Young Justice: quite whelming
With the line up, the title of the show, and pretty much any simple guess – you would think the tv show Young Justice would be an animated version of David and DeZago’s comic series Young Justice. Funny thing, you would be wrong… but only sort of. Season one of the animated series is following the sidekicks and younger heroes of the DC world. (Where you wouldn’t be wrong, is that the comic book series is now adapting to meet up with where the animated series is taking place now in season 2) What is worth nothing, is that this series is kinda awesome.
Season one starts out with a number of sidekick’s being super excited that today is the day – they will now be a part of the Justice League. Robin, Speedy, Aqua Lad, and Kid Flash find themselves in the… parlour? entry way? of the Hall of Justice. When it is clear that all they are getting is a “glorified back-stage pass”, Speedy (who should turn his name to angsty) takes off in a huff. The others decide to check out Cadmus – where they find Superboy. Later episodes bring the addition of Miss Martian, Artemis, Zatanna, and Rocket – and they all work together in a unit called ‘The Team”. Not really clever on the naming scheme here in DC, huh.
What I don’t really understand, is that Batman set ‘the team’ up to work on covert missions. When does the Justice League not act covertly? I mean, when there is a battle going on, they go in guns blazing (so to speak), and otherwise they pretty much try to keep their poking and prodding in villains plans pretty quiet. That is exactly what this team does, only they are deployed on missions exclusively by Batman, have Red Tornado as a RA and Black Canary as their trainer.
If you’re familiar with the DC universe, this show is a bunch of cameos from names and faces you all like – heroes in the Justice League, as well as villains (I’m still a little miffed that Bane, who broke Batman’s back and took him out for years, was taken out by a 13 yr old Robin here? I guess I should be happy that he didn’t have a Scottish accent). There is some good incorporation of personalities that we’re familiar with – Wally West is a rougish kid, and Robin (who it turns out is Dick Grayson) cracks us up with his lines “You’re overwhelmed, Freeze was underwhelmed; Why isn’t anyone ever just whelmed?”, or “If dislike is the opposite of like, is disaster the opposite of aster?”.
Now, if you can get over the heavy angst (Super Boy has some father issues), this show is a lot of fun to watch; very reminiscent of the Justice League animated series from the early 2000’s. Don’t mistake this for a remake of Teen Titans – also a good series, but this is arguably much darker.
What this show also has going for it, is amazing voice acting. Alan Tudyk, Ed Asner, John (Q) deLancie to name a few- the acting is pretty top notch, and the animation is well done. Now, i’m not saying that this is the best comic book animation adaptation (Batman: The Animated Series still is #1 in my book) – but I would put this in the top 5, easily. Streaming on multiple sites and on iTunes, this is a great series to watch when you have time!
