Alex (aka Aldrius) writes...

So, the questions on Ask Greg have been so caustic and accusatory lately. I get that religion and sexuality are touchy subjects and people are entitled to their feelings, but not even an ounce of grace or courtesy. Manners cost nothing, you know.

And I do just wanna say I really appreciate how open you are with your fans, Greg. You've been answering questions here for what? 20 years? And even some of the really negative ones you've taken in stride. I hope you don't take that negativity too much to heart and know that the greater whole of us appreciate what you do.

Maybe that's too schmaltzy, or maybe it's crossing a line, but I was actually *personally* really bothered by the entitlement, presumptuousness and downright rudeness of a lot of the "questions".

But anyway, I wanted to kind of give my feedback on Young Justice season 4 now that it's ended. So I'm gonna try breaking down each arc and what I thought of it.

First off, I did really enjoy this season. I thought it was bold and really powerful, and while I was a bit overwhelmed by it I thought it triumphed.

Arc 1 - Mars (M'gann/Beast Boy/Connor)

I'm gonna start off by saying what I thought of the actual breakdown of the season and how the arcs were handled. One thing I love about Young Justice is how each year feels really different. There's either a major time skip or there's a totally new structure, or tone, and I think that makes the show feel fresh and this season did that very well.

Having said that, I had a few quibbles here. I think that because the seasons were so segmented in terms of characters used and location, I KINDA wish the arcs had maybe been a little shorter, with more room for one off stories in-between, just some breathing room between all the really plot heavy arcs. Some of the arcs felt a little long-winded, and felt like the stories would have benefited from a bit of tightening in regards to the narrative.

But ultimately I did like that we got a little spotlight for each OG team member and how distinct each arc felt from the others.

Now onto the actual arc.

I LOVE the locale for this one. The take on Mars as a society was so cool. I like the caste system the Martians have, and I love the different idiosyncrasies of what makes their society work. There's also a nice little story about Connor meeting his in-laws properly, which I thought was sweet.

I also love M'gann's new design. Something about it just worked really well.

The Legion stuff worked fairly well as a plot hook. It's basically the thing that carries us through the whole season, so it had to be fairly strong, and I think it... mostly worked well. It's a bit amusing to me that combined Phantom Girl, Chameleon Boy and Saturn Girl don't have the full powers of a single Martian, but I did like their byplay. (Also we find out later Chameleon Boy is kind of messed up, but it's really underplayed and I kinda love that)

The political machinations stuff was great as always. I don't know if this is a solvable whodunit necessarily, but I loved all of the pieces. The Romeo and Juliet romance turned murderous, the machinations of the different factions. That all worked really well. I think the sort of stereotypical evil vizier bigot character Troy Baker was playing was a *bit* too rote for me, but he was probably necessary for the story being told. Also the actual elements of the mystery were very well done. The whole thing made a lot of sense.

I had some issues with M'comm. Firstly, because they're so alien and strange I *did* have trouble distinguishing which Martian was which a lot of the time. This is probably something that'll be fixed with a rewatch, but I really think M'comm would have benefited from a more distinctive design. Also while I like the character a lot in terms of his parts, I think it would have been helpful to see more colours and sides to M'Comm. He's in the season a lot, and while I love his concept, I love his cunning, Ben Diskin was a great casting choice and I love his backstory, I really feel like it would have been cool to see more sides to M'Comm -- what do his underlings think of him? His family? What's pushed him to the lengths he goes to? Not just hear him talking to M'Gann about it, but maybe seeing it in some more tangible way. If he had just been a one-off villain for this arc, I think what we got would have been fine, but he was really one of the primary antagonists for the whole season and he's just kind of miserable and cruel.

The only other moment that really bugged me was when Em'ree and M'gann are fighting, and M'Gann's mother says something along the lines of M'gann's human-like form being her "primary" form I suppose. I felt like this moment was being explained to me logically, when what I really wanted was to *feel* this moment, but I felt like instead it was being logically explained to me.

I think the social justice aspect of the story was... fine. I think this is a very difficult thing to cover well. Especially when you're dealing with aliens and magic. This is both a Romeo and Juliet story, but it's also a story about prejudice and racial inequality and it's all very surface level because there's just no room or time to have all these things line up naturally with the Legion plot, the M'Comm plot, the zeta tube plot, the wedding plot. This is sort of where I think maybe segmenting these into separate into individual stories/episodes a little more might have worked better. Give us as an audience more time to absorb things.

Having said all that, I know my tone can be a bit critical but I still REALLY loved this arc. I just loved this take on Mars and hope to see more of it in the future.