Episode 16: Failsafe
Takes place on October 16
When an army of aliens attack Earth, things go from bad to worse. First, the entire Justice League (minus Martian Manhunter) is killed by alien weapons which can cut through seemingly anything. Then, when the team manages to steal one of those weapons and integrate it into Miss Martian's bioship, Artemis, Aqualad, and Wolf are killed. When the team recruits all the recurring heroes that they could think of (Red Arrow, Zatanna, Icon, Garth, and Tula), an alien mothership lands in (and totally destroys) Smallville. The team manages to get inside the mothership and destroy it, but at the cost of the lives of Kid Flash, Robin, and Superboy, leaving just Miss Martian and Martian Manhunter alive. As they look at the mushroom cloud that used to be the alien mothership, another swoops down out of the sky. Martian Manhunter, who has been trying to remember something throughout the episode, finally remembers what it was, and stabs Miss Martian through the chest.
In the end, it was all a training exercise Gone Horribly Wrong. While the team knew going in that it was a training exercise in a virtual reality, they did not know two critical pieces of information. First, the simulation was completely unwinnable, as the scenario would make things worse no matter what the team did. Second, Miss Martian's subconscious couldn't accept that it was just a simulation when Artemis died and forgot it wasn't real, changing the rules so that the ones who died went into a coma. Martian Manhunter figured out that the only way to break out of it was to shock Miss Martian back into reality. Afterwards, he explained to Batman and Red Tornado that her telepathic powers, though untrained, were extremely dangerous as she was far more powerful than even himself.
Notes:
- The general that greets the teens when they arrive at the Hall of Justice is Wade Eiling, a character created by Greg Weisman for his run on Captain Atom in the 1980s. In issue #9 of the Young Justice (2010) tie-in comic, which takes place between the episodes "Infiltrator" and "Denial," Captain Atom sends the team to investigate a cold murder case as part of their covert ops training. Eiling is posited as the one most likely to have framed the person previously convicted of the crime—so the kids would have already heard of him before the episode.
- Dying to Wake Up: the cast are ultimately revealed to be participating in a Virtual Training Simulation. Dying was supposed to wake them up, but once Miss Martian lost track of reality and started believing the simulation was real, her telepathic powers changed the rule of the simulation so that upon death, the cast members were left comatose.
- Foreshadowing: The fact that the team doesn't show remorse for the fallen Justice League is a hint that what's happening isn't real. Martian Manhunter notes how Conner didn't react to Wolf's apparent demise despite how close they are, meaning it was a giveaway. Notice that Miss Martian is the first to notice the "disintegrator beam" before it hit Artemis and reacts in horror, hinting that this is where things go wrong.
