Superhero Media: Young Justice - Invasion

After watching the second season of Young Justice, I think I finally understand the level of love which people have for this programme. The writing is sharp, the characters are deep and each episode works both as a stand-alone and as part of an ongoing story. Young Justice really is great for what it is, a children's cartoon. Sorry for the big fans out there, but as good as this is (and it's quite good), it's not at the same level as something like Daredevil or The Dark Knight. And that's ok! If you want to really engross yourself in the depth that this programme has to offer, go ahead; I watch a tonne of Dragonball after all. I'm even keen for the third season of Young Justice myself now, to see what happens with Dick, how the world handles two Roys and Superboy's continued search for identity. 

The core narrative of this season is the Reach invading Earth, inspired by the brilliant first run of Jaime Reyes Blue Beetle; Jaime is a new major character, which is great, but the plot can't help but be inferior in comparison to the original comics. As always, the programme is driven by character, and there is a tonne of new characters, including Beast Boy, Impulse, Robin (Tim) and Lagoon Boy (yeah, I don't know either). Mongul makes an appearance, which is pretty cool, especially when he goes toe-to-toe with Black Beetle (not the one from the comics, actually the Reach Warrior beetle with a new name). Also there are plenty of crummy villains, if that's your thing, Sportsmaster is a major player again and Mercy Graves is now a cyborg? I don't read enough DC to know if that was a thing before, I only know her from the DCAU "Timmverse" and when she showed up in Batman: No Man's Land.
 

This is a pretty strong programme when you get down to it. It suffers from the problems inherent in being children's entertainment, like having to skirt profane language or actually dealing with sexuality in an adult fashion, but that's the price we pay for having superheroes, apparently. Is the new series going to be on Netflix? I have a feeling it is, which may allow the ratings to be pushed up a little, I'm sick of teenagers saying "darn" when they're upset; fucking Seppo prudishness. Still, I'm keen for Season Three when that finally happens.