Homefront

"Homefront" is the twelfth episode of Season One of Young Justice and aired on September 30, 2011.

Logline
When the Cave itself is attacked, can Artemis and Robin – the two teens without super-powers – save the Team (or even themselves) from the unknown invaders?

Synopsis
Artemis wakes up only to look at the empty bed next to hers with an Alice in Wonderland poster on the wall beside it. Thereof she reminisces about the time when she was a little girl and her older sister was preparing to leave home due to her strained relationship with her father. The memory ends abruptly as Artemis's mom tells her she has to get ready for her first day of school.

At Gotham Academy, Artemis runs into Dick although she doesn't recognize him. Dick comes up to her with his phone, takes a picture of them, and says "We'll laugh about this someday" and walks away. Artemis, bewildered, asks her New Student Liaison who he was. She replies "Just a freshman. Ignore him". Dick then goes back to his friend Barbara, who asks what that was all about. He replies he was just trying to be friendly.

At the Cave, Superboy and Miss Martian are kissing. They are interrupted by the Sphere and Kid Flash. Red Tornado and Aqualad are talking about the mole in the Team and the latter is wondering whether he should tell Batman. Red Tornado tells him Batman generally expects the Team to solve problems in-house but it is his decision. Red Tornado must go for monitor duty at the Watchtower; generally he is excused from it due to his mentoring role, but he claims he must cover for Green Arrow who has a date with Black Canary. Later that night, Artemis approaches the teleporter in Gotham only to run into the now-costumed Robin. Robin teases Artemis, acting surprised at her being in Gotham and not in Star City with Green Arrow, her supposed uncle. Artemis claims she came for her cousin's spelling bee tournament.

Immediately after teleporting to the Cave, Robin and Artemis come under attack by fireballs. After the two flee through the Cave, Robin hacks into the building mainframe and checks the security cameras to see who the intruders are. While he sees their other four teammates were ambushed, the attackers are still unknown as all four cameras were wiped out before recording them. While hiding in the library, Robin and Artemis hear a familiar voice. Believing it to be Red Tornado, Artemis rushes out only to find a similar-looking but hostile robot, from whom Robin quickly saves her. After they run into a second robot (also bearing a resemblance to Red Tornado but with a female shape), they find out their teammates are alive. The robots display elemental powers; the female can control fire and the male controls water. Miss Martian and Aqualad are being held in a fire cage, sapping their strengths. Superboy and Kid Flash are immobilized by twisted chunks of metal, and about to drown. Once again the pair are forced to flee.

Robin realizes the only way to stop the robots is with an electro-magnetic pulse. The robots announce Robin and Artemis that they have ten minutes to surrender, or their friends will be killed. Robin communicates with Kid Flash, who tells him where to get the equipment to make the weapon. After successfully making the pulse device, Robin attempts to plug the weapon into the power grid, while Artemis provides a distraction. The weapon doesn't work; Robin realizes he need additional metal to complete the circuit but is captured in a pillar of water before finding a suitable construct. Terrified and arrow-less, Artemis returns to the ventilation system. She contemplates surrender or hiding, but she accidentally falls into Kid Flash's souvenir room. After taking Cheshire's mask, Artemis resumes her recollection of her sister leaving, after saying that she will disappear "like the Cheshire Cat" and that "in this family it's every girl for herself". Artemis is now determined not to abandon her new family as her sister abandoned hers. After the robots announce she has two minutes, she grabs her arrow from the souvenir shelf. She goes to the robots and pretends to surrender, only to shoot the arrow underneath the electro-magnetic pulse, which completes the circuit and shuts off all the machines.

With the robots vanquished, Miss Martian and Aqualad are freed from their fiery containment. Aqualad confirms Miss Martian is breathing, and Artemis does the same for Robin. Red Tornado finally returns. He claims he tried to use the teleporter once he realized that communications with the Cave were down; he was forced to teleport nearby and fly back. Artemis and Robin then tell Red Tornado what happened. Tornado appears surprised at finding out there are other robots with his likeness. The Sphere frees itself and the drill Artemis is trying to use to free Kid Flash and Superboy comes back online. Robin realizes the effects of the EMP have faded. As Red Tornado approaches the robots, he reaches out for the female one and there's an electric charge between the two. Their eyes glow red and Red Tornado turns on the Team and sucks the air out of the entire room, leaving them unconscious. Artemis wakes up to Superman telling the Team they are okay, and she finds the Justice League in the Cave. She says Red Tornado attacked them and that he is now gone, and Robin remarks that so are the other robots.

Title
"Home front" means "civilian population or the civilian activities of a country at war", which in this case refers to Robin and Artemis. It may also refer to the fact that the Team was attacked at their "home".

Cast and characters
! colspan="3"| Non-speaking roles
 * Stephanie Lemelin
 * colspan="2" | Artemis
 * Jesse McCartney
 * colspan="2" | Robin
 * Danica McKellar
 * colspan="2" | M'gann M'orzz
 * rowspan="2" | Nolan North
 * colspan="2" | Superboy
 * colspan="2" | Superman
 * Khary Payton
 * colspan="2" | Aqualad
 * Jason Spisak
 * colspan="2" | Kid Flash
 * rowspan="2" | Jeff Bennett
 * colspan="2" | Red Tornado
 * Red Torpedo
 * rowspan="2" | Kelly Hu
 * colspan="2" | Jade Nguyen
 * colspan="2" | Paula Crock
 * rowspan="2" | Alyson Stoner
 * Bette Kane
 * Barbara Gordon
 * colspan="2" | Red Tornado
 * Red Torpedo
 * rowspan="2" | Kelly Hu
 * colspan="2" | Jade Nguyen
 * colspan="2" | Paula Crock
 * rowspan="2" | Alyson Stoner
 * Bette Kane
 * Barbara Gordon
 * colspan="2" | Paula Crock
 * rowspan="2" | Alyson Stoner
 * Bette Kane
 * Barbara Gordon
 * Barbara Gordon
 * Barbara Gordon
 * Barbara Gordon
 * colspan="3" | Aquaman
 * colspan="3" | Batman
 * colspan="3" | Black Canary
 * colspan="3" | Captain Atom
 * colspan="3" | Flash
 * colspan="3" | Green Arrow
 * colspan="3" | Martian Manhunter
 * colspan="2" | Red Inferno
 * colspan="3" | Sphere
 * colspan="3" | Flash
 * colspan="3" | Green Arrow
 * colspan="3" | Martian Manhunter
 * colspan="2" | Red Inferno
 * colspan="3" | Sphere
 * colspan="2" | Red Inferno
 * colspan="3" | Sphere
 * colspan="3" | Sphere
 * colspan="3" | Sphere
 * colspan="3" | Sphere

Continuity

 * The relationship between Artemis and Cheshire alluded in "Infiltrator" is revealed: they are sisters.
 * Aqualad tells Red Tornado about the mole on the Team, after being told about it by Sportsmaster in "Targets".
 * Artemis is now in Gotham Academy after being awarded the Wayne Foundation Scholarship in "Downtime".
 * Miss Martian mentions she has become a cheerleader, as seen in "Targets".
 * Cheshire tells Artemis that she'll "disappear just like the Cheshire cat". This is similar to what she told her in "Infiltrator".
 * Aqualad and Miss Martian are trapped in a cage of fire. It was established in "Denial" that Atlanteans and Martians are susceptible to extreme heat. This is consistent with Miss Martian's claim in "Terrors" of her being able to withstand cold temperatures because her home planet's environment was cold.
 * Superboy boasts about the heat in the caves of Mars; Miss Martian had told the Team of Martian culture (and their cave dwelling) in Young Justice #6.
 * Artemis uses the same arrow that she had used to save the Team from Amazo and that Kid Flash saved as a souvenir in "Schooled".

Trivia

 * Main title scenes:
 * Jade putting on her cap (17:39)
 * Red Tornado teleporting out of the Cave (02:40)
 * Artemis looking up (03:39)
 * Aqualad looking afflicted inside a fire cage (16:05)
 * Robin and Artemis examine the security footage (07:55)
 * Robin crawling inside a tunnel (06:11)
 * Upon arriving to Gotham Academy, Artemis is greeted by "Bette". It is possible that this is Bette Kane AKA Flamebird (another Gotham vigilante) from DC Comics.
 * When Robin approaches Artemis at campus and takes a picture, she doesn't realize it's him, since Batman has prevented Robin from telling the rest of the Team who he is. Robin later taunts Artemis about being in Gotham City, knowing full well why she is there.
 * Despite being the twelfth episode of the series, this is only the fourth time that all six current members of the Team appear in the same episode, the other three being "Infiltrator", "Downtime" and "Bereft".
 * When Kid Flash and Superboy are held captive and are almost underwater, Superboy attempts to distract them by claiming you can't drown a Kryptonian since they don't need air. However, towards the end of the episode, Superboy is knocked unconscious after Red Tornado sucks all the air out of the room. Kid Flash also lies that he can phase out of the water trap by vibrating his molecules; it was stated in "Welcome to Happy Harbor" that he can't.

Cultural references

 * Kid Flash taunts the Reds by saying he can get out of his trap "before [their] binary brains can count to 2." In binary, 2 is "10" ("one zero", not "ten"), thus making it a joke on "count to ten".
 * Before being cut off by Red Torpedo, Artemis was about to paraphrase the motto of Alexandre Dumas' Three Musketeers, "One for all, all for one".

Answered questions

 * Who created Red Torpedo and Red Inferno? (Answer)
 * What happened to Red Tornado when he touched Red Inferno? (Answer)
 * Is Red Tornado the mole? (Answer)

Unanswered questions

 * How did Red Torpedo and Red Inferno bypass the Cave's security system?
 * Why was Paula Crock in prison?
 * Why doesn't Jade want to live with her father?