Breaking News (DC Super Hero Girls)

"#Breaking News" is the forty-first episode in season 1 of DC Super Hero Girls.

Plot

Lois Lane tries to secure an internship at the Daily Planet but her assignment to unmask the Super Hero Girls forces them to get creative.

Why It's Broken

1. This episode is very mean-spirited to the Super Hero Girls as they are forced to hide their secret identities from Lois Lane.
2. It's the DC Super Hero Girls version of both the original Powerpuff Girls episode, Girls Gone Mild as it contains the main female characters being forced to stop fighting crime and using their powers and the infamous SpongeBob episode, One Coarse Meal as both episodes involving the rival (Mr. Krabs and Lois Lane) scaring the heck out of their victims (The Super Hero Girls and Plankton).
3. Some of the characters (except Diana, Kara, Barbara, Zee, Karen and Jimmy) are badly portrayed compared to their original comic book counterparts.
   • Lois Lane is at her absolute worst in this episode and her flanderization in G2 of the DCSHG franchise is dialed up to eleven as she went from an aggressive, career-minded, yet hard-working and beautiful news reporter who is Clark Kent's love interest in the original comics to a totally unlikable Mary Sue-typed killjoy creep who loves to destroy the superheroes' hopes and dreams by exposing them and was extremely careless about Metropolis being attacked just for an internship at the Daily Planet which shows that she exposes the girls at really poor timing and how completely stupid and very out of character this incarnation of Lois Lane really is up to the point where she not only overshadowed the killer moths as the true major antagonist of this episode but also her behavior makes her such a huge bully towards the heroes that could give Big Tex from Buddy Thunderstruck (who did the same thing Lois did in Get the Hock Out by forcing Buddy and Darnell to steal people's stuff using his illegal "methods"), Courtney from Total Drama, Mr. Krabs from SpongeBob, and Lynn Loud Jr. from The Loud House a run of their money.
   • Hal Jordan and Barry Allen have no apparent reason to be in this episode as they both appeared in this episode for filler and for Hal to be a bit of a hypocrite as he can't spell his surname "Jordan" correctly, yet he spells his surname correctly seconds later and for Barry just to make a continuity error involving the four-part episode, Sweet Justice, where he was talking to Jessica, Zee and Karen talking about the moment where he saw the Super Hero Girls when in Sweet Justice, he was actually getting Sweet Justice's lawyer before the girls changed into their superhero suits when the city robots showed up at the restaurant.
     • For some reason, neither any of the girls' friends (like Garth, Haleen, Tatsu, and their parents) even appear in this episode to defend them over their problem with Lois, leaving the girls to be stuck in Lois' shadows.
   • Much like Crushing It, Rage Cat and Retreat, Jessica is very hypocritically out of character since she threatens to beat up Hal Jordan and yet she told Kara that beating up Lois is "way too far" even though in Sweet Justice, she doesn't believe in violence.
4. There are times that contracted the previous episodes of the series, mostly the scene where Lois Lane refuses to make a newspaper of the girls defeating killer moths by throwing the pictures in the bin which contradicted Super Who where she was the one who made newspapers of the superheroes and doesn't even expose them until this episode.
5. Countless Plot Holes:
   • How can Jessica and Karen didn't get caught by Lois when they wear a Wonder Woman costume?
   • Diana Prince said that the day the Super Hero Girls are forced to stay in Sweet Justice, is their last visit to the restaurant, she never even explains why this was her last visit, is it property because her biological mother, Queen Hippolyta coming to pick her up and ground her like she did in Sweet Justice or is she leaving Metropolis in favor of finding a new town like Kara is planning to?
   • Jessica thinks that they're going to be in so much trouble when their parents find out when in reality, some supportive parents of the girls and everyone who got their lives saved by them are property going to complain and give lawsuits to the Daily Planet for Lois’ actions towards the main heroes and that everyone in Metropolis was in danger without them.
   • Doesn't Lois even know that sending stories about exposing any superheroes can get herself into real trouble, if anything, the Daily Planet couldn't probably allow Lois to join them and get arrested dealing with lawsuits from the Super Hero Girls' parents and other people who got their lives saved by them.
6. The Super Hero Girls didn't think about going to Mr. Chapin's office to tell him or call any of their parents or the cops that Lois Lane is spying on them and invading their piracy, thus making Lois get away Scot-free in this episode.
   • Speaking of, Mr. Chapin, the principal of the school for some reason doesn't appear in this episode at all which doesn't make any sense since Lois ruined the main girls' reputations of their daily lives and Chapin could've given Lois a talk, suspend her from school and possibly fire her as editor-in-chief for what she did to the Superhero Girls.
7. Lazy writing which makes it feel more like a Ron the Death Eater fanfic towards Lois Lane than an actual episode. Not surprisingly enough that this episode was actually written by one of the writers of DuckTales (2017) and the later writer of the second season of Kid Cosmic, Colleen Evanson, which is not a good way to start work as a writer of this show.
   • One question: Has she even watched a single episode of DC Super Hero Girls? Of course, this is Evanson's first episode written. But still.
   • Phil Allora's direction of the episode is also very poor due to how poorly handled the episode is similar to the Turbo F.A.S.T episodes, Hawaii Five-No and Crew Detective, the two episodes he directed.
8. Almost all the other superheroes (especially Da Invinci-Bros and Clark Kent (Superman)) literally wouldn’t even care about the killer moths that are attacking Metropolis which is clearly stupid and out-of-character of them since they could've just come to Metropolis and stop the moths as a backup plan for the Super Hero Girls since they are being forced to stop fighting crime and using their powers by Lois Lane, as a matter of fact, why did this episode act like if the Super Hero Girls were the only heroes who can defeat the killer moths.
9. This episode somehow doesn't know much about the comics or any DC media which is ironic since this show is from DC comics such as Lois Lane's Flanderization in this show or Zatanna saying that the mind webbing spell is super hard even though she used it in other DC media featuring her.
10. Unfunny humor to the point where it was actually mean-spirited like the "Wrong Notebook Ladies" scene which never even explains how she got two notebooks containing her writing.
11. The scenes where Diana and Barbara eat with their mouths open and Kara picking her teeth with a toothpick are quite disgusting to look at.
12. This episode also shows that this incarnation of Lois Lane is a huge hypocrite since in Shock It to Me, she dislikes getting bullied by Livewire and being laughed at, yet she bullies the Superhero Girls just to expose them in this episode and Super Who where she rejects the idea of a "Supergirl" story and calls it "retread".
13. A news headline error which said that "Killer Moth and Her Army of Moths Attack Metropolis" which can confuse DC fans, thinking that Killer Moth has his gender switch in this show when in reality, Killer Moth is actually a male.
14. This episode had ruined Lois Lane's reputation as a character in this show as it's not only Lois' last appearance in season 1 until Cruz Control in Season 2 unlike Lynn Loud Jr. in No Such Luck and Seymour Skinner in The Principal and the Pauper who appeared in later episodes after their worst episodes, but her actions in this episode alone are one of the main reasons why this incarnation of Lois Lane received negative reception from many Lois Lane fans (though the show’s incarnation of Lois improved in the second season due to the backlash surrounding this episode).

Redeeming Qualities

1. Decent ending as the girls is able to fight crime and Lois Lane deletes the email and protects the girls' secret, though it ruined with Lois' trying to expose Clark Kent as seen in a newspaper.
2. Most of the Superhero Girls (apart from Jessica) are the most likable characters in the episode as they have the right reasons on why they tried to stop Lois from exposing them.
3. This was Killer Moth's first appearance in the show.
4. The animation is good as always much like the other Jam Filled animated episodes.
5. Lois Lane thankfully redeems herself in the season 2 episode, Cruz Control after her Flanderization in Season 1 of the show.
6. A few funny scenes such as the cafeteria scene involving the girls dancing in front of Lois.

Reception

Despite some positive reception and ratings including it receiving a 8.0/10 on IMDb, it received negative reviews by fans of the DC Super Hero Girls series and even fans of Lois Lane due to Lois herself being flanderized as an antagonist who exposes the superheroes at bad timing and barely get any comeuppance for her actions, the Superhero Girls' harsh treatment, the other students and superheroes doesn't seem to care about the girls' problem or the moths that are attacking Metropolis, and very lazy writing (ironically it was written by Colleen Evanson of DuckTales 2017 fame) to the point of being considered one of (if not) the worst DC Super Hero Girls episodes, with a few, even calling this episode as bad or worse than other bad episodes from season 1, especially Crushing It, Retreat, Drama Queen, Tween Titans, and Scrambled Eggs.

As mentioned earlier, due to this episode’s negative reception, this was the final appearance of Lois Lane in the first season, being reduced to appearing in the graphic novel, Midterms and the Nintendo Switch video game, Teen Power, that is until the season 2 episode, "Cruz Control" which makes Lois’ personally closer to her comic book counterpart as opposed to a Mary Sue killjoy as seen in the first season of the show.