Season Review: Young Justice: Outsiders

Was one of Greg Wiseman’s best shows worth a comeback?

In December of 2016, longtime fans made a demand in the form of a petition for another season of Greg Wiseman’s (who has a decent track record of making great animated shows that never make it past Season 3 or 4) Young Justice. For those of you who haven’t seen it, is a more adult & contemporary take on the Teen Titans. Seven years after the show presumably ended it’s run on Cartoon Network in 2012, low & behold it finally happened. But was it worth the wait? Yes, yes, and more yes!

Taking place two years after the end of season two when Kid Flash/Wally West sacrificed his life to save everyone during the “Reach Alien Crisis”, humanity for a while reached a level of peace until the rise of meta-humans. (basically DC’s answer to Marvel’s Mutants) And consequently, this rise along with the existence of their powers becoming publically known has caused all sorts of social & political problems. What I loved about the previous series and this current season is while it excels in terms of drama and characters being assholes towards one another due to the consequences of certain character actions, much of it felt earned more than any drivel CW craps out that thinks it’s catering to DC fans yet shoe-horns annoying female romantic leads that have no place in the narrative.

Rather, this season pulled out all the stops and is finally given a chance cut loose by delving into mature issues like the introduction of LGBTQ characters & relationships, child abuse, death, and whether or not any form of manipulation can be justified for “the greater good”. If I have any major complaints, it’s that this series tends to flaunt a slew of guest appearances from numerous characters for no apparent reason.  Like, what’s the point of inserting characters like Arrowette, Spoiler or even Plastic Man when you can’t even give these characters so much as a damn speaking role? At least Guy Gardner made the cut and he was easily one of the funniest characters in Young Justice: Outsiders.

Aside from some minor flaws within the show such as Superboy & Miss Martian’s will/they won’t they dynamic due to Miss Martian’s frequent excuses to keep lying to people, or the lack of speaking roles for lesser-known or obscure heroes who are reduced to background characters, I highly recommend this series. But if you are new, you could easily get lost if you haven’t already seen the previous seasons that delve into who’s who and the consistent character growth everyone has had over the past few years as some parts of the plot take place within time-skips to show the actual character growth and their personal everyday struggles.

We’re very much looking forward to the already announced fourth season.