Young Justice (HBO Max)
I am in denial that my sweet, beloved
Young Justice could be canceled for good, and —
officially — the folks at HBO Max are too. (Their email, my bereavement: “It was not canceled as HBO Max had only one season ordered from the get-go. That plan has not changed and there are currently no plans for a fifth season.”) For now, though, it’s gone, and not for the first time. The intricately plotted, defiantly mature DC superhero saga with approximately one thousand speaking roles and a tangled web of deception was canceled nearly a decade ago; the streaming era revived it for a third season on DC Universe (2019) and fourth on HBO Max (2021), and creators Brandon Vietti and Greg Weisman infused the revival with even more storytelling ambition and character study. There’s a lot of plot in the fourth, final installment, subtitled
Phantoms, but each episode and arc lasers in more on the psychological problems its heroes and villains face than the action itself. To name just a few: Miss Martian grieves for her husband, Beast Boy can’t shake his depression, Rocket can’t balance time with her son and work on the Justice League, and Halo faces questions of faith and identity as she comes out as nonbinary.
Young Justice always dramatized interiority in a medium where the narrative is by necessity external, throwing so many punches and kicks over the years but never forgetting the hearts behind them. Let’s hope
the new stewards of DC intellectual property won’t forget them either. —
Eric Vilas-Boas