Young Justice

On November 7, 2016, Warner Bros. Animation announced that the series would return to production after a three-year hiatus due to overwhelming demand. The third season premiered on DC's streaming service on January 4, 2019.

DEEPER MEANING · SOURCED

Aqualad's tattoos are only visible because he never completed his sorcery training. Like other Atlantean magic users such as Garth and Tula, whose tattoos are hidden and become visible when they use their magic, his tattoos would have become invisible had he finished his training.

EASTER EGGS & REFERENCES · SOURCED

Aqualad/Kaldur'ahm was created for this series. Geoff Johns and Ivan Reis liked the character so much that they adapted him into the DC comics, appearing in Brightest Day #4 (with messy hair and the alter ego Jackson Hyde). Johns explained that the new Aqualad was added to the comics because Khary Payton wanted the character to be included.

INTERESTING FACTS · SOURCED

Rob Lowe voiced Captain Marvel for two episodes. His brother Chad voiced the character for the rest.

INTERESTING FACTS · SOURCED

The producers approached this series with two goals: to appeal not only to the youngest children but also to older audiences, and to make the series as realistic as possible through animation.

INTERESTING FACTS · SOURCED

One of the factors that determined how the producers chose the main characters (Robin, Aqualad, Kid Flash, Superboy, Miss Martian and Artemis) was their desire for the children to have adults they could see as mentor or parent figures.

INTERESTING FACTS · SOURCED

Quite early in the development process, it was decided that this would be a young DC universe in which the heroes had not been around for that long. Once that decision was made, producer Greg Weisman chose to use Dick Grayson and Wally West as Robin and Kid Flash, because rather than being a strict adaptation of the Young Justice comic featuring Tim Drake and Bart Allen, he felt they were working with a whole history and legacy that was truly critical to the story.

PRODUCTION STORY · SOURCED

Lead character designer Phil Bourassa and producer Brandon Vietti made a conscious decision to try to approach the Justice League with a slightly more classic design sensibility than the Young Justice team. They did this to try to visually show the difference between the generations, since the series is entirely about that dynamic.

INTERESTING FACTS · SOURCED

In January 2016, producer Greg Weisman announced that the series had been cancelled because Mattel had discontinued its toy line. The series' funding depended on a toy deal with Mattel, and since there was no revenue source large enough to replace Mattel's money, a third season was not picked up for several years.

PRODUCTION STORY · SOURCED

The Guardian appeared officially for the first time in this series outside of the comics.

INTERESTING FACTS · SOURCED

To show the genetic similarities between the two characters, Superboy and Superman were both voiced by the same actor, Nolan North.

INTERESTING FACTS · SOURCED

There was a spin-off comic based on this series. Although it was based on the series, the creative team wanted the comic to have its own continuity running alongside the series and to be compelling in its own right.

INTERESTING FACTS · SOURCED

In this series, Artemis was portrayed as a biracial (half-Vietnamese) vigilante mentored by Green Arrow, unlike in the comics, where she was depicted as a Caucasian supervillain.

INTERESTING FACTS · SOURCED

This is the first animated series to feature Superboy and Miss Martian, and in the series the two characters dated each other. In the comics, Superboy had a relationship with Wonder Girl.

INTERESTING FACTS · SOURCED

Season 3 premiered in 2019 under the title "Young Justice: Outsiders" and dealt with illegal meta-human trafficking taking place worldwide and across the galaxy. The series also featured new characters who were outside the superhero life and were not even sure they wanted to be superheroes. This contrasts with the original team in Season 1, who were familiar with the superhero life and had inside knowledge because they were the Justice League's protégés.

INTERESTING FACTS · SOURCED

In the second season, Superboy updated his costume with the long-sleeved shirt and fingerless gloves he had briefly worn on a mission toward the end of the first season.

INTERESTING FACTS · SOURCED

This series used the same character designs as Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths (2010) and Justice League: Doom (2012), which were done by lead character designer Phil Bourassa.

INTERESTING FACTS · SOURCED

A video game based on this series, Young Justice: Legacy (2013), was made for PS3, Xbox 360 and Nintendo 3DS. The game is set between the first and second seasons to bridge the gap and show what happened in between.

INTERESTING FACTS · SOURCED

The man who raised Aqualad/Kaldur'ahm was Black Manta's servant Calvin Durham, who was biologically altered by Black Manta so he could live underwater. He was supposed to infiltrate Atlantis, but instead fell in love with Aqualad/Kaldur'ahm's mother and left Black Manta's organization. Aqualad always believed Calvin Durham was his father until he discovered that Black Manta was in fact his biological father, which led to the events of the second season.

INTERESTING FACTS · SOURCED

Lagoon Boy joins the team in the second season. He is an Atlantean named La'gaan and was first shown as a student at the Conservatory of Sorcery in Lori Lemaris's first season. In regular conversation, usually when caught off guard, Lagoon Boy tends to use Atlantean slang or euphemisms such as "Neptune's Beard!" He is also dating Miss Martian, whom he calls "Angelfish."

INTERESTING FACTS · SOURCED

Cassandra Cain/Orphan makes her first animated appearance in this series, in Season 3.

INTERESTING FACTS · SOURCED

The Justice League members' numbers were determined by when they joined the team, since they were original members: Batman 002, Aquaman 006 and Martian Manhunter 007. Green Arrow and Red Tornado are 008 and 016 respectively.

INTERESTING FACTS · SOURCED

The Robin in the series is Dick Grayson, but he wears the second costume Tim Drake wore as Robin in the comics (the red, yellow and black one).

INTERESTING FACTS · SOURCED

This series explicitly states that Black Lightning's ex-wife Lynn Stewart is the sister of Green Lantern John Stewart. Black Lightning comic fans had speculated this for years, and co-creator Tony Isabella confirmed he intended to connect the characters but never got the chance to do so. However, at the time of Season 3's production, it had still not been confirmed or made canon in the main DC comics.

INTERESTING FACTS · SOURCED

Although it adapts a combination of the comics spanning from the 1960s Teen Titans to the 1990s Young Justice run, this series is mostly drawn from Geoff Johns and Mike McKone's Teen Titans (volume 3) comics.

INTERESTING FACTS · SOURCED

Garth, the original Aqualad in the comics, references the Tempest codename. He also resembled his appearance in Teen Titans (2003), where he had dark skin, long black hair and wore blue.

EASTER EGGS & REFERENCES · SOURCED

This is the second DC Comics-based animated series not to be voice-directed by Andrea Romano in more than twenty years; the first was Legion of Super Heroes (2006).

INTERESTING FACTS · SOURCED

When the memorial statues are shown after Artemis's death, an unnamed Robin is among the dead. This is most likely the second Robin, Jason Todd (the first being Dick Grayson/Nightwing and the third Tim Drake). In the comics, Jason eventually returned as the villain/anti-hero Red Hood and ultimately created his own superhero team called the Outlaws. There are two versions of this group, one featuring Arsenal and the other Bizarro Superman, and both characters appeared in the series.

INTERESTING FACTS · SOURCED

From Season 3 onward, Vandal Savage is voiced by David Kaye. Savage's original voice actor, Miguel Ferrer, died between Seasons 2 and 3.

INTERESTING FACTS · SOURCED

Joan Garrick, the wife of the original Flash Jay Garrick, dies quietly in Season 3. In Illusion of Control (2019), Jay is seen sitting beside Joan in a Central City hospital. In Early Warning (2019), Kid Flash and Blue Beetle are unable to help the Outsiders because they are attending Joan's funeral.

INTERESTING FACTS · SOURCED

This is the first animated series allowed to use the Deathstroke codename for Slade Wilson. Ironically, the series aired on the same network as Teen Titans (2003), which simply called him "Slade" because the network would not let that series use the name "Deathstroke."

INTERESTING FACTS · SOURCED

One of Robin's quirks in this series was his use of the term "whelmed." He wonders why people are always "overwhelmed" or "underwhelmed" and never just "whelmed."

INTERESTING FACTS · SOURCED

In January 2013, Cartoon Network announced that the series would be cancelled after the remaining episodes of the second season aired in the DC Nation Saturday morning block. Cartoon Network replaced the series with reruns of Teen Titans Go! (2013) (with new episodes airing on Thursdays), but the block still used artwork from this series in its commercial bumpers.

PRODUCTION STORY · SOURCED

This version of Robin/Dick Grayson began fighting crime in 2006, when he was nine years old.

INTERESTING FACTS · SOURCED

After the team was formed, Kid Flash loved collecting souvenirs and would often shout "Souvenir!" when he got one. Kid Flash eventually expanded his collection by taking an item from every mission he went on with his team.

INTERESTING FACTS · SOURCED

The second season featured a new team leader, Nightwing (formerly Robin), founding members Superboy and Miss Martian, and several new members of the team: Wonder Girl, Blue Beetle, Batgirl, Bumblebee, Mal Duncan, Lagoon Boy, Beast Boy and the new Robin (Tim Drake).

INTERESTING FACTS · SOURCED

Impulse came from the future and joined the team in the second season. This was the first time Impulse had been used in a released animated series. In the comics, Impulse was one of the founding members of Young Justice.

INTERESTING FACTS · SOURCED

Most members of the team can shift their costumes to a darker color scheme using stealth technology, which helps them blend into their surroundings on covert missions. Robin and Superboy are the only ones whose costumes do not have a stealth mode. However, Mattel released a Robin figure in its toy line wearing the blue Stealth Tech costume instead of his usual red look.

BEHIND THE SCENES · SOURCED