Justice is served - Young Justice, that is. Five years ago, after Nightwing, Kid Flash, and the rest of the gang saved Earth from a n alien invasion, the series ended its run on Cartoon Network, much to the dismay of its fans. Now the team is back to face new mysteries and threats, with more teen heroes, on the upcoming digital service DC Universe. Brandon Vietti and Greg Weisman, the show’s tight-lipped creators, are keeping more of the details under wraps, but here’s what we know.
There’s a big time jump… Because the series focuses on generations of super heroes inspired by those before them, Vietti used the passage of time to help with storytelling. “The interplay, the mentor-mentee relationships and the growth of characters - these kinds of stories can only be played out over long periods,” he says. The flash-forward serves another purpose. “We create mysteries,” says Vietti. “What happened in the years that we did not see?”
…so the original team is older now. “What’s cool and different about our show is that you see our characters aging,” Weisman notes. For instance, Dick Grayson (aka Nightwing) was 13 at the start of the series. “Now,” says Weisman, “He’s entering his twenties.”
There will be 26 new episodes. “It helps us with character development,” Vietti says of the expanded season, featuring six more episodes than the previous installment. “[We have time] to keep the forward motion in our larger stories but take breaks to do a side story that focuses more on characters. The relationships are important to the show.”
Great heroes will emerge. The creators won’t tell us who all the new faces are yet, but they did drop some names (which may be familiar to diehard DC fans):
Spoiler In Season 2, Batgirl, Robin, Bumblebee, Superboy, and others saved a young girl named Stephanie Brown from the Reach - a species of villainous alien invaders. Stephanie’s saviors have since inspired her to don a costume and become Spoiler. Though she doesn’t have special powers, she’s a skilled martial artist.
Thirteen “She’s a fun character who has inherited some natural [mystic] ability,” notes Vietti. Thirteen is also training with magician Zatanna as her mentor.
Forager Based on legendary comics creator Jack Kirby’s superstrong New Gods character, Forager is slightly unusual for Young Justice. “We generally have a very serious tone; it’s about secrets, lies, and double-crosses. So it’s fun to be able to introduce a character with a certain charm,” says Phil Bourassa, the show’s lead character designer. Bourassa adds that Forager is “pretty cute, and we don’t do cute a lot.”
This season is subtitled Outsiders for a reason. Though the name is a nod to DC’s history (see box at right), it also perfectly describes the new generation of butt-kickers. “We wanted to explore this world we built over the first two seasons through the eyes of characters who aren’t sidekicks and aren’t born to be heroes,” Vietti says. “It’s about a different group of kids who were developing powers and didn’t know what they wanted to do in life, and how they see the world. It gives our first- and second-season characters the opportunity to step into the lives of these outsiders and help guide them to a better future.”
The plot will focus on metahuman trafficking. Various types of bad guys, including aliens, evil corporations, and corrupt governments all over Earth, are harvesting metas (aka super heroes) “for terrible purposes,” Vietti says. “This is very much in the public eye, and it’s a scary world to grow up in, especially if you have the meta gene.” It’s not just a problem at home, either. Weisman explains: “It’s going on throughout the rest of the galaxy, as alien races have learned that Earth is a source of weaponized individuals.”
The show is going back to its spy and mystery roots. “That was heavily featured in Season 1,” Weisman says, “but not Season 2, which was about an alien invasion. We always considered this a show about young people first, spies second, and superheroes third.” The return to the espionage theme gave Bourassa a chance to go dark, literally: “The characters’ costumes have a stealth look,” he explains. “The team members are sacrificing their identities by being all in black uniforms. At [the beginning] they’re trying to not be recognized as super heroes at all.”
Lex Luthor will return. Superman’s arch enemy is now the UN Secretary. “At the end of our second season, he was able to help, in his way, all our heroes with the Reach invasion,” Vietti says. “He did this in a very public way to put himself in a politically advantageous position.”
There may be more Justice in the world. “We have a bunch more storeis we want to tell,” Weisman says, “so we hope we get a fourth season.”
Since the revival was announced in 2016, fans have been wondering about that Outsiders subtitle. Turns out it has a dual meaning: not only are the characters outsiders in the super hero game, but some storylines got their inspiration from previous DC comic books. While Young Justice’s new season doesn’t completely echo the classic Batman team from the ‘60s, “there are definitely elements we are adapting from the Mike Barr and Jim Aparo Outsiders comic,” Weisman says. “We borrow from throughout DC’s 80-year history. It’s a little New Teen Titans, a little Outsiders, and all sorts of other stuff. We’re very eclectic.”
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The team will continue to operate out of the Watchtower alongside the older and more established heroes of the Justice League. Weisman says we’ll see an expanded League this season but adds, “They’re stretched very thin. That forces the young heroes to take up the slack.”
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