Todd Jensen writes...

I kept forgetting to submit this one, but I've read the second and third trade paperback volumes of the "Young Justice" comic book, and it's time I posted my reviews of them.

TRAINING DAY: We start off with Artemis' perspective on the adventure involving Professor Ivo and Amazo. I particularly liked the "Alice in Wonderland" comparison (and it strengthened my suspicion that Professor Ivo's robot monkeys were indeed a hommage to the winged monkeys in "The Wizard of Oz".

The main thing that struck me about the Captain Atom story which came next: I recall that you said once that you worked on "Captain Atom" before you created "Gargoyles" for Disney and that General Eiling was a sort of forerunner to Xanatos. If his depiction in this story was anything like the way that he was portrayed in your old "Captain Atom" stories, I can readily believe that; the scene at the end in Eiling's office definitely felt like one of those Xanatos tag scenes in "Gargoyles".

I have to admit that in the Ra's Al Ghul story that came next, I kept hearing David Warner delivering Ra's Al Ghul's lines - no disrespect to Oded Fehr, who did a good job, but it was the "Batman: TAS" take that introduced me to this character, and Warner's performance has lodged itself inextricably in my consciousness. (And hearing him do Ra's helps me understand indeed why you brought the Archmage back in Season Two of "Gargoyles".) And I enjoyed the scene where Batman and Alfred are talking at the Batcave; Alfred's one of my favorite characters in the Batman mythos, as I mentioned here before.

I also liked the touch of showing more "off-stage" scenes from the cartoon (pity that you weren't able to do that all the way to the end of Season One) - such as Kent Nelson's funeral. (By the way, I recognized everyone else at the funeral, but who were: a) the guy in the blue suit between Zatara and the original Flash, and b) the blond person in red and black clothing standing between the original Flash and the current Flash?)

CREATURE FEATURES: I knew nothing about Prince Orm except what I'd seen of him in "Downtime", had never heard of him or Ocean Master before "Young Justice" came out, but I felt suspicious about him when I saw "Downtime". I'd seen enough cases of the younger brother of a king no longer next line in succession because the king now has a child who will be heir to the throne, who decides to deal with that by skullduggery and usurpation (ranging from Shakespeare's Richard III and Claudius to Miraz in "Prince Caspian" to Scar in "The Lion King") to wonder if Orm would take that same path. And he does indeed, even exploiting racial tensions in Atlantis to his own ends.

Orm/Ocean-Master echoes Castaway in his words "anonymity is the Purists' greatest weapon". Not surprising, since it's a natural strategy for a hate group; it can become all the more dangerous if you don't know who's in it and who's not.

And I liked the use of the Greek alphabet for Atlantean language. And the background scenes for the Red Tornado arc.

Kid Flash naturally would call the serpentized Kobra leader "Kobramort".

We end with the gorilla adventure - complete with Superboy once again thinking "I hate monkeys", and being corrected on that, since gorillas are apes, not monkeys.

I understand that there's a fourth volume (set during Season Two), but I haven't found a copy yet. When I do, I'll submit my review of it. All in all, I found these two trade paperbacks fun reading.