This past weekend welcomed the return of Young Justice on Cartoon Network. This is just an extremely well written show with amazing animation – the heir apparent to the Justice League cartoon.
The show starts off with a tight group of 6 core characters, and in season 2, expands the team to 14. So, I’m wondering what other DC Comics teen heroes would work great in Young Justice.
These are the top 10 I came up with:
GUARDIAN
For those who don’t know, back in the 1970s Teen Titans comic, Mal Duncan took up the identity of the Guardian. Since Mal is already on the team, and the original Guardian, Jim Harper, is no longer using that identity (as we saw in the episode, “Salvage”) make him the new Guardian instead of keeping Mal on the sidelines.
JADE & OBSIDIAN
Yes, it’s 2 characters, but I’m only counting them as one, as you can’t have one without the other. We already saw in the episode “Humanity” that the original Green Lantern, Alan Scott, did exist in this universe. In the comics, Alan had two kids, Jade and Obsidian. I think these two would make a great addition to the team. First off, you’d have Jade’s Green Lantern-like powers, and then you’d have Obsidian with his shadow powers. The light & dark elements complement each other well.
CYBORG
I’m a huge Cyborg fan ever since he first appeared in DC Comics Presents #26. And these days he’s getting hotter and hotter. As there’s another Teen Titans cartoon coming out this fall, they shouldn’t use the same design, but they could use the design from the straight to DVD movie, Justice League: Doom. It wasn’t a bad look, and with all his high tech gadgetry, the producers would be fools not to put him on the team.
THE RAY
I’ll admit it, the only reason why I’m suggesting the Ray be on the team is because he was on the team in the Young Justice comic. But also, I’ve always liked the character. His light based powers would be an asset. Plus, his ability to travel fast as light would do well with Kid Flash’s absence from the team.
SUPERGIRL
With Superboy already on the team, I’m not sure if it would be good to have Supergirl on the team as well, but if you can have Batgirl, Robin, and Nightwing on the team, why not? I can’t see her as a permanent member, but she’d be a cool reserve member.
FIRESTORM
Not having Firestorm is just blasphemy! That said, I want the Jason Rusch version, not the Ronnie Raymond version. I have nothing against Ronnie, but we already saw an animated version of Jason in Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths DVD with the same animated style. How can you pass up a hero who has the power to arrange matter on a molecular level?
DAMAGE
Another legacy character – but with Damage also has the DNA of the entire the Justice Society mixed into his DNA . Damage is usually portrayed as a troubled teen that’s afraid of his own powers. This reluctant hero would work perfectly on the team. This is a character that in one storyline restarted the Big Bang. You don’t get much more powerful than that.
GOLDEN EAGLE
Why not have Hawkman’s sidekick on the show? In the comics, it was revealed that he was a spy, and with the current storyline, that aspect could work out great, giving us a true traitor on the team.
RED STAR
Most members of the team are apparently Americans, so why not have an international hero? Red Star was always a personal favorite of mine. Super-strength and the ability to become living flame would really make a nice asset to the team. Plus, with Miss Martian’s weakness to fire, this could add some great conflict to the show.
STAR-SPANGLED KID
Now, I’m not talking about the character that’s now known as Stargirl, I’m talking about the original Sylvester Pemberton. In the comics, the Kid was transported from the 1940’s to present day. This is still an element that’d work great. I know we have the opposite with Impulse traveling back in time, but why not use the time-lost hero approach?
While there are other great DC teen characters, these are the ones that I feel that’d work best on the show. But no matter on where the producers take the show, as long as they keep up the great work , I’ll keep watching it.
Anthony Andujar Jr.