#dc:yj

[saturook]

We know already. The love of your life, the sunlight of your days, the starscape of your nights, the soul of your pathos, the heart of your wonders, the song of your smile, the tempo of your pulse. Sheeeeesh! 🙄

[rissatack]

This is how that scene went. Right?

(y'all know the drill, click for better quality :) )

[communistchilchuck]

every single day i think about what it wouldve been like if anita stayed with the “core four” during the teen titans era. i’d have hated if johns fucked up her character so im glad he didn’t write her, but i still wish she was there. she was there in graduation day and after that just… disappeared, when so much of the second to last arc of YJ98 was that the team loved her and cared about her and vice versa. she was one of them, and when she had to stay home to take care of her parents she was actively heartbroken when she thought the team forgot about her. she deserved to develop as a character and as a hero and my many problems with tt03 aside i’d love to have seen her bond with tim kon bart and cassie (especially bart and cassie, i loved their dynamics in YJ98!), spend time with cassie and raven and vic and kory, hell, anything. i miss her and she gets paid dust by both YJ fans and writers despite how she was set up and how wonderful she was and had the potential to be

[chamiryokuroi]

Tbh I don’t think it was the art that got TD: R cancelled. Many people, myself included, stopped trusting Meghan after the atrocity that was Dark Crisis Young Justice

Yeah I know DC:YJ was bad I still wanted to give TD:R a chance because it felt like DC:YJ was rushed, and to be fair TD:R was way better, it wasn’t a perfect story, but it wasn’t bad, the fact is that by not supporting TD:R we have just doomed ourselves to the possibility of a Tim comic not happening again any time soon and/or his bisexuality being erased, that’s why I felt we should have supported it but hey that’s just me 🤷‍♀️

Because let’s be honest, if we don’t buy the comic DC isn’t going to go “Oh Meghan is a bad writer” they’re going to go “Oh they don’t want queer robin content” and that’s probably what happened, now we will be lucky if they include him on the yearly pride story

[ectonurites]

…ok the next DC:YJ issue (#5) isn’t out yet (aside from the preview and a leaked page) but I wanna briefly talk about this criticism/sentiment i’ve seen in at least three or four separate posts across here and twitter:

Several people confused/frustrated by Meghan seeming to characterize Young Justice fans (via Mickey) as conservative homophobic sexist racist etc dudebros- when the Young Justice fandom they are familiar with is largely made up of a completely different diverse group of people. Plus the 1998 book itself being unfairly misrepresented as less progressive than it actually was in order to justify this.

To which there’s two points I’d like to bring up:

1. Meghan Fitzmartin is the one writing this book. Meghan Fitzmartin who wrote the story in which Tim became canonically bisexual. Meghan Firzmartin who has been constantly berated and criticized and sent hate by the vocal toxic homophobic Tim fans that think she ruined the character! A lot of those people aren’t fans of just Tim- they’re fans of Tim’s generation (in many instances because stuff like Young Justice 1998 was current back when they were getting into comics). And plenty are opposed to any change, not just characters coming out as LGBT, but more diversity in comics in general- more lead characters of color, more lead women, etc. The tumblr- and like stan dctwt- sections of the DC fandom might be what you see the most as a user of those communities, but they are not the only part of the fandom, not the majority, and not even necessarily the most vocal.

2. @gwynerso said the other thing I wanna communicate well when discussing misrepresentation of Young Justice 1998:

I think the whole point was that it was progressive, given the whole point is that Mikey had to heavily twist the guys memories and remove Cassie to make his “point”. Whilst we can talk about writing quality and whether it hits its mark or not, it’s definitely a critique of (x)

the sort of fan who will ignore the progressive elements of what they like to paint it in the gross light they want it to have. If it wasn’t progressive, Bart, Tim and Kon wouldn’t have noticed the dissonance. Mikey’s powers are reality bending on both ends like his dad’s. (x)

Because, as stated earlier, those types of fans of YJ do definitely exist and they are in Meghan’s twitter notifications on a pretty regular basis (plus I wouldn’t be surprised by some irl encounters at conventions she’s attended since UL #6 dropped). Maybe they’re not the ones reading the book (and even if they are, they’re obviously not the only ones) but it’s still a toxic mindset that’s within the comics community and she is actively painting that mindset as being the villain here (which goes along with the general theme in both this book and Dark Crisis as an event that things can’t/shouldn’t just go back to ‘how they were’ because things have changed, modern comics can’t just be ruled by nostalgia)

I think there is definitely fair discussion to be had about whether this was the book/story that was needed for these characters right now (I personally at this point don’t really think it was, in large part because a lot of problems/unfair treatment the YJ generation has faced were more editorial’s fault than the fanbase’s, and that’s something hard to actually approach through an in-universe story), I think there are certainly elements/execution/characterization worth criticizing (I’m just… waiting to formulate my final thoughts on any of that until we have the whole story, because the context of the ending could absolutely change/explain things), but it feels like so many people are just looking for reasons to be angry without taking a step back to think about the larger picture/larger comics community. Without trying to think about what is actually being communicated here and instead just getting defensive.

[celestial-ringleader]

Dark Crisis: Young Justice Thoughts

Y’know what I’m not waiting until after work, I’m getting mad over DC:YJ and some fans online are also just making me annoyed so I’m gonna break down all my thoughts on the comic. This will probably get rant-y so if you dont like that feel free to ignore. Or don’t. I’m not your dad.

So to start off, I decided to look into what the writer’s other DC projects, how much experience she had in writing, and what she’s prominently known for. As of right now, her most prominent works have been DC:YJ, Tim Drake: Robin, and the DC Pride special for Tim. As far as I can tell, she hasn’t been writing for DC for a while, her earliest work being in 2021 with Batman: Urban Legends. But what she is most known for seems to be writing for Supernatural, the last three seasons specifically. Which all this combined is not promising. Megfitz hasn’t been doing DC comics for that long and from what I can tell based on the writing, most of her info comes from fanon interpretation or summaries about Young Justice. If there is evidence she read the comics for the sake of DC:YJ, feel free to add on.

Now that that’s out of the way, holy shit this comic was so painful to read. In the beginning I thought it had potential to be good, I assumed it was going to be some kind of story about the characters avoiding their grief and living in the past instead of thinking about the future, but the moment the third or so issue came out I knew that this just wasn’t gonna be that. And dear god did it spiral out of control. To make this easier, I’ll just break this down into chunks so I can organize my thoughts. (DISCLAIMER: I will not be going into the art style of the comic because to me that doesn’t say anything about the quality of writing, look at the current Nightwing run for example: it looks great but its writing is holy wattpad batman. I’ve also read a good chunk of comics YJ ‘98, a good amount of comics about Kon-El and Tim Drake from the 90s into the 2000s, so I like to think I know what I’m talking about. If anyone comes into my comments or inbox being nasty, I’m gonna ignore you. I don’t have time for that shit.)

The Plot

To say this plot was really convoluted and non-existent wouldn’t be enough to describe how messy it all felt. The plot was pretty alright in the first and second issue but it very quickly started to make less sense and the characters started acting very strange just to get the plot along. In fact, I’d say the plot was moving forward and the characters were dragged along for the ride rather than it being the characters moving the plot forward. This was a simple premise and it became needlessly complicated, shit would just happen, the characters would react, and then another thing would happen; rinse and repeat. It felt incredibly rushed overall, and I’m aware it was only six issues but I’ve read miniseries that have done more in six issues than what happened in DC:YJ. After I finished reading it, it just felt like nothing happened at all and that’s weak storytelling if it left no impact on the audience or just made the audience mad.

Like what was the rising action, the climax, the falling action? Why was it full of the characters meandering around and not having agency in their own story?? How can you have a story last for six issues and still leave barely a dent in the grand scheme of things?? As I read this, I kept wondering if this was an early draft that wasn’t edited with how much of a skeleton the plot was.

The Dialogue 

This won’t be a big segment, but the dialogue felt unnatural to read. At best it was clunky, at worst it was uncanny. I’m sorry but people don’t talk like robots or say quippy shit all the time. The scene I have in mind is the one where Tim is telling Kon about how he and Cassie were torn apart when they thought he was dead, but it was written in such a jarring way that it just felt like someone pressed a button on a piece of cardboard and it started talking. This emotional scene felt so lifeless and that monologue had no impact. At other times it felt like the characters weren’t actually saying these lines and were only speaking because that’s what the plot dictates.

This brings me to a sub-section; the drama. My god the drama was so ham-stringed and confusing. A lot of the drama presented was drama that had already been settled or was shit that straight up didn’t fucking happen. Kon was already aware of Tim and Cassie getting together after he died and he understood why they did, Kon already knew that Tim was in a rough state after he died so the “reveal” left me thinking “...no fucking shit?? you guys had a whole heart to heart about this???”. The only explanation I have is that Megfitz couldn’t come up with anything new so instead fell back on old drama and hoped the fans would be like “haha I remember that!” but literally every YJ fan I’ve talked to just rolled their eyes. Congrats you remember basic shit, now can you prove you know how to write dialogue with their personalities still in tact. Jfc.

The Characters

GOD. GOD FUCKING. U G H H HH H HH H HH HH H 

This is the part where my theory that Megfitz did research through twitter a la Tom Taylor and this is also the part where I get angry because WHAT WAS THAT BULLSHIT CHARACTERIZATION I READ WITH MY OWN TWO EYES?? Not only did the characters feel lifeless, they also were just so so far from themselves that they felt like clones. Like I kid you not, I thought Cissie was a clone or an illusion early on and was very quickly disappointed when I realized that this was just shitty writing.

I went into this comic reading for Kon, from my pfp you can probably guess he’s one of my favorite comic characters period, and dear lord that writing for him was atrocious. Not only did you have him disregarding his friends, but there were a lot of instances where he brought up old drama (as I stated before) and was largely uncaring about how others felt. Which is so wrong on so many levels. Like how can he just yell at Bart and make him cry?? Kon-El?? Being a dick to his friends???? What the fuck was Megfitz even referencing for him?? Like yes he was a little shit of a teen and would make a habit of flirting with people, but at the end of the day he cared about his friends and never looked down on any of them. Especially Bart, Tim, and Cassie. He never saw Cassie as “small, meek, and helpless uwu” he was attracted to her almost instantly yes, but throughout YJ ‘98 and TT ‘03 it’s pretty obvious he respects her as a person and knows she’s strong and capable. In fact, it was Cassie who even broke off their relationship and he never held that against her and was happy to let their relationship go.

Which brings us to Cassie and Cissie....dear fucking god. For a comic that claims it’s speaking out against sexist writing from the 90s, the portrayals of their female characters sure felt really fucking sexist. Cassie only existed to have a very lazy “girl power” moment, Cissie was nothing more than a cardboard cut out who acted so OOC it took me out of the story, and literally no other afab YJ members were mentioned. Did Greta just stop existing in their minds? Anita became their friend, why was she listed under villains? The part that made my head turn the most with Cissie was when she claimed that she left bc she felt like it was all about “the boys” and was telling Cassie she should just stop looking for them essentially bc they were “holding her back” and I’m here thinking that Megfitz straight up didn’t read YJ if she forgot that Cissie leaving was because she wanted to live a normal life, not because of any resentment towards her friends. In fact she went and visited them frequently after leaving and every time they were all so happy to see her back. Ofc they wanted her back on the team, but they respected her decision and encouraged her to live the life she wants. To move on to Cassie, this portrayal made Geoff Johns’ writing for her seem amazing in comparison. She was the leader of YJ, she was respected by her friends, and they never left her out or made her a “third wheel” in their friendship. Yes, she wasn’t there from the get-go but once she, Cissie, and Greta were added it all became a mutual friendship between the six of them. Tim, Kon, and Bart didn’t look down on her just because she was a girl. That was how the fans treated her, which is the biggest reason why these characters are unrecognizable:

The fans are the ones who prioritized Tim and Kon and left out Bart and Cassie, not the comic. The fans are the ones who made Bart out to seem dumb, the fans are the ones who would make Cassie exist only as a love interest. These interpretations seeped into the comic and made it seem like it was this toxic friendship when it LITERALLY WASN’T. NONE OF THAT HAPPENED IN CANON. 

And this might be a hottake for some people, but I just don’t like how she’s writing Tim. Just looking at anything with him in it feels like it’s fanon Tim and not the same Tim who’s existed for well over thirty years. He just has no personality outside of “the smart Robin who is bi” which is basically how fandom sees him. And I’m a huge fan of Tim, he’s my favorite Robin out of all of them and I’ve been reading a bunch of comics with him and it’s just so annoying that people are just gonna assume DC:YJ Tim is all he is; bc in that case I don’t blame fans for thinking he’s boring after this. But that’s a whole other rant for a later date.

The Message

What even was it. Like literally what was the message or purpose behind this comic? Originally it seemed like the boys were avoiding their grief and then it became this whole thing about “ew 90s BAD and if you liked 90s comics you’re BAD” completely ignoring that a lot of iconic characters today were from the 90s. This felt like it was a slap in the face as someone who loves YJ ‘98 and all the characters, yes I know YJ was never perfect but I still overall loved it and I loved seeing them just being teenagers figuring out their place in the world. With any story, it needs to have a purpose and a message for the audience to take and think about; with this, I felt brain dead because of how plainly it was laid out for me. The audience couldn’t take anything else aside from the overwhelming message printed so plainly. Mickey was doing all of this because...he doesn’t like the current heroes and wants to see more of “his heroes”....way to jab at YJ fans who just want them to be back together dude. Way to make YJ fans seem irrational and hateful towards current heroes. This wasn’t a commentary on grief and filling the role of a predecessor who passed away, this was just telling people that 90s comics were bad and you shouldn’t have nostalgia or want to see more because then that means you hate the current characters. If this is a problem, then just WRITE THOSE STORIES. Don’t make some big meta commentary that spits in all our faces, just write these characters. 

Final Thoughts

This comic run was a mess. it had so much promise and potential to be good and it fell so fucking flat. I haven’t read a comic that disappointed me this much since Trial of Magneto, and for people who have followed me for a minute knows how I feel about that. Somehow DC:YJ makes Tom Taylor’s Nightwing run look eons better and that is saying A LOT. Overall this comic was a six issue waste of my time and I wish I did more with my money and my brain cells, but at the end of the day comics are just gonna be like that. Either they’re good or they’re a swing and a miss. Needless to say, this has turned me off from any further works Megfitz does and I will put YJ on the highest shelf until writers learn to actually write and understand these characters. After what happened with YJ 2019, I’m having less and less faith in that but idc.

Usually I don’t give number ratings for comics, but for this one I’m making an exception. I rate Dark Crisis: Young Justice a 3/10. Get better Megfitz.

[forestlingincorporated]

You know, obviously Tim yelling at Conner about how him dying ruined his life is just forever living rent free in my brain now, but it occures to me.... 

I mean, Tim mentions in DC:YJ #4... that he changed his costume for Conner. 

Which is TRUE. 

But... I don’t think... CONNER ever knew that. 

Like, Conner’s NEVER seen Tim in the black and red Robin suit. 

Like, never. When he died, Tim was - of course - wearing the traffic light suit, and when he came back, Tim was Red Robin. He’s NEVER seen the mourning suit. 

[amaraudermind]

I still don't really want to judge how I feel about dc:yj until the series is finished but I am going to process some of my feelings about it.

And I think a big part of what isn't working for me with the characters is that we have not had the page time to build this sort of fight. The tension we currently have between the characters could happen and work in a story, but without it being built up to, it feels completely nonsensical and frustrating, especially when you add trying to figure out what they remember/what's canon to the mix.

Because here's the thing: the kids we left off in 2011, the young adults really, they cared more about each other than any fight could possibly matter. They fought so much in the beginning, small spats and annoying quarrels, and giant blowout fights where they stopped talking. Except they hated not talking. They all did. And, especially what I've read from ~2009-2011, they would rather deal with it right away and/or say it's fine and brush it off than stop talking.

Everything's fine as long as we stay friends. I can handle anything that's happened as long as you're still here. We may have messed up but please don't leave.

I know things have not been the same since the New52. But even what I've read from yj2019 seems to follow this to a degree. It doesn't mean they don't fight, or won't. It doesn't mean they don't get annoyed at each other. But they're more scared of losing each other than they are angry at each other.

The equilibrium on this could be broken. Pressure from brushing everything aside could build, and resentment could creep in. It could happen. But the fact is, we haven't seen that happen. There's been nothing to set up the thoughts and actions of the characters for this.

[heroesriseandfall]

I do enjoy how character-led Fitzmartin is, though I haven’t read DC:YJ so I dunno how that’s translated for characters other than Tim who she likes a lot. But I am very character-centric so I enjoy having a writer who is also like that.

[dcmarvelshit]

So far, it looks like Fitzmartin is better with individual characters over groups. She does really well with Bart and decent with Tim, while not doing so well with Cissie and Kon. 

The concept behind the DC:YJ is neat, but needed more refining and editing. 

[fierrochaseist4t]

i need to finish catching up w dark crisis but i cannot sit thru an issue of dc:yj gufguyfgfyuf

[communistchilchuck]

continuing the trend. timkon

send me a ship and i’ll give my brutally honest opinion

i see the appeal, ive read the comics, i understand it completely and won’t deny that there’s something there, but a combination of being annoyed by fans bashing other relationships the two have had for little reason other than “its not timkon” and acting like everything else is lesser in comparison, being annoyed by some fans acting like they don’t exist outside of each other, being annoyed by fans shoving them into certain forced roles or mischaracterizing them, and the overwhelming amount of it everywhere i look when i just want to see kon or YJ content in general plus some thoughts on them as characters separately and together makes me just. not care for it, like, at all.

i won’t lie and say a big reason isn’t the fanbase (not all fans! but god, some of them) but i just want to see something different for them in the comics too. explore kon’s friendship with others and treat it as just as real as his friendship with tim. etc., because some writers and a lot of fans will treat their relationships with cassie or bart and others as less than by default even if that isn’t true. that isn’t to say i don’t love their friendship, and i know how insanely important they are to each other; i wouldn’t say otherwise. i’m just a bit burnt out by seeing it everywhere i turn and trust me it DOES slip past my tag filter

also when people cry timkon over the smallest interaction its always wild to witness. i remember when DC:YJ was still coming out and people were like sobbing and and pointing at kon making a slightly shocked face when tim mentioned his boyfriend or something. like… guys. could it be he just… idk. has never seen bernard before?

[chamiryokuroi]

I'm curious as how you seem to view Meghan as a 'progressive' writer for making Tim bi despite the racism (labelling Empress a villain) and sexism (rewriting Cissie's motivations for retiring/erasing Cassie's time as the leader) present in DCYJ along with the lowkey biphobia such as undermining Tim's genuine interest in Cassie during their brief romance to push Timkon and underming Tim and Steph's relationship by acting like it was based on their costumes when it wasn't just to push Timber

Anon the block button is right there, you don’t need to see my content if you don’t want to.

I have never said that Meghan is a “progressive” writer or whatever you’re implying, I just stated a fact that she made Tim bi, which is true, and I am willing to talk about the dumpster fire that was DC:YJ because believe it or not I as a human being can like one thing and hate another made by the same writer, amazing I know, so weird, wow, and I have talked about it before, in twitter and discord (because DC:YJ was bad) but here’s the thing, based entirely in the way you decide to word this question I know for a fact you don’t want to have an actual discussion about it, no you are set on your ways and whatever I say will not make you happy unless I bend over and say I agree with you, and honestly that’s tiring and not a good way to spend my time.

If you want to whine and cry and scream because something that happens in a comic made you feel like this I would suggest talk with a therapist, they’re paid to listen and care about what you have to say, I’m not so I won’t.

And just so the baby won’t come crying back to me let me say this

DC:YJ was a dumpster fire

The Empress thing I partially agree because I haven’t actually read the YJ comic so I dont know much about her aside from what friends have told me

Regarding Cassie and Tim relationship the only problem I had with that is that Meghan said they hadn’t told Kon about it when it fact they actually have. About their feelings? At this point you should be used to the fact that writers will retcon whatever they want, is how comics operate.

And I am sick and tired of hearing how she is pushing Stephanie away to make it all about Timber when time and time again Meghan has shown Steph in a positive light and still as one of the most important person’s in Tim’s life, and before you come whining with “Then why did she break them up” because she fucking could, that’s what people don’t seem to get, she works for DC and as long as she has to go ahead she can write whatever the fuck she wants. Good or bad, doesn’t matter, she can do it, and we have no say in it.

[ectonurites]

I’m cool with Cissie being in costume because that means Williamson is pretending Dark Crisis Young Justice doesn’t exist. You know it’s bad when somebody doesn’t acknowledge a book that was apart on an event they created

while I get where you’re coming from and also agree Dark Crisis: Young Justice was a mess…. i don’t think ‘Cissie in a hero costume’ really can be used as a deciding factor in him ignoring/not ignoring that. If Cissie being in a hero costume isn’t given ample explanation/elaboration it’s actually a much bigger problem because Cissie has been in ‘I will only put on a hero costume to help my friends in extrenuous situations’ mode since like. the original YJ run. like 20 years ago. that’s not a DC:YJ exclusive thing in the slightest djdhshg

[nightmareinfloral]

Hi, I don’t follow you I just track tags you used in your post about Dark Crisis: Young Justice being over so it came up on my feed- but I just want to remind you there’s still one issue left? Like that doesn’t necessarily disregard your points, but saying DC:YJ has been ‘over for a bit’ is just plain inaccurate, and I wasn’t sure if you actually knew there’s another one coming.

omigosh this is totally a mistake on my part. i could’ve sworn all six issues were out. thank you for the correction! i really need to stay true to my ‘no posting on tumblr after 9’ cause i tend to make mistakes like this lol.

[celestial-ringleader]

I'm so glad DC:YJ is over. I'll make a bigger post reviewing it after work but goddamn that was a mess. I'm so sorry for anyone who was reading that as their first YJ installment.