Tom Recommends: Young Justice (Animated Series)

Animator Greg Wiseman has had a long string of animated series that have pleased fans but have always seemed to be cut short due to other factors.  He was forced off Disney’s Gargoyles and saw his Spectacular Spider-Man cut short due to the Spider-rights going to Disney.

Then there was Young Justice, an animated series set in the DC universe about a team of superhero sidekicks going on covert missions for the Justice League.

Slightly Misplaced Comic Book Heroes Case File #37: Minion

This is not him.

Over the years, DC’s Teen Titans group has been one of those perennial books that’s always around.  At one time, The New Teen Titans, as written by Marv Wolfman and drawn by George Perez, was one of it not the hottest comic around, rivaling The Uncanny X-Men for popularity.  The classic line-up that included Nightwing, Raven, Starfire, Cyborg, Changeling, Wonder Girl, and some others was all the rage.  Other Titans came and went, such as Kid Flash, Speedy, Aqualad, Red Star, Pantha, and Wildebeest, but the core group was what the fan remembered.

Then, after the Zero Hour storyline, a new line-up appeared.  Gone were most of the classic Titans, possibly due to no longer technically being “teens”.  In its place was a line-up that at least looked interesting.  There was former Speedy Roy Harper, now going by Arsenal.  Donna Troy went by her real name and was, at the time, a member of the spacefaring police force, the Darkstars.  Former Team Titans from a collapsed future timeline Mirage and Terra were there.  So was the at-the-time only Green Lantern, Kyle Rayner, as were two teen heroes from the period, Impulse and Damage.

Oh, and then there was Minion.

Slightly Misplaced Comic Book Case File #23: Arrowette

These guys need to learn to read signs posted on trees.

The comic book version of Green Arrow is best known as being one of the few heroes with a distinctive political point of view.  Who does Superman vote for?  Who knows?  Green Arrow is an out-and-out bleeding heart liberal, and that’s probably one of his defining characteristics.

Except he wasn’t always that way.  The character existed for a good twenty years before his political perspective came up at all.  Prior to that, he was the standard white bread DC hero who did good because it was good and if he ever had a thought deeper than which arrow to use at any given moment, he sure didn’t share it.  In point of fact, the guy was a Batman rip-off, living as a millionaire playboy with his sidekick and ward in a big mansion with a cave and a car and a plane underneath his home.  It’s not much of a memorable era for the Emerald Archer.

This era also gave us Arrowette.

Who The Heck Is Donna Troy?

Look! It’s a messy origin story!

Many longtime DC Comics fans probably know Donna Troy as the original Wonder Girl, teenage sidekick to Wonder Woman, longtime member of the Teen Titans.  They also probably know Donna’s backstory is a convoluted mess.

There’s a really good reason for that.  Donna was added to the Titans by mistake and creators have been trying to fix that screw-up ever since.