Beast Boy is in peril. He hasn’t been captured by a super-villain, however he’s been held captive by one thing far deadlier—his personal melancholy. Young Justice: Phantoms is again with a brand new batch of episodes dropping at present on HBO Max, and if you happen to’ve been maintaining, then you recognize that issues haven’t been going so properly for Garfield Logan. All the things involves a head within the episode “Emergency Dive” as Gar’s closest buddies attempt to stage an intervention.
Let’s go over how we obtained up to now. At first look, it’d seem to be Garfield Logan resides the life hundreds of thousands of individuals dream of. He’s a superhero with the facility to vary into animals, he’s main a workforce often called the Outsiders, he’s the star of his personal science fiction present, and he’s relationship a princess. After all, all these items have include a worth. Gar has skilled extra loss in just a few years than most individuals face in a lifetime.
His mom was murdered, then his adopted mom was killed alongside together with his new surrogate household. Folks like Steve Dayton and Gretchen Goode took benefit of Gar and manipulated him for their very own ends. Beast Boy thought he discovered a brand new starting when he fashioned the Outsiders, however Brion’s flip to darkness was an ethical defeat. While you observe this with the demise of Superboy, it’s no shock that Garfield is having a tough time. It’s straightforward to neglect that he’s solely an adolescent.
This hasn’t come out of nowhere. Final season there was an episode referred to as “Nightmare Monkeys” which took us deep into Garfield’s unconscious. The sequence was a enjoyable tribute to Teen Titans Go!, nevertheless it additionally revealed that every one the demise Gar’s skilled has by no means been removed from his thoughts. Think about what it could really feel like if you happen to’ve had two moms die inside just a few years. Plus, take into account the survivor’s guilt Garfield will need to have felt after the Doom Patrol have been killed.
I hadn’t considered this earlier than, however the demise of the Doom Patrol was most likely on Gar’s thoughts each time he took the Outsiders into battle. It should have an effect on how he runs the workforce. Is it any marvel he took Brion’s darkish flip so personally? He’s not solely seeing his workforce disintegrate, however he’s reliving one of many deepest traumas of his life. After seeing Conner die, the ache turned that a lot worse and Gar checked out.
I like that Young Justice has explored Gar’s response to the Doom Patrol’s destruction. Within the comics, it was ignored for years. When the workforce is killed in 1968’s Doom Patrol #121, Gar’s response isn’t proven. When it was revealed that Robotman had survived the explosion and he joins up with a brand new model of the workforce, Garfield isn’t talked about. Readers didn’t catch as much as Gar till 1977’s Teen Titans #50, 9 years after his earlier look.
Even then, Beast Boy doesn’t point out his deceased teammates, which is simply wild. It wasn’t till the Wolfman/Perez’s New Teen Titans run that Gar’s emotions on the demise of the Doom Patrol have been explored and he was given an prolonged arc the place he confronted their killers. However this is without doubt one of the causes I like Young Justice. Their format permits them to do a nuanced character arc on a narrative level that was neglected a long time earlier.
All through this season, we’ve seen Gar turn into depending on capsules and push his family members away, resulting in the intervention we noticed on this week’s episode. If this have been a extra typical present, the intervention would have been the wakeup name Gar wanted, however Young Justice has at all times been a unique kind of superhero sequence. A scene like this could have been extraordinary throughout the Golden Age of comics, or on an early season of Tremendous Buddies. Its inclusion here’s a testomony to how far the superhero medium has come.
To be clear, the scene wasn’t a straightforward one to look at. All of us love Gar Logan, so we’re empathetic to his buddies and the ache they really feel watching him destroy himself. When Cassandra Sandsmark gave a determined plea for Gar to get assist, we felt her desperation. Robotman (who we study survived the explosion very similar to his comedian counterpart) can also be there and shares a narrative about how Gar helped him get again on his ft after the demise of their teammates. Cliff Steele has been via the identical factor, and it was Gar who helped pull him out.
Why didn’t any of this register for Gar? The place did it go unsuitable, and the place does he go from right here? There are not any straightforward solutions on the subject of preventing melancholy. Possibly Beast Boy must hit all-time low, however I hope it doesn’t come to that. By the way in which, let’s all take a second to acknowledge how voice actor Greg Cipes is knocking this out of the park. If he wasn’t giving such an emotional efficiency, this wouldn’t be hitting us as laborious. Who would’ve thought that the identical actor who performs the goofball Beast Boy on Teen Titans! Go would even be so able to taking part in the identical character heartbreakingly straight.
Once I have a look at the heroes taking part in Beast Boy’s intervention, I see a room full of people that save lives every day. But they’re powerless to avoid wasting their buddy as he destroys himself earlier than their eyes. Who saves the heroes once they’re in hassle? On a present like Young Justice, nothing is assured, however I hope Garfield makes it via the season in a single piece.
Search for new episodes of Young Justice: Phantoms each Thursday on HBO Max. Need all the newest information, movies and options from Earth-16? Try our official Young Justice sequence web page!
Joshua Lapin-Bertone writes about TV, films and comics for DCComics.com and writes our month-to-month Batman column, “Gotham Gazette.” Comply with him on Twitter at @TBUJosh.
NOTE: The views and opinions expressed on this characteristic are solely these of Joshua Lapin-Bertone and don’t essentially mirror these of DC Leisure or Warner Bros.