Takes place on August 4.
A distant conflict sends the team on an away mission, while the Happy Harbor gang decides what to do with Brion Markov and Halo.
Tropes
- Aggressive Categorism: Taken to its logical extreme. If one member of any race gives the Hive a reason to distrust them, then the Hive will consider the race their enemies.
- Battle in the Center of the Mind: Between M'gann and M'comm. M'comm is severely outclassed, and the only reason he isn't immediately beaten is because M'gann isn't willing to go all out on him and wants to talk him down.
- The Bus Came Back: Bear, who had not been seen since Season 1, returns. The rest of the Forever People also return, but in a flashback with no speaking roles.
- Continuity Nod: Bear first met Superboy and Wolf in Season 1, episode 17, when the Forever People came to Earth to track down stolen technology, and they allowed Superboy to keep Sphere after he admitted he bonded with her.
- Explosive Leash: To escape capture, M'comm triggers a kill command on the control discs of his metahumans which causes their own powers to kill them.
- False Flag Operation: M'comm disguises himself as Orion and trades with the bugs, only to renege on the deals and attack them when they object, thus stirring dissent between the New Gods and the bugs.
- Floating Continent: The New Gods live in the floating city on New Genesis, while the bugs dwell on the land.
- Hate Plague: Downplayed with M'comm, who uses his telepathy to make the bugs more prone to violence when dealing with them.
- I Surrender, Suckers: M'comm feigns a desire for redemption during his Battle in the Center of the Mind with M'gann, only to attack her when she lets her guard down. M'gann saw this coming, however, and blocks the attack before overwhelming him.
- No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Forager helps the heroes but, in doing so, he is not only a target for M'comm, but M'comm's actions cause Mantis to be confused. As a result, Mantis declares Forager a traitor to the Hive and threatens to kill him and the others if they are ever sighted again on New Genesis. Bear somberly states that Forager is no longer welcome on the planet as a whole.
- Shout-Out: M'comm refers to him taking the name Ma'alefa'ak to frighten the Green Martians, as 'They are a superstitious and cowardly lot' is a reference to Batman's famous 'Criminals are a superstitious and cowardly lot.'
- Villain: Exit, Stage Left: M'comm kills his metahumans as a distraction then phases through the ground to escape.
