Young Justice - A Review

Young Justice is a television show that probably aired on a network once. I watched it on Netflix, so I have no idea. It's basically the story of a bunch of sidekicks who become a team of "real" superheroes, which, of course, is a completely new idea that no one has ever heard of before.

You know, unless you don't live under a rock, in which case you've totally heard of Teen Titans and you instantly recognize that this is basically a repeat of the same ideas, with a different name and a few different characters.

Are you waiting for me to ridicule this obvious recycling of old ideas? Well you're going to be waiting a while because reusing the same ideas over and over again is kind of a staple in superhero storytelling. Scratch that - it's a staple in all storytelling. Ancient Greek writers basically wrote stories that everyone already knew, but people got over themselves and were able to appreciate the plays anyway. Unoriginality is the foundation of Western culture.

I mean, Deadpool (Wade Wilson) was totally a ripoff of Deathstroke (Slade Wilson) and he's the most (only) awesome thing in the Marvel Universe.

I mean, if you're looking for a genre that's never repeats itself, you should stay the fuck away from superheroes. DC has a rule that, if a story was written more than seven years ago, you can totally reuse its plotline as long as you promise to redraw some of it.

Anyway, in this story, the sidekicks are allowed to join the Justice League as superheroes, which would be overwhelmingly exciting for these kids if it weren't for the fact that it's total bullshit. The League lets the kids take a visit to an overhyped tourist attraction and a completely underwhelmed Speedy (who is Green Arrow's sidekick, not the Flash's - it's a stupid name) basically flips the bird to everyone and leaves.

Still better than the time Speedy started shooting up heroin, though.

The rest of the kids are told to sit tight while the real heroes go punch out some bad guys. So, like good boys and girls, they totally disobey the adults' orders and investigate a fire at a laboratory. They end up uncovering a secret facility where a bunch of bad guys have cloned Superman, calling their Kryptonian clone creation "Superboy." This is obviously against the League's explicit orders, but hey. At least they didn't join Speedy to go shoot up heroin.

So yeah, the Justice League is mad (especially Superman, who apparently didn't want to be randomly find out he was a father that day) but they can't be that mad, since the sidekicks did save the day after all. So they give the kids their own hideout and make them a covert ops team (which is fucking awesome, just saying.) They try to invite Speedy to join them, but he still thinks the League doesn't respect them enough or something.

I'd rather shoot up heroin anyway.

Now I have two main criteria when it comes to shows, comic books, novels - basically any form of entertainment. Is it fun, and is it interesting? I'm sure loads of nerds sit around in their Batman t-shirts and underwear with a need for complex continuity, philosophical meaning, and uniqueness, but that's bullshit. The story is basically about good people who punch bad people. Get over yourselves, geeks.

And yes, it's fun as fuck. Lots of decent punching scenes, with funny characters, recurring jokes, and teenagers being teenagers to fill the time in between. Sure, Speedy is a little bit too angsty for my tastes and Superboy has his whole identity crisis, which would be totally relateable if I was thirteen, but it's not worse than any of the bullshit Batman spews.

And more than that, the plot is actually half-decent, and each season's story arc is compelling enough to make you want to watch the next episode, but not so unbearable that the individual episodes don't have their own resolutions.

My only complaint is that Superman is a total dick to his clone/son. No "Hey, so if you ever need someone to talk to, I'm here for you." No "This is my aunt and uncle who live in Kansas, if you wanted some parental figures." Not even a pat on the back when they first meet. Just a bunch of "Fuck you, kid. I don't want to talk to you right now." No wonder the kid has angst. His dad is a dick.

"Sorry, Superboy, I got this call to take from, uh, someone important."

I also have mixed feelings about Aqualad. On the one hand, he makes aquatic powers look badass, which is really hard to do for me because I live in a desert where someone with aquatic powers would basically have the power to splash me on a hot summer day. He also says his name in a way that makes you forget that what he's saying is literally the only combination of words lamer than "Aquaman."

But on the other hand, he manages to fall under the "Electric Black Guy" trope. Now, I know what you're thinking. "What the fuck are you talking about? Is that even a thing? Did you create some sort of weird stereotype in your head about black people again?"

Well let me take you back to the first black superhero, Black Lightning. He had the ability to zap people with lightning, which was probably just a random decision but I like to think it was a Black Power pun. (Get it? Because black people have no power! Sorry Mike Brown.)

If only he had electrical superpowers.

This led to a lot of superheroes who were basically just copies of Black Lightning, with names that emphasize both their lightning and their blackness - Soul Power, Juice, etc. This really isn't a problem to me, because, like I said, unoriginality is the foundation of Western culture.

But then it's like every comic book writer ever decided that all black guys should just zap people all the time. Yes, you have those superheroes who are obviously just copies of Black Lightning. But what about Storm, who mostly uses her weather powers to zap the bad guys? What about Coldcast, who has the more vague "electro-magnetic" powers, meaning he has control over electrons on a subatomic level, but basically just electrocutes people into submission? How about the fact that, in the Amazing Spiderman movies, the one character they decide to make black is Electro?

And why the fuck does Miles Morales, the half-black half-latino guy who becomes the Ultimate Spider-Man, have to electrocute his enemies at the end of every battle? Is that even a thing that spiders do?

Please tell me what kind of spider can do this. I want one so bad.

Aqualad clearly has a name and origin that should suggest that he has only water powers. Aquaman only has water powers. The other Atlanteans that we meet during the course of the show only have water powers. But somehow, Aqualad, by virtue of skin color, must have the ability to turn his water-whips into electrowhips.

There are two other black superheroes in the two seasons of this show as well. One of them is Static,  a young black kid who finds out that electricity is his bitch. The other is Bumblebee, who in theory should have Bumblebee powers, which boils down to shrinking and - you fucking guessed it - bursts of electricity.

I'm not including this guy because his only superpower is putting up with Bumblebee's shit.

Is there something I'm missing? Do all black people have the ability to control electromagnetic energy? Is there some stereotype about black people being electricians? Was Nikola Tesla black? Is that how Thomas Edison got away with stealing all his ideas and then killing kittens to make him look bad?

I mean, I guess it could be worse. "All black guys have electric powers" is a weird stereotype, and I definitely don't feel like it's a good thing, but at least they don't give every black superhero a ridiculously short temper and an addiction to drugs.

That's what Speedy's for.

The Dawn of Reviews

Readers, it's been a long time since I have inundated your minds with my soft, sweet words, which seep into your brain through your eyes and fill your brain with offensive thoughts. (I stand by that description of my style.)

But since we've last talked, I've started looking at the world with that brand of logic and temperance that makes someone an adult. Time has tempered my tastes, taking away my tragic thoughtlessness with each tick.

Just kidding, guys! The only difference between old Caowin and new Caowin is that new Caowin really likes long, poetic descriptions. (I took an English class, okay? I thought it would make me a writer but all it did was make me obsessed with alliteration. Not worth it at all.)

The teacher didn't even let us stand on the desks. What a sham.

And speaking of culture (kind of) and things I'm interested in (which is basically all I ever talk about), I have been binge-watching superhero shows on Netflix like a fat girl binge-watches herself going through three gallons of ice cream after a bad break up. (Probably while also binge-watching Netflix. I don't know. Fat girls are weird.)

And let me be clear. I have stayed the fuck away from anything Marvel. Not that I have anything against the really good Marvel stuff - and by "really good Marvel stuff" I mean Deadpool. Deadpool is a badass and if you say otherwise I will find you, tie you up, and throatfuck you with a replica of one of Deadpool's katana swords.

But the rest of the universe - the parts of it that are not Deadpool - are basically a bunch of whiny teenagers, freaky monsters, and grownups trying way too hard to be edgy, usually with Wolverine thrown on the cover so that you idiots will buy something that actually has nothing to do with him.

I hope you're forced to fist your own asshole with those claws, you smug jerk.

No, I've been obsessed with DC superheroes, which in the comic books and animated universe, is basically Marvel without all the stupid angst that makes me hate Marvel so much. Of course, the DC Movieverse throws this all out the window, with movie after movie that keeps trying to convince me that I should feel bad for people who get to spend their free time punching the shit out of everything.

"Boo hoo! I just got to destroy every building in Metropolis and then kill an alien!"

Anyway, long story short, I'm starting this blog and using it to talk shit about superheroes, in a series I'm calling CaowinMan. I might do it on individual superheroes, on seasons, on whole shows. I should probably keep the scope of the individual articles pretty narrow, if only because I know I'm only going to spend about half the article actually talking about that thing.

Until then, remember: Wolverine is a dick.

I hope that cigar gives you supercancer.