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Characters / Young Justice (2010) - The Team
aka: Young Justice The Team

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Due to length, this page was split into four sub-pages, each dealing with the Team members by the season they joined; see the navigation above.


The Team (In General)


"The Team" is the de facto name for the group of young superheroes assigned to undertake covert operations on behalf of the Justice League.
  • Badass Crew: Though they started out as a Ragtag Bunch of Misfits, when they come together as a team, they are an incredibly effective force to be reckoned with, as seen in most episodes. But no episode showcases this better than “Summit”, where the team completely outsmarts both the Light AND the Reach, singlehandedly not only destroying their alliance, but setting up an Engineered Public Confession that obliterates the Reach's Villain with Good Publicity act. The end result is about half the Light captured and the Reach's invasion of Earth completely thwarted in every conceivable way. This causes Vandal Savage to truly lose his cool for the first time in the entire series. As he outright says, they've done more to derail his plans than anyone in his entire immortal life.
  • Brains and Brawn: Robin and Superboy have this dynamic when they work together, though Robin isn't a pushover and Supey isn't dumb. Ditto with Batgirl and Wonder Girl.
  • Breaking the Fellowship:
    • Though not completely. Five years later only Robin (now Nightwing), Miss Martian and Superboy are still on the Team. Zatanna and Rocket have just recently joined the Justice League. Kid Flash and Artemis have dropped hero work to focus on college but are still close to and concerned for their friends. Red Arrow, obsessed with finding the original Speedy, is basically a hobo. Aqualad, while initially presented as having gone off the deep end morally, is in fact a deep cover agent infiltrating Black Manta's organization. Later he brings in Artemis to help him, and Nightwing acts as their handler. They're still (mostly) on the same side and they're definitely True Companions but they aren't all working together anymore.
    • As of "Complications", Nightwing is the only member that hasn't been abducted, killed, retired, promoted to League membership, pretended to defect, hospitalized or gone MIA.
    • Again, at the start of Outsiders, where the Team is but a shadow of its former self and most of its members are gone elsewhere.
    • It's gotten even worse by the end of Outsiders; while Halo and Orphan have both joined the Team and Nightwing, Tigress, Robin III, Arrowette and Spoiler have all re-joined the Team after Nightwing's Team and Batman Incorporated both disbanded, most of the Team's other members have left to form the Outsiders.
  • Briefer Than They Think: With how emphasized the "Original Six" members (Robin, Kid Flash, Aqualad, Superboy, Miss Martian and Artemis) of the Team are by the fanbase and promotional material, one would be surprised to learn that they were only the core lineup for a total of thirteen episodes. Artemis didn't join until Episode 7, and Episode 20 saw the first recruit since with Zatanna, while Red Arrow and Rocket joined subsequently. Then, Invasion completely shuffled the roster with a bunch of newcomers, and only continued further from there. Young Justice currently has sixty episodes, making the time they were the roster a relatively brief part of it all. Early fans might be forgiven for this, considering that the fandom that formed during the first big hiatus (March - September 2011) got very set in their ways, as they were right in the middle of that 13 episode stretch.
  • Child Soldiers: They are used as black ops agents to go on missions that the Justice League can't tackle publicly, due to the bad guys being a Villain with Good Publicity or in places the League can't legally go. The morally grey area of their youth is brought up from time to time and their missions give them all a fair amount of trauma. But they would all rather be a child soldier than a pure Side Kick.
  • Combat Pragmatist: A necessary adjunct to Weak, but Skilled below.
  • Composite Character: The team as a whole is a composite of the teams from the Teen Titans and Young Justice comics.
  • Demoted to Extra: The Team exists in Outsiders, but have lost considerable ground compared to Nightwing's Team during the first half of the season and the titular Outsiders during the second half of the season, who are now the protagonists of that season. They bounce back and forth in focus in Phantoms, which is structured around arcs based on the original Team members from the first season, sans the only temporary Red Arrow and the now-deceased Wally. However, the arcs don't necessarily focus on the Team as it currently is during the season, with only Artemis' arc having much involvement from them. M'gann's instead focuses on her trip to Mars with Connor, while Zatanna's focuses on her group of apprentices, the Sentinels of Magic, who outside of Traci 13 are not members of the Team.
  • Dysfunction Junction: Of the original team of six, only Robin, Kid Flash, and Aqualad were particularly stable. Aqualad was later revealed to have a Dark and Troubled Past while Robin/Nightwing picked up The Chains of Commanding. Superboy and Miss Martian got over most of their issues by the end of season 1 only to pick up a pack of new ones over the Time Skip while Wally got extremely bitter in Season 2. By the start of Season 2 Artemis is the only one who really qualifies as an Only Sane Man which is somewhat ironic since she was the most damaged in season 1. And now she's Tigress and has Becoming the Mask problems while her world crumbles around her. Go figure.
  • Experienced Protagonist: Several of them such as Robin, Kid Flash and Aqualad are experienced superheroes who made their career as sidekicks with the official Justice League superheroes like Batman, Flash and Aquaman. Averted with others, like Superboy, Miss Martian and Artemis, who begin their superhero careers during the story.
  • Gender-Equal Ensemble: As of "Usual Suspects" with male Robin, Aqualad, Kid Flash and Superboy and female Artemis, Miss Martian, Rocket and Zatanna. But back to more boys than girls after Season One.
    • Taken as a whole, of the 35 individual heroes who have been on the team, there have been 18 boys and 17 girls. The Team itself goes through periods of being mostly male or mostly female though - with Invasion having a majority of men while Phantoms has a majority of women.
  • Guys Smash, Girls Shoot: The team at the end of Season 1 had two Lightning Bruisers, two Fragile Speedsters, two Glass Cannons and two Squishy Wizards... guess which gender was which. This is no longer the case when Batgirl and Wonder Girl show up.
  • Hyper-Competent Sidekick: Occasionally they'll run missions off camera with their mentors. The Team eventually becomes skilled to the point of being able to defeat their mentors, and handles the Reach crisis in Season 2 pretty much on their own top to bottom.
  • Improbable Age: Despite their superpowers, not one is older than 16 and they're being used in covert ops missions against some of the most formidable DC Comics villains without the help of their mentors.
  • Just a Kid: The Light consistently refers to them as "children" and their Underestimating Badassery of the team is what causes their defeat.
  • Official Couple: Superboy and Miss Martian were an item in season one, along with Zatanna/Robin and Artemis/Kid Flash. Superboy broke up with Miss Martian during the timeskip between season 1 and 2, with Miss Martian now seeing Lagoon Boy. It is confirmed that both Zatanna and Rocket are Nightwing's Amicable Exes, with him implied to still be Friends with Benefits with Zatanna, and possibly Batgirl as well. Rocket and Aqualad also dated for a bit (according to Greg Weisman), and now Rocket is getting married to someone else. Artemis and Kid Flash lasted until Wally's death.
  • On One Condition: The first members of The Team, all sidekicks and protoges of the Justice League, are formed under Batman's condition to fight crime on "League Terms". During Season 1, this means they operate under the radar and under supervision.
  • Retired Badass: Post-time skip, Wally and Artemis have hung up their tights and decided to focus on college.
    • Subverted with Artemis, who fakes her death to become a deep cover agent.
  • Rotating Protagonist: There is no definite main protagonist in Young Justice. Each of the members get their own episode throughout the series.
  • The Smurfette Principle: Until the very end of the premiere there are no females, and for several episodes thereafter there's only Miss Martian. Then, the trope is subverted due to Artemis joining up.
    • Averted as of "Usual Suspects". As of the first season finale, the team had an even split of four boys and four girls.
    • And then in season two, the new line-up consists of five boys and four girls.
    • Almost inverted by the end of Outsiders due to every male member of the Team except for Robin I/Nightwing and Robin III having either diednote , leftnote , got promoted to the Justice Leaguenote  or joined the Outsidersnote .
  • Superhero Speciation: Varies at times.
    • The original lineup includes two Badass Normals but one uses a bow, a speedster, an Atlantean hydromancer, a (not quite)-Flying Brick and a Martian telepath. Their abilities were distinct and played a unique role, Miss Martian even losing her Super-Strength here to emphasize it. They gained a Token Wizard with Zatanna, but it officially ended when fellow Badass Normal archer Red Arrow joined (even with a lampshading). However, this didn't last long.
    • Season 2 has multiple martial artists (Nightwing, Robin III, Batgirl) and two Bricks (Superboy and Wonder Girl).
  • The Team: Incidentally, they are actually called 'the Team' In-Universe. For the initial team, Aqualad is looked up to as The Leader, the most responsible and the clearest communicator. Robin is primarily The Lancer, a bit jealous that he's been passed over for leadership due to his youth despite his experience. Kid Flash is primarily The Smart Guy since he's the most scientific minded. Superboy is The Big Guy as the most withdrawn and volatile member, he also has the most offense-oriented powers. Miss Martian is The Heart as the Naïve Newcomer Nice Girl trying to fit in and The Empath. Later, they are supplemented by Red Arrow who never formally joins since he hates the idea of the Team as the Jr. Justice League, but still helps and is helped by his friends in times of need. Artemis joins later on. Still later, Zatanna and Rocket. They also rely on Miss Martian's Bio-Ship as the Signature Team Transport, Sphere the Robot Buddy who doubles as a Cool Bike, and Wolf The Team Pet.
  • True Companions: Even five years later when the fellowship is, at least partly, broken and Superboy and Miss Martian are broken up they still slide easily into the telepathic conversations they used when they were a team.
    • The trope is then played with in regards to Kaldur. First it seems that he has become evil due to the gut-punch combo of long-time crush Tula dying on a mission and the revelation Black Manta is his father. Then it seems that the The Only One Allowed to Defeat You clause for True Companions still applies, as Nightwing and Superboy make sure they intercept and confront Aqualad themselves, leaving Leaguers and newer members of the Team behind. But then it turns out that Kaldur was a Fake Defector the whole time, and Nightwing, as his handler, was just going to talk with him, only for the meeting to be interrupted by Superboy.
  • Two Girls to a Team: The original team had Artemis and Miss Martian. This trope was so enforced in the minds of its demographic that rumours that another female team member (either Wonder Girl or Secret) would be joining the cast launched much speculation that either Artemis or Miss Martian would be outed as The Mole, die, or otherwise leave the team.
    • Later additions and removals from the Team caused this trope to be inverted in Phantoms - with Nightwing and Arsenal being the only two remaining male members while the rest of the Team is female.
  • Weak, but Skilled: How the team, as a unit, compares to many of their opponents. More often than not, they can't overpower everyone they face, much less take any of them in a one-on-one fight. Instead, they're at their best when they rely on coordination (Martian telepathy helps immensely), teamwork, Geo Effects, and cleverness.

Alternative Title(s): Young Justice The Team

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