Polite Dissent

Teen Titans “Wavelength” was good. Not great, but certainly enjoyable. HIVE and Brother Blood (in this version, Brother Blood is the Ras Al Ghul-like leader of HIVE, not a megalomaniac cult leader) are planning to use technology stolen from Cyborg to cause an immense tidal wave. The Titans and Aqualad sneak into HIVE’s underwater hideout to stop them.
Some thoughts:

1. This cartoon version of Bumblebee is better than the comic book version — she was always a laughable character there.
2. The Titans escaped from their death traps a little too easy. There just happens to be a convenient computer terminal — not damaged by the water — that Robin can quickly use to shut down the traps?
3. The underwater physics in this episode was pretty bad, enough to detract from the story for me. (Though, to her credit, my wife did keep telling me, “It’s just a cartoon.”).

“Child’s Play”, the Justice League Unlimited episode, was another great episode. The story owes a great deal to both the “World Without Grown-Ups” and “Sins of Youth” storylines from the comics. Morgan Le Fey and her perpetually young son Modred find a powerful mystic amulet. Chafing at the perpetual presence of his mother, Modred grabs the amulet and wishes all the world’s adults away.

Superman, Batman, Green Lantern and Wonder Woman had just captured a gang of thieves (Blockbuster, Cheetah, Copperhead and KGBeast) when the magic hit them and they found themselves stranded in a magical limbo. Morgan Le Fey changes the four heroes into children so they can go back and defeat her son.

There were some very funny bits: John Stewart needed glasses as a child, so starts out with Urkel glasses but morphs them into a Kyle Rayner-style mask. Despite being a child with so much imagination, he only uses his ring to make giant boxing gloves and all the other trappings of the Silver Age Green Lantern. Meanwhile, Wonder Woman is hitting on Batman (who ignores her) while Superman is completely oblivious.

The hero’s solution was brilliantly Mxyzptlkian¹, and the final scene reminded me of the tragedy of the Greek Myths². Overall, another good episode with excellent voice work.

The Batman was another repeat. So far, it’s been on 7 weeks and only had 4 new episodes. Not the way to build an audience. The episode was “The Cat and the Bat.”

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Footnotes (Spoilers – so highlight with the mouse to read…)
^1. As clever as the solution was, I’m not sure it would have worked. Modred did not simply wish for all adults to disappear, he wished for everyone “older than him” to disappear. So even tricking Modred into becoming an adult would not have made him vanish since he can never be older than himself.
^2. According to Greek Myth, Eos, the Goddess of the Dawn, fell in love with a mortal shepherd. She asked Zeus to grant him eternal life, which he did, but she forgot to ask him to grant eternal youth. The shepherd eventually got so old and feeble that he became a grasshopper.