It is known that new episodes of Young Justice will begin airing this weekend on Cartoon Network. Comic Book Resources talked with Young Justice producer Greg Weisman about some of the details of season two and what can be expected after the hiatus.
CBR: Greg, I wanted to start by talking a little bit about the transition from year one to year two. Like any show you've ever run, there are a lot of moving pieces in "Young Justice," and the viewer may not see all of those until the very end. With the Season 1 finale, we had a bunch of revelations hit in terms of who Roy Harper was, what Vandal Savage's plan was and how the team had finally come together, but at the same time you opened up a whole new mystery in terms of the brainwashed Justice Leaguer's "Missing Hours." When you plotted out Season 1, did you know you were heading to this whole invasion plotline, or did the pickup for Season 2 enable you to build that new mystery into the finale and carry the characters five years into the future?
Greg Weisman: We had two-year game plan from pretty much day one. I'm not saying I knew every single detail of Season 2 back when we were breaking Season 1, because we didn't. But the BIG thrust of it we had. We knew exactly where we were going and what seeds we wanted to plant in Season 1 to get there. We knew we were going to do the time skip and all that stuff almost from the very beginning – certainly before even one episode of the show had aired.
Now, we didn't get a pickup right away, and we had no guarantee that we would get that. But once we got a pickup of the first ten episodes for Season 2 and soon after another ten, that was great. Though, I wouldn't have said no to 100. [Laughs] So we didn't sit down and breakdown Season 2 episodically until we got that pickup, but in terms of the arc of the season and the main ideas we'd be addressing, we had it all figured out in advance.
CBR: Once the "Invasion" season got underway, you had a bunch of new ideas and new puzzle pieces in play right from the start, but I've got to say, episode 7 was such a crucial installment in terms of putting a lot of the story together…and THEN you went on a break!
Greg Weisman: [Laughs] It was not planned that way. I mean, from our standpoint we didn't know that Cartoon Network was going to break after seven, but I've got to say, it was a great place to break. If you're going to take a hiatus, episode 7 was a really great place to cliffhang. We were actually kind of pleased about that. It was timed out well.
CBR: What really stood out to me when we learned that Aqualad is a double agent and that Artemis and Kid Flash were being drawn back into the fold was that no matter how many new cast members you've added in Season 2 – and there have been quite a few – it seems like the big story for the show as a whole is still the story of this group of Nightwing, Aqualad, Artemis, Superboy, Ms. Martian and Kid Flash. What kind of goals did you make for the show in terms of whose story you'd follow most?
Greg Weisman: I think for us, from day one, we have six leads. And that's huge enough. Now, there are other characters, even from Season 1, who will be recurring characters that we put a spotlight on and give some screen time. Those are characters like Red Arrow and Zatanna – even Captain Marvel and Red Tornado. I don't want to knock them and say that they're tertiary characters. They're not. They're important to our larger tapestry. But I think it was important from day one all the way through the end of Season 2 that we have six leads. They've been the same six leads from the beginning.
It all began with Robin, Aqualad and Kid Flash. Of course, Robin is now Nightwing. But after that first three, we added in Superboy, and then we added Ms. Martian, and then we added Artemis. And then we stopped. We kept adding characters, but I don't think we kept adding lead characters. We sold the show on those six, and those six are still to us largely the focus of the show.
Now you are right that we've expanded a lot in Season 2. We've added Wonder Girl, Batgirl, Blue Beetle, Beast Boy, Lagoon Boy, the new Robin, Impulse…and we're not done adding characters. Some of them will get a spotlight shown on them briefly. Some of them will get a larger role than even that. It will range. But we haven't lost track of our six leads. They've always been the six leads for this show, and that will continue throughout the rest of the series.
For the entire interview, including how Weisman weaves the comic series into the show, head over to Comic Book Resources. The next episode of Young Justice, Satisfaction, airs this Saturday.
