WARNING: The following article contains spoilers for "Antisocial Pathologies," Episode 22 of Young Justice: Outsiders, streaming now on DC Universe.
When Young Justice: Outsiders first introduced Dr. Helga Jace, she came across as a concerned figure in the life of Prince Brion of Markovia. With his parents murdered and his younger sister, Tara, missing after a kidnapping years earlier, Brion turned to Helga for help. Of course, her assistance came in the form of turning Brion into a metahuman, leading to the former prince to become the superhero Geo-Force.
However, recent episodes of Young Justice: Outsiders have shown Helga is keeping a secret that is tied to the supervillain Ultra-Humanite. And now that the DC Universe animated series has pulled back the curtain on the dangerous Anti-Life Equation, viewers finally learn just how deep Helga's obsession with the Markov siblings runs -- and it's downright creepy.
Halo, Geo-Force and Terra are held captive by Helga, Ultra-Humanite and Gretchen Goode, with control chips turning Geo-Force and Terra into mind-controlled slaves. Once they're all taken to Gretchen's X-Pit underneath her house, she explains how Halo is the key to solving the Anti-Life Equation. According to Gretchen, Life minus Free Will equals Anti-Life, but the Ghost Dimension plus Halo also equals Anti-Life.
To test her theory, Gretchen pushes Helga out into the torturous X-Pit. This is when Halo uses her Mother Box powers to ease Helga's pain. Gretchen then asks Helga if there are any truths she'd like to share with her children, Brion and Tara. Helga begins to spill all her dirty secrets, with the major takeaway that she considers Brion and Tara to be her children, her creations.
After Tara was kidnapped by Baron Bedlam, he brought her to Helga, where she turned Tara into a metahuman. Bedlam eventually took Tara from her, which drove Helga to seek revenge by manipulating Brion into becoming a metahuman.
Halo was formerly a Markovian woman named Gabrielle who worked for the Markovs. She was taken prisoner after witnessing the death of Brion's parents, which allowed Helga to test her for the meta-gene. Once Gabrielle came up negative, Helga disposed of her by injecting with an overdose of morphine. However, Gabrielle survived and started exhibiting superpowers, leading Helga to theorize the morphine activated her meta-gene and turned Gabrielle into another of her offspring.
In order to stay close to Brion and Halo, while locating Tara, Helga seduces Black Lightning. Helga's weird obsession with Brion, Tara and Halo being reborn as her children is shattered when it's revealed Gabrielle is not her creation after all -- she is really the host of a Mother Box's spirit. When Halo starts dating Brion, she again manipulates events by telling Halo she's dying, driving a wedge between the two kids. Helga turns Halo over to Ultra-Humanite in exchange for a clean exit for herself, Brion and Tara, where she can continue creating metahumans to expand her twisted family.
Fans familiar with Helga Jace from the comics and the Black Lightning CW TV series knew it was only a matter of time before the doctor showed her evil ways, but Young Justice: Outsiders adds an extra layer to her character by turning her into an obsessed surrogate mother of metahuman kids. Even though she sees Brion and Tara as her kids, she still manipulated them for her own selfish, greedy needs. But now that the truth is out in the open, Brion and Tara break free of their control chips and fight back.
Unfortunately, Helga escapes with Ultra-Humanite to continue her dirty deeds, although her fixation with the Markovs surely won't end here. Her experience with creating metahumans will be of valuable use to The Light, who can put her to work creating more metahumans out of kidnapped kids and teenagers. With Helda on The Light's side, the war between the villains and DC's superheroes just got a lot more personal.
New episodes of Young Justice: Outsiders premiere Tuesdays throughout the summer on DC Universe.