Series creators Greg Weisman and Brandon Vietti are returning to the world of Young Justice. The series has received critical acclaim and widespread praise, earning it a massive fandom. With Young Justice's fourth season, Phantoms, recently premiering on HBO Max, it's never been a better time to catch up with Young Justice.
Originally premiering on Cartoon Network in 2010, Young Justice follows a young group of heroes as they band together to face evil and step out of the shadow of their mentors. As the series grew on, fans have watched heroes like Dick Grayson, Kaldur, and Artemis grow up as they go from teenagers to adults. Though Young Justice was tragically canceled after its second season, fan demand managed to land it a third season on the ill-fated DC Universe streaming service. As the series has transitioned to HBO Max for its fourth season, fans have caught up with the popular couple of Miss Martian and Superboy on their pre-wedding trip to Mars. With Phantoms kicking into gear, we had the opportunity to chat with Weisman and Vietti about their creative process going into this new season.
Screen Rant: What did the time between seasons two and three do to the creative process? Did it give you time to plan for season four and ahead?
Greg Weisman: We had a basic game plan for I'd say about five seasons worth back when we were doing seasons one and two. We stuck to that general plan. But we didn't break season three until we got the pickup for season three, and we didn't break season four till we got the pickup for season four. The world changed in the interim, so we let those changes in the world be reflected in the new content.
Brandon Vietti: One of the big changes was the rise of social media. It was there to a lesser extent when we were making the first two seasons, but obviously, it grew quite a lot. In the time between seasons two and three, social media was a big reason I think we got attention, our show was found by new audiences. In that time between seasons, people got on social media and talked about the show. It was a lot of support from the fans. It was them being very vocal on social media that got the attention of our bosses and helped bring the show back. So that's one of the things that we tried to reflect in the stories in our third season, particularly, folding social media into the story and into the lives of our characters in a meaningful way was a way for us to acknowledge and thank all of our fans that supported us in that in-between time.
Speaking of fans, how do you balance fan expectations with surprising them and giving them something that they didn't know that they wanted?
Greg Weisman: The rule that we go by is that the two of us have to be passionate about what we're doing. We can't just service what the fans tell us they want. If it doesn't ring true to our characters and make us feel passionate about the work how could we expect any of our viewers to be passionate about it? That would seep into the show and then what would there be to watch?
I do think that we listen to the fans. We get some good advice from fans. We get some really bad advice. It's sort of our job to sort through that and apply it as needed. Sometimes we're giving fans what they don't know they want until they see it, and sometimes we are breaking their hearts, but we need to stay true to our characters, our storyline, and our passion. Then we just cross our fingers that enough of our viewership likes what we do that the show is a success, but it's still got to begin with us liking what we do.
Brandon Vietti: Greg and I have had really great support from both DC and Warner Brothers in bringing out some of these stories that fans want but in unexpected ways. I think what's great about the fact that we have this designation of Earth 16, where things can happen that sort of mirror the continuity that fans might be used to from comics, but we can present things in a slightly different way. I think that gives us something interesting to work with. That's something that we always want to scratch the itch that fans have, but at the same time, we're fans too. So we can look at the material and say, what can we do differently that respects the material that came before us, that also sheds new light on a character or a storyline? Something that's a little different and gives you another perspective on an old favorite.
The time jump between seasons 3 and 4 is much smaller than the time gap between previous seasons. Was that a conscious decision?
Greg Weisman: We have always jumped as far ahead as we felt we could and still tell the story we needed to tell. Time is important to the show, specifically the passage of time. That's one of the things that sets our show apart. A lot of TV shows today are always stuck in the status quo of now. In animated shows, if a character like Dick Grayson is 13 years old in season one, he may be 13 years old for 10 years. Bart Simpson has been 10 years old for 33 years. But for us, Dick started at age 13 and now he's 24. That, to us, was intrinsic to the show. This idea of the reality of time passing and people aging, but in particular, growing not just older, but growing as people.
So factoring all that in, we had a one-year time jump between season three and season four. Relative to the five-year-jump we had between the first two seasons, that doesn't seem like much, but a lot can happen in a year. We felt like we really couldn't go much further than that because we were building towards this Mars arc with the planned wedding and we felt after being engaged for two years, they'd be ready to get married.
Young Justice is constantly introducing new heroes from more obscure corners of the DC Universe. With the Legion of Super-Heroes taking a prominent role in season 4, how did you choose which Legion members would best represent the group in Young Justice?
Brandon Vietti: A lot of times, we certainly have our favorites. If Greg's really in love with a particular character's story, or I have that same love for some other thing, we're going to find a way to weave those in. Then there's also just what are our story goals? What characters can help us achieve those story goals?
Greg Weisman: I specifically remember that since the show was called Young Justice: Phantoms, that I felt like we had to use Phantom Girl. We just have to.
Brandon Vietti: Both Saturn Girl and Chameleon Boy offer opportunities for stealth in different ways. Those were definitely traits that we felt we were going to need to lean on throughout the story. We've seen that in the episodes that have been shown so far. So I know those certainly helped to get them on the list.
Is there anyone on the staff or crew who doesn't get enough credit for making the show what it is that either of you wants to give a shout out to?
Greg Weisman: I think I'd like to give a little shout out to Jamie Thomason, our voice director, we have a phenomenal cast of actors who give us great stuff. But Jamie really pulls so much of that together. He's definitely one of the unsung heroes of the team, I could easily jump in with twenty more.
Brandon Vietti: I'm going to give a couple of departments credit here. Our posts department, post-production with which is when our animation comes back, we have a little time to work with the picture and make little improvements that probably nobody will ever notice that they will feel on the screen. We have had a number of great effects artists that come in and just sweeten explosions or laser beams or things like that, that just really bring extra excitement and impact to the final picture. I so wish I could list them all. But it is a very long list of effects artists.
We have a color correction expert named Darren Griffiths who also does color grading to every single episode that passes through and that it's adding things like subtle vignettes and sweetening colors. Again, these are such subtle things that most people won't notice. But honestly, if we sat in the room with any of these artists, and you saw the before and the after, it would blow your mind. The impact is tremendous.
Fans excited for more Young Justice can watch any of the series' four seasons streaming now on HBO Max.