Monday, April 1, 2013

Young Justice S1-02 Fireworks

Analysis from a RPG Perspective: Adding Superboy to the team this way makes for an interesting mix. In some ways, he's almost like the Sentry Unlockable from the Breakout Mini-Event. Of course, he's also a main character so perhaps the hypothetical GM said "hey, I want to tie your origin to the villains of the arc - do you mind if your character starts out in a stasis tube for the first half of the opening adventure?" Either way, this Superboy is an interesting mix of various versions of Superboy. He is a Cadmus Clone like the version introduced in the post-Death of Superman era. And, like that version, he's revealed to have Lex Luthor's DNA as well. But, that version had different powers, all stemming out of a "tactile telekinesis" field that let him fly and simulate super-strength. Our Superboy is more like early seasons of Smallville Clark Kent. No flight, no heat vision, etc. And, unlike ALL of the other previous incarnations of Superboy, this one is an Angry Young Man. Now, that was certainly necessary, just from a balance of personalities. The Cadmus Clone Superboy started out as a young horndog, like the Young Justice Kid Flash, and then kind of grew up a little, getting much more serious in the Geoff Johns Teen Titans, where he learned his human DNA was Lex's. (Originally, his human DNA came from the director of Cadmus, who wasn't Doctor Desmond / Blockbuster, but another guy. That's another way that Young Justice connected almost all of the villains to The Light.)

Anyway, we have the captured then escape sequence (a use of the 2d12 Doom Pool mechanic, if I've ever seen one), and the reveal of the Boss Villain that the burgeoning team has to defeat. Blockbuster was certainly too tough to just beat down. The way that Robin sussed out a way to collapse the building on Blockbuster seemed like Robin created the asset, the rest of the team made it bigger, and once they built it to a d12, they used it to beat Blockbuster. The building coming down seemed like a nice set of scenery.

And then the Justice League showed up to clean up the mess. Just seeing ALL the members was a pretty impressive sight, and the comics geek in me immediately twigged that, if Zatara was a member of the League, then it meant that we were going to see Zatanna on the team down the line.

The end scene where Miss Martian walks in was kind of disappointing, and I wished that they'd maybe held back one of the other members (Kid Flash or Aqualad, since Robin is the most recognizable member to the general population) and let M'gann shine in the first episode. I get that the idea was "let's introduce the team slowly, so the first episodes aren't overloaded" but it was unfortunately that they held back the two female characters the way they did. (And from a RPG perspective, Miss Martian's player probably couldn't make the game at the last minute and they just started without her.)

Player Character Datafiles
Miss Martian
Superboy

Watcher Datafiles
Blockbuster
Martian Manhunter
Superman
 

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