YOUNG JUSTICE SEASON ONE, VOLUME TWO (DVD Review)

Sometimes "ScreenAnarchy" receives a recent television DVD or Blu-ray and then turns into "Twitch TV." With the October 25th release of the second volume of the first season of the Cartoon Network series Young Justice, this is one of those times. And really, I can't recommend enough this young, angsty, violent-for-its-age group take on the teen superheroes of the DC Comics universe. While the first volume, comprised of the first four episodes of the series, showed the team, this latest volume sees the group working together, but with the various quirks and crises that define the characters starting to peek through.

The team at the heart of Young Justice is made up of a couple of familiar characters that non-comics readers might be aware of--well, basically Batman's sidekick, Robin and Superboy. But there's also Green Arrow sidekick, Artemis, niece to the Martian Manhunter, Miss Martian, Flash sidekick Kid Flash, and Aquaman protege Aqualad. The basic setup for the show, for those coming in late, is that the adult superheroes of the Justice League have placed the next generation of superheroes on a separate team in order to have the teens respond to smaller-scale threats while training to be full-fledged heroes in their own right. The teens, in turn, chafe at the constant supervision, control, and sometimes secrecy of the adults, believing themselves ready to take on the bizarre villains and threats that come their way.

This set of standalone episodes from the first season as well as the previously-released first volume represent a smooth, no-fuss entry into the series. I mentioned angst up above, but don't take that to mean the characters spend most of their time being surly and nothing else. There's a great deal of intrigue and some amount of mystery as a secret organization calling itself "The Light" manipulates superpowered criminals into some kind of long game that seeks to change the world in some undefined way. Meanwhile, there might be a traitor on the team as a couple of the young heroes doubt their place on it.

I'm not a huge fan of the four episode at a time used for kids' TV networks, but this barebones release is the best you'll be getting for a while, as the price for the SD disc is about what you'd pay to rent the episodes from a VOD service.

My qualms with the release strategy aside, if you like superheros are good, clean superhero craziness, I'd advise you to pick this disc up.