Klarion

Boy, they sure don’t make evil immortal sorcerers like the use to. Oh well.

Nov 5th – Klarion the Witch Boy and his conspirators — Wotan, Blackbriar Thorn, Felix Faust, and the Wizard — meet in in the dead of night at a deserted crossroads on Roanoke Island, North Carolina. They inscribe a magical circle on the ground and begin ominously chanting “Wir sind die pfeifer von hamelin”. Meanwhile at Mount Justice, Superboy and Miss Martian are unloading supplies from the bioshop. Zatanna tells Artemis that she wishes her father, the Justice League’s Zatara, would allow her more freedom. At exactly that moment, Batman, Zatara, and Red Tornado vanish in a blur leaving the stunned teens behind. On Roanoke Island, the villainous mages continues their chanting as Wotan, Thorn, Faust, and Wizard also vanish. Klarion smiles.

In Fawcett City, young Billy Batson is watching a TV news report about when his guardian Uncle Dudley vanishes. Billy is about to call down the lightning of Shazam and transform himself into the adult Captain Marvel when he notices that it is not just Dudley who has vanished. Billy realises that he may well vanish as well if he becomes Captain Marvel. Robin and Zatanna try to coordinate the worlds teenage heroes from Mount Justice, but they cannot raise any adult hero — even Red Arrow. Traditional media is down, but world wide blogs and kids websites are reporting that everybody over the age of eighteen has vanished. The level of magic necessary to achieve this scares Zatanna, but Robin needs her to trace its source by replicating a spell that Zatara once used.

Aqualad, Kid Flash, and Robin use Justice League technology to tell the children of the world that they are searching for the adults, but that it is the responsibility of the older children to look after the infants. Billy sees their broadcast and realises that he has to make it to the Cave, but the League’s zeta-beam computer won’t recognise him. The resourceful Billy finds a teenage pilot called Amber Joyce at the airport and convinces her to fly to him to the Cave. However, when they are in the air Amber mentions that tomorrow is her birthday. As midnight passes Billy realises too late that Amber has turned 18. She vanishes leaving him alone in the cruising aeroplane.

Superboy and Kid Flash bring Happy Harbour children to a refugee centre in the High School where Artemis is entertaining the younger children with garbled nursery rhymes. The older kids are okay, maybe even a nuisance, but the younger infants are in danger without their parents. Back at the Cave, Kid Flash and Aqualad stare at the Helmet of Fate and question just how desperate things have become. Anybody who puts the Helmet on becomes the host of the Lord of Order Nabu and is transformed into the sorcerer Doctor Fate. Unfortunately, Nabu is unlikely to release the host again once the emergency has passed. Zatanna tells them that she is ready to try her father’s locator spell. It works surprisingly well and located Roanoke Island as the source of the disturbance.

Elsewhere, the events of the day replay in a surprisingly different manner. There is a Roanoke Island where it is Klarion who vanish and the four adult mages who remain. There is a Mount Justice where, as before, the Team are unloading supplied. Batman asks Zatara if he will allow Zatanna to join the Team, but Zatara stalls and admits that he finds it difficult to admit that Zatanna is growing up. They conversation is suddenly cut short when all of the teenagers vanish. The League responds to the emergency and the majority of their number becomes tied up helping desperate parents. Zatara stares at the Helmet of Fate and asked Batman just how desperate things are. Zatara has already identified the focal point of the sorcery as Roanoke Island, the chaos means that only he, Red Tornado, and Batman are free to respond. Batman comments that Captain Marvel is missing.

Panic begins to spread across the country as parents realise that their children have vanished form the back of their cars, from School, from the places where they were playing. Every child under the age of 18 has vanished. The public seeks answers from secular and religion leaders, the Justice League, and the scientists of STAR Labs. A large crowd starts to gather outside of STAR Labs in Gotham City. They are incited into a riot by a blond man, who quietly steps aside once the crowd surges towards Commissioner Gordon’s police. They fail to notice a man disguised as a scientist (the Riddler) leave STAR via a side entrance and drive off with the man who had incited the riot (the Sportsmaster).

Billy Batson is wrestling to keep the aeroplane in the air and is forced to transform into Captain Marvel to save himself. The aeroplane vanishes around him and Amber reappears. The Captain saves Amber from plummeting to her death and then goes to the Cave. He is over joyed to see Zatara and Batman, but then realises that there are really two separate dimensions. The magical spell has split the world into two dimensions, one inhabited solely by the adults and another inhabited solely by the children. The Captain’s unique ability to change between a child and man makes him the only person able to travel between those dimensions. He shouts Shazam and appears before a very confuses Team as Billy Batson. Using Billy/Captain Marvel as a messenger the Justice League and the Team coordinate plans for a simultaneous attack on Roanoke Island.

In the kids dimensions the Team attack Klarion, but even the combined might of Aqualad, Kid Flash and Zatanna’s magic cannot penetrate his shields. Miss Martian and others try keeping him occupied while Artemis and Kid Flash go for Teekl, Klarion’s familar. However, Klairon spots them and transforms Teekl into a sabre toothed tiger. In the adults dimension, the four adult mages similarly hold Zatara, Red Tornado, Batman, and Captain Marvel back. However, Zatara recognises a mystic gem at the at the circle’s centre as the focus of the spell. They could use it to break the spell. The Captain changes to Billy to inform the Team of Zatara’s deduction. That’s all Zatanna had been waiting to hear. To Robin and Aqualad’s horror she puts on the Helmet of Fate and becomes Doctor Fate.

Billy jumps back to the adults world to inform Zatara. The Captain tells the adults to keep the mages occupied while he burrows under their circle at superspeed. Back on the kids world Zatanna/Fate responds to Klarion’s spells, but the Helmet is split between both worlds rendering Nabu’s power reduced. Fate redoubles her efforts and finally manages to crack the shield and shackle Klarion. At the sametime on the adults world Captain Marvel comes up through the centre of their circle and throws their gem to Zatara. Father and daughter then pool their spells across dimensions and causing them to snap back together as one world again. The adult sorcerers lie defeated, but Klarion escapes through a portal before anybody can react.

The villains have been defeated, but at a terrible coast. Nabu now possesses Zatanna’s body as a new Doctor Fate and he refuses to release it even under Zatara’s pleas for his daughter’s return. Nabu retorts that the chaos they’ve witnessed is proof of the need for Doctor Fate. Zatara volunteers his own body instead and Nabu agrees. Fate allows Zatanna to remove the Helmet, but she is unaware of what has transpired since she put it on. She and her father have a brief moment together before Zatara dones the Helm to become a new, permanent incarnation of Doctor Fate. The Doctor when vanishes with the captive mages leaving a stunned Zatanna behind.

Nov 7th – The following day, Robin, Miss Martian, and Artemis help Zatanna move into the Cave. They want to help her, but she just wants to be alone to grieve for her father. Elsewhere, Klarion is estatic at how the plan worked out. The Light are also pleased. His distraction may have been a little extreme, but it worked as necessary and allowed the Riddler and Sportsmaster to steal the box they required from STAR Labs — the sample of alien tentacle that Black Manta had previously tried to steal from Atlantis.

• This episode happens on the 5th going into the 6th of November. Zatanna moves into the Cave on the 7th.
• Kent Nelson’s spirit objected strenuously so Nabu about his treatment of Zatanna that Nabu released his spirit to the afterlife.
• Zatara is now Doctor Fate.
• Zatanna have moved into the Mount Justice headquarters.

DC Nation

This episode of Young Justice first aired as part of the inaugural DC Nation block on Cartoon Network.This is a cross platform effort to bring all DC animation under a time slot and to create a distinctive brand around that slot. The first block comprised Young Justice and the new Green Lantern animated series. These were joined by new short cartoons highlighting quirky interpretations of DC’s extensive back catalogue. The DC Nation branding was also used for a mobile phone app, glossy magazine, and for the Comic-Con International panels.

The transition to the new DC Nation block is a meant that this episode needed to be slightly shorter than had it was originally commissioned. Some scenes that had already been animated were trimmed from the episode, but still appeared in the iTunes and Amazon downloads (Ask Greg). One of these shows two older-teenagers spray painting a wall who are then stopped by Miss Martian. The shortend timing also meant that the main titles were truncated. Weisman responded to a question on Ask Greg on this by saying:

And before you ask, it does NOT upset me. I think creating a destination around DC Nation more than makes up for the loss of our main title.

However, not only were credits shorted, but Cartoon Network somehow managed to show the credits from an entirely different episode than the one that shared. The correct credits were posted online.

JLA World Without Grown-Ups

This history of “Misplaced” goes back to the origins of Young Justice as a comic book, you see before there was Young Justice there was JLA World Without Grown-Ups.

DC’s heroes had a long history of kid sidekicks stretching all the way back to Dick Grayson, the first Robin. Over the years those sidekicks had grown slowly older and their team, the Teen Titans, had dropped dropped the pretence that they were still minors. The Titans formed a distinct cohort of characters within DC’s line-up, but the space they vacated as teen sidekicks remained unfilled. That was until the 1990s when, in separate story-lines, new teenage characters called Superboy, Impulse, and Robin (the third, Tim Drake) appeared in the Superman, Flash, and Batman franchises.

These new characters weren’t sidekicks in the traditional sense as they rarely had adventures alongside their “mentors”. They were each popular enough to support their own titles and there had been a few team-ups between different pairs of them. Eventually came the inevitable idea of teaming the three characters up for a single story. Now this was at the time that writer Grant Morrison was relaunching the Justice League as JLA. His idea for a teen centric JLA story appeared in an interview he gave to a JLA Wizard special.

Morrison’s story idea finally materialised as JLA: World Without Grown-Ups written by Todd DeZago. The art was handled by Mike McKone, Humberto Ramos, and Todd Nauck. The story featured a teen villain called Bedlam who gains the powers of a genie and causes the world to be separated into two planets, one inhabited by the adults and another inhabited by the teenagers. Its this crisis that first brings Robin, Kid Flash, and Superboy together as a team. This episode is placed on the same premise — the two kid/adult worlds and Billy Batson in a strong role – but, the plot device to achieve that is different in this episode.

Todd DeZago would write one further teen hero special for DC Comics called Young Justice: The Secret which featured the first appearance of the character shown last episode in “Secrets”. Writing the on-going Young Justice (vol. 1) series fell to Peter David and it was pencilled mainly by Todd Nauck.

Word of Greg

On Writing This Episode

This episode was written by series producer Greg Weisman. He has answered a number of questions about it on his Ask Greg site, including a dozen reasons why Weisman chose to write this story himself:

1. The complexity of it made it challenging for me – which is something I look for – but also would have made it difficult for a freelancer to take on and nail the vision I had in my head. So in a way it saved time to write it myself.
Plus there were a number of specific aspects that interested me, including:
2. The “death” of Zatara and its effect on Zatanna.
3. The advancement of the Wally/Artemis relationship.
4. The fact that the kids on Kidworld were actually handling the crisis better than the adults on Adultworld.
5. The advancement of Billy’s storyline.
6. The visual of Batman talking to Aqualad ‘directly’ despite the fact that the audience knows that Billy/Cap is being used as a go between. I like that arty stuff.
7. The mix of humor, action and tragedy is always fun to write.
8. The fact that Baa Baa Black Sheep, Twinkle Twinkle and ABC have the same tune.
9. I’m fascinated with mob mentalities and demagogs. So, for example, if you’ve read or seen Castaway’s speech to the Quarrymen recruits in “Nightwatch/The Journey” you’ll recognize a similar technique in Crusher’s rants at STAR LABS here.
10. The timeline: telling a story. Starting over and telling it again from another perspective and then merging it.
11. The dual world idea.
12. And ultimately, not just because it was a classic Young Justice story to adapt, but because it’s SUCH a perfect story for a show about teen heroes, I couldn’t resist.

Magic Symbolism and Spells

Zatanna/Zatara’s spells – There is a lot of magic and symbolism in this episode. All the Zatara and Zatanna spells plus Klarion’s baby magic is the standard DCU reverse speak magic, i.e., when Zatara says “Ekat em daetsni” to Fate he’s actually meaning “Take me instead”. Producer Greg Weisman revealed the full text of the spells spoke in this episode in response to a question on Ask Greg from a fan.

119 “Misplaced”/Zatara’s spells:
Tup hcae meti ni sti reporp ecalp!
Etacol retnecipe fo yrecros!
Nommus eht gninthgil!
Ekat em daetsni.
119 “Misplaced”/Zatanna’s spells:
Etacol retnecipe fo yrecros!
Etativel mih ffo eht margatnep!
Temleh fo Etaf, laever flesruoy!
119 “Misplaced”/Klarion’s ‘baby magic’ spells:
Fi ehs stnaw ot etativel os yldab, tel reh.
119 “Misplaced”/Zatara & Doctor Fate (i.e. Nabu & Zatanna) spell:
Yam eht owt emoceb eno ecno erom!

Klarion’s Spell – Klarion, Wotan, Blackbriar Thorn, Felix Faust, and the Wizard all chant “Wir sind die pfeifer von hamelim.” This is the chant they use to separate the worlds. It’s German for “We are the Piped Pipers of Hamlin”, a reference to the old fairly tale about the Piper who enchanted the children of Hamlin after the adults refused to pay for his services. Rather apt for this story.

Klarion’s Magical Circle – The symbols used in the Pentagram are from My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. At least according to Greg Weisman, I must admit to not knowing My Little Pony well enough to tell if he’s joking or not.

Gem – The magical crystal is called the “Ambre Jeune Perdu” which is French for something like “Amber of Lost Youth”

Zatanna’s Status

Zatanna will finish her current term in Manhattan and then transfer to Happy Harbour High School in the new year. Batman offered to take her in and reveal his secret identity, but she refused preferring for Zatara to remains her legal guardian. She is living in the Cave with the understanding that Batman, Red Tornado (John Smith), and Black Canary (Dinah Lance) will “be her surrogate parents until Zatara could be recovered.” (Ask Greg 1 & 2)

Misc. Comments and Notes

• The Cross Roads — The magicians meet at a cross roads, a symbolic place. In old folklore the crossroads was a place where the walls between this world and the spirit world were weak. It was a place where murderers and suicide victims were buried in the belief that a vengeful spirit would become confused by the multiple roads and be forever left in a didther about how to get to the living. They were also busy points where the bodies of dead criminals would be displayed in gibbets, but as a punishment on their souls and as a warning to the living.
• Amber Joyce – Amber was a pre-existing DC Comics character who appeared once in Superman Family #203 (Sept-Oct 1980). Her name in the credits is given as Amber Joyce.
• Roanoke Island – Where the magicians meet, is located off the coast of North Carolina and is probably most famous as the site of Walter Rayleigh’s Lost Colony.
• Snickerdoodles — Are a type of biscuit.
• Wally West’s souvenir – The baby’s bottle.
• Ibac and Sabbac — Cat Grant’s news report mentions two of Captain Marvel’s villains. They are both evil reflections of Captain Marvel. They gain the powers by saying their names, these are acronyms of the evil demons/men from which they derive the power.
• Dudley – There is a poster showing the word “Dudley” in Billy Batson’s apartment hinting at the past of his guardian Dudley H. Dudley.
• Rocket saves a bus – something of an ongoing trope. She and Icon save also save a plunging school bus in “Revelations”.

Highlights

• Billy Batson discovering he can travel between the two universes and convincing the Team he’s actually Captain Marvel.

Oddities

• Just how old is Klarion.

My Thoughts