It’s getting darker in the world of Young Justice. Tim Drake points out that dark is opposite to (The) Light and Wonder Woman isn’t quite so sure this is a good thing. As the teen (and now not so teen) heroes are starting to discover, the more you behave like adults, the more assassins and bad guys are going to come after you.

The move to DC’s own SVOD has proven so far to be a good thing for fans of Young Justice – this is a series taking a leaf, ironically, out of JK Rowling’s book: it has reasoned that it’s fans are significantly older than they were when the first two series of YJ came out, so rather than trying to aim young, they are letting the characters and storylines age realistically with the audience – and assume that younger viewers who like TV shows that they can aspire to will tag along. Thus here we have graphic violence (Halo’s deaths get gorier by the day) drunk sex in hotels, soap opera-style family gatherings and lots of slo-mo swordplay – one assumes that Ocean Master ain’t comin’ back from his run in with Lady Shiva after that!

What transpires over these latest episodes is that we witness the final formation of The Outsiders, running parallel with the lives of the rest of the original Young Justice crew as they independently try to sort out the Light, but with extra focus along the way, such as training the Outsiders and trying to find Geo-Force’s sister (I reckon she’s standing right beside him in the body of the ever-strange Halo, whose computer-like knowledge and ever-increasing powers are getting scarier by the minute). Throw into that a revamp of Kirby’s the New Gods/Hive/Forever People, which brings Forager into the team, a kind of resolution to the Season 2 cliffhanger that delves into the link between Darkseid and Vandal Savage (and a sweet dedication to Miguel Ferrer), a fun romp with the Harper “family” working together as Bowhunters Security, a superb rite-of-passage for the Outsiders against Ra’s Al Ghul (complete with scary Grayson clone/twin/long lost brother, who knows) and the arrival of Lobo, these are thoroughly superb individual episodes. Yet there’s no getting away, these are best watched in sequence – perfect binge watching because there is so much going on, little of it irrelevant or superfluous, and so one can’t help but feel that as we get closer to the end of the season, a mass rewatch around ep 21/22 of everything so far will be essential. And welcome.

If I have any criticisms of this bunch of episodes, it’s two-fold.

The ‘Triptych’ episode, linked by the story of Shade, is clever but is ultimately a bit… empty. Lots happens storywise but the episode is slightly deflated by the huge exposition scene – Nightwing and Batman tell everyone else (and thus us) how the Light/Simon Stagg are linked drags and is a tad tell-not-show. Secondly, in ‘Home Fires’ whilst Ocean Master’s planned assassination of the YJ’s wives/girlfriends/kids is dark and twisted, a large proportion of the families are (re)introduced with no actual fanfare and left me thinking “I don’t actually have a clue who 75% of these people are. Now maybe that’s okay, maybe it doesn’t matter because it’s the mass execution of them that we are supposed to care about, but by the time Red Tornado shows up, it’s all getting a little bit frustrating and I was starting to be on Ocean Master’s side.

All that said, if that’s the only thing that’s wrong with this latest run of Young Justice, well, that’s really not much to complain about.

Overall, the quality of writing, acting and animation is still streaks above much else out there and the biggest compliment that I can pay it is that as each episode ends (with their amusing credits sequence of something YJ associated snoozing – including Lobo’s finger), I’m really anxious to watch the next one. And I’m already somewhat frustrated that that’s over a week away… 9/10

Gary Russell