The thief stealing blood samples from the Central City Police Department stands revealed as a new Rogue called Bloodwork. Seeking a cure for his hemophilia, he somehow gave himself the power to control the flow of blood around him!

Only The Flash can stop Bloodwork... but how can The Flash stop him when he's drawing off of the negative charge of The Speed Force and still can't control his powers? And even if The Flash can save the day, will Barry Allen still have a job at the end of it?


The artwork for this issue is erratic, even allowing for two different artists working on it. Neil Googe is a great artist but his cartoonish style is at odds with the dark tone of the story. This weakens a villain who should be nightmarish and the people fleeing from Bloodwork look unintentionally goofy. Gus Vasquez's style matches the tone better, but the second half of the story is more sedate, denying Vasquez a chance to show his skill at drawing action scenes.


Joshua Williamson's grasp of the regular characters remains strong. The dialogue is fantastic though the set-up of the finale seems a little rushed. Then again, if The Flash is going to err, best that it do it on the side of moving too quickly than taking too long.

The Final Analysis: 6 out of 10.

Confined to the royal palace of Khandaq, Kara Zor-El is totally ignorant as to what life on Earth is like beyond what Black Adam has told her. Damian Wayne - currently guesting in the same palace while trying to convince Black Adam to join the cause of Ra's Al Ghul - plans to show her the world. What is Damian's real agenda? Or does he have one beyond trying to offer friendship to another teenager in a tough situation?


Off-hand, I can't recall having read any stories that teamed Superman and Batman's primary teen sidekicks. Batgirl and Supergirl, yes. Robin and Superboy, certainly. But Supergirl and Robin? I can't believe this is the first but I'm certain this issue of Injustice 2 is probably the best.

Tom Taylor's most amazing feat in this series and the previous Injustice comics has been inspiring sympathy for those characters the original games painted in a primarily villainous light. Opinion is divided on Damian Wayne in the fandom but Taylor's portrayal of the character here breeds uncertainty as to the believe that his Injustice incarnation is wholly irredeemable. Of course this could all be a ruse but it is a credit to Taylor's skill as a writer that he can inspire such uncertainty and the character moments featuring Kara and Damian confiding in one another are the high point of the issue.

Mike S. Miller and J. Nanjan are an equally excellent art team. There is a certain sense of clarity to Miller's pencils and inks that is hard to define and Nanjan's colors are bright and lively. Ironically, this is the only flaw of this issue - things look too bright and streamlined for a comic that is primarily set at night.

The Final Analysis: 8 out of 10. 

On Earth -32, a Green Lantern ring found Bruce Wayne at his darkest moment. Through the force of will possessed only by a child who has just seen his entire world destroyed, Bruce Wayne was able to overcome the ring's programming forbidding lethal force. Worse yet, he tapped into something far stronger than the collective willpower of his dark universe. Something dark. Something hungry...





Fans of Ethan Van Sciver will be pleased by his turn here. Van Sciver is famed for his detail-driven style, which is well in evidence throughout this issue. Indeed, the level of gore depicted in some scenes is stunningly rendered in such a fashion as to skirt the lines of a 15+ rating. Paired with Jason Wright's vivid colors, this is one amazing-looking comic.

The story by Sam Humphries inspires less enthusiasm. The origin of The Dawnbreaker is told well enough but his confrontation with Hal Jordan lacks the psychological power of the earlier chapters in which The Flash and Cyborg faced their dark counterparts among the league of Dark Multiverse Batmen. Additionally, the story lacks clarity, making it unclear at first if The Dawnbreaker tapped into some unknown dark force or if he is drawing upon the power of Nekron and The Black Lanterns.

The Final Analysis: 7 out of 10.  Great artwork but the story is a little flat.

For a summary of the episode guide layout & categories, click here.



Plot

In the wake of Mon-El's exile from Earth, Kara has thrown herself into the role of Supergirl, all but abandoning her friends and her job as a reporter. Alex and Maggie are in the middle of planning their wedding, but Alex seems reluctant to move forward for some reason. Meanwhile, a ruthless land developer named Morgan Edge moves in directions to buy CatCo Worldwide Media and turn it to his own ends while also taking actions that will bring him into conflict with Supergirl and Lena Luthor.


Influences

The New 52 Supergirl series(presence of Reign, a Supergirl who is removed from humanity) and the 1987 Superman Series (presence of Morgan Edge and Bloodsport)


Goofs

Kara takes the time to change into her civilian clothes when answering James' distress-signal watch. Granting that she can change very quickly, why bother if she honestly thought James was in trouble?


Performances

The three confrontation scenes where Kara's friends and family approach her about her behavior are high-water marks for all the actors involved. It's good to see Mehcad Brooks being given some meaty material at James Olsen again and to see David Harewood show the softer side of J'onn J'onnz. The best scene however, is when Chyler Leigh and Melissa Benoist let six months of repressed outrage out, as Kara and Alex unload on each other.


Artistry

The opening sequence, depicting Kara's daydream and the moment where she wakes up and listens to everything going on around her with her super-hearing is well-shot and well-directed.

The effects work of Bloodsport attacking Kara at the military base is good.


Super Trivia

The episode title comes from Supergirl's most famous nickname - The Girl Of Steel.

The episode opened with a special opening sequence, featuring Kara walking through a grassy field, where she sees and hugs both Mon-El and her mother, Alura Zor-El. The scene was set to the song Daydreaming by Rosa Pullman.

With this episode, the part of Kara's mother, Alura Zor-El, is taken over by actress Erica Durance. The part was previously played by Laura Benanti in the first two seasons of Supergirl. Erica Durance is probably best known for her previous portrayal of Lois Lane in The CW series Smallville.

As the episode opens, Supergirl has removed herself from humanity and forgotten her life as Kara Danvers. Her personality here is reminiscent of the Supergirl we first see in the New 52 Supergirl series. This version of Kara Zor-El had a less-than-warm welcome upon first arriving on Earth and, upon being discovered by Superman, was less than thrilled at his suggestion of her adopting a secret identity and sacrificing her life to save an ungrateful populace. While hailed by some critics as being a more realistic attitude for a teenage girl forcibly removed from everything she knew, it was also a far cry from the traditional Supergirl personality, who is cheerful and out-going.

Created by the legendary Jack Kirby and first appearing in Superman's Pal, Jimmy Olsen #133, (October 1970), the only constant to Morgan Edge's background over the years has been his nature as a ruthless businessman. Originally Edge was President of the Galaxy Broadcast System - the media conglomerate that bought The Daily Planet. It was Edge who was responsible for Clark Kent being transferred from a job as a print journalist to traveling broadcast correspondent and eventually a position as the WGBS News anchorman.

Kirby's original intent with the Morgan Edge character was to play off reports of organized crime infiltrating corporate America and the media, eventually revealing Morgan Edge to be the leader of Intergang and a minion of Darkseid. Kirby was eventually persuaded, however, to limit Edge to a supporting role and the "evil Edge" was revealed to be a clone. Following that revelation, Edge was portrayed as a ruthless capitalist who challenged Perry White's "old-fashioned" sense of journalistic integrity but was shown on several occasions to be a decent man who did try to be fair to his employees.

In the Post-Crisis DC Comics Universe of 1986, Morgan Edge was revised into a character closer to Kirby's original intent. While still serving as President of WGBS News, his ties to The Daily Planet and friendship with Superman no longer existed. This version of Edge honestly did have connections to Intergang, which were exposed by Clark Kent and Cat Grant, the latter of whom went undercover as an employee at WGBS.  Edge had his revenge, however, writing a biography while in-prison which revealed that Cat Grant had slept with people for scoops while in his employ. Upon being released from prison, Edge sponsored one incarnation of the Superman Revenge Squad. He later found work as a Bill O'Reilly-esque political pundit during the New Krypton storyline, helping General Sam Lane to build anti-alien sentiment with the public.

The New 52 version of Morgan Edge was reimagined as an African-American man. In this reality, he was depicted as the CEO of Galaxy Communications - a media empire which bought The Daily Planet. He was also the financial sponsor of the Challengers of the Unknown.

The DCTVU version of Morgan Edge is played by Adrian Pasdar, who is no stranger to playing roles based on comic-book properties. He played the role of Major Glenn Talbot on Marvel's Agents of SHIELD and played the roles of Captain America, Hawkeye and Iron Man in various animated series based on the original Marvel Comics. He also famously played the role of "flying man" Nathan Petrelli in the first three seasons of the series HEROES.

The DCTVU version of Morgan Edge is very much in the vein of Jack Kirby's original vision. Though his background is in land-development, he threatens to buy CatCo for his own ends in much the same way the Morgan Edge of the comics attempted to manipulate The Daily Planet and WGBS. He also deals with criminals such as Bloodsport to further his own agenda.

Robert DuBois a.k.a. Bloodsport is based on a character created by John Byrne and Karl Kessel, who first appeared in Superman #4 (April 1987). Drafted into the Vietnam War, DuBois fled to Canada rather than fight. His brother, Mickey, took Robert's place and suffered severed injuries on the field of battled, becoming a quadriplegic. The guilt drove Robert crazy and he spent the next few years of his life bouncing from mental hospital to mental hospital. Robert was chosen by Lex Luthor to be the recipient of a technology that would allow Robert to summon any weapon he could think of to his hand. Luthor's intent was to use DuBois as the perfect weapon to fight Superman. Unfortunately, DuBois turned out to be far too unstable to be reliable and killed many innocent civilians trying to draw Superman out.    

The DCTVU version of Bloodsport is an ex-military man turned mercenary. He was responsible for a series of bombings at National City Hall before going AWOL. He formerly served on the security detail at Fort Harrison, outside National City.

One of Cat Grant's press conference has her mocking the Speaker Of The House's claims that The President is spying on him with secret cameras in his microwave. This is a reference to similar claims made in the real world by Donald Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway that President Barack Obama had been spying on The Trump Campaign using secret microwave cameras.

This episode marks the first appearance of Emma Tremblay as Ruby Arias - a tween girl who is a huge Supergirl fan.

This episode marks the first appearance of Odette Annable as Samantha Arias a.k.a. Reign.

Reign was a super-villain from the 2011 New 52 Supergirl series. Resembling a white-skinned human female with red hair, Reign was a genetically engineered creature created on Krypton for some undefined purpose. Reign was one of five such "Worldkillers" who were created to be living biological weapons that would continually evolve, becoming more and more capable of causing untold death and destruction. It was never confirmed but strongly suggested that Doomsday - the monster that killed Superman - was the fifth missing Worldkiller.

There is no sign in this episode of Samantha's origin as Reign, apart from a closing sequence where Kara's vision of her mother suddenly changes with the land around Alura going dark and Alura turning into a rotten corpse. We then cut to Samantha waking up in shock, apparently having had the same horrific dream as Kara.

Kara is able to use her super-hearing to track Bloodsport's submarine when he is able to cloak himself from all visual perception and electronic surveillance. This is a common trick used by Kryptonians when tracking invisible enemies. Perhaps the most famous example of this occurred in the Superman: The Animated Series episode My Girl, where Superman cheerfully noted to the Lex Luthor minion who was counting on using lead-lined buildings to hide himself and his hostage that while he couldn't see the minion and hostage, "My hearing is pretty good."

Kara's dealing with Morgan Edge is reminiscent of the Golden Age Superman comics, where Superman was more of a social justice warrior than his modern "Boy Scout" characterization, directly threatening corrupt businessmen with violence rather than working to uncover their crimes.


Technobabble

Aluminium tubing can be used to build a nuclear centrifuge.

A high-pressure regulator could be used in combination with the cloaking device from a Daxamite ship to retrofit an aircraft into a perfect stealth vehicle, undetectable by even the DEO's radar and Supergirl's X-Ray Vision. The regulator would stabilize the internal pressure of a F-18 or B-52 to withstand the force emitted by the cloaking device.

The pressure regulator was meant to low-altitude rather than high-altitude. This leads Supergirl to conclude that Bloodsport is masking a submarine rather than a bomber.


Dialogue Triumphs

(Kara has just blown off Alex's invitation to taste-test hors d’oeuvres for her wedding. J'onn and Winn walk up.)
Winn: Okay, I thought it was bad when she skipped pizza night. But skipping free apps? I mean, come on! These are like... the beginning of the dark days...
J'onn: Hey, come on. Grief doesn't have a deadline.
Winn: Look, I know. But I mean, she goes from being "Little Miss Sunshine" to... well, Alex, basically.
Alex: (incredulous) What?! I'm not like that!
J'onn: Oh, come on, Alex. Your unrelenting seriousness is one of your best qualities.
(J'onn walks off. Alex looks at Winn, who makes a face and quickly follows after J'onn.)
Alex: I'm not like that. I'm not!

(Kara flies into James' office at CatCo, having heard his signal watch.)
Kara: What's wrong? Why did you use the signal watch?
James: You didn't get that article in.
Kara: (stunned and stammering) You - you beepered me for a deadline? That watch is for emergencies only!
James:  I know what the watch is for but this - this feels like an emergency. I'm worried about you, Kara. And at a certain point in time, I have to be your boss.
Kara: (angrily) No. Don't ever, -ever- do that again.
James: What? Ask you to do your job?
Kara: I am doing my job!
James: No. Supergirl is doing her job. Kara Danvers has been completely off the radar.
Kara: (sarcastically) Oh, I'm sorry, James. I've been a little busy, you know? The world's not going to save itself!
James: But you still have a life, okay? You still have a job as a reporter. And that life makes you you.
Kara: No, what makes me me is Supergirl. That's who I am at my core. And you're one to talk. Guardian.
James: (sighs) Okay. Guardian means a lot to me. But so does James Olsen. And he runs CatCo. And that job is important.
(Kara seems to struggle for a moment to speak but finally does so.)
Kara: You know something? If I'm expected to put Supergirl on hold just to write this article for you? Then maybe being a reporter isn't a good idea.
James: What- what are you saying?
Kara: I'm saying I have important things to do, but not here at CatCo. Not as a reporter. Not as Kara Danvers.
James: Kara, don't do this...
Kara: I quit!
James: Kara...
(Kara exits.)

Alex: Okay. This is done. I am done walking on egg shells. We all are. I've kept my distance. I have given you time to grieve without prodding. Without making you talk about Mon-El-
Kara: There's nothing to talk about..
Alex: Without forcing you to go to game nights or come to the bar.
Kara: There was a burglary...
Alex: There's ALWAYS a burglary! (pauses) But I've let it slide. Your pity party has gone uninterrupted.
Kara: (incredulous) My pity party?
Alex:  Who are you right now?! Kara Danvers doesn't quit.
Kara: She quits the things that aren't important.
Alex: CatCo is important! You help people there!
Kara:  Not like Supergirl does.
Alex: Kara Danvers-
Kara: Kara Danvers sucks right now! (pauses) Supergirl is great! Supergirl saved the world! So, if I could choose to be her, why would I ever choose to be the sad girl who's boyfriend is gone?! I don't like that girl, Alex.
Alex: I know it hurts-
Kara:  No, you don't know anything! You've never had to make a decision like this!
Alex: Okay, then. Tell me what it feels like! Please! Just let... let me help. Let me help you get over him!
Kara:  Get over him?!
(Alex stutters a bit.)
Kara: He didn't dump me. I sent him away! And for all I know, he...
(Kara's voice trails off)
Alex:What?!
Kara:  It doesn't matter.
Alex: You're not letting yourself feel anything! You're just bottling it up inside and you are making bad decisions. And I am worried-
Kara:  If it were Maggie, what would you be doing?! If the woman you were about to marry was gone forever, what would you be doing?
Alex: (pausing and stammering) I- I-
Kara:  You'd be at the bar every night. You'd be a wreck at work. You'd be broken.
Alex: (nodding) I would. I would be. But it's okay if you are...
Kara:  I'm not. (shrugging) That's what humans do. And I'm better than that. Clark said it himself. The decision I made? He couldn't have made that sacrifice. But me? I couldn't have lived with myself if I hadn't. I will always make the decision I made. I am not a human. I tried to be. But I'm not. Kara Danvers was a mistake. So... if you have an update about work, I'd love to hear it. Otherwise...
Alex: Bloodsport has the capability to cloak a nuke. We're thinking that he's going to hit the statue unveiling at the waterfront. J'onn wants everyone there.
Kara: I'll be there.
(Alex moves to the front door then turns around.)
Alex: Kara Danvers... is my favorite person. She saved me more times than Supergirl ever could, so just think about that while you're trying to get rid of her!
(Alex exits the apartment and slams the door as Kara stares at her computer, looking up at the door looking uncertain once Alex leaves.) 

(Kara is watching the crowd at the statue unveiling. J'onn lands beside her, shifting into his Hank Henshaw appearance as he does so.)
Kara: No sign of Bloodsport.
J'onn: It's quiet up here. (pauses) You know, I rarely flew on Mars?  It was for battle, not for pleasure. When I first came to Earth, I spent hours up in the sky. It was the only place I could feel empty.
Kara: Well, that's now what I'm doing up here.
J'onn: Forgive me for saying, but you seem to be courting emptiness of late. And that's not you.
Kara: I tried to be Kara Danvers for 15 years. But I'm not supposed to be her. I'm not supposed to be human.
J'onn: But you have a human heart now. It aches. It scars. But it keeps on beating. If you try to cut it out, you will lose something essential.
Kara: I can't help people if I'm broken...
J'onn: You are not broken! You are the strongest person I know. (pauses) You saved me, remember? You taught me that my loss made me stronger. That was Kara Danvers, not Supergirl.
Kara: Do you still dream about them? Your family?
J'onn: Sometimes.
Kara: (sounding sadder yet more like Kara than she has earlier in the conversation) Past couple of months when I dream, I see... I see Mon-El. With my mom.
(There is a long pause. Kara shakes her head and resumes her neutral tone.)
Kara: We should keep our eyes on the sky right now.

(Alex and Maggie make their peace over their wedding plans over the DEO comms.)
Maggie: I love you.
Alex: You too. Forever.
Winn: (wistfully) You two are my favorite couple.
(Alex and Maggie both speak at the same time.)
Maggie: Winn, shut up!
Alex: Winn, get off the comm!

Morgan Edge: You are going to regret - SO regret - the day you screwed me. I sure hope you enjoyed yourself. Because now... you have all of my attention.
Lena Luthor: Oh, Edge. Like every woman who's ever had all of your attention, I couldn't care less.

(Supergirl drops Morgan Edge on top of a shipping container. She walks away from him.)
Kara: The attack on the waterfront? I know it was you. To clear the way for your development. You're the only person who had anything to gain from it.
Morgan Edge: Yeah, well... you can't prove anything.
Kara: Not yet. But I see you, Edge. National City is my town. (smiling) And now you've got all of my attention.
(Supergirl flies away. The camera pulls back to reveal that the shipping container is one of many.. on the deck of a freighter at sea.)
Morgan Edge: (distantly getting quieter as Kara flies away) Hey You can't just leave me here!

(As J'onn begins to tear up at being asked to give Alex away at her wedding.)
Alex: Stop. Don't cry. If you cry, I'm going to cry. And everybody here is going to know that we actually can cry.


Continuity

It is officially confirmed that Maggie Sawyer and Alex Danvers have become engaged.

Morgan Edge's company has spearhead much of the rebuilding of National City following The Daxamite invasion. Lena Luthor and James Olsen are both quick to point out that Supergirl did most of the literal heavy lifting and that Lena's company also donated millions to the rebuilding effort.

Morgan Edge has a plan to revitalize the National City waterfront, where a statue of Supergirl is being built. Lena Luthor accuses him of planning to force people out of their homes to build high-rise apartments for the wealthy.

Cat Grant is now the Press Secretary for US President Marsdin.

Snapper Carr is reportedly on a sabbatical from his job as Kara's editor.

Crime in National City has gone down 65% over the past six months, entirely due to Supergirl.

Fort Harrison is a military base about 20 minutes outside of National City.

Kara quits her job as a reporter at CatCo following an argument with James about her missing deadlines to fight crime.

General Sam Lane has apparently gotten his hands on a fully-functional Daxamite warship. This is in defiance of The President's orders that all alien technology be handed over to the DEO.

Bloodsport is in Morgan Edge's employ.

Martians rarely use their flight powers outside of battle. J'onn never used his purely for pleasure before coming to Earth.

Alex's reluctance to move forward with the wedding plans are due to her father not being able to be there due to being on the run from Cadmus. Maggie stays she understands but asks her to consider all the people who will be there to make the day special. Alex agrees to try.

KPJT is the Channel 3 news station in National City.

Supergirl cannot breathe underwater.

Samantha Arias is shown to acquire great strength in moments of stress. She uses this to lift a heavy scaffold off of her daughter without help.

Lena Luthor considers Kara Danvers her best friend.

Lena Luthor buys CatCo, thwarting Morgan Edge's effort to do so. He swears revenge.

Below the waterfront of National City, a rocket is seen among the area unearthed by Bloodsport's missiles. It appears to be Kryptonian in design.

Winn never buys the first round of drinks.

Alex tells J'onn that she considers him family, that he's always acted like a father to her and asks him to give her away at her wedding. J'onn tearfully accepts.

Kara gets her job back from James and meets with the rest of her friends at the alien bar as the episode ends.

Reign was first referred to in the final scene of 222, where it was revealed that a third child was sent away from Krypton on the day of its destruction. Described as an "it" and being tended to by sinister women in black robes, they say that the child will "reign" on Earth.


Untelevised Adventures

Cat Grant took a position as The White House Press Secretary at some point during the past six months.


The Bottom Line

A solid enough opening. Curiously, the weakest point is the introduction of the season's new villain, which comes out of nowhere and has nothing to do with the main plot. Adrian Pasdar is a delightfully smarmy Morgan Edge and the established cast do wonders with the material they are given, particularly Chyler Leigh and Melissa Benoist. If it hadn't been for the forced bits attempting to introduce Reign (which are just confusing if you don't know that's what the show runners are doing), this would have been a perfect start to the season. As it is, it's merely good.

With thousands dead in Washington D.C. and the American government all but destroyed, Aqualad has revealed his allegiance to Ra's Al Ghul! Yet even as Black Canary waits on a fatally wounded Wildcat and Batman struggles to bring about some kind of order, more important business is afoot. Jefferson "Black Lighting" Pierce attends to the duties of fatherhood and a despondent Jamie Reyes returns home to find an unexpected visitor...





Injustice 2 #27 would be an amazing if unorthodox entry into the world of Injustice. Despite being largely built upon the events of previous issues, the story is totally accessible to new readers. This fact is as miraculous as Tom Taylor's ability to balance comedy and drama, bringing about dark humor in the face of a disaster and genuine ethos. Many writers can write an exciting action sequence but Taylor is one of a rare few who can make a father tucking his daughters into bed seem gripping.

Taylor's script is matched by an equally amazing art team. Daniel Sampere was a marvel on Gail Simone's Batgirl title and his work here is of equal caliber, full of intricate line-work without being cluttered. Inker Juan Albarran enhances those details, establishing a moody atmosphere without drowning the page in ink. Rex Lokus' colors provide the perfect finishes to one amazing comic.

The Final Analysis: 10/10. If you somehow haven't s been reading this book before now, this is the issue to start with.

For a summary of the episode guide layout & categories, click here.




Plot

In the wake of Barry Allen's disappearance into The Speed Force several months earlier, it has fallen to Iris West, Kid Flash, Vibe and Joe West to keep Central City safe from hostile metahumans. When a new armored villain - a flying samurai - threatens to destroy the city if The Flash doesn't show his face, the rest of the team go behind Iris's back and make a risky decision to try and rescue Barry, seeking out an apparently-recovered Caitlin Snow to do so. However, the Barry Allen they retrieve is not the same one they lost...


Influences

The Flash: Rebirth by Geoff Johns (the title), The Flash #180-181 (characters of The Flying Samurai and The Samuroids) and The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy (a character suggests an unlikely means of deciphering a secret message only to get a seemingly useless answer.)


Goofs

Cecile says that Barry was found on "the 112 outside of Ivy City", 300 miles away from Central City. This seems like it could be a flubbed reference to Ivy Town - the suburb where Oliver Queen and Felicity Smoak lived during the time between Season 3 and Season 4 of Arrow and where Professor Martin Stein met his wife back in the 1970s, according to the first season of Legends of Tomorrow.

Where did Caitlin get the cold gun from?  (Maybe Cisco finally had time to build a second one?)


Performances

Honestly, the only thing that makes this episode work as well as it does is the performances of the ensemble cast, particularly Danielle Panabaker and Carlos Valdes playing off of one another.


Artistry

The special effects on the sequence where Kid Flash chases Peek-A-Book look amazing.


Flash Facts

The episode opens with a quick recap of the last season of The Flash. It conveys the following scenes - Barry proposing to Iris, Caitlin declaring she needs to go away for a bit to figure out who she is following her transformation into Killer Frost, Joe West telling Cecile Horton he loves her and The Speed Force Storm threatening Central City until Barry goes into The Speed Force to fill the gap left by Savitar's non-existence in The Speed Force Prison.

The episode also opens with a special narration from Iris instead of the usual one from Barry.

Iris notes that Peek-A-Boo is teleporting to every third tower, guessing that her eventual target will be The Broome Tower. This is a nod to John Broome - a prominent comic book writer of the Golden Age and Silver Age, who is most famous for his co-creation of Hal Jordan - the second Green Lantern. Broome also had a lengthy run on The Flash, during which he created several key characters including Kid Flash, Captain Boomerang, Elongated Man, Abra Kadrbra and The Reverse Flash.

The Flying Samurai is a character from a relatively obscure Flash story which started in The Flash #180 (June 1968). The Flying Samurai was revealed to be one of several samurai-themed robots called Samuroids who were the minions of a Baron Katana .  

The DCTVU Samuroid is eventually revealed to be under the control of The Mechanic and The Thinker.

Vibe addresses The Flying Samurai as Mifune and later calls him Kurosawa. These are nods to actor Toshiro Mifune - perhaps the most famous Japanese film actor of all time - and director Akira Kurosawa, who directed several films in which Mifune portrayed a samurai.

Vibe also calls The Flying Samurai "Samurai Jackass." This is a riff on the classic cartoon Samurai Jack.

Vibe says "Great Ceaser's Ghost!" at one point. This exclamation was also the catch-phrase of The Daily Planet editor Perry White in the Superman comics.

Cisco and Caitlin both make reference to the novel The Hitch-hiker's Guide To The Galaxy, with Cisco suggesting that Barry's message may hold "life, the universe and everything" and Caitlin asking if Barry's ramblings mean "The answer is 42."

Vibe makes mention of Danville. This is a suburb of Centeral City in the original Flash comics. It was a middle-class resident suburb, where Iris and Barry lived upon getting married.

Caitlin's newfound ability to control her powers and Killer Frost personality are apparently because of someone named Amunet, for whom she was working by working at the bar where Cisco found her. This is likely a reference to Amunet Black a.k.a. Blacksmith.

First appearing in Flash: Iron Heights (August 2001), Blacksmith was a villain who ran a black market for super-villains in Centeral Ciy. Briefly married to the super-villain Goldface, Blacksmith stole his formula, which gave him super-strength and a golden glow and used it herself. It left her with the ability to bond metal to her body and control any metal around her.

Clifford DeVoe a.k.a. The Thinker first appeared in All-Flash Comics #12 (September 1943), created by Gardner Fox and Everett E. Hibbard.

A District Attorney in Keystone City, DeVoe froze up while questioning a witness during his first big trial against the crime boss Hunk Norvock. Driven to drink by his failure and the realization that crime COULD pay, DeVoe went to Norvock and offered his services as "a thinker" - a fixer who could use fake alibis and obscure legal precedents to help Norvock and his men get away with anything. DeVoe would come to take over the gangs of Keystone City, who elected him as their new boss after DeVoe's cleverness allowed him to survive several attempts on his life including an attack by Boss Norvock himself.

Brought to justice by The Jay Garrick Flash, DeVoe sought revenge, outfitting himself with various bits of advanced technology. Chief among these was his "Thinking Cap", which increased his already considerable intelligence as well as giving him the powers of mind-control and telekinesis. Reforming in later years, he became friends with Jay Garrick before he died peacefully of old age. Unfortunately, a new Thinker - an artificial intelligence based on the brainwaves of a younger Clifford DeVoe - would go on to become an enemy of the Wally West Flash, The Justice Society of America and Cyborg.

The character of The Mechanic seen in this episode is a new creation, unique to the DCTVU. It is worth noting, however, that the name of The Mechanic has been used by other DC Comics properties, most famously in an episode of Batman: The Animated Series which focused on Earl Cooper, the man responsible for designing and building Batman's cars.

The Mechanic was also one of several British superheroes to appear in the Paul Cornell/Jimmy Broxton Knight and Squire (2010) mini-series. A character called The Mechanic was listed among the membership of the criminal gang The Average Joes in Batman Incorporated #6 (June 2011). The Mechanic was apparently the code-name of one of The Huntress's enemies on Earth Two, in the Pre-Crisis DC Comics Universe. Finally, The Mechanic was the code-name of Thomas Hague - a telekinetic member of the superhero team The Shadow Cabinet in the Dakotaverse.


Technobabble

The Quark Sphere is a device which is filled with Barry Allen's unique genetic marker, programmed to track his DNA using the electrical current of The Speed Force. Used in tandem with The Speed Force Bazooka, The Quark Sphere will trick The Speed Force into thinking Barry is still there once The Speed Force Bazooka pulls Barry out of it.

Shock results from a drop in blood pressure. Barry's instability is neurological in nature, according to Caitlin.

Schizophasia is a neurological condition where a person assigns the wrong definitions to words.

A sliced fibula would be severe enough an injury that Caitlin would amputate if the victim were anyone but a speedster.

Cisco suggests that the code Barry is writing in is a poly-alphabetic language like Greek, where the symbols are a unique alphabet rather than a mono-alphabetic substitution cipher.


Dialogue Triumphs

Iris: My name is Iris West and I was supposed to marry The Fastest Man Alive... but six months ago he left. I promised him I'd run. So that's what I've been doing these past six months. Running as fast as I can.

(Cisco drinks the drink Caitlin made for him.)
Cisco: Oh, this is good!  Is there anything you can't do?
Caitlin: Move on, apparently.

(Pokerface by Lady Gaga plays. We see an unfocused shot from Barry's point of view, looking at the ceiling. Caitlin and Cisco are standing above him.)Caitlin: Are you sure this is appropriate?
Cisco: Yeah. It's a good luck charm. I mean, it worked before.
Caitlin: Last time he was in a coma - not a pan-temporal extra dimension.
Cisco: Well... waking up to Gaga shouldn't seem too freaky...

(We see one of the Samuroid robots having it's face replaced by a woman. This is The Mechanic.)
The Mechanic: The Samurai served his purpose.
Unseen Man: As in 12th Century Feudal Japan. A time when the military class was powerful. The execution methodical. Like ours.
(The Mechanic moves to a touch screen and pulls up an image of that day's newspaper in Central City, reporting on The Flash's return.)
The Mechanic: Well, it worked. The Flash is back in Central City.
Unseen Man: It appears things are going as planned.
The Mechanic: As if there were any doubt.
(A chair turns around. We see a figure with a metal cap wired to his head sitting in it. This is The Thinker.)
The Mechanic: What's our next step?
The Thinker: I'm thinking...


Continuity

The villain Vibe and Kid Flash are fighting at the start of the episode, the teleporter Peek-A-Boo, last appeared in122.

Vibe's control of his power to create controlled breaches within a single dimension seems to have improved considerably over the past six months to the point that he can follow along behind Kid Flash with little effort. He is also able to use his powers as a tractor beam to hold Peek-A-Boo in place and force her through a breach.

The CCPD is now armed with special taser guns that Joe West is able to use to neutralize Peek-A-Boo.

Iris has taken over the leadership of Team Flash, organizing the team from STAR Labs while Joe, Cisco and Wally are in the field.

Iris says that 1 out of every 3 fights with a metahuman criminal they've had in the past six months has ended in the villain escaping.

Cecile Horton is in the process of moving in with Joe West.

Julian Albert has moved back to London. Joe has apparently been covering for Barry's absence for the past six by telling Captain Singh that Barry was on a sabbatical in the Czech Republic. With two CSIs out, the CCPD Crime Lab is woefully backed-up.

Joe refers to HR's funeral in 323.

Wally West can speak Japanese.

Cisco reveals he has been consulting with several people on a way to free Barry from The Speed Force. These include Harry (i.e Harry Wells, The Harrison Wells of Earth Two), Tina (i.e. Dr. Tina McGee of Mercury Labs), Tracy (i.e. Tracy Brand, who helped build The Speed Force Prison in Season Three), Felicity (a.k.a. Felicty Smoak a.k.a. Overwatch) and Curtis (i.e. Curtis Holt a.k.a. Mister Terrific.) He claims to have been working on the problem for over six months, since the night Barry entered The Speed Force.

Cisco is able to track Caitlin by Vibing her. She's apparently restored herself to normal and is "just Caitlin" again but has been working as a bartender in a rough bar in Central City rather than returning to STAR Labs for some reason.

Caitlin has two doctorates and a PhD.

Caitlin reveals that she somehow learned about Barry going into The Speed Force.

Iris makes a reference to a Mockingbird Satellite that Cisco has to pull up to track The Flying Samurai.

Cisco sets up his rig to removed Barry from The Speed Force at the old Ferris Aircraft facility where they first tested Barry's powers in the first episode.

Joe forgives Caitlin for everything she did to him and Cecile as Killer Frost.

Cisco and Caitlin calibrate The Speed Force Bazooka from 322 to pull Barry from The Speed Force.

Barry makes two references to "Nora (his mother) shouldn't be here during his rantings when the rest of Team Flash first see him. The rest of Barry's dialogue suggests he is experiencing moments in time out of sequence, with Barry saying something about not killing anyone as if speaking to a judge, asking if everyone can hear the stars singing, that someone told him the city was safe and there would be no residual danger but that wasn't true, saying the stars are melting like ice cream, that the stars are loud, that he and his dad are going to be okay, that he's not sure he can be like Oliver (a nod to his conversation with Green Arrow in the pilot) and various bits of rhyming nonsense along with a speech about revolutionizing how physics is looked at.

Barry also writes on the walls of his cell in a strange code.

Barry's neurotransmitters are functioning at five times normal speed.

Caitlin theorizes that Barry either developed schizophasia or dementia as a result of his time in The Speed Force.

Cisco plays Pokerface by Lady Gaga while trying to revive Barry. This is the song that was playing when Barry awoke from his coma in the first episode.

Caitlin uses a cold-gun like the one stolen from STAR Labs by Captain Cold to knock out Barry.

Wally attempts to impersonate Barry by wearing his costume and vibrating his face while fighting The Flying Samurai.

Cisco's translation of Barry's scribblings comes up with the phrase, "This house is bitchin'!".

Wally can heal a sliced fibula in four to five hours.

The delirious Barry says to Joe "You said it yourself. She goes looking for danger." - a line he said once about Iris to Joe.

Joe West has apparently rediscovered religion since dating Cecile. He has come to believe that "Strength means nothing without faith.". Iris is amused by this, saying that Joe hadn't attended church since she was a child.

Joe West is apparently a practicing Catholic.

Cisco made Barry a new bright red suit over the past six months - one exactly like the one worn by the future Flash in 319.

Barry is now capable of moving faster than ever before - even faster than Wally West.

Barry has no idea how he sensed that Iris was in danger. He says he has no memory of anything after he entered The Speed Force.

Caitlin rejoins Team Flash.

Caitlin returns to the bar she was working at and tells one of the men there to tell Amunet that she is out. The man responds violently which causes Caitlin to transform into Killer Frost. Frost says something about having fun while he can before Caitlin changes back to her normal self. Judging by her reaction, Killer Frost's attempts to take her over again are not supposed to be happening.

Iris couldn't bring herself to sleep in her and Barry's bed alone over the past six months.

The Samuroids were the work of The Mechanic, who we see with The Thinker in the episode's final scene.


Location

Barry is recovered from "the 112 outside of Ivy City" - a town 300 miles away from Central City.


Untelevised Adventures

Iris, Joe, Wally and Cisco spend six months trying to keep metahuman crime in Central City under control.

Caitlin is able to reassert herself at some point within the past six months, apparently putting herself into the debt of someone named Amunet.


The Fridge Factor

It really does not make a damn bit of sense for Iris to be opposed to Cisco trying to bring Barry out of The Speed Force and it only seems to happen so there can be one more bit of forced drama between the team members.

For all of the confidence Iris built in the last six months, it seems a damn curious message that she should force herself into the damsel-in-distress role as some means of "saving" Barry.

Once again, Caitlin's character arc for the season is built around her inability to control her power.


The Boomerang Factor

Kid Flash and Vibe are dumbed-down to make Peek-A-Boo a threat in the opening sequence, with the whole "duck duck" scene.


The Bottom Line

Easily the weakest Season Opener to date on The Flash. Most of the ensemble is useless outside of a few brief character moments and The Flying Samurai isn't an engaging enemy. The Barry/Iris relationship continues to be less engaging and well-developed than literally every other romantic relationship on the show, despite it getting the lion's share of the screen-time. What's worse is that the episode is honestly trying to make Iris into a stronger character but still requires her to become a hostage in order for Barry to be able to function. Between that and them reviving the idea that Caitlin can't handle her powers without being corrupted, there's a lot of disturbing implications in this episode.

For a summary of the episode guide layout & categories, click here.


Plot

The Legends defeated The Legion of Doom, but their actions have caused a fracturing of the time-stream that has unleashed thousands of anachronisms and paradoxes. Before they can get to work on fixing the problem, Rip Hunter (who had just left them moments earlier from their perspective) returns with agents from a newly formed Time Bureau, who relieve them of The Waverider.

This suits Mick Rory just fine, as he finally gets to take his long-delayed trip to Aruba and forget about the whole "saving the timeline" thing... right up until the point that Julius Caesar shows up intent on conquering the beach!


Influences

Army of Darkness (the scene of Sara working retail is like Ash and his job at S-Mart), the Men In Black movies (the mind-erasing device and the general look of The Time Agents), the play Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare (Caesar quotes a line from it during his speech to the toga party, Nate quotes it when questioning Sara) and the movie Back To The Future II (the heroes have to stop a villain who used a book from the future to change history after allowing said book to wind up in the hands of said villain in the first place.)


Goofs

It's hard to believe The Legends would just walk around a dinosaur-filled Los Angeles in their civies as nonchalantly as they do in the opening scene.

Funny as it is to see Sara working retail and granting that it's done entirely for comedic effect, it seems hard to believe she couldn't have gotten a better job, especially in Star City. Even if Oliver Queen or her dad couldn't get her a job on their security detail because of nepotism laws, surely they could pull some strings to get her work in a similar field!

If nothing else, you'd think Sara would be able to come up with a new identity for herself with her assassin training, particularly given how easily she's able to acquire the means of breaking into The Time Bureau.

It's also hard to believe that Ray Palmer, who built himself up from nothing with his tech company, has been reduced to doing grunt work with some dating app company.

Kid Flash unmasks in front of a bunch of criminals to talk with Nate?

Julius Caesar refers to Ate vexing him. Ate was the Greek goddess of ruin and folly - not Roman.

Why did The Time Bureau allow Amaya to stay in 2017 until she decided to return to 1942 on her own? Isn't she an anachronism?

It's highly coincidental that Sara just happened to steal a Time Bureau agent's badge for no real reason after a one night stand.

Given that The Time Bureau now have the technology to open direct portals between two points in time without the need for a ship, why did they need to take King Arthur back to Camelot from The Spanish Civil War through Star City in 2017?

You'd think Ray of all people would know better than to ask if Sara needs help in a fight. She kicked his ass handily in the last episode.


Performances

Once again, Caity Lotz steals the show and shows why this series has become her vehicle.

The interaction between Franz Drameh and Victor Garber is fantastic, with the two playing off the conflict between Stein and Jax perfectly.


Artistry

The fight scenes of Sharpe and Sara working to fight the Roman Centurions is nicely shot.


Trivia Of Tomorrow

The episode opens with a quick recap of the last season. We are specifically reminded that Rip Hunter left the team, officially naming Sara Lance as Captain of The Waverider, that Amaya elected to stay on the team despite what recorded history says due to her love of Nate Heywood and that the team crash-landed in 2017 Los Angeles after a time-quake, at which point they discovered several buildings out of their proper place... and live dinosaurs roaming the streets. .

The episode title is a pun on The Rubicon - a shallow river in Northern Italy, which Julius Caesar famously crossed in 49 BC. Since then, the phrase "Crossing The Rubicon" has come to refer to "the point of no return" or any action that might be seen as risky or revolutionary with no alternatives but total defeat or complete victory possible as an outcome.

Roman law at the time prohibited any general from crossing into Roman territory at the head of an army. Julius Caesar defied this law by crossing The Rubicon, moving southward from Gaul and marching upon Rome. This started what is known as Caesar's Civil War and eventually led to the foundation of The Roman Empire with Julius Caesar as Dictator.

The Time Bureau is a unique organization, new to the DCTVU. In terms of focus, they seem similar to The Linear Men - a group which monitored the time-stream for paradoxes in the Post-Crisis DC Comics Universe, who recruited Rip Hunter in the wake of the destruction of The Time Masters.

When Sara is powering up The Waverider, she says "engines to power, batteries to speed." This is a nod to the phrase frequently said by Batman and Robin in the 1966 Batman TV show when starting The Batmobile, though there it was "atomic batteries to power, turbines to speed."

Professor Stein says "Great Caesar's Ghost!" upon seeing Julius Caesar in the flesh. This is a nod to the catch-phrase of Perry White, the editor of The Daily Planet in the Superman comics, who used "Great Caesar's Ghost!" as a polite exclamation whenever upset.

Julius Caesar's speech to rally a toga party to his cause features the line, "The cowards die many times before their deaths. The valiant never taste death but once!" This is a paraphrase of a line from William Shakespeare's Julius Caesar - "A coward dies a thousand times before his death, but the valiant taste of death but once."

The photo that Gideon supplies for the mock dating profile Ray creates as a distraction is an actual photo of actress Amy Pemberton, who provides the voice of Gideon.

Ray and Nate pay homage to the original Ghosbusters, quoting Bill Murray's misquote of Julius Caesar - "We came. We saw. We kicked its ass!"

Nate quotes Shakespeare - Et tu, Sara?" - when Sara elects to return to The Time Bureau rather than put Caesar back where he belongs themselves. "Et tu" is Latin for "And you also?" The line "Et tu, Brute" is said when The Senators are killing Caesar on the floor of The Senate and the last to draw a sword is Brutus, whom Caesar considered one of his closest friends.

In the timeline formed when Caesar is not assassinated, The Roman Empire lasts another 2000 years and conquers The New World. What was the United States is labeled "Magna Hesperia" on the new map. In Latin, this means "Great Western Land". The map also identifies several areas with Latin names including Civitas Angeli (City of Angels) near Los Angeles, Flos (Flower) in Florida, Sola Stella (The Only Star) in Texas and Procidens Aqua (Falling Water) near Niagara Falls.

Nate says "dormi strictum amicus" before knocking out a guard. This means "Sleep clenched his friend." in Latin. Or, as Nate loosely translates it, "Sleep tight, buddy."

In the final scene of the episode, Amaya is seen using The Anansi Totem to summon several animal spirits at once, using them to attack a group of British soldiers. This is a new power for Vixen, who has previously only been depicted summoning one spirit at a time to draw upon their power.


Technobabble

An anachronism is a person, place or thing outside of it's natural place in time.

Ray Palmer has developed a new way of shrinking organic matter and streamlined the technology so that it can be worn more effectively.

Ray discovers that Gideon has been in sleep mode for five years when they steal The Waverider. He is able to revive her by diverting her power back to the core.

Temporal Linguistic Dysplasia is a condition where a time-traveler arrives in a time able to speak the native language. It's a frequent side-effect of historical displacement. This is why Julius Caesar is able to speak English.


Dialogue Triumphs

Sarah's daydream sequence where she fantasizes killing her boss.

Ray: My miniaturization technology has the potential to actually make the world a better place!
Alan: If that were true, it would be an app. If it doesn't live on a phone, it's not the future, Ray.
(Alan walks away from his desk. Ray just stands there, still in shock.)
Ray: (quietly) Well, I've actually been to the future.  Like, three times.

(Mick looks up to see who is blocking his light while tanning. He sees a Roman officer on horseback.)
Mick: And who the hell are you supposed to be?
Ceaser: I am Gaius Julius Caesar of Rome!
Mick: Ah. Thought I recognized you. Knocked-off one of your casinos in Vegas.

Nate: You sure this is where they're at?
Sara: I bumped into one of Rip's Time Agents a while back. He may have left his badge at my place.
Ray: He left it at your place?
Sara: All right. Maybe I lifted it off of him in the morning.

Nate: (to Time Bureau agents) I didn't know Men's Warehouse gave group discounts.
Ava Sharpe: What's wrong with you people?! Do you want to get shot?!
Nate: Totally rather get shot than look like a Sears model.

Sara's non-verbal reaction and hiding of her face when she sees King Arthur. (Remember how she was the inspiration for Sir Lancelot?)

Rip Hunter: All humility aside, we are the most important security organization that no one's ever heard of.

(Mick struggles with two suit-clad Time Agents)
Mick: Get off me you damn missionaries!

Gideon: Hello, Legends.. What did I miss?
Ray: Well, we're about to steal a ship, go grab Julius Caesar in Aruba - all before history completely collapses.
Gideon: So, it's business as usual, then?

Jax: Come on, Grey. A chance to meet Julius Caesar and fix history!
(Stein sighs cynically.)
Jax: Look, we have a time ship! We can get you home in time for dessert!
Stein: That's what I told Clarissa the last time I left...
Ray: (cheerfully) And when you came home you had a surprise daughter!
(Jax nods as if this proves his point.)
Stein: Your point?
Nate: The point is... sometimes we screw things up for the better.
Sara: (deadpan) That's a good motto. We should use that.

(As Sara is knocking-out Julius Caesar.)
Jax: Yep. I'd say our work here is done.
Stein: And to quote the great conqueror himself, "We came. We saw-"
Ray and Nate:"We kicked Caesar's ass!"
(Ray and Nate high-five.)

Jax: (quietly and jokingly, to Sara): Nice work. I'd have done it faster.

Rip: I trust you'll use your best judgement.
(Rip's hologram disappears.)
Jax: Ha! Does he not know this team?!

(Caesar steps forward, putting his hands on Sara's shoulders.)
Caesar: It cost me eight years and countless centurions to conquer Gaul. But with an Amazonian queen like you by my side, I could make short work of the rest of the world.
Sara: Conquering the world does sound nice...
(Sara places a hand on Caesar's chest and pushes him back.)
Sara: ... but I don't need you to do it.

(Stein announces his intention to remain among The Legends to Jax.)
Stein: I shanghaied you into our first voyage. I forced this life upon you. I can hardly ask you to give it up now.
Jax: But... your life?  Your family?
Stein: I'll make it home for the birth of my first grandchild. As for my family... they're on this ship as well.


Continuity

It has been five years since Rip Hunter last interacted with The Legends from his perspective. From their perspective, Rip left The Waverider 15 minutes ago.

During those five years, Rip Hunter has worked to establish The Time Bureau and their more advanced time-travel technology. He elected to disband The Legends personally since he was responsible for forming them.

Sara Lance has been declared legally dead twice.

According to Ray Palmer's new boss, Felicity Smoak ran Palmer Technologies into the ground.

Nate spent the last six months fighting crime as Steel in Central City, independent of Kid Flash and Vibe. He claims to be the second most popular superhero in Central City, behind The Flash.

Nate also broke up with Amaya, who was allowed to stay in 2017. Apparently she dumped him and decided to return to 1942 on her own following a conversation with Rip Hunter. According to Rip, going back to her proper time was her idea, not his.

The Time Bureau has an office in Star City in 2017.

King Arthur, last seen in 212, makes an appearance, being dragged through the Star City Time Bureau office in 2017 after having somehow made an appearance during The Spanish Civil War.

The Waverider has been re-purposed as a training simulator for newbie Time Agents. The simulation they are seen running is based on the events of 214, where The Legends had to save the Apollo 13 astronauts. They are told tomorrow's class will have them stopping a nuclear missile from attacking New York City - a disaster The Legends averted in 201.

Mick has apparently acquired several STDs recently. For some reason, The Time Bureau has sensors that can detect this.

The other Legends are convinced Mick is telling the truth about seeing the real Julius Caesar after Mick tries to use a golden Roman aureus from the first century B.C. in a vending machine.

Jax and Professor Stein still both live in Central City, though they haven't been socializing outside of a weekly bonding session required by their powers as Firestorm.

Jax has dropped out of college, despite being on his way to getting a Masters in Engineering in two years.

Lily Stein is pregnant. Apparently she had a boyfriend (now future husband) with whom she was on an academic sabbatical in Rome. She had just returned home to tell her parents in person.

Sara is capable enough a fighter to defeat Julius Caesar in single combat.

Julius Caesar was taken out of time the night before he crossed The Rubicon in 49 BC.

After reading Nate's history book on Rome, Caesar still moves to conquer Rome but declares the first thing he will do upon getting there is kill Brutus and Cassius - the two Senators who plotted his assassination years later. This eventually leads to Ceasar founding a Roman Empire that lasts over 2000 years and conquers The New World.

Mick steals a Time Courier (i.e. time portal generator), a communications device and a memory-eraser from Rip Hunter.

Rip explains to Agent Sharpe that he is allowing The Legends to retain The Waverider and to work for The Time Bureau because they may be the best weapon they have against Mallus - an unspecified threat that is coming at some point in the future, who apparently became a threat because of The Legends.

In the final scene, we see Amaya in Zambesi, using her necklace to summon several animal spirits, who maul British Imperial soldiers intent on attacking her village.


Location

Los Angeles, California - 2017.
Star City - 2017.
Silicon Valley - 2017.
Central City - 2017.
Aruba - 2017.
Cisalpine Gaul - 49 BC.
Zambesi - 1942.


Untelevised Adventures

Apparently Ray, Sara and Nate have been continuing to work as vigilante heroes over the past six months.


The Crisis Factor

There are several moments of The Legends being played up as incompetent in order to make The Time Bureau look more efficient. Nothing quite tops Nate failing to notice Julius Caesar stealing his book, however.


The Bottom Line

Illogical and nonsensical as it is at times, this show is still just plain fun. The episode establishes the new status quo with only a few hiccups along the way, such as how quickly The Time Bureau is able to solve the massive cliff-hanger from the end of the last season. The cast still sells it all through sheer charisma and the show sets up enough solid mysteries to provide some forward momentum beyond the usual "crisis of the week" storylines.

Trapped in the other-dimensional prison of Mr. Oz, Tim Drake has found a most unlikely ally in his escape attempt - himself. A future version of Tim Drake who became Batman, to be precise. This worries Tim for multiple reasons, the primary one being his own determination to do something with his life beyond being a vigilante. So how did Tim Drake turn from a college-bound prodigy into the last, best hope of Gotham City? The tale shall be told...



The second chapter of A Lonely Place Of Living is even more intense than the first. Freed from the burden of tying into the events of the Superman series, this issue is free to focus on Tim Drake and who he truly is as he is confronted with what he might become. James Tynion IV's script is equaled in excellence by the art of Eddy Barrows, Eber Ferreira and Adriano Lucas. If you only read one Batman book, this is the one to be reading!

The Final Analysis: 10 out of 10.

The mother of all flu bugs seems to have hit Gotham City and it only seems to be infecting men. With Commissioner Gordon in his death-bed, half of Helena Bertinelli's class out-sick and Oliver Queen having just come into town, all the men closest to the Birds of Prey are endangered. Can they get to the bottom of things or will ace reporter Lois Lane beat them to the punch? And what other unlikely allies might join them in their fight?


Batgirl And The Birds of Prey #15 is a prime example of how terrible artwork can sink a great story. Not only does Roge Antonio seem to have rushed his pencil work and barely inked the artwork but there are numerous examples of figures being retraced throughout the book. Throw in some weird facial expressions and a coloring job by Marcelo Maiolo that leaves Lois Lane and Barbara Gordon as pale as Harley Quinn and there's not a single page of this book that looks good!


This is doubly unfortunate because The Benson Sisters have outdone themselves on the script for this issue. Bringing Lois Lane into the action adds a whole new level to things and the guest stars are perfectly handled. The final page offers up an honest surprise that I dare not spoil but it is well worth fighting through the rest of the issue to get to it.

The Final Analysis: 5 out of 10. Great story. Terrible artwork. 

For a summary of the episode guide layout & categories, click here.



Plot

In the wake of Green Arrow's final battle with Prometheus and the destruction of Lian Yu, Oliver Queen finds himself in a new role - father. Balancing his duties as Mayor of Star City and Green Arrow was hard enough. How can he manage that and being there for his son, William?  Particularly when Black Siren - who also survived the destruction of Lian Yu - is threatening Star City with a new gang? Who remains to help Green Arrow save his city? And what new enemies will rise up to endanger it again?


Influences

The Jeff Lemire run on Green Arrow (Oliver Queen caring for a child who wants nothing to do with him.)


Performances

Paul Blackthorne and Juliana Harkavy having amazing chemistry together - far better than Blackthorne ever had with Katie Cassidy, ironically enough. The scene of Quentin turning to Dinah for help with his alcoholism is a powerful one.

Honestly, Paul Blackthorne is the episode MVP and the scene of him talking about being a father with Oliver is a moment we never would have expected between those two characters five years ago. If nothing else shows how much Arrow has evolved, that scene does.


Artistry

The script for this episode does a fantastic job of slowly revealing who is alive as it jumps between the flashbacks and the present.

The fight scene with Green Arrow and Spartan in The Bunker with the lights off looks amazing in terms of atmosphere and choreography.


Trivia

This episode marks the first as Arrow moves to it's new time-slot at 9 PM EST on Thursdays. Before this, the shown at 8 PM EST on Wednesdays.

The teaser trailer for Season 6 only showed Oliver Queen, William Clayton, Slade Wilson, Black Siren and Dinah Drake as having survived the destruction of Lian Yu. The IMDB.com page for this episode only listed those characters as being in the episode, as well as Emily Bett Ricakards as Felicity.

The episode opens with a "Last Season on Arrow" notice, though all of the clips come from episode 523.  It  shows Oliver offering to help Slade Wilson find his son, Prometheus taking the rest of Team Arrow to Lian Yu, Samantha Clayton declaring she is not getting on the plane without her son, Felicity explaining to Oliver about Prometheus' dead-man's switch and the island of Lian Yu exploding after he kills himself.

The criminal Team Arrow goes after in the opening scene is a man named Faust. There are two famous Fausts in DC Comics, but neither of them is a weapon's dealer. The first is Felix Faust - a wizard who made an appearance on Constantine in C110. The second Faust, son of the first, is a powerful sorcerer in his own right, who was born without a soul thanks to his father's attempt to bargain it away for more magical power. The deal worked but, much to Felix Faust's annoyance, his son got the power and became a good guy. This Faust, whose first name is revealed to be Alex, has no magical powers but does seem to be obsessed with explosives.

Black Siren mocks Black Canary's new costume, saying she would have gone with fishnets. In the original comics, Black Canary's costume featured fishnet stockings.


Technobabble

The MGM-140 Faust fires at Star City is a "fire and forget" weapon. It's full name is the MGM-140 Army Tactical Missile System (ATacMS).

Mister Terrific disarms the missile by having his T-Sphere spoof the missile's guidance system and drawing it back over the waterfront where it can detonate harmlessly.

Faust makes use of a false-tooth C-4 implant. It becomes a powerful explosive when submerged in carbonated water.

Sniffers are electronic bomb-detectors that can spot an ounce of explosive materials within a 1000 ft. radius.


Dialogue Triumphs

(Faust has just launched a missile at Star City.)
Faust: You can't stop it! You can't disarm it!
Green Arrow: No. But I have a very smart friend who can.
(Cut to Mister Terriffic, on a rooftop, throwing a T-Sphere after the missile.)

(We see Quentin, sitting at a bar, staring at three filled shot-glasses. Dinah enters and sits next to him. The two exchange quick greetings.)
Dinah: You did the right thing texting me.
Quentin:  Heh. It's not like I can call my sponsor now, is it?
Dinah: Why not?
Quentin: If I tell him... why I want to drink, what I did, why... why I did it...
Dinah: Yeah. He'd think you're on something a lot stronger than booze.
Quentin: It's like all I got is this guilt. And all I can do is just run... run... run away from it.
Dinah: And run where?
Quentin: To the bottom of these glasses.
Dinah: Well, you're not going to do that. Because you know and I know that's not what Laurel would want.
Quentin: Which Laurel?

(Oliver is standing at Thea's hospital bed. He turns as he hears a figure enter the room. It's Slade Wilson.)
Slade: Hey kid.
Oliver: Hello, Slade.
Slade: How's she doing?
Oliver: She's the same. What are you doing her?
Slade: I popped by to say that the intel you gave me on my son, Joe... it panned out. So I'm heading to Calgary.
Oliver: Well, that's great. I'm very... uh.  I'm happy for you and I hope that... I hope you find what you're looking for
Slade: You don't think I will?
Oliver: I think that finding your son doesn't always go as planned.
Slade: Have things been that hard with you and your son?
Oliver: ... yeah.
Slade: Be patient. But be prepared.
Oliver: For what?
Slade: Choosing between being the man that people need you to be... or the father that your son needs you to be.
Oliver: What do you mean by that?
Slade: You and I walk between two worlds. But we can only do that for so long.
(Slade offers Oliver his hand.)
Slade: Good luck... Mr. Queen.
Oliver: Good luck, Slade.


Dialogue Disasters

Every moment of William's crying about "The Bad Man". The child actor involved looks way too old to be saying the dialogue that was written for him.

Minion: Do you want me to kill him?
Black Siren: I'm not paying you to keep him alive.


Continuity

The first scene of the episode opens Five Months Later. (i.e. Five months after the events of 523.) and shows Green Arrow attacking a ship belonging to an arms dealer called Faust.

The first character confirmed alive is John "Spartan" Diggle, who is seen talking to Oliver on the comms as they are searching for a Faust.

The second confirmed to be alive is Rene "Wild Dog" Ramirez, who appears in a new costume, saving Spartan from being shot in the back.

The third to be confirmed alive is Curtis "Mister Terrific" Holt, who disarm's Faust's missile with his T-spheres.

The flashback to the explosion on Lian Yu shows Slade abandoning the rest of the group to make for the boat on his own. Most of Team Arrow elects to use the sabotaged plane as a shield from the explosions. Samantha Clayton runs back into the jungle to look for William, not knowing he's on a boat with Prometheus. Thea Queen runs after her. Felicity Smoak starts to run with her, is told to go to the plane, falls as she turns around and is helped up by John Diggle as the two are caught in a blast as the island begins to explode.

Rene has received a promotion to Chief of Staff for The Mayor's Office - the job previously held by Thea Queen. This new position includes speech-writing duties for Mayor Queen. Surprisingly, he is good at this part of his job.

A reference is made to Dinah Drake being alive, though she wasn't in the field that night with the rest of the team.

Felicity Smoak is revealed to have survived as she returns to base with the rest of the team's take-out from Big Belly Burger.

Curtis tells Felicity she missed him disarming a missile. She says she's already seen him do that. (It happened in 423).

It is revealed that Oliver and Felicity are still romantically interested in one another, but have held off on restarting their relationship so that Oliver can focus on building a relationship with William without the added baggage of introducing "Dad's Girlfriend".

Raisa, a member of The Queen Family house-staff, makes her first appearance since The Pilot. She is now apparently in Oliver's employee as a house-keeper/nanny for William. It was implied in her first appearance that she was more of a traditional mother to Oliver as a child than Moira Queen was.

William addresses Oliver by his name - not as "Dad" or any other term of fondness. It is later revealed that "the bad man" in William's reoccurring nightmare who killed his mother is Oliver.

Dinah Drake is now a Detective Lieutenant in the SCPD.

Like Wild Dog, Dinah Drake is revealed to have a new suit as Black Canary.

Quentin Lance is still alive and still Deputy Mayor - both facts we learn when Dinah is informed that Quentin missed an appointment to discuss the Police Academy graduation ceremony. 

Quentin is still fighting his alcoholism but has turned to Dinah for support in the absence of his daughters because he can't tell his sponsor the reasons why he's more tempted than ever to return to drinking.

Black Siren blows up SCPD HQ, killing 9 officers, injuring 4 and putting 6 in critical condition.

Both Quentin and Dinah claim to have seen Black Siren's body on Lian Yu after the island exploded. We find out later that they were lying, with Black Siren having ambushed Dinah and Quentin saving her life by shooting Black Siren. They left her for dead and decided to claim that they found her dead so as to spare Quentin the pain of having to explain that he killed his daughter's doppleganger.

In the flashback, Slade went back to look for survivors after the explosion. He saw two of Oliver's friends (Dinah and Quentin) return to the temple to look for survivors. He says that Nyssa Al Ghul returned to the cages to get Artemis. He then takes Oliver to Thea. Specifically, where her body landed.

Diggle seems to be suffering from some form of PTSD, freezing up while trying to shoot a mercenary to save Wild Dog's life. He later volunteers to avoid working in the field, running Comms from Team Arrow's base. Dinah later reveals that she discovered he hadn't fired his gun while he was in The Bunker fighting Black Siren's men.

Reference is made to Dr. Schwartz - the doctor at Starling General Hospital who secretly treats the vigilantes of Star City and is aware of Oliver Queen's secret identity.

In the flashback Samantha was fatally wounded but survived the explosions long enough to make Oliver promise to take care of William himself and be a father to him.

Black Siren's plans to blow up City Hall were a feint, leaving The Bunker relatively unprotected so she and her team could blow it up.

Oliver and the new DA of Star City pull some strings to get Rene another custody hearing for his daughter, Zoe. Rene missed his last hearing due to being abducted by Prometheus.

Thea is later revealed to be alive, but in a very deep coma.

Slade Wilson visits Oliver while he's in the hospital visiting Thea. He says the intel Oliver gave him panned out and he's about to go to Calgary in search of his son.

Black Siren stole a prototype T-Sphere from The Bunker.

It is revealed that Black Siren was saved from Lian Yu by a mystery man in a suit who has a helicopter.

The episode ends with a Channel 52 News broadcast showing a photo of Oliver, in his Green Arrow costume, with the hood down and the mask off.


The Fridge Factor

Samantha is killed to give Oliver one more thing to be angsty about.

Thea is nearly killed to give Oliver one more thing to be angsty about.

Black Canary is severely nerfed in terms of competence in order to build up Black Siren as a villain. (Presumably to appease the Katie Cassidy fans and the Laureliver shipping faction.)


The Bottom Line

Ignoring Black Siren's sudden competence and how annoying a presence William is, this would be a solid episode. Unfortunately, since the main focus of the story is how dangerous Black Siren has suddenly become and how William has come to hate Oliver for no readily logical reason (apart from whatever trash-talking Samantha may have done about his dad when Ollie wasn't around) this means that most of the episode is focused on plot beats we don't care about while things involving major characters are afterthoughts.

The damnable thing is that the cast does a great job selling this despite the logic gaps (Quentin suddenly having an issue with fighting Black Siren, despite taking her down last season), the repetitiveness (Rene is fighting to get his daughter back... AGAIN!) and the just plain unexplained (Whatever is up with Diggle.) It's a shaky start but the last ten minutes is magic.

Thanks to Wally West's positive influence, Barry Allen is starting to adjust to his new negatively-charged Speed Force powers. Unfortunately, there's little Wally can do to help Barry with settling in at his new job as Staff CSI at the maximum security prison Iron Heights under the ruthless Warden Wolfe...


Police brutality is a hot-button issue and tensions are heightened on both sides of the discussion. While it's uncertain just how deeply Joshua Williamson wished to tap into that zeitgeist, his reintroducing Warden Wolfe - who famously tortured his super-villain charges during Geoff Johns' run on The Flash - into the reality of DC Rebirth hints that a topical discussion will be forthcoming. Politics aside, Wolfe is also a great foil for a straight-arrow cop like Barry Allen and it will be interesting to see how the two interact in the future.


The artwork for this issue is fantastic, with Christian Duce adding a level of complexity that hasn't been seen in this series in sometime. Duce's more realistic style suits the darker tone of this issue well and Ivan Plascencia matches that aesthetic with deeper colors that further heighten Duce's inks.

The Final Analysis: 9 out of 10. If you haven't been reading The Flash, now is the time to start!

For a summary of the episode guide layout & categories, click here.



Plot

A psychic bank robber menaces National City, using her powers to trap people within their own worst fears. As Kara figures out a way to fight this new villain, James rankles under Lena's sudden ownership of CatCo Worldwide Media and the mysterious super-strong single-mother named Samantha starts a new job.


Influences

The 1982 The Daring Adventures Of Supergirl series (presence of Psi) and the 2000 film Unbreakable (a parent with superpowers denies this while dealing with a child who thinks they are a superhero)


Goofs

Kara's refusal to tell Alex and J'onn that Psi is attacking her fears seems horribly out of character for the usually honest Kara.

On that note, it beggars belief, brilliant as Lena is, that she hasn't put two and two together regarding Kara's secret identity yet.

Why does Kara open up her shirt in the elevator? Shouldn't there be security cameras that could catch her doing this, even if she does change at super-speed?

The slow-motion effects when Psi starts controlling the construction worker manning the wrecking ball seem forced.

As a character, Ruby seems to be written as far younger than a middle-school age student.


Performances

Melissa Benoist does a fantastic job conveying Kara's panic attacks.

Chyler Leigh's wordless reactions to Jeremy Jordan's reassurances that everything is fine when she finds Winn and Kara in the lab together.


Artistry

The opening montage showing Kara, Sam, Maggie and Alex getting ready for work in the morning is well-shot and set to an interesting song.

The music and camera distortion used when Kara starts to freak out after being attacked by Psi are quite disturbing and efficiently used.

The elevator sequence, which ends with a desperate Kara breaking through the roof of the Catco Worldwide Media building in order to get out into the open air, is particularly well-realized.

The script does a fantastic job of establishing Kara's reactions as typical of an anxiety attack and Winn's telling her that it's nothing to be ashamed of is a beautiful moment.



Super Trivia

The episode does not open with the usual opening with Kara explaining how she came to Earth as a teenager.

As Samantha says, there have been reports of people displaying temporary super-strength in order to lift heavy objects to save lives. Sadly, there's little verifiable evidence for these stories and even less success at replicating these effects in a controlled environment. While it is possible for a "flight-or-fight" response to temporarily increase a person's physical attributes thanks to deadened pain responses and an adrenaline rush, the factor of the increase is relatively minute. So as much as we'd like to believe the urban legend of the 120 lbs. mother dead-lifting a flipped SUV off of her baby, there's no basis in reality for it.

The character of Psi was created by Paul Kupperberg and Carmine Infantino and first appeared in The Daring New Adventures of Supergirl #1 (November 1982). Originally a girl named Gayle Marsh, Psi developed psychic powers at the age of 12. Following the death of her parents, she was raised by a scientist who warned her of the approach of an enemy called The Decay. She fought Supergirl several times, thinking Kara Zor-El was The Decay in disguise. Eventually, Psi realized that the man who raised her was an illusion created by her powers - an extension of her own fears. She later joined The Suicide Squad in an effort to gain control of her powers but died on a mission.

In The New 52 reality, Psi made a brief appearance in the Forever Evil storyline. Her background was not specified beyond her being a prisoner in a secret ARGUS facility in Detroit known as The Circus.

A character called Psi appeared in the seventh issue of the New Adventures of Supergirl comic based on the CW show. This Psi was a prison guard at Fort Rozz, tasked with using her psychic powers to keep the most violent inmates subdued. Left as a being of pure spirit following the destruction of Fort Rozz, she turned upon Supergirl, whom she mistakenly blamed for hurting her friend Rampage - an innocent unjustly imprisoned in Fort Rozz, whom Psi had come to view as a friend.

The DCTVU version of Psi has the name Gayle March, like her original comic book incarnation. Rather than being an aspiring superhero, however, she's a thief. Like her comics incarnation, she is a powerful telepath and a telekinetic.

The bank where Supergirl first confronts Psi is located on 25th and Cedar Street.  The number 25 is a reversed 52 - a number frequently included in various DC Comics properties.  Cedar Street could be a nod to Michael Cedar, who was a producer on the first season of Supergirl.


Technobabble


J'onn can't read Kryptonian minds but he can detect signs of residual psychic activity.

Martian telepathy differs from human psionic powers in some technical way that J'onn does not describe beyond psychic metahumans producing a certain kind of psionic interference.

Winn creates a device (a.k.a. Psionic Inhibitor Red) he thinks will be capable of blocking Psi's powers so Supergirl can get close to her. It isn't.

Rubies are the strongest gemstones after diamonds. On Mohs 1-10 Scale Of Hardness, diamonds are ranked 10 and rubies are ranked 9.


Dialogue Triumphs


(Supergirl enters the bank vault, finding Psi standing there, slowly filling a bag with money)
Supergirl: I got you cornered.
Psi: (not looking up or turning around) Do you?
Supergirl: What did you do them up there?
Psi: (slowly turning around) I only wanted to play. But they didn't want to play with me.
Supergirl: Well, you're not getting away with it.
Psi: Oh! (smiles softly) You think you're the cat and I'm the bird. (she turns and zips her bag shut, shouldering it as she looks to Supergirl) You got it backwards. You could join me. Maybe then you'd be happy. You see, money equals happiness. More money? More happiness.
Supergirl: Your priorities are seriously out of whack.
Psi: I know, right? (starts laughing) 
Supergirl: Put the bag down.
(Psi sighs and just fixes Supergirl with a stare. She slowly approaches Supergirl, who suddenly stumbles and nearly falls over. Supergirl backs toward the wall and holds it to steady herself as we get a quick POV shot suggesting that Supergirl is suffering from vertigo. Psi walk past her as the perspective shifts again and we see a POV target of the room going black except for the distant glow of a red sun. We see Supergirl, her breath quickening, as she sinks to the floor, clearly terrified.)

(Kara tells Alex about Psi attacking her with the fear she felt watching Krypton die.)
Kara: How am I supposed to deal with that?
Alex: Well... by remembering that your fears don't define you. You know, who you are as Supergirl? Who you are as Kara? That's what defines you and she'd got nothing on that.
Kara: No... who I am as Kara feels broken. (sighs) I lost Mon-El. Lena keeps asking me where I'm going, which is new and horrible. Alex, I'm trying to be myself again but everything that used to make me feel good like... like a relief? It's - it's disappeared!
Alex: It's not always going to feel like that. I promise.
Kara: My life as Supergirl is the one thing I can count on. I can go out there and help people. I can make a difference in the world. I can... feel strong even though a huge part of me feels so weak and she's taking that away from me. (pauses) And if I don't have Supergirl, what do I have?
Alex: You have me.

Lena: This is new for me too.
Kara: Working with friends?
Lena: No. Having friends. We Luthors don't have friends. We have minions.


Dialogue Disasters

Ruby: Do you know how many people in this world want to have superpowers? Do you know how special it is?
Sam: I'm not special!
Ruby: Yes, you are!
Sam: No, I'm not! I'm just an average mother trying to take care of her kid!


Continuity

Eve Teschmacher is a Lena Luthor fangirl.

Lena takes her coffee black and hates salmon.

Despite Cat Grant having been absent from the CatCo building for the better part of a year, Eve still does not use her private "boss only" elevator.

It was a Danvers' family tradition to get a new planner on the first day of school.

Lena says it was a Luthor family tradition to start the school year by hiring a private investigator to check that their teacher's credentials were up to date. There's a chance she might be joking about this.

Winn and Maggie favor live bands for wedding entertainment. J'onn and Alex favor DJs.

Kara is on the general alert "distro" list at the DEO. Normally only analysts get general alerts, but Kara wanted to know about everything that was going on as it came in.

Kara had episodes stemming from claustrophobia after first arriving on Earth. This stemmed from her feeling trapped in her rocket while witnessing Krypton's destruction. It is these fears that Psi tapped into in order to paralyze Kara, as well as her worry that she sent Mon-El to his death by shooting him into space.

J'onn attempts to create a psychic shield to protect Kara from Psi's influence. Psi proves to be too powerful for him. He later says that Psi is the most powerful psychic he's ever encountered.

Ruby gets into a fight with another girl at her school after claiming her mother has superpowers.

Kara makes use of a Kryptonian meditation technique to calm her mind. She has not done this since coming to Earth since she never felt the need to before now.

It is revealed that Psi does not read her subject's minds - she merely triggers the fear response. We discover this when she asks what it was that made Supergirl so afraid.

Alex recognizes Ruby from 301.

Alex and Maggie never discussed having children. Alex wants to have kids someday. Maggie says she never saw herself being a mom.

At the end of the episode, it is revealed that Sam's new job is as the new manager of L-Corp who is running things while Lena is learning how things work at CatCo.

Sam attempts to bend a crowbar once she is home. She fails to do it.

J'onn receives a psychic message from M'Gann, telling him he has to return to Mars.


The Kryptonite Factor

One of the most powerful psychics in the DC Comics Universe, J'onn has his powers severely curtailed here in order to make Psi more of a threat. Protecting another person with a psychic shield would hardly tax the Martian Manhunter of the comics. Here, J'onn is knocked out by Psi in less than a minute as he tries to shield Kara.


The Bottom Line

Oddly uneven, but largely enjoyable. The performances are great, the effects-work wonderful and Psi is well-realized as a menace but it seems shameful for a character like Psi who has a lengthy history with Supergirl in the comics being reduced to a villain-of-the-week as she is here.

The larger problem, however, is the Ruby and Sam subplot. Ruby seems to be written far younger than her actress would indicate and there's very little that is engaging about Sam as a character at the moment. You know it's a bad sign when you wish more of the episode had focused on James dealing with Lena taking over his role as Grand Poobah at CatCo than on watching Ruby put herself in danger in an effort to prove her mom has powers.

Leaving his companions Gabby and Cindy in the charge of his old friend Sarah Jane Smith, The Doctor left Earth to follow the trail of an unusual vortex anomaly. Having finally cornered the source of the odd energies, The Doctor makes a horrific discovery - the anomaly is a future version of Gabby, transformed into a time-sensitive entity of pure psychic energy! Can The Doctor avert Gabby's future before her future self kills him? Or worse yet, creates the mother of all paradoxes by killing her past self?







Doctor Who: The Tenth Doctor: Year Three #10 brings the Vortex Butterflies storyline to a satisfying conclusion. The story is the culmination of the epic tale Nick Abadzis crafted around Gabby Gonzales and it is as touching as it is thrilling. Brought to life beautifully by Giorgia Sposito and Arianna Florean, the only reason not to read this issue is if you haven't read any of the series to date - a mistake that should be corrected as soon as possible.

The Final Analysis: 10 out of 10. A must-read for all Doctor Who fans!

For a summary of the episode guide layout & categories, click here.



Plot

Barry has his hands full when confronted with a new metahuman who has the power to control technology and relationship trauma, as Iris insists on the two of them entering couples' therapy. Cisco is in similarly dire straits, having to deal with an angry Gypsy after he ditches their date night to tend to his duties at STAR Labs.


Influences

The film Risky Business (Barry's dance scene while fixing breakfast is a tribute to the movie), The Flash comics of Mike Baron (character of Kilg%re), Geoff Johns (character of Warden Wolfe) and Mark Waid (Barry's watching TV at super-speed, exploration of relationship problems caused by moving faster than significant other) and the Green Arrow/Black Canary comics of Andrew Kreisberg (couple with a secret identity who work together have to talk in code during a couples' therapy session)


Goofs

The opening sequence in which Kilgoree kills a man by repeatedly stopping an elevator just looks goofy as all get out, even before we see the scowling Kilgore trying to look menacing in his hoodie.

Given Gypsy's workaholic personality when she was introduced, it doesn't ring true that she'd be angry about Cisco having to put life-saving work ahead of their date. Indeed, it seems she'd be more angry about him blowing off work to be with her, regardless of the holiday.

Great play is made of the fact that Ramsey Deacon wasn't in Central City at the time of The Particle Accelerator Explosion so some outside source must have given him super-powers. This is not the first time Joe and Barry have encountered this, as Deathbolt - the villain Team Arrow confronted in A319 - somehow acquired super-powers despite being in Opal City on the night of The Particle Accelerator Explosion.


Performances

Grant Gustin does a fantastic job of playing the hyper-happy to be alive again Barry Allen with just the right note of Type-A personality to make his sudden change seem natural and not just a forced character note to create drama.


Artistry

The sequence in which The Flash takes an out-of-control car apart at super-speed is well executed.

Even more impressive is the sequence where Barry catches the pieces of a fragmentation grenade in mid-explosion and disposes of them safely.


Flash Facts

Much like Supergirl, this season of The Flash has apparently abandoned the classic introduction setting up the show, with the lines "My name is Barry Allen and I am The Fastest Man Alive..."

Ramsey "Kilgore" Deacon is an original character, unique to the DCTVU. His ability to psychically manipulate electronics, however, is a fairly common power-set in DC Comics. Perhaps the most famous technopath in the comics is Victor "Cyborg" Stone - a member of The New Teen Titans and founding member of The Justice League in the New 52 reality. Other prominent technopaths include Brainiac, Gizmo, the Cyborg Superman Hank Henshaw, Metallo and Kilg%re.

The original Kilg%re first appeared in The Flash #3 (Vol. 2) (August 1987) and was created by Mike Baron and Jackson Guice. The original Kilg%re was an electro-mechano-organic lifeform who required energy to live. Effectively, Kilg%re was a sentient computer virus who could control any machine it passed through and even take over human bodies. Originally only perceivable by beings moving at super-speed, The Flash fought it with the help of Cyborg. It would later reemerge to menace The Justice League

More recently, Kilg%re has appeared in the DC RebirthCyborg series, where it has formed an alliance with Gizmo and The Calculator against Victor Stone and built a giant robot body for itself.

The DCTVU version of Kilg%re is an piece of malware developed by Ramsey Deacon which was stolen by three other programmers. Deacon later takes the name Kilgore after developing the power to sense the presence of nearby technology and control it mentally.

The sequence in which The Flash saves one of Deacon's victims by taking a car apart while it is in motion is a classic stunt from The Flash comics.

Barry makes reference to the HBO series Silicon Valley.

At one point, when Kilgore is controlling the new Flash suit, Barry's armor inflates, causing him to appear incredibly round and overweight. This is a visual nod to The Flash #115, where a special gun caused The Flash to absorb moisture and gain weight, swelling up like a balloon.

This episode marks the first appearance of Warden Wolfe - the man in charge of Iron Heights prison. The penultimate scene of the episode show Wolfe menacingly staring at Ramsey Deacon in his cell - a hint at his true sinister nature.

First appearing in The Flash: Iron Heights (August 2001) and created by Geoff Johns and Ethan Van Sciver, Warden Geoffrey Wolfe is a no-nonsense lawman who hates criminals and vigilantes with a passion, particularly metahumans. Ruling the Iron Heights prison with an iron fist, Wolfe adopts extreme measures to keep his charges in-line. This made him unpopular with idealistic cops and The Flash but they reluctantly were forced to accept Wolfe's rule as he was effective in keeping The Rogues locked up. A metahuman himself, Wolfe has the power to cause the muscles of people close to him to seize up, rendering them unable to move.

Warden Wolfe was reintroduced into The DC Comics Rebirth Universe in The Flash #32 - a comic which came out the week before this episode originally aired.


Technobabble

Barry notes that the impact marks on the ceiling and the repeated lateral stress fissures on the frame of the elevator indicate that Kurt Weaver didn't just drop to his death in the elevator - he was shaken to death.

Cisco says the quantum algorithm of The Cortex at STAR Labs should be able to decrypt the hacker code he discovered in the elevator.

Cisco builds Barry a new suit. In addition to being a brighter shade of red, the suit is equipped with self-repairing armor, nano-liquid circuitry, full-spectrum scanning and a custom HUD (Head-Up Display) filled with maps, building schematics and menus for Barry's favorite restaurants. It also contains energy weapons that shoot from Barry's palms, a built-in defibrillator (like the original costume), a dead-lock feature that prevents the costume from being removed (so a villain can't find out his secret identity), a self-destruct sequence (The Babel Protocol) and an inflatable raft to prevent Barry from drowning if he loses his speed while running on water.

One thing that Cisco did not build into the suit? An oxygen tank.

Caitlin determines that the virus code used by the hacker looks like an organic virus with a digital sub-based.. This leads the team to conclude that their hacker is a metahuman whose powers let him control machines.

Most organic viruses mutate in order to avoid being killed by antibodies.

An injection of glucose can be used to treat insulin shock.

Cisco determines that Deacon's powers are derived from the binary code in his DNA. He and Caitlin develop a compound encoded with a numerical string pattern of ones and zeroes to invert the order of the code.

The Thinker is able to extrapolate the ending of Schubert's Unfinished Symphony after one morning's study of his 600 other works.


Dialogue Triumphs

(Caitlin, Iris and Wally are facing the opening breach. Caitlin and Iris have guns raised. Suddenly Cisco runs into the room and waves his hands, standing between them and the breach.)
Cisco: Hold your fire!
(Gypsy jumps from the breach and smiles at the crowd.)
Gypsy: Hey.
(Iris lowers her gun but looks somewhat annoyed.)
Cisco: (To Gypsy) Hey. You want to give me a little more notice next time? You know people who want to kill us come through here, right?
Gypsy: Oh. My bad, guys.
Wally: Cisco, that was.... very heroic of you to just jump in, protecting Gypsy like that. It's pretty impressive.
Cisco: Dude, I'm protecting you from her! She would have vaporized you guys.
(Wally and Caitlin both scoff.)
Gypsy: He's not lying.
(Gypsy makes a gun-shooting gesture at them.)
Cisco: As you were.

Dr. Finkel: So what would you say your goals are for this session?
Iris: Uh, well... I just want to know that Barry hears my concerns about our issues with miscommunication.
(As Iris is talking, Barry's phone starts to vibrate. He pulls it from his pocket and looks at it.)
Barry: I've go to go!
Iris: You've got to go?!
(Barry shows her his phone. Joe's Panic Alarm app has gone off.)
Iris: He's got to go.
Barry: Yeah. 
(Barry starts to get up.)
Iris: Umm...
Barry: Sorry. Ah...
Dr. Finkel: (stunned) This was...
Barry: Sorry.
(Barry leaves the room. Dr. Finkel begins taking notes again.)
Iris: You're going to write down that he ran out of here, aren't you?
Dr. Finkel: ... yes!

(Shelia is going out of her way to antagonize Ramsey.)
Shelia: No! I'm not going to apologize because after four years you finally found some balls!
Ramsey: I found something else. Something I never had with my family. Or at MIT. Or with any of you. 
Shelia: Really? And what was that?
Ramsey: Power.
(Shelia suddenly has a pained expression as Ramsey looks at the insulin pump strapped to her side.)
Ramsey: (with mock sympathy) Oh, you're not still diabetic are you?
(Shelia looks to her side in horror as she begins to gasp for breath.)

Cisco: You're mad at me!
Gypsy: I said it was fine.
Cisco: No, no, no! Rule Number One: When a girl says "it's fine", it is not fine!
Caitlin: Amen!
(Cisco and Gypsy just stare at her.)
Caitlin: I'm going to go.


Continuity

Cisco sets up a 1,000x sped-up loop of all his favorite shows so he could catch up on what he missed after six months in The Speed Force. This suggests that Barry was not aware of what was happening in the world outside of The Speed Force.

Barry is a Game of Thrones fan.

Cisco is still a CCPD Tech Consultant a.k.a. "The Weird Tech Guy", according to Joe.

Caitlin says that she and Ronnie went through couples' therapy together after they started working together.

Caitlin has to struggle to keep herself from changing to Killer Frost in moments of stress, such as an alarm going off.

When Barry and Iris are in the waiting room, Barry sees a newspaper whose front-page headline reads "Mayor Queen Is The Green Arrow". He looks to Iris questioningly about this and she hisses they will talk about it later. This is a nod to the events of A601, where Oliver Queen's secret identity is revealed in the press.

Cisco discovers the common link between the victims - they were all the programmers behind a malware package called Kilg%re. Ramsey Deacon was screwed out of a fortune by his three business partners and is now out for revenge.

Wally West likes punk music.

One-One-One Day is an Earth-19 holiday that seems to be equivalent to Valentine's Day on Earth One. It is meant to be spent with a person you feel that your soul unites with to form one soul. Hence the name, because One Soul + One Soul = One Soul. Gypsy wanted to spend One-One-One Day with Cisco.

Earth 19 also has a holiday called St. Shaquille O'Neal's Day. It apparently does not have Christmas or, at least, does not feature Santa Claus as part of the Christmas celebration, as Gypsy mocks the idea of a man breaking into your home and eating your cookies.

Barry is now fast enough to throw a lighting bolt at himself.

Ramsey Deacon is imprisoned in a special cell at Iron Heights behind three layers of signal-dampening walls. He is not allowed any contact with any kind of electronics - not even electrical lighting. He is only allowed to read paper books by candlelight and laments the loss of his Kindle.

Joe and Barry determine that Ramsey Deacon wasn't in Central City at the time of The Particle Accelerator Explosion four years earlier. Deacon admits that he was given his superpowers from another source but says nothing else, save that the police are about to have their hands full.

Schubert's Unfinished Eighth Symphony was a childhood favorite of The Mechanic.

The Thinker and The Mechanic refer to Ramsey Deacon as "Subject One". He is apparently the first of a dozen metahumans they need to locate.


The Bottom Line

Largely entertaining, despite a weak script dependent on far too much forced drama. Kilgore fails to be a menacing villain and most of the sequences - from the opening elevator scene to Barry's fighting his own suit - are directed in a goofy fashion that reminds one of the bad parts of Richard Lester's Superman 2. Still, the cast manages to carry on and it's nice to see Joe and Wally being given something to do for a change and I like the new, more confident Caitlin Snow.

For a summary of the episode guide layout & categories, click here.




Plot

Traveling to the year 1870 in search of an anachronism, The Legends discover that the infamous P.T. Barnum has acquired a genuine saber-toothed tiger for his traveling circus.  Their accidentally releasing and enlarging the tiger in their efforts to return it to its own time turns out to be the least of their problems, after Barnum decides that some of The Legends would be fantastic additions to his freak-show.


Influences

John Ostrander's Suicide Squad (idea of Vixen losing control of her emotions when using her powers) and countless other science-fiction stories in which super-powered beings are forced into performing in a carnival.


Goofs

Gideon notes early on that P.T. Barnum's reputation as an unethical huckster is greatly exaggerated in modern times. Yet the entire plot of this episode is dependent on the idea that P.T. Barnum would hold people against their will and force them to perform in his freakshows at gun point.


Artistry

Good fight choreography on the Sara vs. Sharpe fight.


Trivia Of Tomorrow

When considering which anachronism to tackle first, the team ponders traveling to the sinking of The Titanic. Professor Stein is oddly adamant about not setting foot on the infamously doomed ship, saying that "whoever built that ship ought to be shot." This is a riff on the fact that Stein's actor - Victor Garber - played Thomas Andrews Jr, The Chief Architect of The Titanic, in the 1997 film Titanic.

Phineas Taylor Barnum (1810-1890) was an American entrepreneur and politician, who achieved fame and fortune through his management of various traveling carnivals and museums. Though primarily remembered today for his "freak shows", P.T. Barnum was a reputable manager who represented Swedish opera singer Jenny Lind as well as the midget General Tom Thumb. Indeed, he is fondly remembered in his home town of Bridgeport, Connecticut, where he served one term as mayor and two terms as a representative in the state legislature.

Barnum's crowning achievement came in 1871 when he established P.T. Barnum's Grand Traveling Museum, Menagerie, Caravan, and Circus. Or, as it was more commonly promoted, The Greatest Show on Earth. He would join forces with fellow circus owners James Bailey and James Hutchinson in 1881, forming the show that would eventually be rebranded Barum and Bailey's Greatest Show On Earth in 1887. This circus, in turn, was bought by The Ringling Brothers in 1907, who combined it with their own circus in 1919, forming a traveling circus that would last until May 21, 2017.

As Gideon notes, Barnum is often erroneously credited with the quote, "There's a sucker born every minute," and he would never have said anything to insult his patrons. This is born out by the historical record, where despite his reputation as a shameless self-promoter, Barnum was by most accounts a kindly man who preached honest business practices and practiced what he preached. One example of this comes from a less well-known Barnum quote - "Politeness and civility are the best capital ever invested in business."

P.T. Barnum is played by actor Billy Zane. Perhaps most famous for playing the role of Cal Hockley in the 1997 film Titanic, Zane is no stranger to comic book adaptations. He famously played The Phantom in the 1996 film adaptation of the classic pulp comic and provide the voices for both Jason Blood and The Demon Etrigan in Batman: The Animated Series.

At one point, a group of acrobats can be seen in the background, practicing in red leotards with green leggings which resemble the costume of Batman's sidekick, Robin. This could be a nod to The Flying Graysons - a family of circus acrobats whose ranks included Dick Grayson - the first Robin.

The strongman in P.T. Barnum's show wears a costume that seems to have been inspired by the DC Comics hero B'wana Beast.

One of the odder creations to come out of DC Comics' Silver Age (and that is saying something!), B'wana Beast first appeared in Showcase #66 (January 1967) and was created by Bob Haney and Mike Sekowsky. Abandoning the life of the idle rich promised by his millionaire father, Michael Payson Maxwell traveled to Africa to become a park ranger on one of the animal preserves there. After his plane crashed, Mike took refuge in a cave where he became stronger by drinking the rainwater he found there. He fought a giant red ape, subdued it and the ape gave Mike a helmet which gave him the power to talk to and control animals. The ape explained that Mike had been chosen to be the champion and protector of all Africa. The helmet also gave Mike the power to merge two animals together, creating chimera - hybrid creatures with the traits of both animals.

Writer Grant Morrison would revamp the concept of B'wana Beast in his Animal Man series, noting the many, many problems with a white outsider being declared the savior of Africa and using a word which means "Master" in Swahili as part of his superhero code name. Mike would later pass his helmet on to a South African activist named Dominic Mndawe, who took up the name Freedom Beast.

Morrison also established Mike Maxwell as being employed by a nature preserve in Zambesi - the home nation of the heroine Vixen.

Mick uses the word "embiggen" to describe what Ray did to the saber-tooth tiger. Embiggen is a made-up word, first used on the Lisa The Iconoclast episode of The Simpsons. It has since then invaded the common parlance of Internet smart-asses, where it is used to describe the process of making something bigger. While not in Webster's Dictionary, many find embiggen to be a perfectly cromulent word.

P.T. Barnum refers to Nate as "The Man of Steel" and then says that phrase is very catchy.  The Man of Steel is, of course, a common nickname for Superman.

Sara identifies herself as a dog person, saying that she likes her pets dumb and loyal. Perhaps not coincidentally, Sara's actress, Caity Lotz, owns a French bulldog named Beezlee, whom frequently appears in her social media.

The idea of the wielder of The Tantu Totem lose control of their emotions while using their powers first appeared in John Ostrander's Suicide Squad. There, the Mari McCabe version of Vixen lost her temper while fighting a drug kingpin called Cujo and killed him.


Technobabble

Ray reverse-engineers the Time Bureau technology that Mick stole from Rip in the previous episode. This gives The Legends the ability to detect and track anachronisms.

The hyper-molecular compressor is a more powerful and portable version of the technology that allows The ATOM suit to shrink. Essentially, it's a shrink ray.

Ray recognizes the odd feces at the carnival as being that of a feline but not a species he ever encountered before. The color and viscosity indicate a carnivorous diet but the meat was tough - perhaps elephant or rhino hide - and took a long time to pass.

The Time Bureau rate anachronisms on a 1-10 scale of severity. The saber-tooth tiger in P.T. Barnum's circus, while contained, is a Level 1. Enlarged by Ray and set loose, the severity is elevated to Level 4. When Jax and Ray are captured and forced into Barnum's freakshow, the severity increases to Level 6. It goes up to Level 8 when Amaya and Nate are captured.

Title 16, Section 3035 of The Global Treaty on Time Travel gives The Time Bureau the authority to arrest rogue time travelers who endanger the timeline. The Treaty was negotiated between The United Nations and Rip Hunter.


Dialogue Triumphs

Jax: You built a shrink ray!
Ray: I'm not particularly fond of that name. (dramatically) I'm calling it the hyper-molecular compressor! It's a more powerful and portable version of the tech from my suit.
Nate: So, a shrink ray?
Ray: Essentially.

Mick: If I see a clown, I'm out of here.
Jax: What? You afraid of clowns?
Mick: (hesitantly) No... I... just don't like their stupid faces... and funny shoes and... razor sharp teeth.

P.T. Barnum: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome, one and all, to The Best Show on Earth!
(The crowd cheers)
P.T. Barnum: That's a working title!

(Nate tries and fails to use his powers.)
Nate: I must be dehydrated, man. This never happened to me before, I swear!
Amaya: Where have I heard that one before?
Nate: Not from me!

(Amaya explains that she left Nate to save her granddaughter's life.)
Nate: Why didn't you say anything? I hated you for what you did.
Amaya: I needed you to hate me so that you would move on. If you knew how much it hurt me...
Nate: ... I would have found you.
Amaya: I wanted to protect my granddaughter. And I wanted to protect you.
Nate: Well, no offense, Amaya, but considering we're both stuck in a rhino cage, I'd say your plan backfired.

Sara: Get Rory. You two have to save the others.
Stein: Wait - the two of us? Are you mad?!
Sara: You can do this. I have faith in you.
Stein: Why?!

P.T. Barnum: We had it all! We had action! We had romance! We had flaming things in the sky! You wait until next week's show!


Continuity

Nate and Amaya were living together in Central City 2017.

Nate's favorite food as a child was chocolate-covered donuts.

Amaya still cooks from scratch. Of all the modern conveniences she adapted to, cooking from a mix is not among them.

Amaya left Nate on his birthday, after seeing a news broadcast regarding her granddaughter, the current Vixen, who was caught on video fighting crime in Detroit.

Ray perfects the new version of his shrinking technology that he was working on while at Upswipes.

Mick Rory has a violent hatred (not fear, mind you!) of clowns.

As an Eagle Scout, Ray can interpret over 175 kinds of feces.

Ray is allergic to cats.

Sara retrieves Amaya from 1942, since nobody on the current team has experience handling animals.

Nate is shown to have an account on Upswipes.

Sara recognizes the Time Bureau agent spying on The Legends as Gary - a.k.a. the agent she slept with and stole the badge of in Starling City. His agent number is 1066.

Since The Legends involvement, the anachronism around Barnum's carnival in 1870 has grown from a Level 1 to a Level 6.  After Amaya and Nate are captured, it rises to a Level 8.

Nate cannot use his powers to transform into living steel when he is dehydrated.

Amaya didn't return to Zambesi in 1942 right away. She went to Detroit in 2017 first to watch Mari, her granddaughter, in action.

Amaya confirms that her decision to leave Nate had nothing to do with him and everything to do with making sure that her amazing granddaughter, who was saving so many people, came into being.

Rip Hunter confirmed that time had not yet solidified and that Mari would disappear if Amaya stayed in 2017 for too long.

Ava Sharpe refers to Confederate zombies (204), Quentin Turnbull's cronies (206) and speedsters (Eobard Thawne throughout Season Two) as previous menaces The Legends fought.

Ava Sharpe has been with The Time Bureau for five years and extensively studied The Legends' previous adventures.

Sharpe is able to hold her own against Sara in a fight and freely admits that Rip should have recruited her for The Time Bureau.

Sara is a dog person and thinks cats are jerks.

Sharpe lets it slip that Rip is letting The Legends run loose because he thinks they're needed to fight somebody but doesn't say who. (This is a reference to Mallus, first mentioned in 301.)

Stein knows how to make balloon animals and is a surprisingly talented clown and mime.

The director of The Time Bureau is named Bennett. Gideon is able to send reports directly to them.

Sara keeps a framed picture of herself with Laurel and Oliver in her office on The Waverider.

Amaya started having trouble controlling her temper when using her powers one month earlier, and refers to the final scene of 301, where we see her kill a team of Belgian soldiers.

Ray has a problem with returning library books on time.

Sara tells the rest of the team what she figured out about Rip hiding the existence of some great evil that is coming from them.

The final scene shows the resurrection of Kuasa - Mari McCabe's older sister and one of the villains of the Vixen animated series - by a black-robed woman, who identifies herself only as a follower of Mallus.


Locations

Central City - early 2017 (flashback to Amaya and Nate's apartment)
Wisconsin - 1870
Zambesi, M'Changa Province - 1942


Untelevised Adventures

Amaya spied on Mari in Detroit in 2017.


The Fridge Factor

Averted hard, as Sara and Amaya seem to be the only competent members of the team in this episode.


The Crisis Factor

It beggars belief that Nate, Ray and Jax would be stupid enough to use a modern smart phone in an 1870s bar, much less agree to show P.T. Barnum their powers in action. 

Stein's plan to disguise himself as a clown (somehow knocking one out and stealing his clothes in the process) in order to enrage Mick into creating a distraction so he can get close to Jax may be the most insane plan in the show's history.


The Bottom Line

As P.T. Barnum says, this show had everything "action... romance... and flaming things in the sky." What it doesn't have, however, is an ounce of coherence, with Gideon noting that Barnum was not the unethical huckster legend suggests only for the episode to portray him as exactly that. The only thing that holds the episode together is the charisma of the cast and even that is sorely tested when everyone is written to be far stupider than they should be. Here's hoping next week's show is better.

For a summary of the episode guide layout & categories, click here. 


Plot

As the FBI launches an investigation into the ties between Green Arrow and Star City's mayor, Ollie's former ally - Bratva Captain Anatoly Knyazev - returns to Star City with revenge on his mind. Does Anatoly have something to do with Oliver's identity being outed in the media? Or is another enemy responsible?


Influences

The Green Arrow comics of Judd Winick (Oliver tries to balance being mayor and a vigilante as various forces try to expose his identity and/or bring him down.) and Mike Grell's The Longbow Hunters (Oliver's talk with Rene is reminiscent of the "I won't make orphans" conversation he has with Dinah Lance in this story.)


Goofs

Oliver setting a Russian thug on fire using a stove top doesn't seem to fit with the team's non-lethal force policy.

Oliver says that he's never lied to his kid before. He seems to be forgetting that he lied to William about just being a friend of his mom during the few times they met and played before William was abducted by Damien Darhk.

Oliver asks John Diggle to replace him as Green Arrow because he can't afford to risk William's only parent. This still seems like a dick move on Oliver's part given that John Diggle is also a father with a young son, even if John Jr's mother is still alive.


Performances

Juliana Harkavy and David Ramsey do a great job playing off each other as Dinah confronts John about the secret he is keeping from the team.

If you had told me that the best scene of this episode would involve Oliver Queen and Rene Ramirez talking about fatherhood, I wouldn't have believed it. Yet Stephen Amell and Rick Gonzalez rock that moment.


Artistry

The top-down view of Oliver as he enters City Hall and faces the mob of reporters is a nice arty shot.

Intentionally awkward as it is, the lampshade-hanging dialogue between Felicity and Curtis as to just how the heck they are paying their bills is hilarious and a nice "take that" to the pedantic fans who like to know these details.

Good cinematography and fight choreography on Team Arrow's storming the Russian restaurant hideout.

There's a nice dramatic shot as Green Arrow and Spartan look over the entire shipyard they have one hour to search.


Trivia

The episode opens with the same introduction as in Season Five, with Oliver explaining that he is Mayor of Star City as well as The Green Arrow.

When holding a press conference to address the photos that show him in Green Arrow's costume, Oliver glibly remarks that they could have doctored Bruce Wayne's head onto that body and jokingly asks if Bruce Wayne left Gotham to come to Star City recently. Bruce Wayne, of course, is the secret identity of The Batman - probably the most famous billionaire playboy vigilante in all of comics. This is the first direct reference made to Bruce Wayne existing in The Arrowverse with a character talking about him directly. Previous props have suggested the existence of Bruce Wayne and Batman, such as a future newspaper from The Flash mentioning a Wayne Tech/Queen Inc. merger in 2024.

Quentin refers to Oliver having been caught "in flagrante de-Arrow." This is a paraphrase of the Latin phrase "in flagrante delicto" - literally, "in blazing offense".  Legally, it is used to refer to a criminal who has been caught in the act of committing a crime. An equivalent idiom in English would be "caught red-handed". The phrase is also referred to use to someone being caught in the middle of sexual activity, usually in an embarrassing fashion, such as being found to be cheating on a spouse or being discovered having sex in a public place.

Oliver says he can't leave town because of a meeting with a delegation from Markovia. In the comics, Markovia is located in Western Europe between France, Belgium and Luxembourg. It is home to the hero Geo-Force, who is its hereditary king.

The episode stinger features a new logo, which incorporates logos for all the members of Team Arrow. This includes a bird (Black Canary), an angry cartoon dog's face (Wild Dog), a stylized T (Mr. Terrific), an eye (Overwatch),  a Spartan-style helmet (Spartan) and an arrowhead (Arrow)

Tetrodotoxin is a real-world neurotoxin, mainly found in the liver and gonads of certain fish, amphibians, shellfish and octopi.


Technobabble

Channel 52 uses bar-codes to track internal traffic. The envelope containing the photo of an unmasked Green Arrow came from inside their offices. It was not mailed, delivered or otherwise sent.

Felicity created an image analysis algorithm. Curtis later recodes it to make it more efficient.

The photo of Oliver was taken digitally, printed on a standard ink-jet printer on stock paper.

Curtis is coding in SQL and Java, plus a little Swift, in his new job.

Tetrodotoxin is a neurotoxin that inhibits the firing of action potentials, preventing the nervous from carrying messages and muscles from flexing in response to nervous stimulation. The antidote begins working immediately, but an infected subject typically takes 72 hours to recover fully.

Felicity knows how to code in Python.

Oliver makes use of a trick arrow with a hypodermic needle on the tip to inject Tarkov with the antidote to the terodotoxin.


Dialogue Triumphs

(Oliver walks in through the front door of City Hall. A small army of reporters is waiting there.)
Oliver: Anything interesting on the news last night?
(The reporters begin to shout questions as Oliver makes his way to the top of the stairs.)
Oliver: (raising his voice) Please! If you want to know what I have to say, it would probably help if you could hear me.
(The reporters go silent. Oliver smiles.)
Oliver: Thank you. I'm going to tell you two things. Both of which you probably already know. First, and this is important...I am not The Green Arrow!
Female Reporter: If you're not The Green Arrow, then who is?!
Oliver: (raising his voice again) Number two! Photos can be doctored! They could have put Bruce Wayne's head on that body! (aside to Rene, who is standing to his left) Has Bruce Wayne left Gotham to hang out in Star City recently?  No! (tone growing more sarcastic) Now, if I was running around the city during the day and managing it as mayor while running around at night frightening criminals as a vigilante, that really would make me a superhero. But I'm not. I'm just the mayor. Thank you very much.
(Oliver turns away from the reporters, followed by Rene and Quentin.)
Quentin: You seem to be taking this in your stride.
Oliver: I've been here before with you.
Quentin: (sighs) Yeah, but I didn't have a photograph of you in flagrante de-Arrow.

(Felicity and Curtis are discussing how they are making ends meet since leaving Palmer Tech and how Curtis had been doing freelance coding in his spare time.)
Felicity: So you just had a secret job this whole time and you didn't tell anyone about it?!
Curtis: I thought we all had secret jobs?
Felicity: No!
Curtis: Except for John. Maybe. What does he do for money? That's something that's been perplexing me.
Felicity: He's - he's married to the Director of ARGUS.
Curtis: Oh yeah. That's right. She does make a lot of money. Heh.
(Felicity gives Curtis a death glare.)

Anatoly: Don't worry. We are not here for you. We have business with our Markovian cousins.
Oliver: These are legitimate businessmen.
Anatoly: I never said my business was not legitimate. Unless you know something maybe a mayor should not know?

William: You wouldn't understand...
Oliver: I do understand. I lost my mom. And I lost my dad. And I was a lot older than you are now, but I remember exactly how it feels. It's sad and it's scary and it's lonely. And I swear to God I will never let that happen to you.
William: It's not up to you.

(Oliver answers his phone. It is Anatoly.)
Anatoly: Hello, Oliver.
Oliver: Anatoly. Why are you doing this?
Anatoly: I need money. And from what I understand, your city recently came into possession of twenty million dollars.
Oliver: There are plenty of cities in Russia.
Anatoly: Hmm - true. Beautiful ones. But you see, I have been exiled. Apparently Bratva thinks I am too weak due to my friendship with you. So now, I show everyone. (harshly) I am not weak. And you and I? No longer friends. (mock friendly) I know sometimes you need persuasion to do right thing, so I help you (turns his camera phone to reveal his hostage) This nice man? Has paralysis of muscles. Soon, will have lung collapse and not be able to breathe. This happens in maybe... three hours?  Now, I have cure for his problems. Do you have cure for mine?

Rene: Lance told me about what happened at school. Kids are mean.
Oliver: He's not worried about bullies. He's worried about me. He thinks I'm going to make him an orphan.
Rene: Damn.
Oliver: I told him... I said, "That will not happen. I will always come back." (pause)  I've never lied to my kid before.
(There's a long pause as Rene seems to struggle of something to think to say.)
Rene: You know... I'm not exactly Father Of The Year, but... white lies are kind of an important parental tool. I remember telling Zoe that she came from a cloud. I really hope her mom set her straight on that one.
Oliver: So help me with this. How do I reconcile... that he's right? Because every time that I'm in the field, there's a chance I don't come back. And that he's alone. And now you're telling me that he's gonna have to lie to an FBI agent so he doesn't lose his father to prison?

(Green Arrow finds Anatoly standing behind a seated, comatose Tarkov.)
Anatoly: I ask for twenty million specifically because I knew you had it. You trade this man's life for new police station?
Green Arrow: Not exactly.
(Green Arrow draws an arrow and shoots Tarkov in the shoulder.)
Anatoly: I do not think you understand how this whole rescue thing works.
Green Arrow: No, I think I do.
(Tarkov suddenly gasps. Anatoly looks down and sees the needle-tip on the arrowhead.)
Anatoly: Some sort of antidote. Very clever.
Green Arrow: Now step away from him Anatoly. He's not part of this.
Anatoly: I made him part of this.
(A bullet suddenly flies through Tarkov's other shoulder. Anatoly reveals the gun he had trained on his back with his hidden hand.)
Anatoly: And I never got my money.
Green Arrow: What the hell has happened to you? Not even Gregor would have done that!
Anatoly: Yes, he would have. You never saw because you were too naive. You still are.
Green Arrow: We were friends.
Anatoly: Yes. But I see how you treat your friends.
Green Arrow: No, Anatoly. No. This is on you. You used to be an honorable man!
Anatoly: I -am- an honorable man. Did I have bomb planted in your son's school? Did I have him kidnapped? Tortured? No. Because even though we stand apart, I am still good man. I wonder... what would happen to William if he ran afoul of someone who is not good?
(Anatoly turns to leave. Green Arrow reaches up to draw an arrow.)
Green Arrow: Anatoly! Don't you move!
Anatoly: Don't bluff. We have been here before. We both know you will not kill me.
(Green Arrow stares at him... then slowly lowers his drawing hand.)
Green Arrow: Why did you leak that picture of me?
Anatoly: As Kapiushon? (shakes his head) I did not. I told you. I am honorable man.


Continuity

Quentin refers to his own efforts to prove that Oliver Queen was a vigilante in Season One and Season Three, back when he was a police officer.

Star City is being visited by a delegation from Markovia -a country which has been mentioned several times on the show and was visited by John Diggle and The Suicide Squad in 216.

Smandra Watson is the FBI agent in charge of the investigation into Oliver Queen's ties to Green Arrow.

Oliver refers to having been cleared of being a vigilante five years earlier in 105 . Agent Watson replies that he was cleared of being The Hood - not Green Arrow.

Oliver passed a polygraph test regarding his being a vigilante in 105.

Felicity refers to the events of 105 and John Diggle posing as The Hood to ruin the case against Oliver while he was under house arrest.

Curtis refers to Christopher Chance and the events of 505. It is explained that The Human Target is out of the country so he can't help them out at this moment.

568 people work at Channel 52's Star City office.

Felicity is still unemployed and has almost burned through all of her severance pay from Palmer Tech. She refers to her nightmare job from the start of Season 3 (working at Tech Village) and says she'd rather go to Iron Heights than back to working there.

Curtis has been paying the bills by doing freelance coding in his spare time. He did not take a dime from his husband after they got divorced.

John Diggle, we are told, is unemployed but that Lyla makes enough money as the Director of ARGUS to support them both.

Vortex Industries is a Markovian company who wish to build a factory in Star City. Oliver has offered them a subsidized lease which will bring 800 jobs, minimum, to Star City. Their CEO is named Alec Tarkov.

Curtis finds a way to trace cryptocurrency.

Oliver advises that the best way to deal with a gang of bullies is to go for the nose of the leader.

Once again, Spartan freezes up drawing a gun on someone.

Arrangements were made to say that Samantha Clayton died in a car accident. No body or wrecked car was provided. The only "proof" is an autopsy and an accident report - both likely faked by Felicity.

William is seen punching something covered with Flash logos. Oliver says that it was a gift from a very good friend - likely Barry Allen.

Dr. Schwartz - Team Arrow's secret Doctor - provides Dinah and John with a tetrodotoxin antidote.

John was caught by some shrapnel in the explosion we saw in the flashback of 601. He is on a prescription for pain-killers relating to his injuries. He reveals to Dinah that he has degenerative nerve damage which is why he's been hesitating when drawing his gun.

John freezes up a second time while Black Canary is being strangled.

Anatoly denies having sent out the picture of Oliver as Green Arrow.

Curtis' algorithm confirms the picture of Oliver as Green Arrow was doctored. This does not slow Smandra Watson's determination to continue her investigation.

Felicity asks Curtis to go into business with her. He agrees.

John agrees to tell Oliver about his nerve damage. He changes his mind after Oliver asks him to take over being The Green Arrow for him.


The Bottom Line

A surprisingly solid episode with great performances from the entire ensemble and a smart script that firms up the status quo before blowing it out of the water in the final moment.

Wally West is dead, having seemingly stopped his own heart to save his friends! Now, as the other Wally West races to his side, feeling a disturbance in The Speed Force, the rest of the Titans must face Psimon and the approaching evil he claims Lilith Clay is responsible for summoning...



In the past, I've complemented Titans for being amazingly accessible to new readers. I can't do that this month. Indeed, I had to reread the issue several times to figure out what was going on myself. Part of the problem is Brett Booth's page layouts are confusing. Worse yet, some of the forced poses he places the characters in look goofy as all get out. The "berserk" Donna Troy is particularly egregious.

In the end, I think it says a lot that this issue hypes the appearance of "the other Wally West" on the cover and that the issue synopsis focused on that aspect of the story despite it only taking up four pages of the issue. Most of the book is devoted to a nonsensical battle which introduces too much and haphazardly ends one of the book's major subplots in a way that doesn't pay off well at all. Maybe Dan Abnett can salvage this next month but it's not looking likely.

The Final Analysis: 3 out of 10. 

The Dark Knights continue their assault on Earth 0, as Aquaman and Mera face off against The Drowned. Hailing from Earth -11, this Batman is a Batwoman. Fearful of the potential threat posed by the metahumans of her Earth, she set about killing them all. This led to her ultimately transforming herself into a water-breathing monstrosity in order to wage a one-woman war on Atlantis itself!


With this issue, the novelty of the various Dark Nights specials is beginning to wear thin. Dan Abnett weaves a great story and The Drowned is easily the most unique of the various dark dimension Dark Knights to date. Unfortunately, the plot is exactly the same as most of the other specials, with a flashback detailing the background of The Knight in question, a battle in the present against their Justice League counterpart and Dr. Fate showing up at the end to spirit the hero away when the Evil Batman proves to be too much for them. It's still a good read but one feels it could have been great.

The artwork is similarly conflicted. There's two great art teams at work here, though their styles are so different as to completely wreck the visual flow of the book. It would have been better to have one artist but everything looks good in spite of that.

The Final Analysis: 7 out of 10. It's good but it could have been better.

With the American government in shambles and Jefferson Pierce (a.k.a. Black Lightining) now President of the United States in the wake of Aqualad's terrorist attack on Ra's Al Ghul, a newly formed Congress is out for answers  Someone must pay for the crime and their first target is Batman, whom they know was working in secret with the President and may have wished a more agreeable partner in building a better world. What follows may be the greatest trial Bruce Wayne has ever faced in every sense of the word.


Reading Injustice 2 #28, I'm unsure which aspect of the comic is greater - the story by Tom Taylor which raises an interesting point about how Batman's actions may be sending him down the same slippery slope of idealism as Superman (a point that never rang true in the original games) or the artwork by Daniel Sampere, Juan Albarran and Rex Lokus, which looks fantastic and is full of wonderful little moments such as a tribute to the opening of the original Batman: The Animated Series cartoon. In the end, it doesn't matter. This is a great comic any way you slice it and a good jumping-on point if, for some reason, you don't wish to start this series from the beginning.

The Final Analysis: 10 out of 10.

As Dolphin tries to convince a despondent Arthur to continue to fight for the people of Atlantis, other heroes work to save their nation from the excesses of King Rath. Vulko, one-time adviser to the last Queen of Atlantis, scours the ghost-haunted archives for a weapon that might stand against the artifacts Rath has accumulated. Meanwhile, Mera and Garth (now called Tempest) struggle to breach the magical barriers that surround Atlantis.


It is good to see Dan Abnett take an issue to focus on the supporting cast of Atlantean heroes. Garth and Vulko haven't gotten any time in this book since DC Rebirth began (Indeed, I'm not sure if Garth has appeared in Aquaman at any point since The New 52 started!) and are given some much needed definition. Indeed, we learn more about Garth here than we have in Abnett's Titans title.

What can I say about Stjepan Sejic's artwork I haven't already? I find myself unable to say anything beyond the artwork is gorgeous and that Atlantis has never looked better. Then again, perhaps that's all I need to say.

The Final Analysis: 10 out of 10.