Review: "Schooled"
**SPOILERS!!*
I am ashamed to admit that I have no witty remark to open today's review, so we're just going to dive right into the episode. My apologies.
It starts in Metropolis, where a suspension bridge has spontaneously and spectacularly failed, causing the mandatory busload of anime-looking elementary school children to go careening dangerously close to the edge. This being Metropolis, Bruce Wayne is--wait, Bruce Wayne?--watching from his office window in the Wayne Enterprises building and--hold on. Dude, when the heck did Bruce relocate to Metropolis? Why is he even there?! *sigh* Anyway, at least we get to see his face.
Bruce, seeing the mess on the suspension bridge, immediately pushes a red button concealed in a bust of Shakespeare (AHAHA) on his desk, which makes a desk drawer containing his Bat-suit pop out. He's about to go out to help when Superman and Superboy arrive on the scene independently of each other. Superman kind of upstages Superboy, though, and criticizes what he did wrong. Superboy says that maybe if Superman would hang out with him and train him once in a while, he could learn better... buuuut looks like Superman is still freaked out by the 'instant fatherhood' thing and leaves abruptly after a distress call from Green Arrow. Then Batman calls him on the communicator to tell him they need to talk. Tensions EVERYWHERE!!!
After the theme song, Superboy returns to Mount Justice, annoyed. He gets more annoyed when Martian Manhunter and Black Canary show up for a training session and he sees MM lavishes attention on his niece. Watch Superboy's jealousy mount to unbearable levels!! Yeah, that'll end well.
The training starts with Black Canary sparring with a cocky Kid Flash and promptly knocking him down a peg or two. Whenever a person falls on their special training mat, the words "Status: Fail" appear on the floor beside them. It was amusing, but I have to wonder, whose idea was it to install that ego-crusher?
Well, Robin finds it hilarious, at any rate. Especially when Superboy insists he don't need no stinkin' training and Black Canary proceeds to knock him down a peg or two as well. Thankfully (for Superboy), the training is interrupted by Batman, who tells them about what happened with Green Arrow and Superman earlier that day. Apparently, the android Amazo was terrorizing Star City, and it took multiple heroes an absurdly long time to take him down. In the time they were fighting, Amazo was able to learn to imitate the powers of the Leaguers that he fought--not good. So to be safe, the League has split up Amazo's parts into two separate trunks and will ship one trunk to Boston, the other to New York. It's now Young Justice's job to guard the Amazo bits to make sure Amazo's creator, Professor Ivo, doesn't try to steal them back.
So the League and YJ convene in Litchfield County (which is in Connecticut, as is Gotham City in this universe, right about where Bridgeport should be. ...Interesting choice.) to watch the trucks depart. Superboy and Robin go after one truck while Aqualad, Miss Martian, and Kid Flash go after the other. Oh, and they've all got spiffy motorcycles now. ^_^ As soon as YJ and the trucks vanish, Superman attempts to leave, but Batman stops him, again reminding them that they "need to talk." And when BATMAN is VOLUNTEERING to talk, you know it's serious. Though as we see later, there is no Leaguer in a better position to talk to Supes about what needs to be talked about.
So YJ is happily riding along when, of course, something shows up to spoil the ride. In this case, weirdo glowy mechanical monkeys (or rather, M.O.N.Q.I.'s--Mobile Optimum Neuro-Quotient Infiltrators) attack both trucks simultaneously. Robin turns his motorcycle into one of those "vulture" things from a deleted scene in The Incredibles (yay, obscure references that no one beside me will understand!) while Superboy is temporarily blinded by the monkeys' laser vision--which, by the way, the robo-monkeys use to slice into the trucks and relieve them of their contents. Superboy is so furious that he abandons the team to give chase, leaping tall cornfields in a single bound ('pparently he can't fly). Meanwhile, Robin has managed to hack into one of the monkeys, which all have built-in GPS systems to track the Amazo bits. So now he can track the monkeys that stole Amazo. Turns out they're headed straight for Gotham! *dramatic music!*
Speaking of Gotham City, that's where Bruce and Clark are currently hanging out, eating dessert in a diner (and here I was thinking the only place to find that kind of interaction was in spiffy fan-fic <333333). They have a nice little chat about how Superboy needs Clark to step up and quit being a deadbeat. Bruce even says, "Trust me on this. This boy needs his father." OMG, Bruce implying admitting that he's Dick's daddy? ON TV?! *happy tears* I never thought I'd live to see this day! *sob*
Sadly, the conversation does not end quite as warm and fuzzily as one might hope. Clark still isn't ready to take on the responsibilities of parenthood and walks out of the diner, taking his pie to go, of course. And personally, I'm still a bit befuddled on how exactly Superman's clone = Superman's son, because science doesn't usually work like that to the best of my limited knowledge. However, I've been told that this makes sense if you know about Superboy's origin in the comics (which I don't), so I'm not going to start yelling about it.
While Bruce and Clark are having this conversation, Superboy has managed to catch up to those sticky-fingered little robo-monkeys, following them all the way to a train. Inside he finds not just the monkeys but Professor Ivo... and a newly-reassembled Amazo. Whoops.
Amazo promptly kicks Superboy's butt using the strength he took from Superman, the Canary Cry from Black Canary, etc. Heck, Amazo punches the kid so hard that he ends up halfway across Gotham, crashing through the windows of far-away building. Ivo tells Amazo to follow Superboy and finish him off.
Back with the rest of the team, Robin and Kid Flash have teamed up to track Amazo. Turns out the building Superboy got punched into was Gotham Academy, Dick Grayson's unimaginatively-named school. What a coincidence! Also, we kinda-sorta get to see Robin's real face here, as Dick apparently won an award for "2011 Gotham Academy Mathlete Honoree" and had his picture taken and put in a display case along with the trophy. Needless to say, it all gets squashed immediately by Amazo pounding on Superboy. Lucky for him, Kid Flash has come to save him, yanking Superboy out of harm's way while shouting "Yoink!" Oh KF, don't ever change. *loves*
More fighting and stuff. Right in the middle of it all, ta-da! A green arrow comes shooting out of the rafters from an unknown fighter, landing uselessly on the floor. Who is it? They don't tell us, the jerks, but if you managed not to nod off during the theme song, you can probably hazard a guess.
Ivo, meanwhile, has managed to catch up to Amazo and is sitting in the bleachers, gloating at them for being unable to defeat his robot. This gives Superboy the idea to attack Ivo instead of Amazo. Robin and Kid Flash catch on quickly and begin beating on Ivo until Amazo is overwhelmed in trying to protect his creator. Amazo is defeated when Superboy punches his head, making it explode.
Robin: "Quick, help me disassemble him!"
KF: "Dude, the guy has no head."
Ivo manages to escape, though. The Light didn't appear in this episode, but I bet Ivo works for them too.
Safely back at Mount Justice, Young Justice is praised for the good job they did, but the youngsters are a little annoyed at the adults for interfering, as they believe that the green arrow shot in the academy gym was Green Arrow's. (Argh, would they stop with the "you don't trust us" routine already?) GA shows them that his arrow tips are different from the tip on the arrow from the gym, leading the team to conclude that it was Speedy who was there, secretly helping them out. Yeah, we all TOTALLY buy that explanation. :P And then Superboy gets over himself and tells Canary that he is ready to train with her. The end.
Overall, an entertaining romp. My favorite bits, obviously, were the interactions between Bruce and Clark. Because hey, if I suddenly found out I had a teenage son, I'd be pretty freaked out too. At the same time, I can understand Superboy's wanting a family and being frustrated when his father figure is unwilling/unable to step up to the plate. They have a very interesting dynamic, which I look forward to seeing explored further in future episodes.