Lord Yellowtail's Writing Room

Content-wise, Young Justice animated is really, really neat. It’s a fresh take on a lot of characters, and gets us a lot of characters in animated form that we never had before, with some very involved and well developed plot and character arcs. It’s arguably the most comic-like animated DC thing we’ve gotten, in a good way.

My problem with it is that it’s actually called Young Justice. Because it isn’t. Peter David’s Young Justice comic book was about a nearly entirely different group of characters and told a massively different story, about a bunch of misfit superpowered kids who were sort of adrift and alone coming together and being each other’s family when they didn’t always have anyone else. It was mostly lighthearted but these were still the proteges of the world’s greatest heroes and they had spine when they needed it and would stand up to Darkseid, the Justice League, or the US Government if it was that kind of day—and win not because they were hardened mini-badasses, but because they were crazy awesome adorable badasses. It was incredibly heartwarming, and sweet, and took a handful of frankly ridiculous characters and made you care about them as real people. And there were supporting cast that mattered. Cissie walked away from being a superhero in a dramatic and well written storyline and went on to have a successful and happy life doing what she wanted, not letting her mother make her something she didn’t want to be, and that was shown in a positive light. It was fun because it knew when not to take itself seriously, and when it absolutely had to take itself seriously, and probably one of the best comics I’ve ever read.

It was like the Wonder Years for teenage superheroes.

The animated series has an almost completely different cast, and a massively different tone and plot. The team doesn’t even assemble the same way. It’s more like a (very AU) adaptation of the comic book Teen Titans than anything else, with elements Young Justice thrown in almost as justification to use the name.

Cissie—Arrowette—doesn’t even exist in the cartoon, apparently. Secret isn’t a founding member of the team/the reason they came together. According to someone who watches the show regularly, it’s more like YJ was formed by the Justice League as a sort of black ops group to do the things the League couldn’t do to avoid negative publicity. (What.)

The Young Justice that I grew up with had a very specific, wonderful sort of heart. For all that the animated series is actually pretty amazing in terms of content, it does NOT have that heart and shouldn’t be hijacking the name.