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Laura 'ad astra' Sack writes...

Hello! And thanks again for answering our questions and reading our comments!

Just saw Saticfaction and am very happy. I'm also happy to see this queue reopened. Now that Ask Greg is open I can post saved up reviews! Yay...uh, well, 'yay' for me. :}
I have a lot of saved comments from when it last closed - particularly all my {overwhelmingly positive} episode reactions since the time skip. Maybe I'll get around to doing a blanket rection to the comics before the queue closes again...but probably not.

Onward....
{Actual questions will have "Q#" by them. The other numbers are just for keeping my thoughts ordered}

Happy New Year-
All those warnings to check dvr settings for the new title...of course I was so far behind reading Ask Greg I came to them at least two weeks late. By my spill time on my Green Lantern recording I figured out I missed this ep and reset it for the next week- but seeing this episode was under less than optimal watching: poor quality buffering and strangely mirror imaged segments on the internet. {I wonder which shorts I missed ~sniff~}
1-Nicely constructed opening scene- first Superboy, unchanged, fighting Clay Face which is an in story throwback. M'gann is next, but hooded. But then she says something about 'Delta squad', and Robin walks out of the shadow looking different. Beast Boy and Blue Beetle show up to confirm things are really different, followed by Bumble Bee. (She's a extra step because we met her as a civilian.) Finally M'gan throws back her hood looking shorn and older and the voice on the other end of the com signs off as Nightwing. Elegant.

2-I see some thinking L'gann is set up to be silly, but by introducing him sparing with Nightwing, humorously and graciously losing, I think he comes across more positively. The more negative impressions probably come from fan possessiveness over the M'gann/Conner relationship, and not anything he is or has done. He is a somewhat silly character- in the cosmic 'oh, come on!' sort of way. He isn't bad or silly looking, but to use his powers he puffs up like a carnival prize. He's a pretty powerful guy, but he knows he's second string at this point and it gall him and leaves him a little insecure. Same for following Conner as a boyfriend. No crime there, even if he appears later being a little mean about it. (Though I am getting ahead of this ep.) And as for Conner's reaction to M'gann and L'gann- You have two relationships to follow from first season- already know one is going to be meaty.

3-Didn't think of it at the time, but if Bumble Bee is b22 and after Tim Drake, I wonder if I'm misreading a vibe that Mal was an active member and somehow forcibly sidelined- like a loss of power. IIRC his comic book counterpart went through a bunch of personas gaining and losing power sets. (I googled it a while back, I just remember it being convoluted and there being a question over who created him…I think.) I look forward to learning how he and Bumble Bee joined up- how old Tim is (what, have 15 people already asked?) and how long he's been Boy Wondering it.

4-hrmmm if Tim is about 13 now, I wonder if that girl whose father was saved from the Black Spider was at least 8 then? I thought not, but if she is Arrowette, she'd be pretty young. {The advantage of first writing this before the shut down- I already have the answer.}

5-General statement- Love Blue Beetle! (But he really shines in later episodes so more on him later.)

6- (Q1)-In the UN- light blue shirts means private security, not NYPD, right?

7- Lobo sounds like he's from Mos Isly ;) Wow- others noticed it too. Maybe it's something about the way the sort of minds that like YJ work.

8-Wonder Girl - Nice having it both ways- Power house entrance, and then Lobo owns her. Neat trick; it should undercut itself but doesn't.

9-Batgirl - Entrance of an uber competent bat professional. It's a bat thing. (Though I hope we eventually get to see her start in flashback at some point.)

10-Tearing Secretary General in half- coulda been gruesome...but wasn't.

11-G Gordon Godfrey... Not the voice, that's pure Tim Curry fun, but the visuals... I can't decide if it is a specific parody or a general parody. A general parody of our cable new/opinion/ego shows is great. But that spinning G keeps making me thing it may be a specific parody, and that would be distracting. Of course it means it is distracting to me because I am wondering about it, but in principle I applaud a general parody. I feel a little like the headmasters that wanted to sue Dickens over 'their libelous portrayal' in Nicholas Nickleby- even though they had two eyes instead of one he was clearly besmirching the reputations of their boarding schools... Ironic that he actually lists some real aliens in his paranoid rants. Come to think of it- they are also hiding Watchtower...nice cut.

12-Zatana and Rocket are Leaguers? Cool. Also nice how even on the Watch Tower the original YJ members still hook into each other for silent chats. (And that the main members declined joining the League.)

13-And in Rann's corner of the galaxy...by now Hal is not the "NO" joke of last season; John is going to contact him. Others have commented on the watch for all leaguers already having Zatanna and Rocket shown, even though they just joined. Also on how does the GL League not know. The answer works for me.

14-Nice brotherly dynamic between Tim and Dick.

15-Love how Jaime is okay being in Gamma. ["Yes I do. YES I do. Yes I Do!" Sorry, couldn't resist.] It is consistent for Jaime's print character to say that. He's the kid who tells a bad guy to cease, leave and 'feel free not to tell me' what he was planning, and who in his heart of hearts wants to be a dentist when he grows up. (At least pre52.) Not yearning to be in the most dangerous squad is his kind of smart. The Crolotains don't like the Reach...interesting. I've heard some complaint about his falling into some Spanish a little stereotyply...didn't notice it the first time, but now I'm not sure if it isn't a bit much. On the other hand, there is the constraint of the format...he's American so you can't give him an accent for English words, and he does come from a part of the country that has a lot of Spanish speaking communities so it is reasonable that people get used to keeping certain phrases in Spanish even when speaking in English. I know there are words I simply am more used to saying not in English, despite having English as my first language. When the words are generally understood, I don't think I would think not to use them. As humorous as it was when he talks to the Crolotaian and then starts relaying the information to his teammates without switching languages, it is also the kinda thing a bilingual person might due. There may be no delay in understanding, but when the brain is talking in one language it sometimes forgets to switch. Since the Scarab feeds him the language as readily as English or Spanish the reaction would be the same.

Q2-Is that Black Lightning? Little fuzzy backward screen....

16-The team does seem more Teen Titany than Young Justice. Of course the original YJ never got the chance to be a two generation team. Although the type of work they do is, as someone pointed out, very Outsiders like.

17 -Who isn't in the episode is at least as interesting as who is- Roy, Wally, Artimas, Aqualad. Not appearing at all is a teaser in and of itself.

18-And of course, the controversial time skip: You've pulled off a (near) perfect execution; dropping us mid story and giving us some info, some indications and some glaring absences. The pace continues in the following eps to be perfect. {One possible quibble with Blue Beetle that I'll ask about in a later review.} It comes down to whether you like time skips or not. I tend to be an 'or not' because I miss the in between stories. With Time Dancer you found a way to have it both ways- skip in the main line and then have it's own comic for the skipped decades. I don't know if you plan to keep the comics behind to have it both ways here. {Since I wrote this, but before posting you've answered that the comics will follow the skip} I'm guessing not for marketing reasons {I was right}, unless you are cleared to have more than one line {Which would be super cool}. On a business level, I (still guessing) would think your corporate shepherds would insist that the book be a direct connection to the show. In an ideal world you'd get a comic line for both time lines and at least one more with some sidekicking adventures and some general in universe tales. But in a real world we'd probably not be so lucky. Despite my apriori preference against skips, I'm certainly in for the long haul.

18 points and only 2 actual questions, and one is about shirts...odd.

Greg responds...

Q1 - I think it's U.N. Security.

Q2 - Well, Black Lightning was in the episode.

Response recorded on November 21, 2012