Saturday, March 28, 2015

Saturday Ramble- Young Justice

I was flipping through my Netflix queue the other day and stumbled across Young Justice, a superhero animated tv show following the adventures of a teen-aged cadre of superhero sidekicks. DC has had several teams like this in their lineup, typically under the name of the Teen Titans, but Young Justice was different from the get go. Only their first season was on the streaming service, but I enjoyed it.

I picked an episode at random when I noticed that the show is getting pulled from Netflix soon... March 30th, 2015 to be precise. That made me sad... and so I thought I'd take an entry to say why, exactly, this series was so good.

DC Animated has always had a knack for getting into the heads of their various characters, showing a self-awareness their movies could certainly stand to learn from, all the while never losing the fun of having a bunch of folks with superpowers in funny outfits running around.  Young Justice took that self-awareness and applied it to the very idea of the superhero sidekick in a way that I had never seen before.

The main characters of the Team (at least in season 1) are Robin, Kid Flash, Aqualad, Superboy, Miss Martian and Artemis. The team initially forms when a number of superhero sidekicks are offered membership to the Justice League, only to learn that said membership entirely ceremonial... they still are not being recognized as full heroes nor made privy to League secrets. They react to this by taking on a mission on their own initiative, which leads them to discover a secret organization plotting against the Justice League, and in so doing gain the grudging respect of the League, forcing them to at least recognize that the newly forming group has some merit.

Over time, the League comes to see the Team as a covert ops group, and as well as a training ground for younger heroes.  So far, no different from any other similar franchise, but as always, the devil is in the details. Young Justice found an incredible balance of comic book action and teen drama, writing characters that were both recognizably teenagers AND recognizably heroes, with interactions that played enough in sitcom humor to stay lighthearted while tackling real worries both on a personal and global scale.

It didn't end with the teenagers, either. Often, shows that take the "No One Takes Us Seriously!" route turn adults into the real foils, but not so here. The Justice League take on the role of teachers, mentors, and (when needed) protectors of their younger counterparts. They sometimes underestimate the Team's abilities, or maturity, but never come across as completely dismissive of the younger ones. Even if one member dismisses them, another will take their back, creating a beautifully fluid dynamic between the main cast and their support network.

Nowhere is that dynamic more beautifully shown than in the character of Captain Marvel, also known (for dizzying copyright reasons) as Shazaam. One of the founding members of the league in this continuity, the Captain possesses an incredible amount of power and wisdom, but unbeknownst to the Team (or even most of the League) uses that magic to transform between the Super-powered Captain and his secret identity... the ten year old Billy Batson.

The addition of a League Member who is also ten years old creates yet another dynamic to explore. To most ten year olds, getting to hang out with teenagers is a dream come true, and so Captain Marvel keeps showing up even when he ISN'T technically on duty with the Team, just because he thinks they're a lot of fun. (There is a GREAT scene where Cap shows up in Zombie makeup to go out on Halloween night with the Team, only to learn her isn't invited, and so storms off saying that he is going Trick or Treating and isn't going to share his candy with ANYbody.)

The show is NOT without its faults. Kid Flash's overly-flirty shtick quickly loses it's charm and walks a very dangerous line with sexual harassment, and the show playing it for laughs in a "boys will be boys" way is the sort of thing a show like this should have known better than to do. Kid Flash sort of grows out of it, but is never really called out for it and you figure eventually one of his female teammates (or at least team Trainer, Black Canary, who ALSO gets some of his lines) would have told him to knock it off, already, instead of waving it away with a stereotypical "oh, boys," female eyeroll.

The use of romance in general is hit or miss. They manage to do some interesting things with the dynamic between Miss Martian and Superboy (including a dressing down for Superboy when he tries to be her protector, rather than teammate) but the hate to love dynamic between Artemis and Wally is a tad over-played sitcom. The best relationship is probably between Zatanna (a later addition) and Robin, in that it is only just barely there in a way that seems somewhat fitting for the age group. The addition of Rocket in the second to last episode, however, felt so strange until the end of the final episode, when it seems like she's just there because SOMEONE has to kiss Aqualad, darnnit!  Still, given the usual miscues that comics can make with the concepts of romance and sexual harassment, Young Justice seems nearly revolutionary.

The show did well for itself during it's primary run on Cartoon Network, including some Emmy nods and even a win for animation. It got pulled rather unexpectedly, and some of the theory is that it was because the fanbase it was pulling was largely female... which supposedly doesn't by superhero toys. (And here I thought I'd been hanging out with some girls all my life. Turns out I haven't been... they all liked toys!)

So if you haven't already, give it a look before it vanishes from the Webs. I promise you it's worthwhile, warts and all. I'm going to be looking for a way to get hard copies of my own, because I honestly don't know if DC has another Young Justice in them, and so I'd like to have it available for any teenagers I care about to see.

So long as everyone understands that Kid Flash's behavior is NOT acceptable, that is.

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