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.

Anonymous writes...

can you please stop baiting people by teasing that a character might play a role in a season when you know that they won’t? i only kept up with phantoms because everyone was so sure that jason was going to be part of nightwing’s arc and that maybe tim would finally have something to do, and you fed into that by teasing jason since outsiders and saying tim didn’t show up “at least in the first half of phantoms” in an answer which implied he could show up at the end, when you knew he wasn’t going to. it’s a cheap trick.

Secret writes...

What was it like for M'gann after she returned to Happy Harbour? It had to have been hard for her. That was the place where she and Conner built their life together and it had so many memories and places. Everything must have reminded her of Conner. And their home, going back without Conner and it was also the VERY place where he proposed to her!!! I can't even imagine the pain she must have felt. Did she ever consider leaving and starting over somewhere else and if not why did she decide to stay?

Secret writes...

What was it like for Conner and M'gann when they finally got back together? Did they slip right back into their relationship or did they gradually rebuild it and started over?

Anonymous writes...

Mr. Weisman,

If a Kryptonian absorbs enough yellow sun radiation after a certain number of years in the Earth-16 universe, will they become completely invulnerable to the effects of kryptonite? The reason I'm asking this question to you is because this actually happened to the Superman of the Kingdom Come universe (Earth-22) when he was temporarily in the pre-Flashpoint mainstream DC Comics universe (New Earth).

Anonymous writes...

Since Catwoman: Hunted is "canon adjacent" to YJ, and, as you say, some events happened similar in Earth-16, what Team Year would you say the events from the movie take place in?

Anonymous writes...

More Legionaire questions
1. Did they ever follow Conner and M'gann when they went on dates?
2. Were they ever almost caught by Wolf or Sphere?
3. What the Legionaires think of Superboy and Miss Martian's romance?

Anonymous writes...

Since the Legionnaires were following Conner for a whole year...
1. Where did they sleep?
2. Where did they live?
3. Did they keep constant surveillance on his and M'gann's home in Happy Harbour?
4. Did they ever go inside the couple's house/apartment?

Dentrisen writes...

Hi Greg ! I suppose we'll never get to see season 5, given the actual world situation. Even if you started it right now (and you won't), that'll probably never happen. So I wonder : are you sad you couldn't develop more Nightwing's character ? You had a golden opportunity to develop his relation with Batman, father and son. That could have been a great moment in the DC universe and now it'll never be realized. Do you have planned to leave your untold stories for people to read them after you know you won't be able to tell them ?

Secret writes...

What's the situation with Lia? Was she a runaway too and if so why did she leave? Is she in contact with her parents?

Anonymous writes...

Mr. Weisman,

As of the time of this posting, DC Comics has introduced a new character who also happens to be Black Adam's successor and descendant. The young man's name is Malik White; although he has also been addressed as Malik-Adam by Black Adam. Also, from what I read on the internet, once he is given Black Adam's powers, Malik will go by the monkier "Bolt" when he transforms; wearing a white version of the Black Adam costume while sporting a red cape. As such, Do you think that we'll ever eventually see the Earth-16 version of Malik White?

Anonymous writes...

Let me get straight...you claim that ONE Muslim woman of color told you there was nothing wrong with Halo and MPAC didn't come in until season 4 so they never said the original concept was okay. Meanwhile COUNTLESS amount of fans have been telling you there is an issue since 2019 with multiple people saying the exact same things over and over and over...and you STILL think that you're right? You've never once considered that maybe you're missing something Are you really that arrogant?

Patrick writes...

Hey Greg, in YJ season 4 what was the total number of Kryptonians that were trapped in the Phantom Zone including the ones that were named (Zod, Ursa, Non, etc.)?

Anonymous writes...

Up until now Miss Martian never really called Mars as M'arzz so why the change?

Anonymous writes...

Hi Greg! I had some questions about the Cosmic Treadmill in Young Justice.

1) What is it exactly and how does it work? In the comics it's used by speedsters to time travel, but that doesn't seem to be the case here. Am I correct to assume it's primary/only function was to super-charge Bio-Ship so she could fly faster?

2) Why did it take Bart, Saturn Girl and Chameleon Boy over three months to collect and assemble materials for it?

3) Who's idea was it to build a Cosmic Treadmill specifically? Bart's or the Legionnaires'? And where did the idea come from?

Hayden Philyaw writes...

I have four questions.

1) If Batman is Tim Drake's Legal Guardian, does that mean Tim's real parents are dead?

2) Will we ever see Thymescira?

3) Has Cassie ever been to Thymescira?

4) Does Thymescira have mythological creatures? Like Griffins

Anonymous writes...

Mr. Weisman,

#1. Did Alfred ever apologized to Bruce for not being a father figure to him as Bruce grew up, and did Bruce forgave Alfred for it?

#2. Since Alfred became a father figure to Dick Grayson, did he also do the same for Jason Todd and Tim Drake as well?

#3. Did Jason Todd and Tim Drake appreciate Alfred's fatherly-like love and support like Dick (presumably) did?

Anonymous writes...

Is there a point when an Outsider is expected to “age out” of the Outsiders, since the goal of the Outsiders is to inspire meta-teens by showing the world public meta-teen superheroes? For example, Cyborg joins the Outsiders when he’s 18 and leaves to join the Justice League when he’s 19/20 years old. Virgil is around the same age and Jaime is already 21. Would they be expected to leave the Outsiders and join the JL soon since they’re already adults? Will Garfield be a 30 year old man leading a group of teens?

John Paul Gontor writes...

How you plan or came up with ideas for your episodes?

Sam writes...

I always had a question about the Grimorum Arcanorum. It's a book of spells but is the book itself magical? cant the spells be transferred to another book?

Mark writes...

The plot of the Musicology 101 radio play had much in common with the then-unpublished Torch Songs comic.

Was Torch Songs already scripted and adapted into Musicology, or was Musicology adapted into Torch Songs?

Mark writes...

At the wedding in Death and Rebirth, we hear Danny Chase speak. Previously he seemed dependent on a psychic link to speak, and could only "talk" in beeps in the real world.

Did Danny learn to project his thoughts? Or has he been fitted with a thought-to-speech device like Gar, the Brain, etc? Something else?

Alex DeSantos writes...

Hi Greg,

You talked about how there's no viable way for Spectacular to come back due to Sony owning that version but not owning the right the TV Rights.

Sony however seems to have the right to make animated films (based on Into The Spider-Verse and the upcoming Across The Spider-Verse). And they still own the rights to the Spectacular version of the character. In theory, would Sony be legally allowed to put out an animated film in the Spectacular'universe?

I'm not asking if it's likely to happen, just if it's technically possible for them to do that.

Sonickick writes...

Hi Greg and staff moderators!

I'm currently doing research on Young Justice Legacy for a video project I'm working on, and on the game's wikipedia page in the development section, this sentence was added sometime in 2014 after the game came out:

"Many of the initial delays resulted from production uncertainty. In its pre-production phase throughout late 2011 into late 2012, the development of the game shifted constantly between Little Orbit's in house development branch Game Machine, their contractor in Madrid Freedom Factory and a satellite Game Machine studio in Melbourne. Once initial quality issues and developer responsibilities settled, the game was able to be completed."

The sentence doesn't have a source or reference to it. Would you be able to verify any of this, like what time you and Brandon were initially approached by LittleOrbit/Warner Bros for the project, or was this possibly some misinformation that was just put on the page by a random editor?

Suzie writes...

How long was Kru-El sentenced to the Phantom Zone?
how long was Non sentenced to the Phantom Zone?
how long was Jax-Ur sentenced to the Phantom Zone?