Young Justice: Invasion

Set five years after the show's First Season, the Second Season of Young Justice introduced older versions of the original show's characters while expanding the team with a new set of young heroes as well. Invasion's overall arc involves the behind-the-scenes manipulations of The Light as well as the arrival of The Reach on Earth whose true purposes are far more nefarious than the aliens let on.

With Dick Grayson moving onto the role of Nightwing (Jesse McCartney) the team gets a new Robin (Cameron Bowen) along with Batgirl (Alyson Stoner), Wonder Girl (Mae Whitman), and Impulse (Jason Marsden) all becoming a part of the team. Aqualad (Khary Payton) and Artemis (Stephanie Lemelin) will both spend a large portion of the season undercover with The Light, the truth about Red Arrow & Arsenal will be discovered, and another founding member of the team will give his life to save the world from The Reach in the series finale.

The time gap left quite a bit unexplained, some of which was filled in during the season run, and not all of the new characters worked equally well. The direction of the season left Kid Flash (Jason Spisak) out of action for most of the season (but still gave the character his big hero moment) and the romantic triangle between Miss Martian (Danica McKellar), Superboy (Nolan North) and got far too much airtime for my liking, but the addition of so many new faces, and the return of characters like Captain Marvel (Chad Lowe) and Zatanna (Lacey Chabert), kept the show fresh and interesting even as The Reach storyline began to drag a bit towards the end.

Earning praise from both fans and critics, Young Justice met its end after only two seasons and was cancelled alongside Green Lantern: The Animated Adventures for a reboot of Cartoon Network's DC Nation block of cartoons. Writer and producer Paul Dini has admitted to the fact that the show was popular with both boys and females when Warner Bros. Animation was only wanting to court the target demographic of young males (who they saw as more likely to buy the scant toy offerings put out during the show's run). Rather than celebrate getting twice the audience they had initially expected, Warner Bros. pulled the plug on the project leaving a handful of storylines unresolved and a host of pissed off fans.

The newly released Blu-ray includes all 20 episodes from the show's Invasion season, audio commentary for the two-part finale, and a short behind-the-scenes featurette on the show.

[Warner Archive Collection, $29.99]