Problems of Young Justice
About a week ago, fans of quality cartoons were brought devastating news. Young Justice had been cancelled. Many people were outraged and rightfully so.
Although Young Justice will be fondly remembered as one of this decades best-animated shows, it did suffer from many things.
Too Many Characters
This has been one of the most critical things about the show. Although more evident in the second season, a large cast of characters was set up from day one. Ever since the premier, we were introduced to CADMUS, the original Young Justice team (in the cartoon), 4 A-List ice villains and basically every Justice Leaguer that you could name of the top of your head. Throughout the first season though, the writers did a good job of trying to limit the amount of characters that each episode focused on. The Young Justice team basically comprised of only Robin I, Aqualad, Kid Flash, Miss Martian, Artemis, and then later Red Arrow, Zatanna and Rocket. The Justice League also were cast this way, with only Batman, Red Tornado, Martian Manhunter, Black Canary, Captain Marvel, and Black Canary who all had reasonable excuses to be there. However, it seemed as though the show got carried away with villains. In the pilot alone we had Mister Freeze, Killer Cold, Captain Cold, Icicle Jr, CADMUS, Guardian and the Light. As the season ended, we’ve met so many villains it was hard to keep count. As we entered the second season, the show offered fan service and brought in many iconic young heroes like (but not limited to) Blue Beetle, Wonder Girl, Robin III, Beast Boy, Static Shock, Red Hood (cameo), Bumblebee, Mal Duncan, Batgirl, Lagoon Boy and Impulse. WOW that’s a lot to keep track of, especially if you consider that this shows theoretical target audience are kids. As the season went one, the show basically turned into the Blue Beetle presentation and lost focus on many other characters, most notably that the whole original YJ team was absent from essentially all episodes, with the exception of Nightwing who only played minimal roles. With kids who are looking for a nice treat in the morning, this may have been to complicated. Especially considering that the whole idea of Robin being a title handed down and not just one person was never explained and may have been confusing.
Complicated, Involved, and Long Story Arcs
Young Justice is in it’s second season and still hasn’t really finished one story arc, while at the same time introducing new sub plots about every 5 episodes, most of the time also carrying along a new character (Green/Black Beetle, Tigress, Deathstroke, etc). This makes it very hard to follow, especially if you don’t watch the show on online sites like allmyvideo.com/putlocker.com. If you miss one episode, the next one will not make sense at all. Currently, the show is juggling to many sub plots. Right now there’s the issue of the Runaways (Static Shock, Tye Longshadow and the other two), Blue Beetle’s prophecy, Aqualad’s cover being blown, Artemis’s cover being blown, Sportsmaster vs. Deathstroke and Black Manta, Sportsmaster vs. Miss Martian, the Reaches plot to destroy Earth, Luthor and the Reach, Luthor and the Runaways, Aqualad getting his consciousness back, and finally what the Light’s plan actually is. Plus finding out what the heck happened during the five-year time skip (which I’ll get to next). This is all just off the top of my head too. The show runners should go the Doctor Who route and do a conflict/ freak of the week type thing while also creating a season long conflict that gets introduced in the season premier and finally resolved in the season finale. However, the writers and show runners have since decided that everything must by linked in a Heroes type situation. This story arc has gone on for so long that I’m not sure it will even be resolved by the end of the second season, which was the main reason I was rooting for a third season.
Unrecognizable Characters and False Promotion
Young Justice is a fan’s TV show. Facts are that many kids don’t watch it, despite being the target audience, and only comic book fans actually keep up. Due to that, many characters that have been featured on the show are not recognizable in any way shape or form to younger viewers or people not well versed in comic books. For example, take the above picture. Ask a Young Justice fan or comic book reader and they can tell you that it has Zatanna, Miss Martian, Wonder Girl, Rocket, Bumblebee, Batgirl, and Black Canary in it. Ask the rest of the populace and I bet that only a select few will even get Batgirl. Even worse is the actual names. I bet that the “regular” people don’t even know that Batgirls name is really Barbara Gordon, let alone that Miss Martian’s is Megan Morse. It also doesn’t help the fact that a few were probably misled due to the title or the main way it was advertised. When I initially saw it, I was expecting a Justice League, but with the JL as kids or babies or something. Turns out it wasn’t, but maybe some people were hoping that and were disappointed by that. Really, the only way Cartoon Network promoted Young Justice were images of the Justice League (Superman at the forefront) in a DC logo thing for DC Nation. That would also lead someone to believe that the show was a Justice League vehicle. So far in the second half on season two, barely any Leaguers have played a major role.
Hiatus(es)
It’s no secret that Young Justice lost the majority of fans through their long hiatuses. Since the plots are so intertwined and complicated, it may have also been hard to simply remember what happened to who and why. To put it simply, this is when the show died. Some may say that the most recent hiatus was so that DC could figure out Static Shock’s rights, but at least give us reruns. Cartoon Network simply replaced the show’s time slot with a Dragon cartoon. Disrespectful to say the least.
Merchandising
Ah, we have reached the final nail in the coffin. These days, TV and film is all about commercializing its product. So its no surprise that shows like Ultimate Spider-Man can outlive its spectacular predecessor while phenomenal programs like Young Justice and Green Lantern: The Animated Series are largely ignored by its own channel. Young Justice did not sell well, or even at all maybe. Due to the largely unrecognizable characters, kids aren’t gonna buy these. I mean look at the picture. The only one kids want is Batman, and aren’t there just a billion Batman toys. Mean while, there’s an emo Robin and “lame” underwater heroes. Not even the comic sold well, as proven by its own cancellation.
And there you have it. I feel like I have listed some major reasons for Young Justice’s cancellation without any fanboy bias. What do you guys think?
EDIT: I do realize that someone before me has posted a similar article, however I did not read it before writing and finishing this one. Props to him/her though, fantastic!