodness. Then, Lobo crashes a team training session having taken a contract to kill Forager. And all the while, Ocean Master is spying on a super-family play date, ready to blow up a house full of spouses and children of superheroes.

Escalation is what Young Justice: Outsiders has been doing since day 1. The original team was Kid Flash, Robin, Aqualad and Superboy going undercover on Justice League business. Then they were the only ones left to stand up to the Society of Super Villains. And after that, they were faking deaths (or really dying) and infiltrating the society under deep cover, to root out and stop an alien invasion of Earth. Now they’re about to get caught in a war with actual, literal gods while their families stand around in unwitting mortal peril. Forget the beheading, this is the mature stuff that Young Justice: Outsiders couldn’t do on Cartoon Network.

There’s nothing to complain about in this episode. I mean, maybe I could talk about liking Ed Asner as Granny Goodness better than Deborah Strang, but it’s just an interpretation. Justice League was a very different show, one that leaned hard into Kirby weirdness, so Lou Grant’s voice was the right fit for that millieu. Gretchen Goode has a very Dolores Umbridge vibe to her, and if that’s the direction they’re going, Strang is going to be another perfect fit.

Everything about this episode was great. The fight choreography was top notch, the animation was smooth and great, voice acting was still superb, and the pace was on point. This show keeps getting better and better every episode. Next week’s midseason finale should be crazy.

Outsider Trading Tips

– You might remember the Kroloteans from last season, where they were the feint alian villain from the start of the season.

– L-Ron? The robot herald of Despero died last season, but the one talking to Lobo on Rimbor certainly looks like him.

– Let’s just go through all the super-babies, shall we?

• Don and Dawn Allen are Bart’s dad and aunt, the babies Iris announced to Jay and Barry last season when Bart first showed up. They’re 30th century people in the comics, not Iris and Barry’s kids.
• Holy shit Aquababy. This should have been a giveaway to the story: Aquababy was around off and on back in the ’60s until he was killed by Black Manta, who ate a bunch of crap from his fellow villains for going too far.
• Lian is there with Will Harper.
• Black Lightning’s ex, Lynn, is there with Thunder and Lightning.
• Rocket and Amistad, her son. Amistad might be the “fifth character” that the producers were excited to bring over from Milestone.
• Bumblebee is pregnant! Pretty sure it’s Vox’s kid, but I don’t think we’ve seen them together since the season started.
• Red Tornado and Traya, I think. She’s from the Young Justice comic series.
• And Lois and Jon also holy shit.

– Halo dies again. That’s 5, right?

– The current reach: Queen Bee, Vandal Savage, Lady Shiva, Lex Luthor, Klarion, Ultra Humanite, Deathstroke and Granny Goodness.

– My first reaction to hearing that Granny Goodness and the Wayne Foundation were in bed together was to wonder if Batman was being manipulated, but it’s probably more like a Dark Knight situation where they’re partnering so Bruce can look at their books.

– Oh hey, Megan works at the high school! This show is so good at quick hit worldbuilding and character development.

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