DC Media: TV Shows, Animated Movies and Video Games

[Frontier]

Therein lies the problem. We never got Mary at the beginning of her journey or at all. We skipped all that just to go to the characters darkest time. We haven't seen Capt.Marvel this season so who knows what changes he's gone through or what they've faced to lead them to YJ S4

To be honest I think if we had gotten her at the beginning she would be a very different character because they're writing her now, which is basically her character introduction, for the sake of building up to the "evil and brainwashed" version of her.

Which is why I have no great expectations that they know what they're doing with her to begin with.

[Alpha]

I also think the writers really don't get Mary as a character and this episode put that front-and-center. I mean, to begin with if they're even drawing from Countdown/Final Crisis, that's not a good sign to begin with and nothing in this episode really indicated they get her character enough for me to give them leeway with using that story beat.

I can understand why people don't want her to go evil. But as someone who hasn't invested all that much into Mary, what is there to get about her? She is also an orphan with a mystery surrounding her parents and she's a nice responsible girl trying to do good. Is there more?

I gotta say this was also probably the worst use of slideshows for stuff happening in real time, and with characters just talking, but we couldn't even animate that?

If they gotta use these "slideshows" to save budget for action scenes or intimate character stuff then I'm all for it. Clearly their budget was cut and I'm just happy they still get to do their show, even if these storylines aren't as engaging as some of the things we've had until now.

I did like this last episode though. I think everything that happened with Zatanna was interesting. I could go without this storyline about Conner dying and coming back. Seems like needless drama

[Frontier]

I can understand why people don't want her to go evil. But as someone who hasn't invested all that much into Mary, what is there to get about her? She is also an orphan with a mystery surrounding her parents and she's a nice responsible girl trying to do good. Is there more?

Her relationship with Billy and Freddy, how she's purehearted like her brother (which partially explains why she's succeeding him in the comics now) which is why the Wizard chose her, her innocence, and, she's the progenitor of Supergirl, more or less.

If they gotta use these "slideshows" to save budget for action scenes or intimate character stuff then I'm all for it. Clearly their budget was cut and I'm just happy they still get to do their show, even if these storylines aren't as engaging as some of the things we've had until now.

I did like this last episode though. I think everything that happened with Zatanna was interesting. I could go without this storyline about Conner dying and coming back. Seems like needless drama

Obviously I understand the show is working from budget constraints. I'm not sure if the action is quite living up to them maximizing their budget, but I understand there's only so much they can do...but sometimes it just takes you out of it.

[Mojo]

Therein lies the problem. We never got Mary at the beginning of her journey or at all. We skipped all that just to go to the characters darkest time. We haven't seen Capt.Marvel this season so who knows what changes he's gone through or what they've faced to lead them to YJ S4

Yeah I really really wish Greg had been able to tell that Marvel fam story he talked about wanting to tell around S2 in ether a longer S2 or in the tie-in comics now so we could have more context to this version of Mary and seen here before this.

Still this is the show that made Edgy Robot Arm Arsenal work so I'll give them a chance with Dark Mary.

Also people keep bringing up the budget, yes there's constrants but last arc they were still able to do like 2-3 fight scenes per episode and never had to do slideshows so on some level I actually think the Slideshows for the narration scenes are them being artsy in their minds. Personally I don't mind them for the Flashbacks as they make it a clear seperation between the present ongoings and the past but doing one in the present was super jarring especially when animating Vandal just talking to some geometric shapes wouldn't be particularly expensive or difficult.

[Primal Slayer]

To be honest I think if we had gotten her at the beginning she would be a very different character because they're writing her now, which is basically her character introduction, for the sake of building up to the "evil and brainwashed" version of her.

Which is why I have no great expectations that they know what they're doing with her to begin with.

I don't know....they said that they had the bus planned since s1. Their overall character beats seem to be laid out for everyone so Mary going evil would've likely been inevitable.

[Primal Slayer]

Also people keep bringing up the budget, yes there's constrants but last arc they were still able to do like 2-3 fight scenes per episode and never had to do slideshows so on some level I actually think the Slideshows for the narration scenes are them being artsy in their minds. Personally I don't mind them for the Flashbacks as they make it a clear seperation between the present ongoings and the past but doing one in the present was super jarring especially when animating Vandal just talking to some geometric shapes wouldn't be particularly expensive or difficult.

The budget is definitely a thing. During Artemis arc there are an abundance of still frames that just zoom in or out and use of s1 flashbacks.

[Lukmendes]

Zatanna manipulating her students into taking on the helmet of Fate is some dark stuff. All of that just to get her father back part time and willing to sacrifice other young lives even if it is part time for everyone. I expect others in the League to call her out on this.

Can't wait for the League to basically do nothing about it.

I feel like we're eventually getting a Titans centric season and Beast Boy will be a major player. With the way things are going, I wonder about his mindset in the future, but I haven't seen the most recent episode.

That would be redundant, YJ is practically a Titans cartoon lol.

I must be the only person not surprised by what Zatanna did. I figured the endgame would be her taking the helm, one of her students willingly accepting the role or her manipulating a student into taking the role. Zatanna always(and rightfully) resented Nabu and the show spent the arc building on that resentment, so it would've been strange if she agreed to be his new host. None of the students showed interest in willingly taking the role, so I assumed Zatarra would die and they'd take it out of desperation, but despite all the death flags, he survived. Option 3 was the only option and the one they foreshadowed from the start.

I mean, it's still shitty to drop this responsibility in their lap and barely explain what's going on even Khalid calls her out on it, she even looks away when he's doing so, foreshadowed or not, that's shitty lol.

If BB's relationship with Perdita(and possibly everyone else) survives the season, I'll be surprised.

We'll find out on the next time skip I guess, or maybe they'll have fixed everything between time skips lol.

Now I realize why the show's version of Mary feels so off.

They're depicting a version of Mary where Countdown/Final Crisis Mary actually makes sense compared to the comics where it absolutely didn't. So she's aggressive, confrontational, negative, addicted to magic, her hero form is depicted in a bad way, all to justify turning her into an evil version of herself.

Man I more or less pointed this out a few days ago lol.

Going back to the previous episode, one thing I noticed is that Mary not wanting to transform is YJ's way of adapting evil Mary Marvel, but without her going actually evil, and removing the logic behind her not transforming when the comics made her not transform (She regretted it and was fearing she'd become evil again, or something like that).

Like, the way the Sergeant talks to Mary, it sounds pretty villanous, and checking out Countdown here, she sounds pretty bitchy and arrogant there too, but if that's not a representation of how she acted when she was Sergeant, and Mary only had an addiction to power, then the reason she's not transforming is stupid, 'cause she says in episode 10 "I can use my connection to you to become a sorceress, to be just as important and powerful s you ever were.", which makes no sense, she stopped being Sergeant because she became addicted to power, and she's trying to become a sorceress, to try to become just as powerful, in another way? The power addicted chick wants to find another way to become powerful? Yeah... The faulty logic is just dumb, it's the equivalent of a gambling addict trying to get rid of his addiction by playing games with lootboxes.

I can see why they made Mary not transform, as using Shazam's powers one at a time and eventually having other powers on top of them can be cool, plus making her the resident buffer of whatever team she's in like she's an Atlus RPG character, but the excuse they gave for her to not transform is just crap.

I'm not even a Mary fan and I kinda noticed this lol.

Oh and i cant wait for the girls to start fighting. Zatanna tells megan about connor, and she wants to bring him back no matter the cost. Zatanna tells her no, and megan reads her mind and tell her she did whatever it took to get her father back. Artemis gets in the middle and megan reveals that zatanna lied about the ghost of wally. Raquel Stands back the only innocent party member and spends her arc getting these girls back together.

Lol, M'gann is just as guilty of this, if not even more so since it was M'gann's telepathy that did the whole thing, both her and Zatanna manipulated Artemis, her trying to spin this thing to be only Zatanna's fault would be hilariously shitty.

I also wouldn't exactly say Rocket is exactly innocent, she knows what Zatanna and M'gann did, she wasn't part of the manipulation since she was only told afterwards, but again, not exactly innocent.

The episode bizarrely enough treated that as a good thing lol.

I know im repeating myself lol but i like the general storyline, it just doesn't hold the same weight since we haven't seen her as a hero. If they put her in s2 and actually focused on those characters it'd be a great storyline to do imo

I still find Mary's situation to be weird even if we ignore she's basically a crap adaptation of comics Mary, her trying to become just as strong as Sergeant in another way when she has a power addiction issue, dumb logic, it's like a gambling addict trying to get rid of his addiction by playing with lootboxes, at least this episode kinda mentions that by having Zatanna point out that Mary has a power addiction problem in general, so that means Mary is the only idiot.

Also people keep bringing up the budget, yes there's constrants but last arc they were still able to do like 2-3 fight scenes per episode and never had to do slideshows so on some level I actually think the Slideshows for the narration scenes are them being artsy in their minds. Personally I don't mind them for the Flashbacks as they make it a clear seperation between the present ongoings and the past but doing one in the present was super jarring especially when animating Vandal just talking to some geometric shapes wouldn't be particularly expensive or difficult.

While I don't know how budget works, it could be that they had more budget in the previous episodes but not as much now lol.

If it's an artistic choice then it's an obnoxious one, slideshows once in a while is fine, but doing it this much? Fuck off.

I don't know....they said that they had the bus planned since s1. Their overall character beats seem to be laid out for everyone so Mary going evil would've likely been inevitable.

While some beats are planned, that doesn't excuse how poorly Mary's story was told, Supergirl was apparently planned to be in season 3 and they just removed her 'cause she wouldn't be adding much, so if she's added later, will we have to pretend she was part of season 3 and was developed there like what happened with Mary? Lol.

The budget is definitely a thing. During Artemis arc there are an abundance of still frames that just zoom in or out and use of s1 flashbacks.

I think most of the flashbacks used were new scenes, unless those were made back in season 1 itself, which I doubt.

Oh well, about the episode, it's okay, just that.

"Why do you tell us what we already know?"

Glad that's over now...

Zatanna looks shitty with her plan even if she came up with recently, and even though Thirteen and Khalid agreed to it, she still didn't really explain what's really going on to Thirteen, even after Khalid calls her out, at least, she was responsible by leaving Mary out of the Doctor Fate thing, 'cause unlike Mary, Zatanna's smart enough that Mary's power addiction is a problem that ain't gonna be solved by getting another source of power.

Vandal and Phantom Stranger convincing Lords of Order and Chaos was a bit silly, but I guess Vandal just had to keep being relevant in this arc even after he did his role of "Hey I gotta info dump my own past here".

Mary herself, eh, everything about her falls flat since her power addiction started off-screen, now suddenly Granny Goodness is influencing her, meh.

I wonder if Granny will take Desaad's Final Crisis role of being the one who possessed Mary.

Garfield stuff, at the very least it went somewhere this time, with him firmly pushing people away 'cause he's sad, wonder what'll happen once M'gann comes to Earth.

Thirteen being the one to defeat Child is unintentionally hilarious lol.

I also find it weird that Child was kicking both Fate's and Klarion's asses even after the other Lords of Chaos stopped helping her, now she looks too powerful to be used again...

Wonder what the hell is up with Conner, even if Legion didn't save them, there must've been an attempt, or maybe Wally did it? Either way, there needs an excuse for him to be lost in time like this, 'cause the bomb as far as we knew only had some virus to kill martians and Kryptonite, making his spirit be lost in time without some other interference would be weird.

Oh well, I really hope this was the worst arc in season 4, best episode in this is just alright, and the rest are over extending something that has no need to be extended, to the point they waste time introducing Etrigan, who's useless to this arc... If he does something later, then it'll be less bad, but that won't solve the rest of the arc's crap pacing, and if the rest is this level of quality, then this season will unfortunately continue YJ's tradition of becoming worse per season...

[Frontier]

There was a lot to this arc that really didn't matter in the long-run like Fate and Klarion teaming-up and Etrigan showing up and then just joining cleanup duties.

Still this is the show that made Edgy Robot Arm Arsenal work so I'll give them a chance with Dark Mary.

Although I think they got Roy better than they got Mary, since she's felt off to me this whole arc, so I feel less liable to trust them on this one.

I don't know....they said that they had the bus planned since s1. Their overall character beats seem to be laid out for everyone so Mary going evil would've likely been inevitable.

I'd love to see how they saw Countdown/Final Crisis Mary and thought "yeah, let's draw influence from that" .

[Mojo]

The budget is definitely a thing. During Artemis arc there are an abundance of still frames that just zoom in or out and use of s1 flashbacks.

im not saying it's NOT a thing im saying it's not the only reason for that particularly stylistic choice.

[Rend20]

Can't wait for the League to basically do nothing about it.

Do any of the characters on the show ever face actual consequences for their questionable/terrible actions?

For all the secrets and drama, it never seems like anything of worth comes out of it. The closest was probably Kaldur's glorified time-out in season two? But even then, he was good as new right after and welcomed back with open arms in the end.

[Frontier]

Do any of the characters on the show ever face actual consequences for their questionable/terrible actions?

For all the secrets and drama, it never seems like anything of worth comes out of it. The closest was probably Kaldur's glorified time-out in season two? But even then, he was good as new right after and welcomed back with open arms in the end.

Black Lightning had his big freakout when he found out about the Anti-Light but after they made him chairman and they said "no more secrets" it seemed okay. Well, other than Tim and Cassie breaking up and Dinah (presumably) dumping Ollie, but the show never really focused on that.

[Mojo]

Rewatched stuff, best part of the arc is easily the Child. Just has this great smugness to her, her lines are delivered really well, gets a bunch of creepy as fuck scenes and just generally felt like the biggest threat the show ever had. I'll say her end was a bit of an anti-climax but she was great while she was around.

Just a great reimagining of a really obscure character all around, hopefully she can come back eventually somehow.

Klarion really shined here too.

[Rend20]

Black Lightning had his big freakout when he found out about the Anti-Light but after they made him chairman and they said "no more secrets" it seemed okay.

I suppose original Roy being kicked off the team in season two also counts now that I think about it. And didn't something happen with Brion in season three?

But the first two seasons saw the mole suspects and the undercover trio being basically instantly forgiven for their actions once the truth came out. I think Wally and Conner -- who's love interests were involved -- were the only ones to be shown to have a problem in season two despite everything that happened with the undercover mission.

[Frontier]

I suppose original Roy being kicked off the team in season two also counts now that I think about it. And didn't something happen with Brion in season three?

But the first two seasons saw the mole suspects and the undercover trio being basically instantly forgiven for their actions once the truth came out. I think Wally and Conner -- who's love interests were involved -- were the only ones to be shown to have a problem in season two despite everything that happened with the undercover mission.

Brion was ticked that they all knew his sister was a spy and didn't tell him, yeah.

[Lukmendes]

Do any of the characters on the show ever face actual consequences for their questionable/terrible actions?

For all the secrets and drama, it never seems like anything of worth comes out of it. The closest was probably Kaldur's glorified time-out in season two? But even then, he was good as new right after and welcomed back with open arms in the end.

Not to mention that the bullshit he pulled was more beneficial than anything, and the trauma of having his mind literally destroyed is ignored, and he's made into the League's member in season 3.

Also, considering Dick gets that "You command more respect than you realize" in season 3, when by that point he lied to his friends and loved ones twice... Yeah, you don't get punished for pulling bullshit like this, and may even be rewarded if Kaldur'ahm is any hint, maybe season 4 will reveal he's now king of Atlantis or somethin' lol.

Black Lightning had his big freakout when he found out about the Anti-Light but after they made him chairman and they said "no more secrets" it seemed okay. Well, other than Tim and Cassie breaking up and Dinah (presumably) dumping Ollie, but the show never really focused on that.

Dinah already seems to have dumpted Ollie at the beginning of season 3, and since Anti-Light is something he didn't know of, I doubt it made his situation with her worse.

Rewatched stuff, best part of the arc is easily the Child. Just has this great smugness to her, her lines are delivered really well, gets a bunch of creepy as fuck scenes and just generally felt like the biggest threat the show ever had. I'll say her end was a bit of an anti-climax but she was great while she was around.

Just a great reimagining of a really obscure character all around, hopefully she can come back eventually somehow.

Klarion really shined here too.

Yeah, Child is pretty fun, and I'll definitely miss Flaw's face.

I think the biggest problem is that she's too powerful, considering she was able to easily beat Fate and Klarion even after losing the support from the other Lords of Chaos, but I guess that guarantees she won't become a jobber I guess...

I suppose original Roy being kicked off the team in season two also counts now that I think about it.

And that was good in the long run, him being kicked off made him learn that the Runaways are working for Luthor, which made them stop working for him lol.

And didn't something happen with Brion in season three?

Brion is a weird case, he killed his uncle, and while it's moot whether or not he was being brainwashed into doing so (I personally doubt any brainwashing was done before Not-Maxwell talked with him), but I guess you can say he's being punished for what he did, in a weird way that fucks everyone except the Light lol.

But the first two seasons saw the mole suspects and the undercover trio being basically instantly forgiven for their actions once the truth came out. I think Wally and Conner -- who's love interests were involved -- were the only ones to be shown to have a problem in season two despite everything that happened with the undercover mission.

Also worth pointing out M'gann in season 2 and 3 in general, she pulls a lot of bullshit and Conner stays with her no matter what (While they weren't dating for most of season 2, he decided to accept her back).

I'll say though that Wally had a problem with it more so because of the general risks than just Artemis being involved (He bitches to Dick about the plans after Dick almost gets killed by the bomb Kaldur'ahm put on the base), does he make any comments about the lies?