Industry InJustice

You know what was great? Teen Titans. While I don’t need to make a list of reasons why Teen Titans was great, I could throw a couple at you. Starfire wasn’t a walking sex toy. A skilled writing staff managed to write jokes that made me laugh without wanting to put my head into a desk. Cyborg was clearly Black, but not an Erkel or a thug. Then there was Terra, who presented complicated notions of heroism, loyalty, and betrayal for a young audience. There was also the Puffy Am—shut up!—Puffy Amiyumi theme song. All of these things and others made for a great show. But it went the way of the dinosaur. If you ask Wil Wheaton, that was because the season 6 pitch didn’t go over favorably with the execs.

That’s the way it is with television shows. Many great shows are here today, gone tomorrow. Despite the efforts of many a Kickstarter or online petition, it takes much more than a vocal and obsessive fanbase to convince a company to reverse the decision to terminate a show. See: Firefly (which, by the way, was a decade ago, so maybe we should just let that wound heal). So many different things go into the cancellation of a show because it takes the cooperation of actors, animators if a show is animated, the owners of the creative property, production companies, etc., and I recognize that these things happen, but the cancellation of Young Justice genuinely broke my heart. There aren’t that many DC properties that I’ve ever really been into, so it was sad to see a critically acclaimed, Emmy-winning, mature, and compelling show disappear. That’s all right; I will learn to love again.

But the other day I was listening to Kevin Smith’s Fat Man on Batman podcast, which is a goldmine, and he was interviewing Paul Dini. Dini is a writer with a long career and a longer resume, and he has written for a show you like, no question. Dini gave a rather troubling answer as to why Young Justice was cancelled, along with other shows like Tower Prep. Apparently, those shows are too mature. They appeal to audiences that prefer complexity, and apparently those audiences don’t buy toys. Now, I acknowledge that televisions often live and die on advertising and merchandising. But there’s something much more disturbing in his answer. There’s a transcript here, and if you read far enough down you’ll encounter this comment about studio executives:

Fanfiction Fridays: Enough

Probably the only upside to cancelled shows is that fanfiction attempts to fill in the holes they leave behind, and Young Justice had a lot of holes in it. Very obviously the show was designed to run for a least a few more seasons to explain everything and justify the numerous characters it introduced.

Also, his sideburns bother me.

One such character was the Riddler; I was never sure how I felt about his introduction into the series. We first meet him while as an inmate at Belle Reeve, not Arkham, and instead of working on his own personal goals—like proving himself smarter than Batman—he’s an agent for the Light. I was a little underwhelmed by his character, and I felt as if the show should have done more with him, instead of having him be a random adversary for our heroes, especially since working with the Light never seemed to line up with his original goals in the comics. I just wanted something to justify his alliance with them.

Enough by FelineOverlord doesn’t set out to do that specifically, but it does give me some closure with his character, though admittedly not as much as I’d like.

The Riddler has enough, but breaking ties with the Light is nothing he can do on his own. YJ verse, based on a prompt fill by Higgystar on tumblr.

Fanfiction Fridays: Explanation by WriteOnForever

I knew that I can’t have been the only person upset by Young Justice’s premature cancellation, and lo-and-behold, I wasn’t. This particular fic, Explanation by WriteOnForever, is a parody one-shot attempting to explain just what the hell was going on through the writers’ heads when they decided to end the series the way they did.

To recap, for those of you fortunate enough to not remember, the last episode in the series, “Endgame”, was a rushed mess that tried to tie up too many storylines at once, while introducing a few more, before ultimately finishing on a cliffhanger ending. This episode was meant to be a neat little bow to wrap up some loose threads, and it did a really awful job of it. It was rushed, and it felt rushed. It also didn’t help that for the sake of drama, the show decided to kill off one of its main characters.

Clearly, WriteOnForever was also just as upset about all this as I was. Except, while I ranted in a post, this author wrote a hilarious story mocking all the stupid decisions that went into that episode. And it raises some very good questions like:

“Did the trial on Rimbor even have a point to it?”

“Why did we bring in Static for five episodes?”

“When did they all learn Nightwing’s secret identity?”

And many others. I’ve been wondering about some of those myself, and as much as I loved the series, I’m hesitant to re-watch it, since I’ll only wonder about them some more, except that I’ll wonder more angrily. When stories are prematurely cancelled and filled to the brim with unanswered questions, it actually takes away from the value of all the previous episodes, because when we’re presented them, we expect a payoff of some kind, whether good or bad. Young Justice didn’t really have a payoff, and that’s something this author understands as well.

This fic is really short and, at less than one thousand words, it doesn’t take long to read at all. It’s entirely worth it, and you should check it out here.

Young Justice Finale

For once I was planning on showering something with praise, but that’s not going to happen. You see, Young Justice has a lot of strong points, but it doesn’t cover so much as it touches on as many characters in the DCU as possible. In fact, it’s a little upsetting that there haven’t been more episodes delving further into some of these characters. Young Justice is the show that helped me get into DC comics. It’s well made, it’s got some great characters, and it gives some neat insight into the world. It’s a show with a lot of personality. But I do wish that it would spend more time with certain characters. It has a lot of interesting people and relationships that should be further explored.

The second season has finally come to a close. Unfortunately, one thing I noticed right away with the season finale is that it seemed a little rushed. It was in a hurry to tie up as many dangling plot threads as possible, while leaving others open for the next season. And I’m all for leaving dangling plot threads as long as they’re eventually taken care of. And from this last episode “Endgame”, I can say that the show was definitely building toward a third season.

I say ‘was’ because Young Justice will not be renewed.

Arrow

So Wednesday night was the series premiere of Arrow, a show based off the DC comic character Green Arrow, also called Oliver Queen when he’s not out pwning the bad guys. Personally, I don’t know much about Green Arrow outside what Young Justice has taught me—he’s not Batman! Sorry!—but from what I’ve seen so far, I approve of the show. The first episode’s not without its faults, but it was exceedingly enjoyable, and it makes me want to watch more.

The Morality and Commonplace of Mind Rape

The idea that there’s someone out there with telepathic abilities certainly has an element of horror to it, and that’s an element pop culture likes to latch onto. Villains with this kind of ability strike a chilling terror in their victims, and even in us, the audience. It goes without saying that the invasion of someone’s mind against his or her will often has long-lasting, damaging effects that leave us with little to no question on the morality, or lack thereof, of the perpetrator. These acts come in different forms, whether mind controlling, binding someone against his or her will, the implantation or removal of memories, or just plain mind reading. The best way to describe such a thing is “rape of the mind”, or “mind rape”. Unfortunately, mind rape is not always committed by the bad guys. Often in fantasy and sci-fi, the good guys will do this as well. And even more unfortunately, when our heroes commit such a heinous act, the narrative will either excuse or refuse to acknowledge the rape in question.

Trigger warning for rape after the jump.