Young Justice, Green Lantern return January 5th

[Mr Light]

well they have periodic two week breaks, particularly in the summer, so this departure is taking advantage of those.

[JD]

With the ends of these and Clone Wars, my Saturdays just got a whole hell of a lot less fun, at least until Korra starts back up. I haven't watched it ages since the fifth or sixth episode, but I saw a commercial for new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle on Friday night, does that mean it's not on Saturdays anymore?

[Christopher]

JD wrote:

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...I saw a commercial for new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle on Friday night, does that mean it's not on Saturdays anymore?

New episodes are now debuting on Friday nights, but then rerunning in the show's regular Saturday 11 AM Eastern time slot.

[Gotham Central]

Oh...Green Lantern...how I will miss ye!

Razer...will get the fate that he deserves

Cartoon Network can now officially drop dead!
Its so unfair that we now won't get a 3rd season of Young Justice!

That epilogue was so frustratingly good that I can barely stand it!

DC should at least make a Young Justice animated movie. They simply cannot leave those plot threads dangling like that.

[Mr. Adventure]

Arrrgh, my DVR missed GL, I'll try to catch it tomorrow.

YJ finale was OK but I found it a bit anticlimactic. It certainly wasn't terrible but some of the notes that were struck felt more perfunctory than natural. That seems common of a lot of shows that deal with a protracted struggle. Should've known that kiss in Paris was too good to be true.

I dig that Vandal Savage character design, he looks like a cool dude. It would have been awesome to see some Apokolips and New Gods but alas...

[Christopher]

GL: I feel it was too easy for Aya to be won back over. And just saying "Hey, guess what, you're a life form too" felt like a bit of a superficial way of doing it. I would've rather seen Hal confront Aya and force her to realize that everything she did was motivated by pain, not dispassionate logic.

I'm also disappointed that we didn't see Carol return. I'd hoped that once she'd become a Star Sapphire, she'd be brought back for the big finale. I would've liked to see all the various ring corps standing together against the cosmic threat. And Carol could've played a role in convincing Aya that she was really motivated by love after all.

Speaking of emotions, it took me a moment to fully get what we saw at the end, with the blue ring flying after Razer. It makes sense -- now his overriding motivation is not hate, but hope -- the belief against all reason that his true love survives somewhere, and the drive to seek her out no matter what. So if the series did return, he would no doubt become a Blue Lantern.

YJ: A bit cluttered, but a reasonably solid conclusion to the season's arcs. It did bug me that the JL was so rigid about not bribing the Rimborean court to gain their freedom. I know they're all about standing for truth and justice and whatnot, but they had obligations back on Earth. Still, I liked the way M'Gann and Connor were able to find a way to "bribe" the court into doing the right thing while still being true to their principles. Except I have to wonder why Batman or Superman didn't think of it first.

The magnetic field disruptors were not a very plausible doomsday weapon. Disrupting the Earth's magnetic field would do little worse than disrupting communications and electronics. After all, the field has periodically fluctuated, faded out, and inverted several times in the distant past, and it hasn't blown up the planet. Of course none of that really matters to a fantasy like this, but I'm afraid I didn't find Wally's sacrifice very emotionally effective, since it was -- perhaps unavoidably -- somewhat rushed. I think they were trying to parallel Barry's sacrifice from Crisis on Infinite Earths, but it didn't quite work. And it's a cinch that Wally is either one with the Speed Force or (seeing that it's Wally) trapped in the future now, so he would come back if there were a third season.

So Savage was working with Darkseid all along? Well, I guess that makes sense. We did see that Luthor had access to Father Boxes and boom tubes, so it stands to reason that the Light is allied with Apokolips. I guess the plan was A) discredit the League in order to B) attract the Reach's attention to Earth so that C) Luthor could "save" Earth from the Reach and gain power and thus D) pave the way for Darkseid's conquest. But now we won't get to see that part.


As for what's replacing these shows, the preview for Teen Titans Go! did not appeal to me. The new character designs and art style are much less appealing than Glen Murakami's designs from the original series. It doesn't seem like it'll be a show I want to watch, at least not regularly. I just hope Beware the Batman (which Murakami is working on) turns out better.

[Hound of UIster]

Darkseid was foreshadowed all the back in the beginning of the first season. He sent the Supercycle to Earth and was the Light's silent partner from the beginning.

And of course G. Gordon Godfrey was his man.

[CorporalCaptain]

I was wondering where the Star Sapphires were, plus any Blue Lanterns, not to mention Mogo, since if the universe is about to end, why hold back. But that's OK. I thought the pre-Big Bang Cosmos was utterly awesome, with such clear and suggestive symbolism. To wrap it up in 30 minutes, it had to be done quickly. They should have found a way to make this an hour showdown by lopping off some other episode earlier in the season. The reveal that not only was Aya alive but she was still emotional was played out well considering, but, yeah, with a message of Love Conquers All, the Star Sapphires especially should have been there. Nevertheless, I thought GL's finale was among the finest 30 minute TV show cartoons I've seen.

As for the YJ finale, it was OK. I'd noticed that the animation had gone downhill near the end of the run, which is understandable I suppose, but it's still kind of unfortunate. Finally seeing Darkseid was nice. In the long run, I'd wonder whether Dr. Fate could do something about Wally, especially given their history together. Good to see it go out on an overall uplifting note for the team, despite the tragedy.

And to reiterate, I'd much rather see the continuation of either of these shows, but especially both, instead of the new Teen Titans or another Batman show. Oh, I'll probably watch their premiers, but it won't take much for me to bail.

[TemporalFlux]

If I were writing Young Justice, I would see season three as another time jump. Wally would be the viewer perspective as he finds himself catapulted into the future, and we adjust to the changes along with him. Such a scenario would make Wally the star of season three (just as Aqualad was really the star of season two). Such a strategy would make up for Wally taking a back seat in season two.

Another time jump would also allow for Darkseid to finalize his plans and trigger his end game. I'm sure Weismann and co would always keep things open at the end of each year, but it really seems that Young Justice only needed one more season or a movie to wrap up it's overall plot line.

Anyway, I loved it. I'm satisfied with how it's ended even though I would like more.

[Hound of UIster]

I think YJ was clearly planned as a three season show.

[Christopher]

CorporalCaptain wrote:

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I thought the pre-Big Bang Cosmos was utterly awesome, with such clear and suggestive symbolism.

It's a classic image from Green Lantern comics mythology -- when the ancient Maltusian scientist Krona tried to peer back to the beginning of the universe, he saw that image, a hand wrapped around a spiral of stars, and it marked a point beyond which he couldn't see, and there was some kind of consequence for his hubris and all that. (Larry Niven and John Byrne's Ganthet's Tale graphic novel, the work that introduced the Ganthet character, retconned "the Hand" and the whole origin myth into an illusion created to conceal some deeper truth, but I'm not sure if that retcon survived the past couple of continuity resets.)

As for the YJ finale, it was OK. I'd noticed that the animation had gone downhill near the end of the run, which is understandable I suppose, but it's still kind of unfortunate.

Looked okay to me.

And to reiterate, I'd much rather see the continuation of either of these shows, but especially both, instead of the new Teen Titans or another Batman show.

I think Batman shows are just a fact of life at this point, and I don't expect that to change anytime soon. But it just now occurs to me that what would've been neat was if they spun off Bruce Greenwood's Batman from YJ -- did a series that was set in the YJ universe but focused on the Bat-family instead of the Team. (Maybe something filling in the 5-year gap.)

[CorporalCaptain]

Christopher wrote:

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It's a classic image from Green Lantern comics mythology -- when the ancient Maltusian scientist Krona tried to peer back to the beginning of the universe, he saw that image, a hand wrapped around a spiral of stars, and it marked a point beyond which he couldn't see, and there was some kind of consequence for his hubris and all that. (Larry Niven and John Byrne's Ganthet's Tale graphic novel, the work that introduced the Ganthet character, retconned "the Hand" and the whole origin myth into an illusion created to conceal some deeper truth, but I'm not sure if that retcon survived the past couple of continuity resets.)

Ah, thanks for that. I haven't read the GL comic in years.

Looked okay to me.

It wasn't anything super-huge; but some of the facial expressions didn't have good in-betweens and they were somewhat out of proportion, too. The facial expressions and head movements didn't strike me as being as carefully and skillfully drawn as they were in, say, the first several episodes of the whole series. It looked like they might have turned the budget down a notch in that department. I started to really notice it after the last hiatus. Available production time could have been a factor too, I suspect.

I think Batman shows are just a fact of life at this point, and I don't expect that to change anytime soon. But it just now occurs to me that what would've been neat was if they spun off Bruce Greenwood's Batman from YJ -- did a series that was set in the YJ universe but focused on the Bat-family instead of the Team. (Maybe something filling in the 5-year gap.)

Good idea; that seems more interesting, at least.

[kirk55555]

The last episode of YJ was decent, although it still sucks that its gone. The preview of Teen titans Go was really bad. It barely looked better than the Teen Titans DC nation shorts, and it only gets a slightly better rating because it looked like the characters weren't mini, like in the shorts. I really enjoyed the old TT show, but I don't think this new one will be any good. Beware the batman looks to have even worse CG animation than Green Lantern, but hopefully the actual show will be good.

[Mr. Adventure]

I just noticed the title for YJ, I think "Endgame" should be banned from television as a title for all future productions.

[Christopher]

CorporalCaptain wrote:

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Good idea; that seems more interesting, at least.

I'm not saying Beware the Batman won't be interesting; it would be rash to make that assumption sight unseen. I didn't expect to like The Brave and the Bold, but it turned out to be fantastic. For all I know, BtB will turn out to be great too. I'm just saying a YJ-verse Batman show headlined by Greenwood and run by Weisman & Vietti would've also been nice to see.