I just watched the premiere of the Young Justice on Cartoon Network. As a standalone cartoon, I thought it was great — lots of fun and quite enjoyable. As a huge fan of the Young Justice and Teen Titans comics, I had some problems with it. I’ll definitely be watching the series regularly and have high hopes for it, but I’ll have to get used to some things. Here are some binary thoughts on the premiere.
Bad: Using Earth-16 as the show’s setting gives the writers a lot of freedom. It also allows the writers to piss off fans of the mainline comics. As I mentioned earlier in the week, the show mixes elements of Young Justice and the Teen Titans books. In some cases, it takes the best of both worlds (5150). In other cases, the writers unnecessarily create new elements that will annoy comic-book fanboys (like me).
Good: The premiere was well paced, with snappy writing and fun action. The team is a good mix, with Robin providing the book smarts and Aqualad bringing calm wisdom. Kid Flash wasn’t defined well and Superboy didn’t add much (which makes sense from a storytelling perspective). I’m confident that Supes will come along, but I worry about KF being redundant (more on this later). I’m really looking forward to Miss Martian, as she’s one of my favorite characters in the current Teen Titans books…and green chicks are totally hot.
Bad: This complaint has everything to do with me being a fanboy. Although the Robin in the Young Justice cartoon is supposed to be Dick Grayson, he’s more like an amalgamation of the first three Robins. Like Dick, he has incredible acrobatic skills and reacts well in most situations. Like Jason Todd, he’s impetuous and sometimes acts without thinking things through. Like Tim Drake — one of my favorite characters over the last few years — he’s a skilled computer hacker. I really don’t like this mix. I wish the writers went with a pure version of Tim Drake; in the comics he’s the least physically powerful member of the team, but his leadership, computer skills, maturity, and intellect make him the perfect leader. In the cartoon he’s kind of an impetuous and goofy kid that can flip around and hack computers.
Good: I like the Aqualad is the smart one in the group…mostly because I like that the brown kid is the mature and logical one.
Bad: Would someone explain to me why Aqualad is brown? If he spends most of his time underwater, I don’t see how he (or his ancestors) can maintain a tan.
Good: I loved Speedy’s (Green Arrow’s sidekick) portrayal. He was excellent as the rebellious youth.
Bad: Sadly, Speedy bails 11 minutes into the show and it doesn’t look like he’ll be a regular.
Bad: What’s up with Young Justice being Batman’s covert operations team? I suppose this makes the show a mix of Young Justice, Teen Titans, and The Outsiders, but shouldn’t Bats use…I don’t know…adults for covert-ops missions?!? Perhaps Batman was watching too many episodes of 21 Jump Street when he came up with this brilliant idea.
Bad: I worry about Kid Flash being redundant. While I like that Robin and Kid Flash have a tight rapport (Dick Grayson and Wally West are best friends in the comics), they were too similar in the premiere. It made me wish that the writers used Impulse (Bart Allen) instead. Bart’s goofy innocence — kid was raised in the future in a lab and doesn’t quite understand how the world works — would have made for a more distinct character. Then again, the “not understanding the world” thing would have conflicted with Superboy (a clone) and Miss Martian (a…uh…Martian).
Even though I listed more bad things than good, I’m really looking forward to watching more Young Justice. I just have to get used to the show’s setting and the spin on characters I know so well from the comics. I’m sure it will be fun and, at the very least, I’m sure I’ll dig all the cameos by the adult heroes.
If you happened to watch the premiere, let’s talk it up! I’d love to hear your thoughts on Young Justice.
I have this DVR'd, and will hopefully get a chance to watch this soon. Will comment here right after I can see it.
i also have this recorded but i haven't gotten around to watching it. i'll try to watch it tonight.
So i watched Young Justice and eh im not sure about this yet. I never read the Young Justice or Teen Titans comics; so this was a fresh beginning for me. I didn't like Speedy being a whiny little B. it reminded me of Anakin complaining about being on the Jedi Council but not being the rank of Master.
I liked Robin if you wouldn't have told me that this is supposed to be Dick Grayson, I would've thought this was Tim Drake from the Teen Titans cartoon that was on Cartoon Network earlier.
I like the twist of Aqualad being so assertive and calm it looks like he will be the leader of Young Justice. Idk about him being brown either but i think they had to meet their equal opportunity quota. You know the same reason Static Shock was created.
I think this would've sold me more if it was an hour premiere and not a half hour. the story seemed rushed. i felt a little lost as why should i care what project cadmus is and that the created a cloned superman? you know.
Speedy was inline with the comics. He rebels against Green Arrow, starts a crappy band, and becomes a heroin addict. I kind of liked his portrayal.
Cadmus cloning Superman is borrowed (and altered) from the comics. The company started cloning attempts when Doomsday killed Superman. They couldn't successfully clone a pure Kryptonian so half of Superboy's DNA is from Superman and the other half is from Lex Luthor. I wonder if they'll do the same in the cartoon.
Also, it was one hour. Did you watch it at double speed? :P
Really??? that was an hour??? i was fast forwarding through the commercials that it felt like a half hour show. I remember that from the Superman/Doomsday storyline but it's like if kids were watching it for the first time and didn't read the comics how would they know that. Sometimes i think some comic adaptations fail because of this, they assume the audience already knows what will be going on so don't bother with some type of back story or don't stay true enough with the original source material and turn off the hardcore fans that are keeping the show afloat.
They explained it quickly in the episode. In the cartoon the reasoning is that he was cloned in case the real Supes died or went bad. *shrug*
yeah i guess that's good enough. i was still confused but eh maybe i'm overthinking it.
Biologically it doesn't make sense for Aqualad to be dark skinned at all.
Over all I liked it, but I am confused. Is this a one time movie, or a show. Because they kept calling it a movie during commercials and stuff. @Tokz- I agree, there were tons of commercials during this.
I also agree that it felt a little wrong that Batman was basically making these kids his recon team, but they are superheros though, and should be up for the task. Overall I liked the show and felt like it did seem more like some of the movies I have seen recently that are similar to this, not so much like a cartoon tv show. I liked that a lot!
It was a "movie" to launch the series. Regular half-hour episodes start in January.
@bsu
this Aqualad is not Aquaman's biological son.
That still doesn't explain why there are brown people underwater.
@Tokz
That may be, I was meaning biologically his body would not have stayed that dark if he were in those areas under the sea…even if he is black, his skin would not still look like that after being under the ocean for a decent period of time.
you know the only thing i can say is that he was born that way. His skin color is brown, just because you live in cloudy areas or areas away from the sun doesn't mean your skin color is going to fade away to be white again.
Why would his ancestors have brown skin if they all lived underwater?
YOU KNOW WHAT I'M DONE AND THAT'S FINE. THAT'S FINE. THAT'S FINE.
HAHAHA. All I can say is it is due to them wanting some diversity and not thinking through the biology behind their choice.
AND THAT'S FINE.
@rpad
whatever happened to that post on tbp's you had read awhile back?
my gf asked for an xmas list and i want to put some tpb's on there.
The art is ready. I just haven't gotten around to writing them yet. I'll likely do one batch tonight then I'll get to the Teen Titans stuff.
oh ok. i'll wait. i'm itching to pick up Final Crisis: Legion of Three Worlds it's 10.19 on Amazon.
Speaking of which did you get credit for an ipod touch order yesterday?
I did! Thanks so much!!! That was a nice surprise.