Movies / Animé and Toons

Young Justice Episode 13 Cancelled?

By Hervé St-Louis
February 1, 2013 - 09:35

Simon has been recruited by Black Manta to rebuild Aqualad’s damaged mind but Artemis, undercover as Tigress stops the mind manipulating villain from achieving his end. To compensate, she has to help Deathstroke the Terminator capture Miss Martian, the very individual that damaged Aqualad’s mind. Will Miss Martian survive?

This episode was incredible but what is more incredible is the decision by Cartoon Network to cancel Young Justice as well as Green Lantern Animated from its 2013 line up. What I don’t understand is how Cartoon Network, a wholly owned division of Warner Brothers will not support two other arms of the company, namely DC Comics and Warner Animation from producing incredible material that propels Warner Brothers’ core properties. Elsewhere at Disney, the company is hard at work extending the reach of the Marvel Comics properties it bought in 2008. I was always under the impression that Warner, as global company wanted to improve all of its properties under one roof. Young Justice has been anything but popular with viewers. It reaches beyond the typical young boys aged 7-12 that is often the core of an animated action series. Young Justice reached into the core market of girls, and much older fans like me. As opposed to many television series with an action theme, Young Justice featured multiple strong female characters such as Miss Martian and Artemis. It also featured strong multi-ethnic characters such as Aqualad and Blue Beetle. The last time I saw a series so smart was with Justice League and its many spin offs. Young Justice is one of the few series that did not talk down at anyone and kept us on the edge every single episode. Very few episodes didn’t matter. Each of them were building towards an incredible climax. Young Justice also made characters I would normally never care about matter. Artemis and Miss Martian were not even b-listed characters in the comics. They were filler with very few fan support. No one can ever say that about them now.

I’ve seen it written in the past that perhaps if Warner Brothers allowed other studios to work in its properties, like Marvel did before it was bought by Disney, that maybe we would see much more done with all of its characters. Greg Weisman, the creative mind behind Young Justice has recreated the DC Comics universe for a new generation, just like Bruce Timms’ team did a decade ago.

The episode showed us Aqualad’s fractured mind being a water world where Tuula, the girl Aqualad loved dwelled. What was scarier was the hint that Deathstroke the Terminator, just like the comics knows a lot more about the Justice League than they think he does. Although she recently moved to J’onn J’onzz’s apartment, Deathstroke knew where to capture Miss Martian. It felt like seeing the infamous Deathstroke fight against the Justice League in 2004’s identity Crisis.

With the series ending abruptly in a few weeks, I wonder if the plot with the off-world Justice League members will ever be resolved. I maintain that this plot has somekind of symbolic relevance with the Justice League Unlimited series, as the members seen going offworld, Superman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern John Stewart, Batman, Hawkgirl and the Martian Manhunter were all original members of Bruce Timms’s Justice League.

Rating: 9.5 /10

Last Updated: August 31, 2023 - 08:12