Young Justice’s creators say the characters tell them where to go next

Original team members Young Justice The title was given to him at a young age. In season 1, which aired on Cartoon Network from 2010 to 2012, a group of DC Comics’ kid heroes balance the whole superhero schtick with the interpersonal problems of adolescence. The next season moved ahead by introducing new characters and sometimes shifting the emphasis away from the core team members.

In the show’s fourth season, subtitled Phantoms Watch now the streaming video on HBO Max Young JusticeReturns to original team members who are in their 20s. The first batch of episodes focus on Miss Martian and Superboy, before the current arc’s shift to Artemis. Creators Greg Weisman and Brandon Vietti are sticking to the series’ original ethos by having the characters balance their masked personas and their day-to-day lives, but their problems have grown up with them. They say that figuring out the characters’ trajectories came completely naturally.

“We let the characters tell us where they go next,” Weisman tells Polygon. “With each season it becomes clear: Now, imagine this: And very quickly in conversations between the two of us, it’s like, Yes, it is. What did Connor do to make a living? He fixes custom motorcycles.This was a natural progression. And this season, showing Artemis getting a PhD, but also teaching Lit at Royal University, it just felt like the natural progression of where she would be going.”

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But listening to the characters goes beyond just figuring out what they’d be doing after a few years of skipped time. Weisman & Vietti work together to create the bigger themes and plots for the show. look at their lineup of characters — sometimes literally, Vietti adds — to decide which ones best suit the story.

“At that point where we are trying to figure out what character can carry this story best […]A character will appear to have something to sayYes, that is possible. I am able to speak on that subject.,” explains Vietti. “We know the histories of these characters. We’ve written them for so many seasons, and there are just certain characters that rise up to help us tell the stories that we want to tell. And like Greg said, at a certain point, it’s almost like we don’t have to make a choice. The characters actually come forward and help us write the stories.”

The downside is that characters may not be able to step up as much as the story requires. For instance, this season kicks off with an arc set on Mars, which pulls Miss Martian, Superboy, and Beast Boy away from the rest of the original team, as they journey to visit Miss Martian’s parents. In the process, they’re confronting the institutionalized racism and classism deeply integrated into Martian society. Weisman doesn’t personally see it as a downside when the story focuses on a few characters at a time, but he acknowledges that some fans have strong feelings when their favorites aren’t front and center.

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“Not every character is designed to be a lead, including some of the young heroes,” he explains. “Or they may be designed to be a lead for an episode or a season, and then not necessarily for the long haul. That doesn’t mean they won’t come back and become a lead down the road, if the storyline fits that.”

Weisman said that Vietti and he are telling the stories they believe are the best and most relevant. This means that certain characters are more appropriate for particular themes and arcs. Given an unlimited amount of episodes, he’d love to visit them all, but he has to make choices.

“The default is always our original season 1 cast,” he says. “But if an episode requires Prince J’emm to be at the forefront, then that’s who’s going to be at the forefront. Each character is interesting to us in different ways. We’ve done episodes where the lead character is Vandal Savage, and he’s not even a hero. We do what we think is right for the show, what makes us passionate about the show, and then we cross our fingers that enough of our audience will share our passion.”

Watch new episodes Young Justice: PhantomsYou can catch HBO Max every Thursday at 9:59pm.