Plotwise, each episode of Young Justice has a suspenseful self-contained conflict that slowly builds towards overarching narrative. In addition, there’s a good amount of variation in its monster-of-the-week episodes, with constant changes of scenery and story structure, making its world feel fleshed out and conceptually rich. The team is not just going out to fight whatever bad guy is causing havoc in the city every episode.
In addition, each member of the core team in the first season is explored with respect to their weaknesses and insecurities and receive varying amounts of development. But it doesn't matter, because the characters are not established to be compelling to begin with. Miss Martian's desire to fit in and Superboy's desire to be more like Superman don't feel especially sympathetic because 1) the stakes in the plot are too high and dwarf the teen drama 2) they don't devote enough attention to investing the viewer into their plights at their introduction. Instead, time is wasted on romantic plot tumors. Wally is almost entirely defined more by his one-sided crush and obnoxious flirting. Him, Miss Martian, and Superboy are more preoccupied with their teen angst than any actual motivation to be heroes. Even Aqualad's paltry time in the spotlight has him be motivated by unrequited love back home rather than a desire to save people or join his friends on the team. I think Artemis is probably the best character and her backstory comes the closest to being sympathetic and compelling.
A lot of this could've been solved if they had ordered it so that the character centric episodes like Coldhearted and Image were at the beginning of the series, and the romance came later. These episodes establish the characters' internal conflicts, leaving the rest of the episodes for them to bond with the team and come to the decision to not defect.
None of this would be that big of a problem if the characters had some outward likability in terms of personality and chemistry, but there's little of that to be found, not when three out of the six members are varying degrees of annoying (those three characters would be perfectly fine if you edit out all moments centering around their romantic attractions). In a series like Teen Titans, I can get behind Starfire being afraid of being rejected by her friends because of her looks because I already liked Starfire superficially.
The tendency of the show to focus on plot first and characters second gets worse and worse each season. Season 2 has a 5 year time gap, brings in a whole slew of new characters, and has an even stronger overarching plot. Season 3 brings in even more characters, and has several overarching plot threads.
The episodes are aired in reverse
Plotwise, each episode of Young Justice has a suspenseful self-contained conflict that slowly builds towards overarching narrative. In addition, there’s a good amount of variation in its monster-of-the-week episodes, with constant changes of scenery and story structure, making its world feel fleshed out and conceptually rich. The team is not just going out to fight whatever bad guy is causing havoc in the city every episode.
In addition, each member of the core team in the first season is explored with respect to their weaknesses and insecurities and receive varying amounts of development. But it doesn't matter, because the characters are not established to be compelling to begin with. Miss Martian's desire to fit in and Superboy's desire to be more like Superman don't feel especially sympathetic because 1) the stakes in the plot are too high and dwarf the teen drama 2) they don't devote enough attention to investing the viewer into their plights at their introduction. Instead, time is wasted on romantic plot tumors. Wally is almost entirely defined more by his one-sided crush and obnoxious flirting. Him, Miss Martian, and Superboy are more preoccupied with their teen angst than any actual motivation to be heroes. Even Aqualad's paltry time in the spotlight has him be motivated by unrequited love back home rather than a desire to save people or join his friends on the team. I think Artemis is probably the best character and her backstory comes the closest to being sympathetic and compelling.
A lot of this could've been solved if they had ordered it so that the character centric episodes like Coldhearted and Image were at the beginning of the series, and the romance came later. These episodes establish the characters' internal conflicts, leaving the rest of the episodes for them to bond with the team and come to the decision to not defect.
None of this would be that big of a problem if the characters had some outward likability in terms of personality and chemistry, but there's little of that to be found, not when three out of the six members are varying degrees of annoying (those three characters would be perfectly fine if you edit out all moments centering around their romantic attractions). In a series like Teen Titans, I can get behind Starfire being afraid of being rejected by her friends because of her looks because I already liked Starfire superficially.
The tendency of the show to focus on plot first and characters second gets worse and worse each season. Season 2 has a 5 year time gap, brings in a whole slew of new characters, and has an even stronger overarching plot. Season 3 brings in even more characters, and has several overarching plot threads.