Young Justice S01E01 Review: Graduation Day

Young Justice, Season 1, Episode 1: Independence Day

Young Justice is one of the best superhero cartoons I've ever watched. It's got great animation, it works as a great serialized series and it has a pretty amazingly done myth arc. It's a shame that there's so little of it (though after languishing in development hell for years, we're getting a season three in 2018) and that it's relatively screwed over by the network in favour of the insipid Teen Titans Go. It's hardly perfect, though, and early on in the series there are moments were it felt a little off, but it manages to hit its stride as a great adaptation of a different roster of the Teen Titans (despite its moniker, the only Young Justice character featured in this series is Superboy, and even then he's in his Teen-Titans-era suit).

The episode begins with a montage of various ice-themed villains rampaging in their respective towns and being stopped by the respective sidekicks. This early on, we're quickly given the personalities of these main characters, the sidekicks. Robin is a cocky joker (if you'll forgive the word usage), Speedy is dismissive of his mentor, Aqualad is focused on his work and tempers his excitement, while Kid Flash is excitable. I'm a big fan that the show doesn't feel the need to establish the concept of superheroes and supervillains and sidekicks and whatnot, and just quickly whisks us through the group of main cast we're going to explore with the assumption that you know who Batman and Robin are, and you can just identify that the rest of the couplings have similar mentor-sidekick deals going on. 

Speedy's irritation at being treated as a kid is then explored upon as he rages that they're still being treated as kids despite this being the day they get treated as one of the big boys, being given a tour of the Hall of Justice -- a fake base -- instead of the actual base of the Watchtower, and that the adult heroes are still leaving them behind while they do meetings and stuff. And herein lies one of the bigger complaints about the show. It's 'too angsty' (Speedy and Superboy get the brunt of this complaint, with due reason), while I'd make a counter-argument that it actually strikes a nice, delicate balance between exploring emotions like anger and frustration while still having enough fun with its characters. This early on, the characters are slightly more caricatured than I'd prefer them to, but at the same time you do need to have a short-hand to refer to these characters.

The Justice League are playing big-boy stuff, though, and it's a league that's been operational after some time -- they're just neglecting their kid sidekicks. And Robin has the idea to 'solve their case before they do', a classic storyline when featuring younger protagonists. Speedy is out of the case (and the show) for a majority of this, so it's just Aqualad, the one sane man, and the two excitable ones, Kid Flash and Robin.

Of course, Project Cadmus seems to be more than meets the eye. It's not just a science facility on fire, and it has things like horned devil-men, a secret underground facility and gigantic gorilla demon things. We, the audience, get to see the inner workings of Cadmus where they communicate with weird things called G-Gnomes, telepathic little devils, and while I'm intimately familiar with this version of Cadmus that they're adapting, I thought the show struck a decent balance at keeping things cryptic while still giving us enough to go on. Maybe the pilot could've been better served with a simpler plotline, but at the same time tying the origin story of our fourth main character and serving up a more complex storyline does kind of speak to the kind of show and the audience that Young Justice is targeting. Guardian, in particular, is an interesting figure. He dresses up like a superhero, and acts like a security guard... but at the same time, when he meets out three sidekicks, he gets mind-controlled immediately into murder-kill mode.

After some action scenes including a fight with the enigmatic Dubbilex, they go deeper into the complex, and find Project Kr, a clone of Superman. A decision to call in the big boys is rendered impossible, while the forces of Cadmus try to barge in. This episode ends with the Cadmus people managing to take control of Project Kr and take down the three sidekicks, ending with the villains victorious.

Obviously that's a depressing note to end our pilot episode on -- Speedy is too much of a dick to even join the fight, and the three heroes get their asses handed to them. Kid Flash is straight-up incompetent, Robin is too cocky to make use of his not inconsiderable skills and Aqualad is too stiff and formal despite the one with the oldest age and the coolest head. They're likable enough, though, and the relatively complex storyline they find themselves plunged in (compare this to the pilot episode of any other superhero cartoon) makes Young Justice a comic series that tries to pack as much content as it could into each episode. Like, what is Guardian's deal? And what's Dubbilex's deal? Add that to the very faithful and far-reaching adaptation of actual material from the DC comics, and the amazing action scenes, and you've got a very thrilling first episode to go by.

Roll Call:

• Heroes: Robin, Batman, Speedy, Green Arrow, Aqualad, Aquaman, Flash, Kid Flash, Red Tornado, Martian Manhunter, Superman, Zatara, Superboy
• Villains: Mr. Freeze, Icicle, Killer Frost, Captain Cold, dr. Mark Desmond, Guardian, Dubbilex, dr. Amanda Spence

DC Easter Eggs Corner: 

• Our heroes:
• The 'Young Justice' moniker borrowed from a team of even-younger sidekicks than the Teen Titans. However, the version seen in this series amalgamates both the Teen Titans and the Young Justice teams. 
• Robin: Dick Grayson, a young trapeze artist who lost his family in a tragic accident engineered by a mob boss. He was adopted by the billionaire Bruce Wayne, who revealed himself to be Batman and took Dick under his wing as Robin. While Dick Grayson was the Robin that founded the Teen Titans, his green-less costume here and his smaller build calls to mind the third Robin, Tim Drake.
• Kid Flash: Wally West, nephew to Barry Allen, the Flash, happened to get struck by lightning in the exact same way that his uncle was, and gained super-speed, becoming Kid Flash. Wally's costume here is identical to his comic-book counterpart's costume.
• Aqualad: Here, Aqualad is Kaldur'ahm, and he's... not an actual character from the comics per se. In the comics, the mantle of Aqualad was held by the white Atlantanean boy Garth (who we'll see later on in the show) who would later adopt the mantle Tempest. Kaldur'ahm's Aqualad shares his costume's red-and-black colours and the ability of hydrokinesis with Tempest, but is otherwise a brand-new character created for the show. His real name, Kaldur'ahm, is a reference to an obscure Aquaman character, Calvin "Cal" Durham, who used to be Black Manta's henchman before turning to the side of good.
• Speedy: Roy Harper is a boy raised by a Navajo tribe chief, and when the chief died, Roy was adopted by the superhero Green Arrow as the superhero sidekick Speedy. Roy and Oliver's relationship was actually rockier than most of the other sidekicks, reflected here by Roy's open brusqueness to Oliver. Roy's costume here is identical to his original Speedy costume, complete with goofy hat.
• Project Cadmus as a secret organization trying to experiment and creating strange mutant hybrids is adapted from the 80's/90's version that was a major force in both Superman and Superboy comics. Dubbilex and Guardian's association with the group is likewise taken from there, though this is the first time Mark Desmond has ever been affiliated into Project Cadmus, nominally being a Batman supporting character.
• Ice villains: since they'll be more relevant later on, I'll be brief. Mr. Freeze is indeed a member of Batman's rogues' gallery, and Captain Cold often menaces the Flash. However, the other two, Icicle and Killer Frost, are villains of Green Lantern and Firestorm respectively.
• The fact that only Aqualad, Robin and Kid Flash go on this first mission is a reference to the first-ever team-up of the Teen Titans, which had these three (albeit a different Aqualad) go up against Mister Twister, forming the first unofficial version of the Teen Titans.
• Wotan is briefly mentioned by Zatara as one of the threats that the JLA need to deal with. While not seen here, Wotan would show up later on in the series. In the comics, Wotan is one of Dr. Fate's most persistent enemies.
• The seven founding members of the Justice League in Young Justice are Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Flash, Aquaman, Green Lantern and Martian Manhunter, the Big Seven in Grant Morrison's JLA run, though obviously more members have been inducted since. 
• The Hall of Justice and the Watchtower are two iconic bases used by the Justice League over the years. The Hall of Justice is popularized by the Superfriends cartoon and is a dead ringer for the version in said carton, whereas the Watchtower has been the JLA's base of operations throughout many incarnations. 
• Some of the random dialogue of the civilians surrounding the Hall of Justice question why Green Arrow's sidekick is named Speedy, which is, of course, a point of discussion among fans and adaptations.