Amanda Waller: I am the law of last resort. My name is Amanda Waller. I am not your mother, your maiden aunt, or your friend. I am your warden and you are my prisoners.

September 14th — The Terror Twins (Tommy and Tuppence Terror, a pair of super-strong siblings who had previously tangled with Kid Flash and Superboy; Young Justice (vol. 2) #0 (March 2011)) are locked in a superpowered brawl with Superman and the Martian Manhunter. The fight passes through three States until it crashes into a warehouse in the Old French quarter of New Orleans. The Twins pick themselves up, but Aqualad and the Red Tornado step-out of the shadows and click power-dampening collars around their necks. Superboy then steps forward dressed as Tommy and Miss Martian shapeshifts to look like Tuppence. Batman attaches duplicate power dampening collars to the two disguised heroes and places them under “arrest.”

September 16th — The battle against the genuine Terror Twins and their replacement with the disguised Superboy and Miss Martian is an elaborate charade on Batman’s part to place undercover operatives within the Belle Reve super-villain prison. Immediately prior to the Team’s formation the League and their sidekicks had fought four ice/cold themed villains involved in separate, but simultaneous crimes (“Independence Day”). Killer Frost and Captain Cold were immediately sent to Belle Reve, but Icicle Jr. and Mister Freeze have just successfully petitioned to be sent there themselves. Batman suspects that this was the intention of the attacks all along and he, distrusting even the guards at Belle Reve, is sending Superboy and Miss Martian in undercover to discover why.

“Tommy” and “Tuppence” find themselves on the same transport as Mister Freeze and Icicle Jr. The younger criminal gets chatty about Tommy’s “sister”, but he is silenced by their arrival at the Prison. They are paraded before the formidable Warden Amanda Waller and Hugo Strange (the prison psychologist). Waller warns them that their collars have been specifically designed to counter their individual superpowers and can also be used to deliver incapacitating electrical-shocks in the event of disorder. She even tells them that the prison walls are strong enough to contain Superman. The Twins are split-up, but they remain in touch via Megan’s telepathy which isn’t blocked by her collar (each collar is custom designed and can only block powers the authorities are aware of).

Superboy and Icicle Jr end up sharing a cell in the male wing while Tuppence finds herself rooming with Killer Frost in the female wing. Exercise takes place in an enclosed fitness yard watched over by guards and gun emplacements. Junior shows Tommy around and they mingle with the other inmates – many of whom the Team were responsible for capturing. Superboy almost gets recognised by Professor Ojo (from “Infiltrator”) after he defends Junior. The alteration almost turns ugly, but Icicle Senior (Icicle Junior’s father and the leader of the criminals is Belle Reve) is impressed with Tommy’s spirit and steps in to break it up. Senior then compliments Tommy at the expense of Junior causing Superboy to identify with Junior’s father issues.

Tommy and Tuppence are reunited when the prison psychologist attempts to interview them together. “Tommy” gets annoyed when “Tuppence” admits to Strange that “He won’t admit it, but Tommy really wants to be like his.. our father. Be able to fill Pa’s shoes, do you know? Pa’s distant at best and refuses to give Tommy the time of day. It makes Tommy feel unworthy…” However, Tommy angrily cuts her off before realising that he’s upset her. Later Tommy asks Junior about his own relationship with Senior, but Junior just tells him that his father’s a jerk and that he only wants him around when its useful. Junior makes Superboy realise that “Tuppence” was probably right about him in the psychologist’s session.

Earlier Superboy’s superhearing has allowed him to overhear Icicle Senior telling the other ice villains that their plan was to break every single criminal out of Belle Reve. New prison uniforms were then delivered to each inmate and their cell-mates advised Tommy and Tuppence to change into them as quickly as possible. News that the break is coming soon is relayed telepathically to Aqualad and the Red Tornado who are waiting outside the prison in the stealth Bioship, but they decide to wait for Senior to actually make his move.

Icicle Senior and Mister Freeze take delivery of a consignment of parts (including Mister Freeze’s equipment) from the Laundry room. They then stage a fight in the lunch room which causes the guards to haul Freeze in front of the Warden. In the Warden’s office Freeze overcomes his guard and disables the restraining collars, but not before Waller puts the prison on lock down. In the Cell Block the prisoners regain their powers and quickly overwhelm the guards.

Senior loses lost contact with Killer Frost in the women’s wing. So Tommy, trying to find an advantage, admits to Senior that he’s in psychic contact with his sister (a twin thing) and volunteers himself and Megan as a vital communications link between the two wings. Senior tells him to send the message that “it’s going down now!” However, Tuppence reveals her hand when she stops Killer Frost from killing one of the female guards. She gets a last message to Tommy before she does silent. He’s worried about her, but doesn’t let onto Senior that his telepathic link is down.

Icicle Senior locks Waller and the guards in a cell and then reveals why they needed so many cold powered villains for the breakout. The walls can withstand Superman’s strength, but the intense cold created by the cold-based villains can make the walls brittle enough for the superstrong prisoners to damage. It’s a slow process, but only possible with that combination of cold and strength. Icicle Junior and Tommy’s job is to work on the thinner wall between the male and female wings. Killer Frost and the female prisoners will escape via the male wing. The special uniforms delivered earlier protect the prisoners against the intense cold caused by the work.

Superboy works at the wall desperate to save Megan, but he know he can’t fight an entire prison on his own. He lies to Junior that the collars are turning back on in the women’s wing and leads him away to the Warden’s office. They disable the prisoners guarding it and Superboy turns the collars back on incapacitating the majortiy of the prisoners. Senior is furious and confronts Waller under the assumption that she had something to do with it. He tries to attack her, but Hugo Strange lunges at Icicle Senior knocking him unconscious. Freeze, Mammoth, and Blockbuster confront Icicle Junior and Tommy/Superboy, but Superboy convinces Junior that its all part of Freeze’s plan to unseat his father. Their ice powers look evenly matched until their switch opponents.

Superboy finally breaks through into the female wing to find that Frost has frozen Megan in a massive ice formation. He knocks out the waiting female prisoners, but Junior stops him from breaking Megan’s ice prison out of fear that it would shatter her as well. Superboy reaches out to Megan’s telepathy and she finds the strength to shatter her prison with her telekinesis. It turns out that her Martian physiology isn’t so vulnerable to ice. She and Superboy embrace each other with a kiss and Miss Martian drops her disguise as Tuppence. Icicle Junior finally realises his error.

Afterwards, Amanda Waller is replaced as Warden by Hugo Strange and it appears that all the prisoners are accounted for except for the Riddler who somehow vanished during the chaos. It was Strange who smuggled the uniforms and tech inside. The breakout failed, but it seems that it otherwise achieved the Light’s goals.

• This episode takes place on the 14th and 16th of September – its unclear how many days/nights Megan and Superboy are undercover.
• Miss Martian and Superboy kiss for the first time.

The Terror Twins

The Terror Twins – Tommy and Tuppance Terror – first appeared in Young Justice (vol. 2) #0 (March 2011), the first issue of the spin-off comic book. The nickname “Terror Twins” has been applied to several musical duos over the years because of their unhealthy dedication to the rock and roll lifestyle. The most obvious is to the drummer and bassist from Motel Crue Nikki Stix (a bloke) and Tommy Lee, likewise the leader-singer and guitarist from Aerosmith have been called the Toxic Twins.

Phoenician asked Greg Weisman about the origin of the names Tommy and Tuppence as it had been pointed out to him that they were the names of two detectives, Thomas “Tommy” Beresford and Prudence “Tuppence” Crowley, from a series of Agatha Christe novels. Weisman replied:

Tommy and Tuppence Terror were indeed a nod to [Agatha] Christie’s work, but also a nod to my buddy Tuppence Macintyre, who once upon a time helped out so much on the Scotish research for Gargoyles.

A jewelry store called “Gemini Gems” wouldn’t last in Gotham City with five minutes before it was raided by Two Face.

Amanda Waller

The redoubtable Amanda Waller first appeared in Legends #1 (November 1986) and was created by John Ostrander and John Byrne. When she first appeared she was a congressional aid who became the head of a secret government programme called Task Force X – the Suicide Squad. It operated out of Belle Reve and used the prison’s inmates as cannon-fodder for a super-villain version of the Dirty Dozen (with Waller in the Lee Marvin role). The US Government offered the convicts amnesty for their crimes in return for service and kept them in line with explosive devices (collars, armlets, injected devices) designed to kill should the Squad step out of line (a more lethal version of the collars seen in this episode).

Since the Suicide Squad Waller, or the “Wall” as she’s nicknamed, has become a permanent fixture of the the DC Universe and in particular in its intelligence services. Waller isn’t as precious as the superheroes are when it comes to morality and she is willing to work with whoever it takes to get the job done – including serving in Lex Luthor’s cabinet when he became US President. She isn’t a villain herself, but her approach to the job and to the national interests of the USA have put her at odds with heroes before. Oh and she could take down Nick Fury with one hand tied behind her back.

Waller has appeared in other DC spin-offs. She was memorably voiced in Justice League Unlimited by CCH Pounder (the head of their version of Cadmus Project). Waller also appeared in Smallville as the head of Checkmate and in the Green Lantern movie as a scientist studying the deceased Abin Sur.

The Young Justice version of Waller is voiced by Sheryl Lee Ralph. She previously voiced Cheetah in Justice League, but may be best known for playing Dee in Moesha. The character design was done by Jerome K Moore after a sketch by Phil Bourassa.

Belle Reve

The Belle Reve prison is based in the Louisana bayou (Belle Reve Parish in the cartoon, Terrebonne Parish in the comics). There are a number of famous prison institutions in the DC Universe including Arkham Asylum and Blackgate Penitentiary in Gotham City, Strikers Island in Metropolis, and Iron Heights in Central City. However, Belle Reve is the template for most of them (except for Arkham). It was created in the 1980s as a base for Waller’s Suicide Squad and serves as the exemplar for the type of industrial incarceration necessary for super-powered villains. The name Belle Reve was also used as the name of the facility in Smallville where the meteor-freaks were incarcerated.

Each of the Guards shown in this episode has an individual design and name tag. Background character designer Jerome K. Moore shared some notes on the process on his Deviant Art page:

As usual, I endeavored to design these incidental characters with some individuality, and visual interest. No guard looks like another, and in the end, I think this is a minor detail that nevertheless adds some dimension to the show, if only on a subliminal level. I think the animators did a fine job translating my designs, and I was tickled to see that they even managed to keep the little name tags I gave each one. Haha!

And, incidentally, one of the guards was named for our esteemed Line Producer. Can you guess which one?

Hint: Their line producer is called Dave Wilcox.

Hugo Strange

The appearance of Hugo Strange is an instant alert for any comic book fans. He’s one of Batman’s oldest foes and first appeared way back in Detective Comics #36 (Feb 1940) as a mad scientist. He was reinvented in the 1970s and 80s as a psychologist who tried to make a name for himself in the media by analysing the Batman. Strange became obsessed with his subject – he may have deduced Batman’s secret identity, but either decided he was wrong or had a mental break down.

Strange’s positioning with Waller is interesting. She acts at times like a villain, but is ultimately on the side of the good guys. Strange, however, acts like a member of the lawful establishment, but is ultimately a villain. His replacement of Waller as Prison Warden would give the Light easy access to their criminal foot soldiers.

In this episode Hugh Strange was voiced by Andrian Pasdar who may be better known for playing Nathan in Heroes and for voicing Tony Stark in Iron Man and other recent Marvel cartoons.

Prison Villains

There are a lot of villains in this episode, most of them from previous episodes. The two large thugs with Icicle Senior are Blockbuster (Mark Desmond from “Fireworks”) and Mammoth (from “Drop-Zone”). The two female villains with Killer Frost are Shimmer (Mammoth’s sister from “Drop-Zone”) and an unnamed woman with thorn like tattoos (identitifed by background character designer Jerome K Moore as Devastation).

Also shown for the first time is the Riddler (Edward Nigma) who is the only prisoner to escape, one assumes he’ll be popping up in a future episode or comic. The characters of Icicle Junior, Mister Freeze, Killer Frost, and Captain Cold reappear from the opening sequence of the very first episode. The three villains protecting the Wardens office are Professor Ojo and the Hook (from “Infiltrator” and Abra Kadabra (from “Denial”; you can tell its Kadabra by the cut of his uniform). Brick also reappears from the opening sequence to “Welcome to Happy Harbor”.

For more details see the Characters section on this page.

Icicles

The original Icicle (Joar Mahkent) was an opponent of the first Green Lantern and first appeared in All-American Comics #90 (October 1947). He second Icicle (Cameron Mahkent) is his son and first appeared in Infinity Inc (vol. 1) #34 (Jan 1987). The senior Icicle was the inspiration for the character of Doctor Blizzard in Justice League “Legends” while the youner junior Icicle was the badguy in the big “Absolute Justice” two-parter in Smallville.

Both of the Earth-16 Icicles are younger than their comic-book equivalents. The look of the younger Icicle keeps his comic book icy-albino skin-tones, but mixes in reference to winter figures like Jack Frost. One interesting subplot from the comics that the cartoon hasn’t hinted at yet is that the comic book Artemis Crock and Cameron Mahkent are team-mates and lovers. Whether they have a past or even a future relationship within the cartoon remains to be seen.

The senior Icicle is voiced by James Remar. He has also voiced Two-Face in Batman: the Brave and the Bold, the Black Mask in The Batman, and Hawkman in Justice League Unlimited. Remar may be better known as Harry from Dexter. The youner Icicle is voiced by Yuri Lowenthal who also voiced Gareth is the episode “Downtime”, Mister Miracle in Batman: the Brave and the Bold, and Superman in the Legion of Super Heroes. Lowenthal will be far better known as Ben from the Ben 10 franchise.

The Kiss.

Superboy (voiced by Nolan North) and Miss Martian (voiced by Danica McKellar) kiss for the first time in this episode. The existence of the kiss was revealed by McKellar at SDCC and she told Buzz Focus about the recording of the kiss:

“He [Nolan] and I almost always record together,” McKellar said. “And it’s good too because we’ve (our characters) got this romance going on and I can tell you that there’s going to be a kiss. In fact, the kiss is real. They had us kiss in the booth, which is very rare. In voice over, they always have usually asked to kiss (the top of) our hand [demonstrates].

But they said, ‘it doesn’t quite sound right.’ At the time I was eight months pregnant so I was like, [drawing with her hand how big her stomach was] “Well, sure!” but Nolan felt all weird about it. “Are you okay with this? This feels wrong.” Yes I’m okay, I’m an actress, I’ve done this before.’ It’s a sweet kiss but still a very real kiss in the booth.

Misc.

• New Orleans last appeared in “Denial” when Abra Kadabra kidnapped Kent Nelson from Madame Xanadu’s parlour.
• The prison uniforms are delivered by Professor Ivo despite Ivo not being captured at the end of “Schooled”.

Highlights

• Junior’s reaction to the Kiss

Oddities

• The New Orleans warehouse that instantly makes you think Joker, but is then not followed up. Maybe it was just a warehouse.

Unanswered Questions

• Where did the Riddler go?
• What did the League do with the real Tommy and Tuppence during this charade?
• Whatever happened to Amanda Waller? She isn’t a person to be counted out easily.
• What is Professor Ojo’s animosity towards Icicle Junior?

My Thoughts

I quite liked the focus on Superboy as it really showed off his character. The chemistry between him and Junior worked well and I wouldn’t mind seeing the character again. Fun fact: Yuri Lowenthal who voices Icicle Junior has also played Superboy (he was Superboy in the Legion of Super Heroes cartoon). Its interesting to see Superboy interact with somebody outside of the Team or the Justice League for once. Even at High School he’s almost constantly chaperoned by Miss Martian and this is the first time we’ve really seen him unrestrained, out of his own. Despite the disguise, he really chills out – pardon the expression – without the constant threat of Aqualad or Megan telepathically shouting “NO!” at him.

The mass of old badguys was interesting to watch – did you spot Abra Kadabra? I’m convinced that Black Spider must be in there somewhere, but we don’t know what his face looks like. The only down side to all those criminals was the sheer amount of orange on screen. it was also nice to see Amanda Waller pop-up, but it felt that the character was wasted as just a prison warden – she should be plotting her own schemes not falling foul of somebody else’s conspiracy. Maybe we’ll see her again.

The one thing that is beginning to get repetitive with these varied episodes is the “but, the badguys actually got what they wanted” ending. Nevertheless, we’re half way through the season and the show is already beginning to pay off its multiple set-ups.

The Verdict

Type	Site	Reviewer	Rating	Equivalent
	Grand Average		70%
Character Site	The Captain's Justice League Homepage	Jason Kirk	3.5/5