(I really wanted to finish this before the new season premiered but my laptop broke so it’s coming out late.)
Back when I first started watching Young Justice, my favorite character was M’gann/Megan/Miss Martian. She was cute, energetic, and a little bit accident prone. She somehow walked the line of being a fish-out-of-water character while acting as a guide for Conner who was even more out of his depts. (There’s a joke to be made about Kaldur being a literal fish-out-of-water, but I digress) However, by the time season two ended, she was my most hated character. So this post will be dedicated to how M’gann went from Hero to Zero for me just like that *snap*.
(As a forewarning, there are some mentions of domestic abuse in this section.)
An Overview
M’gann M’orzz was introduced to us as Martian Manhunter’s niece who had recently moved to earth. Initially, she presented herself as a Green Martian, but her White Martian heritage is revealed as the season continues. We’ll get into the later.
Right when M’gann is introduced, it’s established that she finds Conner attractive. As the season went on their friendship quickly developed into a relationship. I noticed that most of their character development comes as a package with them rarely playing off the other team members. After all, Conner and M’gann both live in the cave and go to school together, so it makes sense the characters are always communicating.
In the climax for season one, a handful of the characters are tempted to join the villains. For M’gann, it’s Queen Bee threatening to expose her White Martian nature that tempts her to switch sides. This plot ultimately falls apart when M’gann reveals the truth to her friends, who had no reason to care about her ethnicity in the first place since they didn’t mind when they thought she was green (I always thought this plot was kinda stupid from the get-go).
Jumping ahead to season two. Technically, M’gann is involved in one big plot that branches off in different ways. A question of ethics arises when it is revealed that M’gann has been using her powers in a way that damages the minds of villains. This leads to her and Conner breaking up.
This abuse of power eventually complicates the Aqualad storyline and leads to M’gann seeing the error of her ways. (More on that later.) M’gann learns her lesson. Her new restraint leads to mending the relationship between her and Conner. Season two ends with the door being opened for them to get back together.
And that’s where the show was canceled. If anything changes with the character after this point, it isn’t relevant to this post. After all, this is a look at why I grew to stop liking a show/character, so changes now won’t change how I felt then.
The Cracks Start to Show
One of the reasons I loved M’gann so much was her quirky nature. So guess how surprised I was to discover that it was all an act! Yep, that’s right. Most of what was presented as her personality was just mimicry of a character from an in-universe sitcom. When this was revealed, I couldn’t help but ask myself, “Where does the Megan act stop and the real M’gann begin?”
Normally, this wouldn’t be too hard to get past. With some time I am sure I could get to know M’gann’s real personality and- What’s that? This happens in episode 21 of a 26 episode long season. Oh, okay. Also, with the timeskip, there isn’t much time to dwell on who she is before everyone matures six years. (Though M’gann is supposed to actually be 48, so 6 years shouldn’t make much of a difference.)
As long the show treats it seriously, this shouldn’t be a problem. After all, this is a defining character moment that puts every scene that M’gann has ever had in a new light. Surely such a moment would be given the gravity it deserves.
Huh? The other characters treat it as a joke? The reveal that M’gann is a White Martian is treated with more weight? Ah, I see.
Quick Tangent: I think I made it clear earlier that I don’t really care for the importance given to the White Martian subplot. Green, White, or Red, an alien is an alien, and the different races don’t change anything (in this show at least). Nobody on Earth other than J’onn would have reason to care about that her skin color was a different shade of nonhuman. Her friends startled reactions to the reveal have much less significance in hindsight when a Green Martian reveals his true form in season two, and he looks so similar to M’gann (it’s clearly just that the Team had never seen a Martian in their less humanoid form). If her friends didn’t care that she’s from Mars, her not being green shouldn’t matter either.
But, back to the topic at hand. Maybe if they had treated the reveal with more weight, it would have gone over better. Maybe they should have placed it earlier in the show so it could feel like the M’gann after this episode was starting to reveal the real her. At the very least, maybe one of the other characters could have encouraged her to drop the act and just be herself. But none of that happened. With one simple joke, the writers opened the floodgates, and now everything about M’gann I don’t like can be traced back to this episode.
Trouble in Paradise
Another reason I grew to hate M’gann was the unsettling nature of her relationship with Conner. When her fake persona was revealed, it came with another uncomfortable fact. The Megan in the show within a show was dating a Conner, who shares a passing resemblance to the Conner we know.
Now the fact that Megan liked him because he looks like someone from a TV show isn’t a problem. Plenty of people start relationships with someone because they like how that person looks or because they resemble a celebrity. No, the problem is centered around how Conner formed his identity.
When Superboy and Miss Martian are heading to school for the first time in episode 10, they need to come up with civilian names. And guess who just happens to offer the name “Conner”? M’gann. It didn’t take very long for her to do it either. (“John” was the only other name that was discussed.)
Later when the Hello, Megan reveal happened, I couldn’t help but ask myself if Superboy and Miss. Martian’s relationship had some elements of grooming involved.
Like when I mentioned with the Superman-as-a-victim, I don’t think this was an intentional read at all. Since the rest of the cast laughed it off (and there’s a hint that Conner might have figured it out some episodes back), I’m sure the Conner/M’gann relationship wasn’t meant to be malicious.
However, season two changes to that. They broke up and we don’t really know why. At least until episode 7 when Conner gives the audience a recap.
During the timeskip, M’gann started using her powers with less restraint. She’s breaking the minds of villains to get information. Conner, seemingly being the only person paying any attention to what’s going on around him (Seriously there is a scene where M’gann does it in front of Batman and Martian Manhunter, both of whom fail to notice), confronts M’gann.
This leads to a massive argument between them that ends with M’gann using her power on Conner in an attempt to rewrite his memory so that he wouldn’t be mad anymore. Conner realizes what she was doing and dumped her.
Here the creators of the show choose to tell the audience that a character is hurting people with their powers and then tells them that this character used the same ability on their significant other. Unlike with the Superman thing or the grooming, I am certain that the creators intend for this to be read as a superpowered version of domestic abuse. The show sure does have a habit of finding vulnerabilities for invulnerable characters.
Now if this were the end of their relationship, I wouldn’t be writing about it, but no. This season clearly was pulling for them to get back together. Conner is visibly jealous when we see M’gann and La’gaan together. Beast Boy tries to play matchmaker and get them to reconcile. M’gann gets jealous when she thinks Conner moved on. The season ends with them on the path to get back together.
If you personally ship this, I get it. The show definitely leads me to believe that the characters are supposed to genuinely like each other, but there are just too many things there that weirds me out about the pairing.
Learning the Wrong Lesson
Now we down to the reason. The de facto reason I grew to hate M’gann as a character. Everything so far was just some elements of the story that I didn’t like but I never hated her for any of it. But this, M’gann’s treatment of villains, is what ruined her for me.
Let me start out by saying that the writers of this show did a great job of setting up this storyline. As early as the show’s third episode, there were hints that M’gann might go too far. There was a fake out over her seemingly murdering a villain only for it to be revealed that he was a robot. (I mean, Red Tornado is a robot too and it would be bad if someone crushed him with a bolder, but whatever I guess.) And later, in the episode “Failsafe,” it is revealed that M’gann is an incredibly strong telepath. She accidentally traps the team in a simulation that even J’onn can’t stop, thus showcasing how easily she can do damage to the minds of others.
So when M’gann starts using her powers more intensely to gather information from villains, it didn’t really come out of nowhere. However, the way it played out was still off-putting.
Now, this type of storyline isn’t new in superhero media. Batman often finds himself in these plots. Batman goes too far, someone calls him out on it, and Batman has to decide if he should change how he operates. Batman: The Animated Series used the storyline for the reason why Robin quit to become Nightwing and (don’t quote me on this) I think Batman does take steps to correct his errors.
And to be clear, I don’t expect every story to follow the same path, but when multiple other characters react poorly to the actions of another character, I expect it to be addressed properly at some point.
The first time we see M’gann breaking the mind of a criminal it is in front of a side character. In the episode “Earthlings”, Alanna witness M’gann leaving a Krolotean catatonic after extracting information from them. Alanna was obviously horrified by what she saw. However, Alanna was just a one-off character asking the League for help, so it is clear that any action would have to come from elsewhere.
Of the regular cast, Conner is the only one who knows what’s going on. Unfortunately, he’s keeping it to himself. Since I’m sure the abuse angle of their breakup was actually intended, I suspect this might have been due to parallels for abuse victims being reluctant to inform others of their abuse. Conner does take the time to confront M’gann every time he witnesses her actions.
Their conversation is the episode 7 recap I mentioned before, but something I didn’t relay was M’gann’s motivation. She thinks that because the people she hurts are “the bad guys” it means she has the right to do whatever she wants because she’s saving lives. Apparently, she sees herself as judge, jury, and executioner. Of course, her argument falls apart when Conner compares her actions to the villain Psimon.
The show actually does something odd here. Instead of arguing how what she is doing is different from Psimon, M’gann just asks Conner why he won’t report her to a higher up. From here the conversation shifts back to their relationship, but by asking that question, the show is acknowledging that M’gann’s behavior wouldn’t be acceptable if the League knew.
From where I stand, for this story to move forward, M’gann would have to either change her mind or get reprimanded for her actions. Let’s see how they fail to do either!
During this season, Artemis has to rejoin the team in order to fake her death at the hands of Kaldur’ahm and join him on an undercover mission. Not knowing this, M’gann uses her powers to break Kaldur’s mind in an act of revenge only for her to immediately discover the truth. Shocked by what she had did, M’gann spends the next couple of episodes afraid of hurting another innocent with her powers. At some point during all this, Superboy tells Nightwing what M’gann’s did to Kaldur, which alerts him that the undercover mission has been compromised. Eventually, M’gann uses her powers to help stop the invasion, fixes Kaldur’s mind, and the undercover mission is able to succeed.
Starting from my smaller complaint, M’gann was never punished for her actions. Nightwing learns the truth and does nothing. Maybe because the truth involved informing the Justice League of a spy mission that I’m pretty sure he didn’t get clearance to do it. Or maybe it’s because Superboy failed to inform Nightwing that Aqualad was only one of countless other she’d done this to. Regardless, none of their higher-ups ever find out about what she did so there was no in-story reason for her to be punished.
My bigger problem with this storyline was that M’gann’s change of heart never touches on why it was wrong for her to do what she was doing. She only stops because she hurt someone who she didn’t think deserved it.
Her remorse doesn’t seem to apply to any of her past victims. If Kaldur had actually killed Artemis, she wouldn’t have regretted a thing, but because it was a mistaken bad guy then suddenly what she did was wrong. She only seems to stop out of fear that she’ll hurt another innocent.
So, she fails to get punished and she fails to learn that doing what she did was wrong regardless of who she was hurting. These are things I could have chalked up to the show not getting the time to work through M’gann’s plot because of the cancellation, but one fact makes it clear that’s not the case.
The Makeup
While M’gann and Conner don’t start dating by the end of season two, they to take their first steps towards it. The show acts like everything that just happened addresses Conner’s complains about her power usage. Sure, she’ll stop hurting people but not for any of the reasons the show established it was wrong for in the first place. Not only does M’gann get off scot-free for her actions, but she gets rewarded for her lack of growth too. Yay.
And so, with my love for M’gann at an all-time low, the show came to an end for 6 years. At the time, I was just as heartbroken as everyone else when the cancellation was announced, but the more I reminisced, the more problems I noticed. I realized that while I was just watching Young Justice, I had stopped enjoying it for some time ago.
Recently I noticed that I had a problem when it came to continuing to watch shows after I’ve stopped enjoying them. I would convince myself because I’ve invested so much time into it that I can’t drop it. But, there’s nothing wrong with realizing that something you used to like just isn’t for you anymore.
Also, when I started this, I very much thought this would be my way of saying goodbye to Young Justice, but as time went on, I’ve been flooded with pleasant memories of the show. It wasn’t the masterpiece of television that everyone on the internet keeps saying it is, but it was fun. While I don’t think I’ll give it another chance any time soon, I can see myself maybe revisiting it one day.
I Think Thinks 