Young Justice: Season 4: Phantoms
Based on: Young Justice DC comic series by Todd Dezago, Todd Nauck, and Lary Stucker
This is one of my favorite animated series on air today, but I have to admit, it's not for everyone.
I've come to enjoy DC quite a lot for its deep lore and powerful characters, especially Superman, Aquaman, and Wonder Woman. All three are very powerful and it often takes equally powerful villains to give them a challenge, which makes for spectacular showdowns.
Young Justice takes the young versions of these characters and puts them on a team. The first season involves them proving themselves equally capable as their superiors and the rest of the series lets them take on sophisticated missions without question.
My favorite aspect of this show is that it takes both its source material and its audience seriously. Each season tackles very dark and very serious topics that I wouldn't consider suitable for young children. One of the earlier seasons involves Aqualad faking a murder of a teammate in order to be a double-agent on the villains' side. Over half the season is spent with both characters and audience alike believing this murder/betrayal; only a select handful of characters know the truth, and it's not revealed until the finale. There are intense sentiments of hurt, shock, and grieving among all the characters, and some try to get revenge on him because they aren't in the know.
Other seasons dive even deeper. Human trafficking is a central theme of an entire season, where children with powers are being kidnapped on a global scale to be exploited by nations as weapons, and not all of the victims survive. One of the biggest recurring themes of the series is grief and several main characters go through intense grieving processes in response to on-screen deaths of central teammates, and the show doesn't make it look pretty.
My other favorite aspect of Young Justice is unfortunately the thing that will make it difficult for many casual audiences: it goes very deep into DC comic lore. The series takes advantage of its animation platform and explores obscure, far reaches of character histories and origins. This feels most extreme in terms of Miss Martian and Aqualad who are from (obviously) Mars and Atlantis respectively, but it also explores planets called New Genesis and Apokolips that are central to many DC comic stories and have deep and confusing but established cultures and civilizations. The series doesn't slow down to explain things; its only concern is the plot and character arcs. I fear this may lose some audiences, but at the same time, it makes for a very exciting ride.
Season 4 dove into this trend full-force. It focused on Miss Martian, Aqualad, and a new character from New Genesis for multiple arcs, diving very deep into each region. The stories were beautifully animated and very engaging, but the audience seemed expected to understand some basic principles of Mars, Atlantis, and New Genesis culture. I personally found this to be a strength because the stories were very well written, but I could see casual viewers getting lost.
I also want to acknowledge the impressive roller-coaster ride Young Justice has been through as a TV series. It was originally developed for Cartoon Network for normal, seasonal airtime, where it debuted in 2012. After two seasons, the network cancelled it due to low toy sales figures. However, when it moved to Netflix after its cancellation, high viewership numbers and very loud fan outcry led to WB to reviving the series for the debut of its streaming service, DC Universe. The third season finally premiered on the website in 2019. HBO Max is now the hopefully-final home of the whole series, with season 4 having just finished airing exclusively on it. A 5th season hasn't yet been greenlit, but with respect to the massive fan outcry and emotional journey of rumors, cancellations, and revivals for the crew, I hope it gets more life.
Comments
Post a Comment