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.
