Episode 2: “Timber Wolf”

Season 1, Episode 2: “Timber Wolf”
Written by Matt Wayne
Directed by Lauren Montgomery
Original release: September 30^th, 2006
Running time: 22 minutes
Air time: Saturday morning

The teaser shows a creature tearing up some robots on an alien planet, in pursuit of a man who sent them to capture it. The scene adds very little to the episode, but it does set a slightly darker tone than the previous one.

After the intro, we move to the Legion dealing with a giant space monster which has eaten a lot of ships. While I don’t think it’s a direct reference to anything, it does give strong Star Trek TOS vibes.

Lightning Lad is more than a little on the cocky side, but he fails to do any damage with his blasts.
This is treated as an extremely routine mission, with Saturn Girl complaining about them taking too long.

Her reaction to the monster grabbing both heroes with its tentacles will surely become handy in later reviews.

That’s when they are interrupted by the plot, with the scientist from the teaser. The planet is spelled “Rawl” in the subtitles, but it should be Raal.

This takes priority over the space monster, so Saturn Girl orders to leave.
I’m guessing the monster just ate ships from a space junkyard and it’s not currently endangering any lives… other than the Legionnaires.

Superman deals with the monster by tying its tentacles and throwing it further into space, in a sequence that I’m guessing the animators were very fond of considering it ends up in the intro for every single episode.

Back on the ship, we have a cute little scene with Brainiac 5 and Bouncing Boy.
They don’t really interact that much in comics, so it’s a neat study in contrast; helped by the fact that in the series Bouncing Boy is the designated starship pilot, so he HAS to deal with Brainy’s technology a lot.

I’m guessing that Bouncing Boy was right about not wanting the ship’s assistance, because after Brainiac 5 activates the system (after some struggle) the ship IMMEDIATELY hits something.

Yeah I’m no spaceship pilot, but I don’t think you’re supposed to belly flop the atmosphere.

This is a weird writing decision. There’s no mention of anything that makes landing on this planet difficult, so the heroes just crashed their ship out of sheer incompetence.

Well thanks Brainy, now I feel much more confident in your abilities.

The first episode seemed to lean in the direction of making Lightning Lad the resident jackass more interested in popularity than heroism… but the series is going into a much better position for him: the “stop having fun, we’re supposed to be serious heroes” guy.

The planet is uninhabited, save for the research station, and it’s filled with hostile lifeforms; so Saturn Girl should be able to find any humans around.

Well that’s helpful.

Superman’s X-Ray vision finds the research station. Nice little touch about him having to explain what “bingo” means to people in the future.

Nothing sketchy about this scientist. At all.

He’s voiced by Harry Lennix, who will end up playing Martian Manhunter in Zack Snyder’s Justice League.

He tells the Legion that the monster we saw in the intro has destroyed his facility and is heavily implied to have killed both his research team and his son Brin.

Lightning Lad in particular seems to take stopping the monster as high priority.
While this is part of his persona in general, it’s interesting in the context of the rest of the series: at this point he has lost his sister and he’s estranged from his brother, so he knows a thing or two about broken families. Definitely not intended this early in the series, but it fits very well with the developments of the second season.

Saturn Girl is less convinced. The episode is doing a very good job at being subtle with her reactions.

Brainiac 5 and Bouncing Boy work together at repairing the Legion Cruiser, with differences of opinion on how to deal with technology.

Their dynamic is “smart guy who follows the rules” versus “funny guy who does what he feels like”.

The rest of the team is in the forest hunting the monster, with Saturn Girl being overwhelmed by the thoughts emanating from the place.

A swarm of robots ambushes the heroes, leading to our first action scene of the episode.
It has quite possibly THE best sound track of the whole series; the music really sells the threat, with a constant escalation of rhythm. It’s a shame that I can’t properly explain it in a text review, because I really love the music in this episode!

The robots are no match for Superman and Lightning Lad, but they are separate from Saturn Girl who is completely surrounded.
This is my favorite scene of the episode: the music is a its best, matched by the camera rotating around Saturn Girl and then zooming out…

…only for time to stop right before they hit her.
This is a great subversion of expectations because at this point you 100% expect someone else to show up to save her…

…only for her to unleash a telekinetic blast that destroys the robotic swarm.
If this was the comics version I would complain, but nobody said THIS version of Saturn Girl doesn’t have SOME telekinetic powers!

It also doesn’t break the character: she immediately faints after doing this, explaining why she never uses this power in battle again. So this doesn’t make Saturn Girl a telekinetic, it just means that she has a weapon of last resort.
She still has to be saved from the robots that were outside the blast zone… by the monster she was hunting.

She then wakes up in a cave.

The voice actress (Kari Wahlgren) does a fantastic job here; she sells how Saturn Girl is scared by the monster but is trying her best to sound courageous.

The monster won’t let her leave the cave, but despite what she initially thought, it’s not because he wants to eat her.

I’m assuming alien animals don’t usually build fires.

Yeah in case you hadn’t figured it out, this is not actually a monster.

Come on Saturn Girl, even monsters have a right to privacy.

In his mind, Saturn Girl can read thoughts of the scientist experimenting on him.

Too bad this is exactly when Lightning Lad shows up, zapping the monster and knocking her out.

Amazing line reading from Lightning Lad’s voice actor (Andy Milder): the way he says the monster “won’t be so lucky” has a ton of rage underneath.

It’s a serious fight, since the two Legionnaires still believe the monster was about to eat Saturn Girl.

But it still has a lighthearted moment, when Lightning Lad accidentally zaps Superman once the monster leaps out of the way.

They eventually manage to take down the monster; it’s heavily implied that without Superman around, Lightning Lad might have killed him.

Don’t worry about Saturn Girl, she’s fine.

Am I the only one who REALLY wants to see the story of how he knows this?

Remember how a few scenes ago Bouncing Boy tried to snoop around the research facility?

After Brainiac 5 disables the robot, they find what the scientist has been hiding: caged local animals next to the same operating table that Saturn Girl glimpsed in the monster’s memories.

They later meet the rest of the team again. Apparently this “healing trance” is a frequent thing.

Bouncing Boy notices the scratch that the monster managed to make. Considering a future episode will establish that Bouncing Boy is a huge fan of horror movies, no wonder he makes the werewolf joke.

We don’t learn exactly what the scientist had been doing on the local animals, but it sounds nasty.

This is when Saturn Girl wakes up, criticizing the boys for attacking the monster.

She decides to free the monster and use her powers to calm it down.

Saturn Girl and Lightning Lad don’t have an outright relationship in this series, but they’re definitely coded as a couple.

After some visions of more experiments…

…the monster switches to a more humanoid form.
And puts on some pants.

In case you SOMEHOW didn’t figure it out… it was honestly pretty easy even if you know nothing about the Legion… the “monster” is actually Brin, the son of the scientist, who has been mutated by his illegal experiments.

Considering this cartoon has a pretty young target demographic, it’s impressive how they managed to sell how the father has been abusing without going into detail.

We get our last fight scene of the episode, with the father unleashing his robots and his animals on the Legion. Saturn Girl conjures up a mental illusion of their torture, which is REALLY messed up if you think about it!

Showcasing how much the “thought-blast” was a one-off, she has to be saved from the robots.

When a bunch of animals try to crush Superman, he makes a joke I still don’t quite get.
I mean, I get he’s talking about American Football, but… where’s the joke?

Obviously a few security robots and alien hounds aren’t enough to stop the Legion, so the scientist frees the animals he has been experimenting on.
Not his smartest move; he has to be saved by his son, much to Lighting Lad’s displeasure.

Yeah turns out that the guy running illegal experiments on animals AND on his own son is not exactly right in the head.

He can’t even “cure” his son, because his DNA has been altered too much at this point.

The Wolverine parallels are really on the nose, but they will only really come up in one other episode in the second season.

In a baffling decision, the Legion can’t arrest the scientist because this planet is outside of the jurisdiction of the United Planets.

This is a problem whenever you create a villain who is too much of an irredeemable monster… if he gets away, that’s not satisfying.

I mean, his research station is completely trashed by his son but… what’s stopping him from continuing his work elsewhere?
(spoiler alert: that’s exactly what he will do)

Once the ship leaves the planet, Brin is given proper clothes.
Well, by 31st century standards at least.

Despite the previous scenes hinting at a potential rivalry between Lightning Lad and Brin… especially because of how close he was getting to Saturn Girl… they’re on friendly terms.

We have a rarely seen moment: a new member swearing in.

During the pledge we get our first good look at some other Legionnaires.
Colossal Boy, Cosmic Boy, Shrinking Violet and Dream Girl will get proper scenes, the latter in next season.

We also have four Legionnaires who will appear without any speaking line in either season: Blok, Element Lad, Sun Boy and Tyroc.
Blok is a pleasant surprise but not entirely unexpected, but I am sure NOBODY thought that Tyroc would EVER get an adaptation!!!

This is a perfect pledge that SHOULD be integrated into the main continuity; ESPECIALLY the final idea of taking a codename in honor of past heroes!!!
If you’re a Legion fan, it’s impossible to get through this scene without getting a little emotional.

To the Legion of Super-Heroes, I make this solemn pledge: to use my power for good, to fight for justice and protect the innocent, to aid my fellow Legionnaires in times of peril, and to keep their secrets safe. I choose a new name to honor the heroes of the past.

---

Animated significance: 10/10
Timber Wolf is one of the core members of the team, to the point of being in the intro before he even shows up in the show!!!

Does any of this show up in regular continuity?
I don’t think any of the following versions of Timber Wolf owes much to this incarnation.
I believe Saturn Girl has full-on telekinesis in the Supergirl TV show.

Silver Age-ness: 3/10
That space monster. Despite not being explicit, the rest of the episode is too dark for the Silver Age.

Does it stand the test of time? 9/10
This is FAR better paced than the first episode, and a better representation of what the show is going to be.
Addressing the Wolverine in the room: yes, this is easily the version of Timber Wolf that borrows the most from Logan. The two characters DO have similarities, but over the years there’s been a drive to turn Timber Wolf into Wolverine… despite being created much earlier.
Undoubtedly a result of Wolverine being the far more popular character, but there’s another factor: Timber Wolf’s original powers of super-agility and mild super-strength are way harder to showcase in a cool way than claws and super-senses, which is why Timber Wolf gains the latter.
I think this one strikes a good balance: as mentioned, beyond this episode the “control the beast inside” is only relevant to one more episode. He does retain a bit of the “lone wolf” characterization, in a much milder way than usual.
Saturn Girl is great in this, remaining competent and compassionate despite being understandably scared at many times. Lightning Lad is WAY better than in the first episode, keeping his impulsive tendencies but not without reason. And Superman is at bouncing dialogue back.
Speaking of bouncing, the disappointment are Bouncing Boy and Brainiac 5: they’re basically given nothing to do. Their dialogue sells both how they’re friends and how they are different, but they don’t really impact the plot.
To top it all, once I again I have to praise the first action scene: not other one in the episode matches how awesome it looks and sounds.
My only real complain is the ending. Not for Timber Wolf himself, but as mentioned it’s not satisfying to see his father basically getting away with it.

We are Legion
16 active members (that we know of)
Adding 6 new Legionnaires Blok, Element Lad, Dream Girl, Sun Boy, Tyroc and of course Timber Wolf.
Shrinking Violet, Colossal Boy and Cosmic Boy were already namedropped in the previous episode.