Author: Robert Greenberger

Sing No Evil
By JP Ahonen and KP Alare
Abrams ComicArts, 181 pages, $24.95

Translating music, meant to be heard live, and print, meant to be imagined in one’s mind, is a challenging task. When the music is heavy metal, a very visceral sort of sound, the challenge is even harder. As a result, artist JP Ahonen and writer KP Alare are to be commended for trying but fail to achieve their goal. Sing No Evil, translated from NAME, is about music, friendship, love, rock, and sorcery. As a result, it wants to be too many things and falls short on every level.

The book is at its strongest when Ahonen fills spreads with the manic energy that goes into performing before a crowd. The words get out of the way and the pictures tell the story and we can imagine the chords and backbeat. Sprinkled across the book, they come as welcome breaks from a tedious story about a band that can’t get their collective act together even to perform at a local bar. We are meant to feel for Aksel, the guitarist who can’t sing and the stress his perfectionist attitude brings to his band Pekeros. The rest of the band — keyboard player Lily, bassist Kervinen and drummer Bear –cajole, support or scold Aksel. Lily is the most rounded of the characters in the story while there’s little appealing about Aksel. The dynamic should noticeably change when Lily recruits Aydin, the local pizza delivery guy, as their new singer, but he’s wallpaper. Kervinen is a seemingly ageless spiritual guide to Aksel but feels like a stock player.

Bear, by the way, is a real bear who fights off the urge to hibernate so they can make the band’s dream come true. Why the drummer is a real bear, who doesn’t speak but acts human in every other respect, serves to rob the story of feeling set in our world. And that’s before the demonic forces arrive in the final act.

The creators try too hard, stuff too much extraneous stuff into the story, robbing it of any real emotional depth so we wind up caring little for the band members or whether they achieve success or are another failed act.

The artwork and strong sense of color makes the book interesting to look at but just further emphasizes how weak the characters are and overall storyline is. I gather Ahonen is best known for Northern Overexposure, something I am unfamiliar with but I’d be interested in seeing what else he can do. Right now, though, this book is just plain disappointing.

When your father is a god, your life is bound to be pretty interesting. As a result, it is never less than astonishing how often the story of Hercules ignores the rich source material, transplanting the demigod to whatever environment is currently in vogue with diminished results. Twice this year, we were treated to variant interpretations of the Greek myth with vastly different results. Coming in second and by far the inferior of the two, Brett Ratner’s Hercules is one of the weakest films of the year. Once more one wonders how Ratner keeps getting hired since clearly his limited directorial vision has been spent.

The film, out now from Paramount Home Entertainment, claims to be inspired by Radical Comics’ The Thracian Wars limited series, but veers far enough from it to be another story entirely. Hercules (Dwayne Johnson), cursed by Zeus’ wife Hera, has completed his twelve labors but remains a lost soul, wandering Earth. Thrace’s King Cotys (John Hurt) and General Sitacles (Peter Mullan) hire him to train their army, preparing it for a forthcoming war against Rheseus’ (Tobias Santelmann) forces. Herc, accompanied by his nephew Iolaus (Reece Ritchie), the amazon Atalanta (Ingrid Bolsø Berdal), and  Autolycus (Rufus Sewell), and his own nephew Iolaus (Reece Ritchie). Here’s a chance for screenwriters Ryan J. Condal and Evan Spiliotopoulos to breathe life into these people, using the late, great Steve Moore’s comics as inspiration. Instead, they come from central casting and the actors do little to make them interesting.

There are some nice moments but they come few and far between mindless, violent action and flat by-the-numbers strorytelling. You are not surprised by the plot twists, robbing you of the cathartic thrills a movie like this should be delivering.

These sword & sandal epics always look great when shot right and here, the high definition transfer is crisp, clean, and colorful. It is equally paired with the DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1 lossless soundtrack.

Among the extras is an extended cut that adds about three more minutes of vapid stuff, so you wonder why they bothered. Ratner and Producer Beau Flynn provide an audio commentary that acknowledges the dozens of previous screen incarnations and pays too little attention to the Radical publication. There’s An Introduction (5:32) from Ratner and Johnson; Hercules and His Mercenaries (11:07), which explores the supporting cast; Weapons! (5:24); The Bessi Battle (11:54), showcase the preparation going into filming the battle; The Effects of Hercules (12:28);  and an entertaining assortment of Deleted/Extended Scenes (15 clips, 14:38).

How to Train Your Dragon was an immensely successful adaptation of Cressida Cowell’s charming children’s book. The story ended nicely and had we never revisited the village of Berk, we would have been satisfied. However, in film, success demands milking the cow as far as audiences allow so we now have a sequel. Unlike so many other money grabbing attempts, this once actually advances the characters without rehashing the past.

Growing up is never easy, it has fueled countless movies and novels through the years so it is a challenge to effectively tell a sequel to a beloved children’s tale where the characters actually change. DreamWorks Animation, though, accepted the challenge when they green lit a follow-up to 2010’s smash hit. The sequel arrived to great critical acclaim in the summer and now, Fox Home Entertainment is making it available now via digital download with the Blu-ray edition to follow on Tuesday.

Everything about this film feels more grounded and more mature with the animators carefully aging our main characters five years so Hiccup (voice of Jay Baruchel)  is a hairy teenager. Having achieved the unthinkable, peace with the dragons, they have integrated to make the village of Berk a unique place in the world. As a result, we pick up and see Hiccup, aboard Toothless, as they go out exploring. The problem now is that Stoick the Vast (Gerard Butler) wants him to come home and succeed him as chief.

First, though, Hiccup and Astrid (America Ferrara)  have to prevent Berk from being destroyed by a dragon army led by the mad Drago Bludvist (Djimon Hounsou). Through convoluted means, he now can hypnotize dragons and winds up taking control of Toothless, leading the siege that claims Stoick’s life while Toothless remains a prisoner. However, he is far from alone as he also encounters Valka (Cate Blanchett), a dragonrider who is revealed to be his long-lost mother.

The story, from writer/director Dean DuBois, nicely parallels the further maturation of both boy and dragon. Toothless may have the harder experience to recover from considering he is coerced into attacking a place he calls home and being somewhat responsible for the death of Hiccup’s dad.

At story’s end, Hiccup has been through the emotional wringer although he fortunately winds up in a better place as a result of the experiences, making one and all proud. Now, don’t get me wrong, despite the heavier emotional tone, the movie still has plenty of action and humor with excellent animation.

Streaming this via Digital HD is clean and clear so if that’s your preference, you have little fear. Additionally, the digitals download and Blu-ray come chock full of extras. First up is the short, entertaining adventure Dawn of the Dragon Racers (26:37). The bonus features include Fishleg’s Dragon Stats (12:04); Drago’s War Machines (2:56), as Gobber the Belch narrates an inside look at the fierce creatures; Berk’s Dragon World (4:19); Hiccup’s Inventions in Flight (3:32), and an assortment of  Deleted Scenes (12:13). Additionally, there is some interesting commentary from the production team: Simon Otto, Bonnie Arnold, Dean DeBlois, and Pierre-Olivier Vincent. Where No One Goes: The Making of How To Train Your Dragon 2 (54:39)– Writer-Director DeBlois guides us through how this went from notion to film.

We’re now in the first sweeps period of the current television season and its fair to say that while several new series are entertaining, few are measuring up to our increased expectations. As a result, it’s refreshing to see that in one week, one of the smartest shows is returning albeit for a truncated final season.

Aaron Sorkin’s The Newsroom debuted on HBO in June 2012 and was immediately declared better than Studio 60 but still no West Wing. It has remained, though, a riveting series that reminds us that serious journalism remains an elusive ideal on television. The series is set in the immediate past, using real world events so the audience can focus on how the noble, flawed characters react and cover the stories.

The second season, out tomorrow (Election Day appropriately enough) in a three-disc box set from HBO Home Entertainment, has a major arc showing how the team ran a story after doing their due diligence only to have it blow up in their face. Using flash forewards and flashbacks, we see how things unfolded to the point where  ANC’s lawyer (Marcie Gay Harden) interviews the key players to figure out how things really happened and what to do. In the meantime, several of the core characters also have their own trials and tribulations, enriching each episode.

We pick up the season later in 2012 as the nation readies itself for Election Day and we see producer Jim Harper (John Gallagher Jr.), unable to get over his fractured relationship with Maggie (Alison Pill), assign himself aboard Mitt Romeny’s press bus, giving us a fresh look at the tedium of campaign coverage and the risks one takes when asking the hard questions the road-weary veterans refuse to ask. Along the way, a budding friendship with rival reporter Hallie Shea (Grace Gummer) begins.

Maggie, meanwhile, pitches a story in Africa and travels to a Ugandan orphanage where horrific things happen, emotionally and psychologically scaring her. Already broken up with Don (Thomas Sadoski) because of her enduring affection for Jim, she’s on the verge of a major breakdown.

The big story, though, is Operation Genoa, brought to MacKenzie Hale’s (Emily Mortimer) attention by Jim’s fill-in, Jerry Dantana (Hamish Linklater). As they investigate it, we see Charlie Skinner (Sam Waterston) insist the Red Team vet the story time and again before everyone is comfortable with going live with the story of US Marines using Sarin gas in Afghanistan.

The most frustrated member of the staff may be Neal (Dev Patel) who is trying to get Will McAvoy (Jeff Daniels) to take the Occupy Wall Street movement seriously.

The season unfolds across nine densely packed episodes covering August through November but at its heart is the romance between Will and Mac, so their engagement is a satisfying high point as the season draws to a close. It’s more strongly written while remaining optimistic about the noble profession of journalism, imbuing the entire ANC staff from owner Leona (Jane Fonda) down to the lowliest intern (Riley Voelkel) with high-minded ideals. If only more dramas aimed so high.

The discs are crisp and fine to watch with good sound. We get four audio commentaries that are largely disappointing as creator Aaron Sorkin, producer Alan Poul and some of the cast meander about everything under the sun rather than enlighten the audience with the whys and wherefores of the season. The most interesting revelation is that during production, Sorkin realized he had written himself into a corner and revised upwards of 60% of the first three episodes and HBO allowed them to reshoot. Among the handful of deleted scenes is one from the first version of the season opener, spotlighting Oliva Munn’s Sloan, who emerges as the strongest character of the season. Each episode comes with the previously broadcast Inside the Episode, with Sorkin providing some good insights.

Gregory Maguire had no idea what he was unleashing when he wrote Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West in 1995. Since then, a tremendous amount of energy has been spent on revisiting the antagonists from fairy tales to modern fiction in an effort to explain their motivations. Quite often, the opponent is more interesting than the protagonist so there’s an appetite to understanding what made them “evil”.

Another trend has been taking the classic fairy tales and first making them into palatable Disney animated fare followed by live-action adaptations and stage editions. By combining the above, we arrive this year with Maleficent. Perhaps the single most arresting visual in the Disney rogues gallery, this cunning sorcerer has given generations nightmares since the cartoon version arrived in 1959.

With Angelina Jolie as the title character, this had the making of a fascinating character story hidden under layers of action, adventure, and humor as she cursed young Aurora who went on to become known as Sleeping Beauty.  The pedigree both before and behind the camera promised a grand experience which is why the final product, out Tuesday as a DVD Combo Pack, is so disappointing.

Linda Woolverton, who has virtually lived writing fairy tales for Disney since Beauty and the Beast in 1991, seemed a perfect choice for the project. She dutifully did her homework and found a key to understand why Maleficent was evil. In the Charles Perrault and Brothers Grimm retelling of the story, she was a fairy and fairies, after all, have wings. Once she asked, “where are Maleficent’s wings?” that he story was found.
The film tells of young Maleficent (Ella Purnell and Isobelle Molloy), an orphan fairy, who is somehow the leader of the mystic realm known only as the Moors. When an orphan human, Stefan (Michael Higgins, later Sharlto Copley), wanders from his adjoining lands, an unlikely friendship develops. But then he vanishes and the next time we see him he is a servant to King Henry (Kenneth Cranham) and we’re told, but never shown, he had become greedy. Instead, Henry leads a vast army towards the Moors where he is repelled by Maleficent and her enchanted allies where he is mortally wounded.

Stefan renews his acquaintance with Maleficent in order to kill her and become heir to the throne. When he drugs her, after forgiving him his absence, he finds he cannot end her life but instead steals her wings, effectively ruining her and winning him the throne. Now she’s pissed and seethes and rages and summons heretofore unseen occult energies and becomes the recognizable evil power.

Woolverton is so busy building up Maleficent and making her sympathetic that she’s forgotten to make the humans anything more than one-dimensional beings. Why does Henry want to conquer the Moors? There is no apparent enmity between them nor reason to gain the land? Why is Stefan so ambitious, forgetting his friendship? Everything the humans robs the film of being a well-rounded story.

Similarly, the three fairies who arrive to first bless then care for Stefan’s daughter Aurora (Vivienne Jolie-Pitt, Eleanor Worthington Cox and finally Elle Fanning) are played for comedic effect but fail at being funny, just inept, wasting the talents of Imelda Staunton (Knotgrass), Juno Temple (Thistlewit), and Lesley Manville (Flittle). The crow Diaval (Sam Riley) is enchanted by the witch and is at least interesting to watch. Memorable supporting players would have made this a far stronger film.

The most interesting development Woolverton and director Robert Stromberg bring to the story is the quasi-mother/daughter relationship between Maleficent and Aurora, who is gifted with such a kind soul that she mistakes Maleficent not as the bane of her existence but as her fairy godmother. This leads a fine twist in the retelling of this classic tale.

The effects are swell, the dragon transformation and climax strong but the underlying motivations are so weak that it really robs the film of the strength of its themes. As a result, this 97 minute story disappoints more than it thrills. Clearly, though, I am in the majority since its worldwide box office is over $750 million.

The film comes as a Blu-ray, DVD, Digital HD combo pack and the high definition transfer is rich and wonderful to watch. The 7.1 DTS-HD Master Audio is a fine companion so young girls everywhere should enjoy it time and again.

For the adults, there are some nice Bonus Features, notably the five Deleted Scenes, at least two of which address the issues I raise above. Aurora: Becoming a Beauty is a lightweight look at how much Elle Fanning enjoyed becoming a princess. From Fairy Tale to Feature Film features Woolverton talking about the process without anywhere near enough time tracing the source material. Building an Epic Battle looks at the cinemagic involved in this particular action sequence while Maleficent Revealed looks at the rest of the digital effects but does so without much in the way of explanation o you just stare at before and after images as they speed by. Classic Couture examines the fine apparel worn by the characters (and probably deserves an Oscar nomination).

The Warren Commission Report
By Dan Mishkin, Ernie Colon, and Jerzy Drozd
Abrams ComicArts, 160 pages, $29.95

Conspiracies are everywhere if you know where to look. Over the last century, Americans have increasingly looked for dire machinations behind the unbelievable. Much as our ancestors sat around campfires telling mythic tales to explain how the sun rose each day, today, people make up fantastical stories to make the impossible comprehensible.

With the growth of mass media, from film to radio to television to the internet, studies have shown we have gravitated towards like-minded thinking, narrowing our worldview and therefore giving voice and importance to ones who would have once been considered mad. This development gained traction and accelerated its piercing of the zeitgeist thanks largely to ineptitude. America knew Japan was going to bomb throughout the Pacific but didn’t say a word much as we knew there were foreigners acting suspiciously in 2001. But the largest of these incompetency’s may well be the actions taken in the minutes, hours, and days that followed the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

Today, there is a growing subset of graphic novels that condense and streamline mass amounts of information for our benefit. There was Economix for finance and The 9/11 Report: A Graphic Adaptation. Now comes The Warren Commission Report, a handy one-volume guide to the facts, inconsistencies and theories surrounding the events of November 22, 1963. Adapted from the report, released September 27, 1964, writer Dan Mishkin deftly takes the reader through the indisputable facts and into the murky world of error, evasion, and espionage.

Looking back, it’s astonishing to see how inept and ineffective local and federal authorities were to secure the crime scene and preserve the evidence. We’re a CSI generation, used to minute inspection of every hair follicle and fiber, so the notion that precise measurements were not taken or that detailed studies of the president’s body were delayed, hurried, or incomplete is mindboggling. So too the inexplicably lax security when assassin Lee Harvey Oswald was moved, allowing Jack Ruby to get close enough to kill the killer.

Mishkin takes us step by step through the investigation, shining a bright light thanks to declassified and public documents that were not available at the time. He shows where mistakes were made, where politics and ass-covering led to facts being obfuscated, which went on to fan the embers that grew into the conspiracy fire. He also doubles back to introduce us to Oswald and how he had remained on intelligence radar for some time but agencies then, as now, didn’t share information or collaborate in the name of national security.

Brining Mishkin’s work to life is the art team of Ernie Colon and Jerzy Drozd, the former having gained newfound fame through the 9/11 graphic novel. Colon’s distinctive style is altered, not always for the best, by Drozd but the familiar faces of Kennedy, Oswald, Lyndon Johnson, and J. Edgar Hoover are readily recognizable. The storytelling is quite clear with the interesting color choice of making Oswald an all-white figure, letting him standout from the crowd wherever he is seen, devoid of connection to humanity. If there’s a visual fault it comes to some questionable balloon and caption placements that mar the smooth flow of the text.

This book does not attempt to sanctify or refute the report or the theories around it but offer clarity, especially the last two dozen pages or so that places the events in the larger context of a rapidly changing society as the 1950s conformity gave way to a rebellion of individualism. This may be one of the strongest parts of the book, since context, as we know, is everything.

For those who lived through it, this will bring some comfort and some new insights. For those who were born a generation or more after, this is a good primer to what America was once like and how it helped shape the world we currently live in.

It’s interesting to watch Green Arrow thrive on television in ways he could only envy in the comics. After being a second string character for much of his career, he seemed to work well first on Smallville, and now on his own series, Arrow. The problem, though, with being a B-lister for decades is that his rogues’ gallery is woefully weak and therefore the show’s producers have to dip into the rest of the DC mythos to fill out his world.

The show’s third season gets underway shortly and Warner Home Entertainment has recently released Arrow: The Complete Second Season in a nice box set. Here, we can review all 23 episodes to see how things have evolved as Oliver Queen goes from vigilante to hero while his allies grow in number.

One of the things that has been a struggle in comics for the last era or two is that a hero can’t realistically maintain a secret identity. Ollie (Stephen Amell) needs allies and with that comes trust. So, we went from Diggle (David Ramsey), in the first season to Diggle and Felicity (Emily Bett Rickards) by season’s end. This year, Roy Harper (Colton Haynes), Canary (Caity Lotz), and Laurel (Katie Cassidy) have come to know Ollie’s alter ego. Argus’ Amanda Waller (Cynthia Addai-Robinson) somehow knows, too. Heck, even newcomer Barry Allen (Grant Gustin), visiting from Central City, knows the truth. So, it’s telling that as the season ended, the one who still doesn’t know, his sister Thea (Willa Holland), is the one to vanish, a thread left unknotted until this fall.

The show has also nicely plundered Batman’s resources as Huntress (Jessica De Gouw) returned and we met Nyssa al Ghul (Katrina Law), setting up this coming season’s arrival of Ra’s al Ghul himself.  But first, old business needed addressing and much of the season’s meta arc dealt with Slade Wilson, Deathstroke (Manu Bennett), exacting revenge against Ollie, blaming him for Shado’s (Celina Jade) death and worked with  Isabel Rochev (Summer Glau) to take down both Queen Consolidated and the Queen family, which climaxed with the death of Moira (Susanna Thompson), Ollie’s mom. As for Thea, her world was shattered when she learned her true father was Malcolm Merlyn (John Barrowman), who conveniently returned from the dead.

The episodes stir the pot with verve and alliances rise and fall with long-simmering threads spun out across the weeks and months. We’re even teased with the hint of an Ollie/Felicity romance even while he and Canary got nice and cozy. On the other hand, the cast has grown so large, supporting teams of players in the present and an almost separate collection in the flashbacks, that some shows feel overstuffed, losing focus. While I appreciate the need to spotlight Diggle now and then, bringing in his wife, her connection to Waller, and the formation of the Suicide Squad felt more of a distraction than a strong storyline on its own. Both Thea and Roy were underserved by the scripts this year.

That said, I do want to applaud the two-parter that acts as prelude to this month’s The Flash series, and the way they subtly continued those subplots through the final episode. Speaking of which, the finale was one of the best action episodes of prime time I’ve seen in a long time so kudos to the writers, cast, and stunt performers for making it exciting.

The transfer to high definition is fairly seamless and a joy to watch, accompanied by the strong DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround track.

The four-disc set comes with some standard extras, most of which are diverting enough although none are Must See viewing either. We have From Vigilante to Hero (24:00), an examination of the season’s design; The Visual Effects of Arrow (11:00), exploring how the night scenes, explosions, and action is brought to life; and, Wirework: The Impossible Moves of Arrow (10:00), a companion feature focusing on the stunts. There are, of course, Deleted Scenes, culled from “City of Heroes,” “Identity,” “Crucible,” “Keep Your Enemies Closer,” “State v. Queen,” “Three Ghosts,” “Tremors,” “Heir to the Demon,” “Time of Death,” “The Promise,” “Suicide Squad,” “The Man Under the Hood” and “Unthinkable.” And we have the requisite Gag Reel (5:00). Finally, there is edited footage from Arrow: 2013 Comic-Con Panel (26:00).

Increasingly, studios want you to stream or buy your own digital copy of feature films and to entice you, that edition is being made weeks prior to the physical disc being available for purchase. In an effort to direct viewer buying and viewing habits, studios are also shifting review copies from disc to high definition download. My first encounter with this brave new world, ironically enough, comes with 20^th Century Home Entertainment’s current release of X-Men: Days of Future Past, the sprawling, epic film from May. The biggest drawback is making certain you have enough hard disc storage for the mammoth file and a set-up that allows you to watch on a huge screen. Lacking that, I watched the film on my 24” external monitor and while the image was crisp and the audio clear enough (although maybe I need to upgrade my speakers); it needs a bigger screen to properly appreciate.

Bryan Singer returned to the franchise and pulled out all the stops, successfully adapting the Chris Claremont/John Byrne story while seamlessly integrating it with the four preceding feature films. He directed the first two while Brett Ratner mishandled X-Men: Last Stand and Matthew Vaughn wonderfully rebooted the franchise with X-Men: First Class.

As we toggle between past, present, and future, we understand that in the 1970s, Bolivar Trask (Peter Dinklage) convinces Congress to fund his Sentinels program to root out mutants, who threaten “our” way of life. Once his program goes live, it grows, morphing with the times, until the future is a dark land of devastation, with the last handful of mutants on the run and losing their battle with extinction. In a final desperate act, Kitty Pryde (Ellen Page) uses her powers (in ways that never quite made sense) to send Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) back in time to derail the program. In order to do this, he needs to reconcile Charles Xavier (James McAvoy) with Erik Lenscherr (Michael Fassbender) but first, Magneto needs to be freed from confinement under the Pentagon and to accomplish this, they need help from young mutant Pietro (Evan Peters).

It becomes several races against time as ideologies are heated debated in one era while the Sentinels locate the planet’s last mutants and approach, forcing many a heroic sacrifice to buy Kitty the time she needs to keep Wolverine in the past, protected by Xavier (Patrick Stewart) and Magneto (Ian McKellan).

The casts are blended fairly well and even though the story may make a civilian’s head throb; it’s a fairly coherent story, well-told thanks to a strong script largely from Simon Kinberg, Singer’s direction, and a cast that is up to the task. It’s nice to see familiar faces such as Halle Berry’s Storm and cameos like Kelsey Grammer’s Beast. Page is under-utilized here, sweating and trembling but given little else to do. As befits his stature in the Marvel Universe, it’s really Wolverine’s story and Jackman is up to the challenge, once more better served in the ensemble than either of his solo films. The other spotlight is on young Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) who is trying to carve her own path which sharply diverges from that of her mentor, Xavier. She becomes the threat that needs stopping, not Trask and Lawrence is deadly and vulnerable at the same time.

The high def version and forthcoming Blu-ray features several nifty extras, starting with an extended Kitchen sequence (6:00) that got trimmed but explores many of the film’s issues and themes as debated between Xavier and mystique with Beast (Nicholas Hoult) and Wolverine mere bystanders. There’s a fun Gag Reel (5:36) and a handful of deleted scenes that should be viewed with Singer’s commentary. (Be warned, just as this became available for sale, it was announced an extended version was to be released next summer, integrating these scenes including the Rogue [Anna Paquin] sub-plot that caused some controversy when dropped.) There are also some nice images from the Trask Industries archives.

DC Comics has always had a special place in its heart for the teen sidekicks and since the 1960s, there have been numerous books dedicated to their collaborative efforts. Little wonder then, that Cartoon Network would want series based on Teen Titans and Young Justice. While the former reduced them to far younger incarnations, the latter took the Peter David-written comic and expanded its scope in vastly satisfying ways. Young Justice ran a mere two seasons but retains an ardent fan following so it’s nice to see the entire first season out now as a two-disc Blu-ray package.

The show was developed for the cable channel by former DC assistant editor Greg Weisman, who discovered his forte with animation as witnessed by the wild success of his Gargoyles. Here, he’s partnered with Brandon Vietti, no stranger to translating comics to cartoons. Their premise takes the teens – Robin, Aqualad, Kid Flash, and Arrowette  – and sees them declare their independence from their mentors and are turned into The Team, covert operatives. The android Red Tornado watches over them in the JLA’s original mountain HQ and they receive missions from Batman so there’s a tight connection to the Justice League which is expanded throughout the first season.

Early on, the teens are on a case within Cadmus and discover the clone named Superboy and his adjustment to life away from the lab is a major thread through the series. The team is rounded out with the arrival of M’gann M’orzz, Miss Martian.

Interestingly, rather than trying to justify their choices to play fast and loose with DC Universe print continuity, the producers declared up front that these adventures occur on Earth-16 in the New 52 multiverse and I’m okay with that, since it shuts down the critics really fast. This certainly explains the new brown-skinned Aqualad, created by Vietti and Weisman, but does not justify his inclusion in the New 52. With that said, there are plenty of nice touches to the larger fraternity of heroes such as Zatara’s appearance in the opening episode. There’s a lovely nod to original Titans as the new team takes on Mister Twister. Episode 10 is touching as Superboy and Miss Martian take on the Conner Kent and Megan Morse identities as they begin their first day of school, meeting Super Friends’ Wendy and Marvin, one-tome Titans Mal Duncan and Karen Beecher, while their teacher is Lucas “Snapper” Carr.

Reviewing these 26 episodes is interesting to watch seeds planted early finally sprout or connections other DC animated series are made clear. Additionally, it’s fun to see familiar behind-the-scenes names such as director Jay Oliva who graduated from episodic stories to the feature animated films including the recent Assault on Arkham. Peter David gets his due by contributing a few episode scripts as well.

Weisman does a nice job with the themes teens experience such as love, jealously heightened emotions and the desire to live up the adults’ expectations while still trying forge a unique identity. He also has a clear through-line for the stories so the chronology ticks off days at a time and is internally consistent unlike so many other animated shows. Secrets that have been introduced previously come into play in the penultimate episode which also sees Milestone’s Rocket join the team. Then comes the season one finale which brings many threads together and reveals Vandal Savage being behind much of the trouble. There’s fighting but also a 16-hour gap when Batman, Hawkwoman, John Stewart, Martian Manhunter, Superman, and Wonder Woman were absent and their whereabouts helps set the stage for season two, when the series was renamed Young Justice: Invasion.

While not the best of the DC animated fare, it is among the top five shows and despite its fans does not get its just due. Rewatching these, I was reminded how much fun this series was and it looks great on high definition disc. There are no extras, but that’s par for Warner Archives.