This dance party was trippy from when I first walked in the door – chick was FLOATIN’!

The Warworld has been stopped and Mongul, like much of the team, is now captive to The Reach. Who knows where Arsenal is other than saving his own sorry neck. The Reach technically control the Warworld right now since Blue Beetle has obviously given the Ambassador the crystal key. Things look really good for The Reach in terms of their overall agenda, or do they? The fact remains that they exposed themselves to save the Earth from decimation. The supposed “lone exploration vessel” suddenly was amongst dozens of warships that looked exactly like it. They probably still have enough ships to stage a global level assault, but that would most likely violate Guardian treaty and bring the whole Green Lantern Corps down on them. So the Ambassador’s next move must be very strategic indeed. He knows that humans are fickle and he knows how to sway opinion. The real question is whether his “reach” has been over-extended and how he will recover from the Warworld debacle. This alien politician is looking more human every day.

Masks were encouraged.

^{THE BEST LAID PLANS}Sportsmaster and Cheshire finally launch their plan to avenge Artemis’ death and “Sportsmaster’s humiliation.” Even as they board Manta’s sub, Jade remarks about her father’s motives for being there. She was no friend to her sister, but her sole motivation is avenging her death, while her own father does not seem to care about anything but his reputation. Meanwhile, M’gann has already fully restored Kaldur’s mind and the trio are trying to devise an escape plan for her that will maintain cover for the covert duo. This task is further complicated by the continuous watch of Deathstroke, M’gann’s telekinesis and shape shifting being deactivated via inhibitor collar and Manta giving her twenty-four hours to live unless she repairs his son’s broken mind. Fortunately, Artemis’ family reunion of sorts comes at an opportune time; the ruckus takes out the camera that is watching M’gann which forces Deathstroke to board the sub. It also allows Artemis to slip away and completely deactivate M’gann’s collar, ultimately allowing her to escape after she reveals to father and sister who Tigress really is. While this madness took place, a visibly angry Nightwing tries to piece together what has happened to his team. Blue Beetle tells him that a boom tube swallowed them and energy readings confirm his story, but the first protégé of the World’s Greatest Detective is smart enough to dig deeper. Blue’s story makes it seem like things happened instantly, but scratches on the hangar floor show signs of a struggle. The cracked panel that Blue hit with his blade indicate that the air lock was activated. Then there is the stray birdarang Robin threw that has the same antibodies from Blue’s scarab that attacked Bumblebee and Atom when they were inside of him. His suspicions are confirmed when he sees a news broadcast at the U.N. building where the Reach Ambassador announces Blue Beetle as the hero of the Warworld endeavor and Blue follows him by thanking The Reach for allowing him to become a hero and serve the people of Earth. The only positives are that Kaldur is once again whole and that Miss Martian escaped by throwing Deathstroke against Tigress, thus maintaining their cover.

The party favors were so off the chain that they were ON a chain!

^{PATERNAL PUGILISM} This is the most insane fight I have ever seen and I do not mean that in a good way. Between Manta’s eye beams and the chain mace that Crusher was swinging around, I don’t know how they managed to not sink the sub. Top that off with the shot from said mace that Manta took to the head. Even with his helmet on, I am surprised that his brain didn’t need fixing afterward. I would love to have seen this fight play out, just not aboard a submarine deep in the Atlantic. Fights where neither combatant seems to care about the safety of anyone rarely have a satisfying end. They would have continued until someone was broken, bloody and no longer breathing. Sportsmaster was definitely looking to cause major damage and Manta’s anger was clouding his judgment. Luckily, a cooler head, in the form of Artemis, prevailed.

The birds in there were leaving some questionable items on the floor.

^{WAY TO GO, DICK!} I brought this up back when I reviewed “The Fix.” I expect a lot more from Nightwing and Robin when it comes to deductive reasoning and it took the capture of almost his whole team for Grayson to put it together. Green Beetle, as polite and helpful as he was, never truly checked out. The fact that he fed info to M’gann only made him more suspicious in my eyes. And you can say that there is no way that Nightwing would have known that was how their mind link went, but it should be his nature to be suspicious of someone. It should doubly be his nature to be suspicious of someone whose armor, by nature, interfaces with their spine and takes over their body. Let’s also not forget that Martians, even the good ones, are extremely adept at manipulation. I would have thought that he was at least keeping an eye on Green Beetle if not Blue as well. The answer to the “why” is simple: because Batman would have. Now he has figured out that both Blue and Green Beetle are Reach operatives and it is too late to do anything except try to clean up. He knows who has his people, but he does not know where they are as yet.

And yo, they had DIGITAL DJs!

^{HOW FAR IS YOUR “REACH?”} I get that Jaime is being controlled, but I wonder just how much control they have over him. We know that he is a good kid and we know that he wants to be a hero. We also know that his Scarab, while in a violent manner, has only ever tried to protect him. I really wonder how much control The Reach has over him and the speculation comes from his betrayal of the team. We know that the three scarabs have similar if not the same abilities. We also know that Martians need to breathe, so Green Beetle attacking the Warworld without any outer apparatus means that the scarab armor provides air. That means that there is really no reason for Blue to have closed the air lock. A boom tube can be opened in space or inside an air lock. Even if it couldn’t, he could have just killed them all, except for maybe Conner, with ease. The only reason I see that he and Green would not have attacked Nightwing and is the uncertainty of their ability to kill Dr. Fate. Otherwise, tearing Captain Atom’s suit would take care of him and Nightwing. I think Jaime is in there fighting to get free. I hope he is able to succeed before The Reach make him do something he cannot come back from.

All i know is I woke up wearing a white wig in someone else’s clothes.

This episode was a breath of fresh air; it did not divert from the main plot and it (mostly) resolved several storylines from earlier in the season. Things are unraveling very quickly due to the lack of remaining episodes, but the pacing for this one was just right. Apparently, the Ambassador plans to attempt a cover-up in the form of Blue Beetle. With no one else being able to claim that they were inside the Warworld, along wit ha missing Mongul, the claim that Blue almost singlehandedly stopped the Warworld cannot be disputed. Now we have to wait and see how the people of Earth respond. We also have to wonder about the fate of the missing team members:

Where are they?
How will Nightwing and Miss Martian save them?
How will the secret affect the team when they find out?

The first two are the more pressing questions before worrying about the third. Either way, we have to wait and see but answers will come sooner rather than later. There are not enough episodes remaining to drag this out.

Last night a DJ saved my life by faking my death. Before I blacked out, some real kinky stuff was starting up. I WANNA GO BACK!