Dinah’s JLI Design is a point of contention for many people. Personally I like it (probably more than most). But what are the things that you dislike about it? What would you change about the outfit to make it look better?
Or do people just consider it bad out of principle because it doesn’t look like streetwear?
**PREFACE**
My experience with Young Justice Outsiders is an unorthodox one. I watched Young Justice on Netflix some time after the original run concluded. Sure, I caught some episodes airing when I was at someone’s house who had cable, but Netflix was how I experienced the show. When YJ moved to DC’s short lived exclusive streaming service, I had to admit I was a bit peeved.
Invasion was and remains my favorite season of the show. While the magic has diminished slightly and I can see some of its flaws more clearly, it is still one of my favorite pieces of television period. When I had heard that the focus would not be on the Invasion characters but instead an all-new cast I was disappointed. But that’s not really what killed my interest. It was the fact that the show was going to pivot focus towards Fourth World lore, something about DC I had never liked up until recently.
I eventually did end up watching Outsiders and ended up liking it. I didn’t love it, but I liked it. Maybe it was because I had imagined something so terrible that my expectations were lowered, but it was good in my eyes. Then I watched it again. And again. And after watching the season for what I believe to be 3 times, I’ve come to the conclusion that it is a good season with some really bad moments. But ultimately, I still rank it as my second favorite season despite all of the flaws and chaos.
**THE PLOT**
At first I always found that the pivot towards human trafficking to be jarring, but even in Season 2 the seeds were planted there already. They just actually used the word this time and put that aspect into the spotlight. One of the things that I appreciate about the season is that while I feel the characters of Invasion are not in the limelight as I would have hoped, the events of that season greatly inform the setting of Outsiders. Which is more than you can say for Outsiders and Phantoms.
This storyline without a doubt is one of if not the most faithful adaptations of Kirby’s Fourth World in my opinion. The weirdness isn’t being hidden under some kind of masquerade of coolness, it is right there on full display and unapologetic about it.
In its most broad strokes, the story of meta-human trafficking, Brion finding his sister, the Outsiders forming, and the Anti-Light are all amazing. It’s simply that there are specific moments where the show falls flat.
One of my biggest grievances with the show Post-Invasion is that it seems the show wants you to never forget that Wally died. His death is brought up constantly and he is given two dream sequences pretty much dedicated to him. Maybe I have a bias because Wally was never one of my favorite characters and the episode he died in was a mess, but after a certain point it feels less like the characters are having a realistic reaction to someone close to them dying and more like the writers are jangling keys in your face.
Speaking of dream sequences, one of the worst episodes of this season by far for me was ‘Nightmare Monkeys’. Beast Boy was a secondary character in Invasion and while I’m glad that he is getting an expansion, it isn’t handled gracefully. We know next to nothing about the Doom Patrol in this universe and the corny TTG segment doesn’t magically fix that. The out of nowhere revelation that Beast Boy got his powers from a monkey totem god too is awful (even if that was just him tripping, they shouldn’t have left it so ambiguous).
Now, as much as I love Invasion and I wished it was twice as long as it was so it had more room to breathe…I think Outsiders is probably the season of YJ that needed more episodes out of any other season. There’s a lot that feels undercooked. When I was watching it for the latest time I said to myself that the season feels like a street with a lot of dead ends and honestly I think that’s true.
Also, did the writers have a vendetta against Aquaman villains? We never get to see why Oceanmaster got disgraced and they just kill him off (his death was done well imo, but I don’t even want to think about his storyline in Phantoms) and Black Manta goes from being a high ranking member of the Light to a jobber on the Suicide Squad?
Before anyone says anything, no, I was not a fan of the Bowhunter Security episode. Watching a group of guys in dress shirts taking down a D-lister villain while talking about their 9-5s will never be appealing to me. They also removed all the sauce from Arsenal, who was a really interesting character in Invasion.
A lot of people dislike the social media aspect of the season but I personally don’t have a problem with it. It never felt out of touch…except for when Infinity Inc suddenly becomes more popular than the Outsiders. Infinity Inc has less members and none of those members have any clout, they have really ugly uniforms, and unlike the Outsiders they’re never shown doing anything humanitarian. If the show wanted me to believe in their hype, it should have showed and explained it more. It’s honestly laughable Lex thinks these guys would surpass the Justice League in popularity. Like what?
**THE CHARACTERS**
Halo: Halo is a complicated character both in and outside the universe. But I’ll be focusing on a Doylist perspective here. I think Greg and the team put their fingers into too many pies with them. They wanted to have a diverse reinvention of a character but they did too much with them. Halo looks like a Muslim but they aren’t actually a Muslim and they are non-binary due to an alien technicality and not because they discovered their identity (also the cast refers to her as ‘she’ after the reveal). I would have liked it if they just chose a lane with them instead of trying to do a thousand things with them. It is also somewhat problematic that due to their powers, they end up getting the most brutal violence inflicted upon them repeatedly. Interestingly, the other main POC in the cast, Cyborg also gets a lot of body horror. As for the character themselves, I love Halo. They’re a total sweetheart and their relationship with Brion is my favorite ship in the whole series (very disappointed with what the writers ended up doing with them, though).
Beast Boy: I always have this memory of Outsiders becoming the Beast Boy show after a certain point. But rewatching the series, it seems to be an idea mostly in my imagination. Beast Boy is a good character and I mostly only have nitpicks towards him. He feels a bit too eloquent in the way he speaks, I kind of wish there was a bit more grit to him but it doesn’t bother me that much (his speeches about the purpose of the Outsiders sometimes feel less Breakfast Club and more Kingdom Hearts). His decision to openly antagonize Granny while she has him under contract was really stupid in my opinion and the show doesn’t justify it well enough (in fact it does the opposite). Finally, I feel like it’s really not brought up enough how his dream got violated by his teammates to become artificial when that was the complete opposite of what he formed his entire team around. Like it gets brought up but I feel that should have cut deeper. On a side note I much like his Invasion design more, in Outsiders he just looks like a green human where in Invasion he looked like half-primate which I feel fit the character more.
Brion Markov: I love Brion. Honestly one of my favorite characters in the show and probably the best out of all the new cast. I think his ‘patience’ arc is kind of hamfisted at certain points but it never gets too bad in my book. His relationship with Halo is amazing and I wish I got to see more of them. A complaint I have surrounding him is that I have to admit I’m disappointed nobody tried to reach out to him after he killed his uncle. Not during because they were under Zviad’s influence (a fact a lot of the fandom seems to forget), but after when they were away from his proximity. Like did nobody make an effort to try and reach out to him and pull him away from the path he was going down? They knew this guy for months and cut all ties with him after he kills someone? Yet M’gann causes permanent brain damage and nearly kills her teammate and she’s welcomed with open arms? Or nobody bats an eye at Cyborg after he tried to kill his teammates on multiple occasions while under Fatherbox’s influence? Or Tara who was ready to kill Beast Boy while still under her own free will?
Tara Markov: I do not care what the fandom says. Tara was handled terribly. Subverting expectations for the sake of it is like having ambition without resources. You don’t accomplish anything good. Her ‘betrayal’ comes at the eleventh hour and nobody has time to adequately process it before the show moves on to the next thing. What’s even worse is her relationship with Deathstroke. I get that she’s an impressionable teen, but the reasoning Slade gives for having Tara put his trust in her makes zero sense. Slade is in league with her traffickers, regularly abuses Tara, threatens her under orders, and then claims that he’s the only one who is looking out for her and everyone else will do the things he does to her but he’s different somehow. I think it would have been more realistic if Tara’s compliance was because she was in constant fear of the world’s greatest assassin having a target on her back or really anything resembling actual manipulation from Slade.
Forager: Forager is alright. At times he can be a bit grating with his speech pattern. He has some sweet moments but honestly it doesn’t feel like he contributes too much.
Black Lightning: I used to really not like Jeff and I don’t know why. But I think he’s a pretty good character. I do think it’s messed up how eager Dick is to get him back into the action after he’s been traumatized and vocal about how he wants out. The way that he ‘figures out’ the Anti-Light thing kind of felt like it happened out of nowhere. And his relationship with Helga goes nowhere.
Cyborg: I like Vic and what they did with him. Honestly liked how they connected his story to the Fourth World. My only real grievance with him is that I feel his dad doesn’t get enough karma. It was his unsafe lab and his negligence that ruined Vic’s life. He never truly apologizes for what he did and being an absent father in general and gets forgiven anyways.
Miss Martian: I feel like M’gann got off too easy last season. She put multiple aliens into comatose states (which is okay because they’re henchmen, apparently. Really says something that the Kroloteans treat their POWs better than Earth’s heroes), violates Superboy’s mind offscreen, almost kills Aqualad, and all she gets is being talked down to by Superboy. Like not even her uncle could step in at some point? I liked that at least the writers had the grace to have her have internal conflict about using her powers. But during Outsiders, most of her screentime is dedicated to her complaining to Superboy about their relationship that I wonder why these two are even together? Considering all the relationships that go nowhere in this season, you would have thought they would be the ones to break up? But they’re the first to get a wedding ceremony dedicated to them? Same with Beast Boy, I think her Invasion design is significantly better (I think it’s her best look in general and wish it got represented more).
Kaldur: Honestly glad to see him in the new role he’s in. I think him and his boyfriend are a cute couple.
Eduardo: I actually love him in this season. A great upgrade in terms of characterization in my opinion. Kind of wish he got to do more but from what I got I was satisfied.
Wonder Girl: I think she’s one of the most wasted characters here. Jaime I can understand having a reduced role because he had so much time in Invasion dedicated to him. But Cassie? She barely did anything in that season or this one!
Kid Flash: Great as usual. I think his Impulse costume was way better but I understand why he dons the Kid Flash get up. Still feel like the design could have been better though.
Static: Genuinely assassinated imo. He goes from being one of the coolest characters in Invasion to being shoved into the periphery. And when they finally let him out? He’s a punching bag for not having a girlfriend.
Thirteen: Do not know why she’s here. She literally serves ZERO purpose and gets ZERO introduction and keeps getting mentioned as though she’s a main character.
Mal and Duncan: About as useful and important as they were in Season 2. Which is to say not much.
Vandal Savage: He’s great as usual. Evolution is one of the best episodes of the entire series. The writers definitely took the wrong lessons from that episode in S4 but what we got here was good. Only peeve I have is that he looks shocked when Granny overplays her hand and Darkseid can pretty much call ‘game’ now. Like isn’t he supposed to be a master strategist? Shouldn’t he have anticipated that?
Lex Luthor: I think a lot of people get hung up with him being a Trump analogue. Honestly after rewatching it they don’t do it half as much as I remember. I think the real crime is that it doesn’t feel he does much as Secretary General other than basically stop the League from intervening in international affairs. Like it was a big deal in the Invasion finale and I felt a bit underwhelmed. It’s not that he doesn’t do anything, I just kind of wish he did more.
Deathstroke: Assassination in my book. Deathstroke had so much sauce in Invasion and they took it away. His fighting style, his ponytail, his voice. In this show he feels like a schoolyard bully.
Helga Jace: Never liked her. Her relationship with Jeff never goes anywhere beyond giving her a reason to be closer to the Markovs (genuinely confused that they clocked Tara as a traitor and not her). And I never vibed with her whole ‘family’ thing and hatred for Violet. I just really couldn’t buy into it.
Granny Goodness: I didn’t like her in my first watch through but I’ve warmed up to her a lot more since. She honestly does the familial themes a lot better than Jace does. I especially loved her conversation with Desaad while she ‘disciplines’ Barda.
G. Gordon: Honestly he’s not as entertaining as he was in Invasion. It sucks Tim Curry couldn’t come back but I think the real issue is that he just isn’t as present or important in this season than the last. Which is kind of funny considering the social media aspect in this season. I think the funniest things stem from the fact he and ‘Gretchen’ are basically co-workers pretending not to know each other every time they do an interview.
Black Spider: Man fuck this guy in particular. I know he only shows up for one episode but he was so corny and unfunny that I have to give him a mention here.