Young Justice – The Animated Series

Last night, Cartoon Network aired the pilot for the upcoming animated series, “Young Justice.”  If the pilot is an indicator of things to come, Cartoon Network has a winner on its hands.  The episode entitled, “Independence Day” was smartly written and the characters were well developed. The dialog was snappy and appropriate. For an old timer, like me, the right characters were in place with Dick Grayson as Robin and Wally West as Kid Flash.

The series is set on another one of the DC multi-verses (Earth 16, I believe). For the record, I hate the concept of the multi-verse because it allows DC to completely screw up a character’s back story and then look at the reader and say, “Don’t worry about it because it’s not the Superman, Green Lantern, Flash (pick one) that lives in our universe.” 

That said, I am excited by this series and its potential. It features a Justice League where both Hal Jordan and John Stewart are members and both Hawkman and Hawkwoman (girl?) are together. It should noted that this is not a Bruce Timm series. It is produced and directed by Greg Weisman (Gargoyles) and Brandon Vietti (The Batman and Batman: The Brave & the Bold). The style is clean, yet dark like “The Batman.”  The only problem with this series is that it is on Cartoon Network who is famous for dropping animated series in favor of live action shows. It is my hope that this series will be allowed to complete its run without interference.

The bottom line is this program is on my radar now and I’m looking forward to its January run.