Monthly Archives: December 2010

There is a fantastic Gargoyles website where Greg Weisman – the producer of Gargoyles and now Young Justice - answers questions. As of late the correspondence has included a large number of Young Justice questions and responses.

The Gender Issue

The longest response has been to the criticism that “Independence Day” only featured male characters. In his response Greg describes the reasons – storytelling and comics tradition – that led to this appearance.

You asked why there were no female Leaguers until the end. But where would they have fit? There are no female Leaguers with traditional first generation sidekicks. So Batman, Green Arrow, Aquaman and Flash could not be replaced by Wonder Woman, Black Canary or Hawkwoman. That leaves the four Leaguers introduced at the Hall of Justice. I needed Martian Manhunter to be there to set up Miss Martian. I needed Red Tornado there to set up his interest in the teens. I needed Superman there to set up Superboy. That leaves only Zatara. He was certainly replaceable. But then I would have had to hire another voice actress to read ONE LINE. I couldn’t afford to do that. We have budgets. (And you’ll notice that Red Tornado never speaks in the episode. Couldn’t afford giving him a line either. None of which had anything to do with gender.)

He also describes why it shouldn’t be taken as an indicator of the show moving forward:

Yes, the pilot was very boy-centric, but that’s not the rubric for the series. Personally, I love writing female characters, and if you’re at all familiar with my past work, you’ll know I have a history of doing them justice. (At least, I think so.) Gargoyles, for example, is FULL of strong female characters, including Elisa, Demona, Angela, Fox, etc. WITCH was nearly ALL female leads. Even Spider-Man had a strong female supporting cast, in my opinion at least.

All of Weisman’s reassurances are very reasonable and aren’t to far from our own speculations.

DC Women Kick Ass, the blog that raised this issue in the first place, comments that Weisman’s answer makes him a “Silver Age fanboy like [Geoff] Johns”. However, they do accept his reassurances that this isn’t the start of a pattern. They conclude  “I also hope the Silver Age nostalgia that made the pilot a boy-centric show is left in the past, where it belongs.” Which begs the question – if DC don’t have Silver Age nostalgia what do they have left?

Other Details

Other more minor details include:

• Black Canary is 24 years old. Her mother, the original Black Canary, wasn’t active during WWII for timing reasons and wasn’t born until 1943.
• The names of the Cadmus creatures are “G-Gnomes (the tiny psychic guys), G-Trolls (the huge strong brutes), G-Elves (the clawed warriors), G-Dwarves (the tentacled worker drones), G-Sprites (the electricity generating creatures) and one G-Goblin (Dubbilex) with telekinetic powers (and secret psychic powers).”
• Aqualad’s backpack/weapons: “They are called Water-Bearers, and he does need them to do his thing. It’s a combination of Atlantean science and sorcery. His mystic tattoos power the water-bearers which use water stored in his backpack or from some other source to create water weapons and/or manipulate water.”

I found the “Created By” section of the Young Justice credits interesting. Justice League only listed the creators for Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman (plus Jack Kirby for some of the New Gods stuff). Young Justice now adds Joe Samachson as the creator of the Martian Manhunter. I don’t know what prompted the change, but it seems odd to include such a relatively minor character ahead of the creators of the Flash and Green Lantern. Then again maybe it’s because this credits are so simple.