It’s 3:04 pm
hot
After watching the first season of Riverdale,the cheetah and I decided to stay in fanboy mode and dive into the second season of “Young Justice” which our deep cover informant at Warner Brothers Archives managed to sneak to us before vanishing once again. He was mumbling something about meeting some dude named Sam Spade and a weird falcon…..
When we last left our heroes,they were overcoming not only a huge attack on the combined forces of Young Justice and the Justice League by the group known as The Light,a betrayal by a ally but six members of the Justice League were captured and brainwashed for 16 hours and no one knows what happened during that time….
The second season picks up 5 years later and things have changed rather dramatically.
Young Justice has a brand new line-up as Aqualad has left while Nightwing (Dick Grayson) has taken the leadership role of the team. There is still a Robin but its Tim Drake and he is joined by at least 10 other other young superheroes during this season.
These include Beast Boy,Impulse,Wonder Girl,Batgirl and Static. These heroes meet the holdovers from the original team which includes Superboy and Miss Martian as well as Artemis.
Where the first season featured a central arc of Young Justice slowly discovering they were battling The Light,a cabal of the world’s most dangerous super-villains. But there were a a lot of standalone episodes as well. But season is a season long arc of one story and that the invasion of Earth by the alien race known as The Reach. The Reach is in an uneasy alliance with The Light and just as in season,the reveal is slow and methodical.
Now a lot of fans might have found this show late like I did and upon first viewing be totally confused by seeing a lot of familiar faces in totally different roles and ages. It’s important to note that Young Justice is not set in the DCAU but is in fact taking place on Earth-16. Marvel and DC both have created multi-verses for their comic creations as there are so many stories to tell but impossible for just one single character to pull them off thus the creation of multi-verses. This will explain why certain characters have completely different origin stories then what the average superhero fan has read or seen in earlier DCAU shows.
Several themes are explored in this season of Young Justice – loss,revenge,slavery,betrayal,self-discovery,vengeance and sacrifice all take center stage at one point during the season. As I pointed out in my review of The Brave and the Bold‘s second season and other TV shows and films,DC is not afraid of going dark and death is not avoided. It’s one thing to show it happening to adults on a animated show but to teens? It’s old hat among Japanese anime but its still rather surprising to see it on an American series.
Along with the new set of teammates and villains comes a whole crop of voice talent which is yet another of DC Animation greatest strengths. I truly believe that voice acting is what has truly elevated DC shows to such great acclaim and why their shows are light years ahead of Marvel. The knack of finding established actors like Danica McKellar,Jason O’Mara,Bruce Greenwood and in this second season,Mae Whitman as Wonder Girl only shows just how committed DC is in bringing every show to its fullest potential.
Of course its sort of frustrating to find out that “Young Justice” was cancelled due to a toy deal with Mattel falling flat and causing Mattel to pull it’s funding for the show. Disheartening to know that cartoons are left to the mercy of toy makers,you can have a kick ass show but if the toys being pushed don’t sell……
Lucky for us that a third season has and is on the way and will debut on the Warner Brothers/DC streaming service in 2019 with all of the cast coming back. This also gives us fans hope that maybe “The Brave and the Bold” and also be revived! Time will tell….
“Young Justice -Season Two” consists of 20 episodes and includes cast and crew commentary on a pair of episodes along with interviews with the show’s developers Greg Weisman and Brandon Vietti.
You can buy both seasons as well as all DCAU titles by visiting the Warner Brothers website.
The cheetah and I are huge fans of DC Animation and we both give this release two thumbs/4 paws straight up!
We would love to hear your thoughts on the second of Young Justice,so drop us a comment and say “hello”.
The Inner Circle 