Young Justice Outsiders and the Supers (Spoilers for an old show)

[DochaDocha]

Show was added to HBO Max, so I checked it out.

With specific regard to the Super franchise, there were things that I liked, and other things I didn't.

Pros:
1. YJ takes some of its cues from the JL cartoon from the early 2000s (e.g. reintroducing Hro Talak). That cartoon, as well as the recently-concluded animated movie line, both had critical plots revolving around Superman's poor decisions in leadership. Luckily, YJO doesn't touch that with a 10-foot stick. This season's bungles are courtesy of Superman's fellow Trinity mates, Wonder Woman and Batman. Nice when you don't have to deal with a season-long struggle with Superman, the moron.

2. I'm no Jon fan, though I am adamant that if you absolutely insist upon adding Jon into the mix, start off with him as an infant. No time-skips for Jon in this show, thank goodness, unless you count skipping his gestational days.

3. They make it a point in the writing to uphold Superman as an extremely virtuous guy. Going back to point one, I get the impression that Superman's not involved in the dumb decisions the leaders made because Superman would never let something like that happen under his watch.

4. Kal and Kon's relationship has continued to grow for the better, which made me happy.

5. Conner is well past the stage of being angry all the time. I like that he's matured and is almost serene. As the show says, he's become like Superman.

Cons:
1. As great as it is to see that Superman's not a bumbling leader, he's got very little presence as a leader at all. In the YJ universe, the Justice League has a revolving door of chairmen. Batman was the dude in S1, I believe it was Captain Atom in S2, and this season the JL co-chairs were WW and Kaldur Aquaman. I'm guessing that in the YJ universe, Superman's turn as chairman was a long time ago, so even in S4 we likely won't see him in any leadership position, as that's going to be Black Lightning's job.

2. More mind-controlled Superman. I actually liked the plot in the finale of S1 when the Light used Starro-based tech to mind control the League. To be fair, the mind-controlling plot in S1 was a lot more important than the one in YJO, but when you look at how little airtime Superman gets (which makes sense, because the show is called "Young Justice" and not "Superman" or "Justice League"), I was hoping S1 would be the only instance we'd see Superman under someone else's control. No such luck.

3. Also taking its cue from the JL cartoon and DCAU, Superman immediately starts choking in space.

4. Every season of YJ feels like a brand new show. YJ Invasion still kept the core heroes from S1, but it focused a lot on the new characters (I mockingly called YJI "Beetlemania"). YJO follows the trend of jumping ahead a few years into the future, retaining the core S1 and S2 guys, but then mostly focusing on the new heroes for the season. This generally doesn't work great for me. I still like S1 the most, and much of that was because they really hit it out of the park with the young heroes. YJI skipped five years (really, really formative years for heroes of that age) and spread the screen time across. So, fans of the S1 characters have to settle for the continually-shrinking presence of the S1 heroes, meaning there's not a lot of Superboy you'd get to see. And as for Superman, well, he doesn't do squat in his limited air time.

A more broad critique I'd make about the show is that its overarching plot involving the Light and Darkseid is really ambitious, and in a lot of ways it'd be more appropriate for a JL show than a YJ show. Luthor was one of the primary antagonists, more so this season than prior, and for me at least it's kind of dissatisfying to see him used as someone other than Superman's enemy. And in terms of thwarting Darkseid's quest for the Anti-Life Equation, that is more something that should be on the JL's plate, and not the younger heroes. But since it's a show about the young heroes, then the JL are going to be a bunch of bystanders, which after the recent line of animated movies from 2013-2019, I'm not that eager to watch the supposed A-Team play second fiddle to another group of lesser-experienced heroes.

I guess another critique I'd add is that the on-the-nose comparisons between Luthor and the outgoing 45th president really did nothing for me. Kind of wish they took a pass on that.

Overall, I had some mixed feelings about the show. The quality of the writing is still there, so that was nice, but I have no real hopes that I'll enjoy S4 anywhere close to how much I enjoyed S1.

EDIT: Another nitpick I have is that alllllll of the villains seeeeeeeem to talk sooooooooo sloooooowly.