Laura 'ad astra' Sack writes...

Before the Dawn-

Shorts-
Black Lightning- LOVED (Nice touch Thunder was texting Grace)Amethyst- Have been reading the new stories and know of the old ones. Clever concept, lovely Sailor Moon spoof included.

Show- (no questions, just observations)
1- The female Reach voice is so familiar...
2- The torture Aqualad must have went through for that tour - friends are being tortured because he put them there and he can't even show any emotional response.
3- Star City teens ...I'm still annoyed at all thoughtless Before the Dawn spoilers telling me to look for Stephanie and Virgil. I think of Stephanie as being Gotham to the core like the rest of the Bat family. I'm curious how she'll integrate. (I gotta review if Sissie was established in Star City when she appeared as a little girl.) But, blond hair, blue eye AND ~purple~ jacket and wry response in face of bad situation...that would be Steph. (I like she looked older than Tim - I could have sworn she was originally created a year older than Tim and somehow dropped a year to match him.)
4- Didn't the pods used to put people to sleep? I guess if this hasn't already been covered elsewhere it could be an actual question.
5- Cassie is observant- how do you know our friends are there? The tech reminds her of Blue Beetle. Nice.
6- M'gan wipes Aquadlad's mind- Wow... implications, shock, moment between M'gan and Artemas - all nicely played. Also, Beast Boy makes a scary big cat. (I can't tell if there is a bit of an homage to HeMan's battle cat or if that's what you're going to see when you see a giant angry green tiger.) And then there is the nice echo to last season and the training sequence started with M'gan losing it over Artemas's 'death'.

Thanks for letting us rabble
7- Bart/Jaime SPOILED. Come on guys 2 words, "spoiler alert", and hit enter a few times.
8- Black Beatle - scary guy. On the plus side Jamie gave Scarab full control and no evil monster came out of it. No evil, clears that worry. Beginning of good guy scarab?
9- Bab's & Dick - Noticed their Bat military precision. Also noticed the extra hand hold while they confirmed,
10- La'gon gets the heroic save of Jaime
11- On ship- Lagon is happily draped over catatonic M'gan, Garth covering, Conner watching.
12- And then the clever of Reach introducing themselves before being exposed.
13- GGG- Not wrong about coming through the front door, but none of the alien superheroes represent their home planet. The GL's are the closest.
14- If the Reach is inducing powers and that boy is Virgil, then this would seem to be the BANG. Then again, Steph doesn't traditionally have powers. I remember one of the old comics once indicated that Sissie's eyesight was on the edge of Meta. Though probably within the range of ARGHH!!! famous baseball player who could aim his bat at where he wanted it vis-à-vis the seams…La).
Overall very good indeed.