Creator of Young Justice responds to premiere being light on females

Greg Weisman co-creator of “Young Justice” responded to the criticism about the show’s premiere on his web site yesterday. Turns out he has something in common with Geoff Johns.

You can go read it the whole thing but here’s what he said about the lack of girls in the premiere:

As for Miss Martian, yes, in theory, we could have introduced her sooner. Manhunter COULD have brought her along at the beginning. But then I’d have had FOUR characters running around the first half hour and FIVE in the second. That steals screen time and characterization from everyone. I think the entire production would have been weaker for adding another character — ANY other character (gender notwithstanding).

Of course, that begs the obvious question - why not ditch one of the boys in favor of her to create a little balance.

But it seemed to us that would create balance at a cost.

There are FOUR TRADITIONAL sidekicks: Robin, Speedy, Aqualad and Kid Flash. To leave one out seemed wrong to us. Which brings in the Tradition argument, which I’ll admit is somewhat feeble, but as an old comic book geek, I’ll also admit it matters to me and to everyone else here.

The very first Teen Titans story ever in Brave and the Bold featured only THREE heroes: Robin, Aqualad and Kid Flash. Wonder Girl did not join until their second adventure. So we felt there was a precedent for beginning with Robin, Aqualad and Kid Flash and saving the real introduction of Miss Martian (beyond hellos) for OUR second adventure.

So he’s a Silver Age fanboy like Johns. And he loves his tradition. Of course, given the liberties they took with the timeline, the liberties they took setting the show on another earth and the liberties they took by rightfully changing the line-up from an all-white male cast what it really means is “we wanted an all male-cast.” He goes on:

For what it’s worth, if you give the series another chance, starting with episode three (i.e. the one immediately following the pilot “movie”), I think you’ll see that female characters including Miss Martian, Black Canary, Artemis, Wonder Woman and MANY others will be playing ESSENTIAL roles in the show as we progress. I think the balance - and then some - is absolutely present in the first season when viewed in its entirety.

Yes, the pilot was very boy-centric, but that’s not the rubric for the series

Well, at least he acknowledges they had  boy-centric premiere. And that women will have essential roles. I would hope so. And finally their hope for the future.

If we did “reinforce a stereotype” (which I think is overstating it) then perhaps we’ve lured in kids that we will reeducate over the course of the season - organically without forcing it.

As I said I hope this show succeeds. I hope it showcases strong, smart capable females and males. I also hope the Silver Age nostalgia that made the pilot a boy-centric show is left in the past, where it belongs.