What do I think about Young Justice?
I will start by saying that I LOVE that show. I was a little disappointed when I first heard about it. I was hoping for more of a classic Teen Titans series inspired by the Perez/Wolfman series. Some announcements were made at some point of a direct to DVD movie with the classic Titans, but alas like too often it is the case in animation, the project never saw the light of day.
Anyway, I watched the pilot when it aired and realized this was sort of a weird mix of Peter David’s Young Justice with random Teen Titans stuff thrown in. I LOVED it.
For starters, the animation in general is pretty strong. They had a few weaker shows, but even the weaker shows were pretty strong compared to, let’s say, the Avengers cartoon. And the funny thing is that the design work is pretty busy. They have some very detailed designs, but seem to have found some strong animation studios that do top notch work.
And the characters are fun.
I know that some are annoyed over Miss Martian and her "Hello Meggan" line, but I like her. Heck I have a bit of a crush on her, but don't tell Superboy. ;)
The characters act for the most part like the characters we read about in the DCU comics. Sure this has an Elseworld feel to it sometimes, but it is a lot closer to the classic DCU then the DCnU can ever hope to be.
Superman looks and acts like the classic Superman. The same with Batman.
Or Captain Marvel. You read that right. Not Shazam, Captain Marvel. Damn how that character is great in that show. And they made him great without turning him dark and grim and gritty. Can you believe that??
So overall, the characters are similar to their classic DCU counterpart.
But the best part has to be the stories.
We read about these characters countless times, and we saw a lot of stories with these characters. Either in the comic pages, or the Bruce Timm animated universe. But still they manage to keep the stories fresh and interesting, even when they adapt a story that we already read in the comics, they manage to make it fresh and surprising.
Like the rise and fall of Speedy/Arsenal for example, they make what was a stinker of a story in the comic, into a great story in the show. So not only do they seem to have a strong animation team, but they seem to have a strong writing team as well.
I hope this show will stick around for many seasons because it is wayyyyy too good of a show. Sadly it is always iffy whether a broadcaster will renew a series for a new season or not. A good example of that is the Batman Beyond TV show. It was a show with critical acclaim and good ratings. Sadly it still was cancelled. Why?
No one was buying the toys.
There was no interest in the Batman Beyond toys and merchandising. Who will buy the action figure of Bat-Fake (to quote the Joker), when you can buy the action figure of the REAL Batman. So in that case, no toy sales, no show.
Let us hope that the Young Justice show does not suffer from a similar fate.
Guess we will have to wait and see.
Until next time,
- Pierre
I was not really impressed at all with the first and second episodes. But reading your review I might give it another shot. I think something about Avengers just clicked with me more.
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