While the Justice League continues to wage its shadow war against The Light in Young Justice: Outsiders, their enemies are about to pull the ground out from under them if the latest episode is any indication. And while we knew Tara Markov is working for Deathstroke, this latest character’s betrayal is a shocker.
In the latest episode called “Unknown Factors,” we realize that Brion and Tara’s surrogate mother Dr. Helga Jace has been working with the Ultra-Humanite, the enhanced ape-like creature who is currently one of the top-ranking members of The Light. And she’s currently working with the villain to get her and her kids extracted.
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Dr. Jace has played a major role since the beginning of the season of Young Justice, revealed to have been coerced in the experiments that transformed Brion and Tara into meta-humans at the behest of their evil uncle Baron Bedlam. When Brion is exiled from his homeland of Markovia, Dr. Jace goes with him to keep watch, and also comes to take care of the young Violet.
Her interests in Violet have grown over the course of this season, as she was formerly a young woman named Gabrielle who worked in the Markovia castle; she was bribed by Bedlam’s forces and allowed an assassin to enter the castle and murder Brion’s parents. Then Bedlam’s forces attempted to cover their tracks, murdering Gabrielle in the process.
But they were also experimenting with a Mother Box and after dismantling the powerful artifact, its energies transferred into Gabrielle’s body and she was reborn as the powerful Violet Harper AKA Halo. Dr. Jace has since observed Halo, informing her that her powers are actually killing her body and manipulating her into keeping this information from Brion, which served to drive a wedge between the couple.
While Dr. Jace’s actions seemed altruistic at first, the revelation of her “mentor” as the Ultra-Humanite poses them in a new light that make it seem like she’s the one driving a wedge between the Team and not Tara. We’ve seen Brion’s sister refrain from giving Deathstroke every piece of information she comes across, becoming more sympathetic to the heroes’ cause since her arrival.
There’s also the matter of Dr. Jace’s relationship with Black Lightning, who is unaware that he’s actually working for Batman and even refused when Bruce Wayne first gave him an offer at the beginning of the season. These betrayals will likely have a major impact on the final stretch of the season.
The next episode of Young Justice: Outsiders arrives this Tuesday, August 13th on DC Universe.
