Young Justice: The Mini Version of Justice League
What is Young Justice?
The big question is of course: what is Young Justice exactly? It is a team of superheroes, just like Justice League, but they are filled with young metahumans … that are related to the members of the Justice League in various ways. They are featured in the comic series Young Justice and also the TV show consisting of 4 seasons titled the same as the team name. The one that will be discussed in this blog is the one based on the TV show, in DC's Earth-16 Universe.
Original DC's Young Justice’s Team
The members of the team keeps changing as time goes by, but the original members were as follows:
Robin
One might be very familiar with this name. Robin is, of course, Batman’s sidekick. The Robin that is a part of Young Justice is Richard John Grayson, also known as Dick Grayson — obviously we need to make this clear, especially since there are some Robins out there in the DC Universe. Aside from being a sidekick, Dick Grayson is also Batman’s oldest adopted son. In the first season of the show, he was still Robin. But then, in the second season of the show, he changed his superhero identity to Nightwing. Just like Batman, he doesn’t exactly have superhuman powers, but he is gifted with a lot of abilities: gymnastics, espionage, disguise, advanced hand-to-hand combat; which includes martial arts, computer hacking, weaponry, and so much more.
Kid Flash
Just like what the name suggests, Kid Flash is the sidekick of The Flash. His real name is Wallace Rudolph West, simply known as Wally West. He is the son of Rudolph and Mary West and the nephew of Barry and Iris Allen. Bart Allen is his cousin. Just like The Flash, Kid Flash has superhuman speed, which includes superhuman agility, superhuman reflexes, superhuman stamina, molecular acceleration, and vortex creation. His other abilities include acrobatics, basic hand-to-hand combat, computer hacking, and physics.
Aqualad
Aqualad is the son of Black Manta and Sha’lain’a, an Atlantean woman in the DC Universe. He is also the former protege and successor of Orin, the original Aquaman — later on, Aqualad became the second Aquaman. His real name is Kaldur’ahm and without any doubts, he is an Atlantean. So, by default, he is capable of Atlantean magic that includes hydrokinesis, electrokinesis, and also translation spells. He also has atlantean physiology: amphibian, superhuman strength, enhanced durability, and toxin resistance. His extra abilities? A lot: swimming, weaponry, swordsmanship, advanced hand-to-hand combat, multilingualism, political science, deception, and leadership as well, since he was voted as the leader of the team. His weakness, however, is dehydration, because of being a metahuman living underwater.
Speedy
Despite the name, Speedy is not related to The Flash. His real name is Will Harper, and he is the clone of Roy Harper, the original Speedy. Technically, Will is not a real human, because he was “born” as a clone. He has a lot of abilities, including archery, acrobatics, business management, cooking, demolitions, driving, espionage, advanced hand-to-hand combat, weaponry, and so on.
The Additional Original Members of Young Justice
Aside from the four mentioned before, there were also some other members of Young Justice within the DCU, which are:
Miss Martian in Young Justice
Get ready for another name with a lot of double letters! Meet M’gann M’orzz, another Martian who happens to be the niece of Martian Manhunter, J’onn J’onnz, himself. Of course, she also has Martian physiology that includes the ability of shapeshifting, invisibility, phasing, Martian vision, telepathy, telekinesis, and many more. Later on in life, Miss Martian married DC's Superboy.
Tigress in Young Justice
Her real name is Artemis Lian Crock, or we can simply call her Artemis. At first, she was known as Artemis in the team, but then became Tigress. She joined the team through Green Arrow. She had been trained to have a lot of abilities due to having two villain parents, and these abilities include acrobatics, aerial combat, martial arts, weaponry, swimming, and many more. However, Tigress was introduced as Green Arrow’s niece, so that the others didn’t know her backstory.
Brief History of Young Justice
At first, Robin, Speedy, Aqualad, and Kid Flash wanted to join the Justice League. Unfortunately, they were told that they would be just sidekicks. So, they decided to investigate a case when the Justice League was dealing with another case. Through this case, they met Superboy, also known as Conner Kent, a clone made of Superman and Lex Luthor’s genetic material. Long story short, they managed to free Superboy, and the Justice League approved these kids’ powers. However, instead of letting them join the Justice League, they were told to form their own superhero team: Young Justice. Soon after, Miss Martian joined the team, and then Artemis followed. Their main enemy is the Light, a team filled with supervillains consisting of Vandal Savage, Ra’s al Ghul, Lex Luthor, Queen Bee, Ocean Master, Brain, and Klarion the Witch Boy. A lot of things happened (and they even had a traitor amongst them), but justice always wins in the DC Universe.