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NoOneSpecial writes...
So, I’m trying to understand something about Batman Incorporated. The League is sanctioned under the UN, so they operate, more or less, within the law, but the UN can limit what they do publicly.
The Team is not something the public or the UN is aware of, so they are off the books. I’m guessing the League consider the Team to be largely an internal matter amongst themselves and don’t want to drag the UN into it, since most of them as their own protégé they are training, and others are young heroes they want to help mentor. But by the end of Season 2, the League recognize the Team as equals and allow them to plan their own missions. Of course, they still work together, but the League no longer claims to be an authority figure over the Team. But does that mean the Team is no longer monitored by the League? And if so, that means they are not bound by the UN and they don’t seem to be during Season 3.
This brings up the issue with Batman Incorporated. Batman and other Leaguers decide to quit and continue to work together in secret since the UN is blocking them thanks to Luthor. Jefferson is not pleased by this or the fact they were still working with the League behind the scenes. But how is this any different than what the Team was doing? They go on covert missions and help the League behind the scenes, while the public is unaware of what they do, and they don’t have permission from the UN. A good example would be in Season 1, when they go on a mission to Bialya, where the League is not allowed to go. So, the League were already working around the UN by using the Team. So, why would it be an issue for the League to use Batman Incorporated in what is largely the same manner? What was the difference in Batman, Katana and Metamorpho infiltrating Santa Prisca for intel, when the Team did that very same thing as well?
Yes, there is the argument that they are being no better than the Light be adopting their methods, but wasn’t this part of the reason the Team was created in the first place? After Cadmus, they realized the bad guys are getting smarter on how they operate, so the Team would help level that playing field. And yes, Jefferson has a point when he says they shouldn’t be keeping secrets. But the League was also doing this when it kept the Watchtower hidden.
And minor thing, but didn’t the Reach Ambassador expose the Team to Secretary Tseng during the conversation with Captain Atom? And if he didn’t, why didn’t Lex expose them to further his antihero campaign?
Also, are the Team, well-known among, I guess I would say, the villain community? Black Manta obviously knows them and told Captain Boomerang. But the Team has been going nearly 10 years now. Wouldn’t some word of mouth have gotten around about their exploits?
Greg responds...
1. The Team is still monitored by the League. But they leave much of the running of it to the Team's older members. They aren't bound by U.N. restrictions but should be. It's a cheat because the U.N. as an organization is not officially aware of the Team's existence. The members of the U.N. who are, keep the secret for their own reasons.
2. In a way, it's not. One of the things that upsets Jeff is that nearly everyone was in the dark. Another is that Batman Inc. (which was never really their name - though Jeff's repetition of it started to stick) wasn't simply going on covert missions but was manipulating people and events. It's not the Santa Prisca mission that upsets Jeff. But the Brooklyn manipulations are an entire other story.
As Jeff stated, he sees a value in the Team's covert existence and missions - not for the sake of them being covert - but because it allowed the young heroes to learn and grow outside the spotlight.
As for how prominent the Team is within the super-villain community, it's a mixed bag.
Anonymous writes...
This is a question about the writer's room and your relationship with the writers.
Do you and Brandon develop all of the premises for the episodes yourselves? What if a writer comes to you and says: "I have my own really cool idea for an episode. Can I pitch it to you?" or "I don't know if you guys are planning to bring back Wally or not, but, if you are, I have a really cool scene in mind for Wally's return."
Would this be inappropriate? Is he or she crossing some kind of line? Is he in danger of being fired? Is a writer's job strictly to develop the premises you give her? Or, is there some flexibility to parameters of his job description?
Greg responds...
For the last two seasons, Brandon and I skipped the premise stage entirely, and we broke every episode together on index cards, and I took those cards to outline. Then Brandon, myself and the freelance writers are handed a completed outline. (We have no staff writers on the show, and haven't after season one, for budgetary reasons.) So, no, a writer can't come in and say "I have my own really cool idea for an episode." Freelancers are not in danger of being fired; they simply don't have that opportunity on this series. It's too intricately plotted. They do come on at the outline stage, and we talk through everything and try to stay very open to their ideas for the episode they've been assigned and to the other episodes in the writers room that day. But the story is the story. If they decide to bring Wally back in an episode where we didn't previously plan to bring Wally back, it's simply not going to happen.
But no one ever suggests going that far off book, anyway. That's just not this gig, and that's made clear up front.
Alan writes...
Hi Greg, huge fan of Young Justice and all your other projects.
You said that the Green Arrow DC showcase and Catwoman Hunted loosely exist in the young justice timeline, that versions of these events happened but maybe not exactly the same. What team years did these almost events happen in the YJ timeline?
Greg responds...
No spoilers. ESPECIALLY not for Catwoman: Hunted, which hasn't even come out yet.
Will writes...
1. Is Dreamer the New God a more powerful psychic that can get information that normal telepaths can't at least without harming them like she did in her first appearance?
2. What were the Light’s traditions that Ultra Humanite was referring too?
3. Why didn’t the Light dispose of Speedy when they were okay with it for the other sidekicks when they were captured in Cadmus?
4. What was the official reason/cover story that Lex Luthor had held Speedy captive for so long?
5. Could martians have children with humans or atlanteans or
even other aliens?
Greg responds...
1. "More powerful" than whom? I'm not too big on power comparisons. Her powers are different but overlap with other psychics we have in the series.
2. I think he states it fairly clearly in the episode.
3. They thought he might be useful, and by that time there was no fear that his existence would out their clone.
4. I don't understand this question. Cover story for whom?
5. It's a good question... that I'm not going to answer, as any answer could constitute a potential spoiler.
Liam writes...
What type of music does the main young justice team like? I’d specially like to know for Artemis, Miss Martian, and Aquaman (Artemis because she’s my favorite, but the other two because they’re from different cultures and I’m interested to know what they would think of human music and what kind they’d like)
Greg responds...
I'm going to leave that to your interpretation.
Verdragon writes...
What is your favorite episode of each (complete) season of Young Justice so far? Which ones do you think are objectively the best of each season?
Greg responds...
I don't have conclusive or definitive feelings about them in the way you seem to be implying.
I am very fond of Independence Day, Misplaced, Summit, Endgame, Evolution and Overwhelmed. But I honestly love every episode (like a proud papa).
Antiyonder writes...
1. Is there still the interest in doing a Young Justice/Scooby Doo film? I figure even with YJ now being for a older audience it wouldn't be out of place considering Scooby's appearance on Supernatural.
2. Was it planned as a canon story (and as such the Mysteries Inc. Gang being part of continuity)? Or does the Newsgirl Legion presence change such is previously a yes?
Greg responds...
1. Brandon and I are still interested. I don't know that anyone else at WB ever was.
2. We never got that far. But we were, at the time, willing to do a Scooby import into the YJ universe, or a YJ import into the Scooby universe.
Nick writes...
Hi Greg, I'm glad that Phantoms has premiered now. Almost flipped when hearing we can watch them on HBO Max after the DC Fandome was done. I like how the heroes are not given a big issue to deal with like in the last two seasons. Feels like going back to the first season roots.
Anyway I enjoyed the first two episodes and I have a few questions from them and I can promise that none of them involve spoilers.
1. What's with the iris-change in the Martian eyes? How come J'onn didn't have them when he was on Earth? They look better.
2. Are Harper Row and her brother adopted by Snapper and Beth?
3. One scene I didn't get in "Schooled" was when M'gann formed multiple arms to fight the Monqis and then freaks out after Wally freaks out seeing her with the arms. I don't get it?
4. Is Phil Bourassa not working on the show anymore? I noticed someone else is in charge of character design. Did Dou Hong work under him?
Thank you and till next time.
Greg responds...
1. The iris change allowed them to take in more light on Mars, I believe.
2. Fostered.
3. His reaction startled her.
4. Dou worked as a character designer on Season Three under Phil. Phil moved on after Season Three, and Dou was promoted to Model Supervisor. We also brought back Jerome Moore, who did characters for us during Seasons One and Two, and brought in Austin Reinkins to design with Dou and Rome.
LoboGuara5bruxaria writes...
Hey Greg, on more than one occassion someone have asked you how strong an average Martian is when compared to a average Atlantean, but you had responded that it is hard to give an straight answer since martians can augment their strength with their shape/denseshifting abilities and telekinesis. So allow me to ask you this:
1) How strong to you think an average Martian is in their... "Biologically Natural*" form without any telekinesis involved when compared to the average Atlantean? I am NOT asking exact numbers of "Y Character is X times stronger/weaker than Z character", but more on a "I think X is a bit stronger/weaker than Z" kind of way.
2) How strong to you think an Average Gargoyle from Gargoyles is when compared to Young Justice's Average Atlantean and "Biologically natural" Martian?
*I say "Biologically Natural" form of Martians (That one of large bipedals with narrow waists and exposed gums) than True Form, since for a species of shapeshifters "true form" would likely be the one they are personally most confortable to stay in. Am I right or wrong on that regard?
Greg responds...
1. These kinds of questions are not really of much interest to me. You're trying to remove all situational criteria, but life is entirely situational. I guess by the terms you're using that Atlanteans are stronger than Martians. But the terms only exist in a vacuum of circumstance, which can never occur - not even in a vacuum.
2. Now, you're crossing shows? No. I'm not going there. Watch the two series. See what you see. Make your own evaluations.
3. Every Martian is different.
Aziraphale writes...
After watching the season premiere of YJ, I have an additional question:
In your reinterpretation of the White Martians, I was confused by their new portrayal as an oppressed underclass compared to the Green Martians, in contrast to their depiction in the comics and other media as hatemongering conquerors. And that led to a confusing racial allegory that I already didn't think worked well, but then I noticed Ma’alefa’ak's birth name is "M'Comm", something original to this show and not the comics, and he was imprisoned in a jail with a giant X on the building. M'Comm X? If this was an intentional reference to real life civil rights leaders, what was the thought process in turning a character who had murdered innocent teenagers the previous season into a Malcolm X analogy?
Greg responds...
I see where you're coming from, but that's not where we were coming from.
The X on the building comes from the X on Martian Manhunter's chest. In our mind, that was the symbol of the M'huntrrs, i.e the Martian police, that J'onn J'onzz was a member of before coming to Earth. I totally see how you got there, but I promise you it literally never occurred to us to associate that X with M'comm to create any kind of Malcolm X reference or analogy.
The name M'comm was, for us, just following in the tradition of most Martian naming, i.e. you take a relatively average human name and Martian it up a bit. Hence John becomes J'onn, Megan becomes M'gann, etc. M'ree, M'aatt, J'ann and M'comm follow along those lines. So, yes, M'comm is a Martianing up of Malcolm, but I never specifically thought of associating him with Malcolm X, any more than I think of J'onn being associated with some specific Jon or John.
Way back when we were developing Season One, Brandon and I rejected the idea of there being an evil race on M'arzz. I find that notion from the comics very troubling. But we did think that the MYTH of an evil race would be useful for the ruling castes to justify their caste system. Scapegoating, in essence, creates a self-justifying belief: "Oh, so the A'ashenn are angry about the way we treat them? They don't like how we keep them in their place? Well, that's because they're hate-mongering would-be conquerors! Thank C'eridyall we DO keep them in their place!"
I've said before that I regret having used White Martians at all. We were following in the footsteps of the comics, but I do wish we had thought to use Grays instead of Whites. For one thing, the idea of Martians being either "little green men" or "Grays" feels right to me, in terms of alien-mythology. But mostly, it's because here in the real world, the word "white" is obviously associated with people of European descent (such as myself) - i.e. so-called Caucasian - and not with the actual color white, i.e. the snow white or chalk white of our A'ashenn. In essence, we were distracted by the visual look of the White Martians and didn't have the sensitivity to focus on the actual and very real connotation of the WORD "white".
That's one of the main reasons why, this season, we made a conscious choice to largely stop referring to the Martians as White, Green, Red and Yellow, in favor of A'ashenn, G'arrunn, B'lahdenn and Y'ellonn. We actively wanted to create some mental distance between the A'ashenn and Caucasians by avoiding the common word "white". We don't want the oppressed A'ashenn associated with the decidedly NOT oppressed Caucasians in any way, shape or form. It's not a perfect solution, but after consulting with our multiple sensitivity readers, it felt like the best we could do, given our failure of imagination and sensitivity way back in Season One.
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