The Justice League realizes that Brainiac has escaped their computers, and entered Richie's backpack. They have to return to Earth to locate Richie.
Tropes for this episode include:
- Always Save the Girl: When the League goes to fight Brainiac, forcing Static to stay behind, Virgil decides to figure out his own method to save Richie.
- Chekhov's Gun:
- Richie taking off his helmet to eat a snack at the Watchtower is caught on camera, and the League is able to identify him.
- Richie briefly fights the brainwashing to tell Virgil "Control". Virgil realizes that this refers to Backpack's remote and it's the way to shut down Braniac.
- Crossover: With Justice League.
- "Eureka!" Moment: After Virgil mentions control freak, he realizes what Richie meant when he kept saying "Control", the latter was to tell him to use the remote control to Backpack to defeat Braniac.
- Foreshadowing: Brainiac being able to link with human beings is something that would come into play much later in "Divided We Fall", an episode of Justice League Unlimited (albeit having spent that time dormant and subtly influencing Lex's actions, rather than as in control of Richie he is here).
- Immune to Mind Control: Braniac's Mind Control chip doesn't work on Static due to his body's natural bioelectric field, which acts as a mind control shield. Seconds after the chip is placed on him, he automatically shorts it out.
- Let's You and Him Fight: Virgil has to fight and free the brainwashed Justice League. He actually succeeds (as he didn't need to so much as defeat the team as much as he had to fry their brainwashing chips). However, he needs help defeating Green Lantern; who nearly delivers a Curb-Stomp Battle on the younger hero.
- The Needs of the Many: The League decides to sacrifice Richie if necessary to stop Brainiac. Obviously, Virgil is not happy at this.
- Out-of-Character Alert: Virgil realizes something is wrong when Richie starts talking in a monotone and in a robotic fashion. He then learns that Brainiac is mind-controlling his best friend.
- Pragmatic Villainy: Brainiac, through Richie, uses his gadgets to incapacitate Flash. Then when the League comes to find them, the mind-controlled Flash puts brainwashing chips on everyone. Virgil is left to fight and free the lot while Brainiac starts digitizing.
- Shout-Out: Virgil calls a brainwashed Green Lantern "The Lord of the Ring".
- Tap on the Head: Hawkgirl whacks Green Lantern on the head with her mace to incapacitate him so Static can fry his mind control disc.
