If it was just cool nods to Kirby comics, that would probably be enough to make me happy with the bow. But where this episode is most effective is how concise the character work is. Tomar-Res’ persistent pain at the loss of Krypton informs of his sacrifice to protect New Genesis from the erupted Promethean, and it is communicated in the course of a few glances and a dialogue. Phil Morris’ voice work on Lor-Zod hits amazingly a few times – his screams of pain as the legion and the cinema ship blew up the projector were palpable in a way that voice acting does not normally achieve.
Now I’m about to commit some minor blasphemy. I’ve read most of Kirby’s fourth world comics, and all of Walter Simonson’s magnificent Orion, but you know what? I think I enjoy this Orion the most out of them all. Kirby’s Orion is your typical Kirby hero: a magnificent, stylized weirdo who is the embodiment of conflict-filled heroism. Simpson’s Orion is more nuanced, but he’s still as much a force of nature as he is a character.
Young Justice pits Orion and Rocket against Ma’alefa’ak, a very clever choice: the white Martian immediately takes Orion and Rocket inside their own heads, where Rocket is lured to catch Orion in a power bubble by an imaginary Lightray and tells her, that Orion is a monster to be stopped. Moving through their internal conflict – Orion sent wildly by the mind’s interference in which the Rockets’ uncertainties are played out – helps to soften the force of nature inherent in any Orion performance. And showing us Orion through Rocket’s eyes makes everything that comes so much more effective. Lord help me, I think I’m sending Rocket and Orion now.
The action in the episode ends with a bang – Lor-Zod catches the legion and the movie ship blowing up the projector so he goes in and forces them to leave. But not before Saturn Girl wakes Phantom Girl up in the zone, where Conner pulls Zod down again, and Zod realizes that Conner was not a prisoner. Zatanna performs a session to try to get him back from the afterlife, then realizes he is not dead, and goes to Nightwing for help, and New Genesis accepts the treaty with the Heroes of the Earth.