Monsters of Television

“Your stab at pragmatism is, well, adorable…“

So after a really long hiatus (and a slightly longer hiatus from reviewing the show because it was getting to the point where I was just consistently annoyed that writing about it kind of ruined my Friday evening a bit), Young Justice returns with probably its best episode since the pilot episodes.

“Targets” was on and off of my radar since I was always trolling about for when it would air, and then it was accidentally(?) leaked online and thus got passed around on the torrent sites, as it would, generating some buzz. I thought I had missed it when I saw it as having an air date on the show’s Wikipedia page, but was quickly informed about the episodes’s status (the air date turned out to the be day the episode has been leaked online, poking a little bit of fun at the notion of an airdate).

But now that the show back, questions arise. Apart from the fact that Cartoon Network seems to have little rhyme or reason for its scheduling habits (do they think kids don’t notice those types of things?), I wondered about the benefits of “Targets” being the first episode back after the hiatus. Certainly it has me at least vaguely interested in the show again, but I wonder if the hiatus had ended with this episode would I have spent so many months with a bad taste in my mouth, wondering why I should even bother coming back to the series. Read more »

“It makes me angry! Wanna see me channel that anger?!”

Flash would be so proud of Wally for getting beaten by Black Canary. Kid Flash: WIN

Six words: Superboy angry! Superboy smash! Noel yawn!

Okay, that’s a slight exaggeration as I did like the episode overall, but you get my point. As was mentioned earlier, Superboy is pretty much defined by his anger issues, which has made him kind of uninteresting. Not saying that he doesn’t have a right to those issues, but the show hasn’t done anything to make those issues be more than a character shorthand and not a part of Superboy’s (hopefully) larger personality.

But this episode does make steps to remedy this flatness as it allows Superboy the opportunity to begin working through his anger (and for Batman to tell Superman to, well, Superman up). Read more »

“No capes. No tights.“

Well, that was better than last week.

I’m still having problems getting a bead on Young Justice despite talking about being patient last week. Certainly “Drop-Zone” is a great deal easier to watch than “Welcome to Happy Harbor” (M’gaan is, thankfully, only in her awful civvies at the end of the episode), and it does a better job of using characters, plot, and theme to create a more fully realized unit of story.

I still quibbles, but I suspect that they have more to do with what I expect from the show than what the show actually will involve, given target demographics and, well, the age of the characters involved. Yes, I’m not crazy about the ‘shipping that is shaping up. Read more »

“Hello Megan!”

Um. Yeah. No. That wasn’t good.

Red Tornado is totally photo-blocking Young Justice's big damn heroes moment.

I’ll grade on a curve since the episode does have the difficult task of still establishing the foundation of the team’s dynamics and introducing a new character (and we still have one more team member to introduce (when does Artemis join up, and can it be sooner rather than later?) only makes me a little nervous about the show) in an episode that doesn’t allow much room to breathe, and what breathing room there is isn’t very well done.

What it boils down to is that the show itself hasn’t figure out the dynamics of its core cast yet. And this is different from the characters not having their dynamics figured out yet. One is poor planning and murky writing while the other is drama.

But is only the third episode, so there’s still time to figure all that out. Read more »

“Why isn’t anyone ever just whelmed?“

I haven’t really read comic books in years, and even then I was a Marvel guy (though I’ve been reading bits of DC lately). That said, I’ve always enjoyed DC’s animated work.  Batman The Animated Series was my Batman (and his rogues gallery, of course) more than Michael Keaton’s performance or Frank Miller’s takes. While I’m not a Superman fan, I appreciated the animated series (great voice work), and the Justice League series were very good. In fact, with the exception of The Batman (interesting ideas, but never liked the execution), I’ve enjoyed most of the DC animated series.

Needless to say, I’ve been looking forward to Young Justice for a little while. Part of this stems from the above, but the behind-the-scenes crew (Greg Weisman (Gargoyles, Spectacular Spider-Man (actually pretty good if you haven’t seen it)! Please, and thank you) is very solid as well, creating a one-two punch that really can’t be denied.

The pilot 2-parter is, as expected, well-made and entertaining from an action perspective. And while only the pilot, it hints at the narrative and character richness that marked the Justice League shows. I’m pretty optimistic about the show’s development.

Read more »