It's time to get excited about The Legend of Korra again

I was already planning on writing a post with this title after Nickelodeon released the trailer to Book 3 of The Legend of Korra:

Then Nickelodeon announced that Book 3 will start to air on Friday (June 27), giving us even more reasons to get excited!

Contains spoilers for previous books!

I watched the Teen Titans Go! TV series and it was better than expected

DC Comics have always made good cartoons: Batman the Animated Series, Justice League, and the first season of Young Justice are all excellent. These shows have exciting action, fun adventures, and interesting character arcs. A worthy entry in that lineup is the 2003 Teen Titans animated series, which ran for six seasons. This is not a review for that series.

Instead, this is a review for the current series that re-imagines the Teen Titans as a bunch of slapstick, self-absorbed slackers. The new show makes no attempts at character development, plot arcs, or an underlying message.

And yet, I still kinda like it.

My disappointment with the Legend of Korra, Book Two

I loved the first book of Avatar: the Legend of Korra, so I didn't have to think twice about ordering the second book on iTunes. Unfortunately, the second book fell flat in many ways. There were some good moments, but overall the second book was a disappointment.

Spoilers below the cut! They're lengthy. Sorry, I needed to get this off my chest.

"The Guide" gives me hope for The Legend of Korra, Book 2

Avatar: the Last Airbender is my favorite animated television series of all time. I was very excited when they announced a new series set in the same world, and I was very happy with Book One (The Legend of Korra is broken up into books, not seasons, with each book half the length of a regular season). My favorite characters were Lin and Tenzin, and I was eager to see more of their story in Book Two.

Unfortunately, Book Two stumbled right out of the gate and stayed disappointing for many episodes. Things started to turn around in the two-part episode "Beginnings," raising my hopes for the rest of the book. After today's episode, "The Guide," I think I can finally say that it looks like Book Two is turning around and getting good!

The rest of this post contains some serious spoilers for The Legend of Korra.

Young Justice Season Two goes wrong where Season One went right

** This post contains spoilers. Also, it turned out quite long. I guess I needed to rant. **

The first season of Young Justice may not have been perfect, but it made for a satisfying, consistently entertaining superhero cartoon. Earlier, I wrote about why I preferred Young Justice to Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes. Based on the strength of the first season, I bought an iTunes season pass for the second season. This means that I committed to paying for the entire second season before watching a single episode of that season. That turned out to be a mistake.

Why You Really Should Give Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes a Watch

 There are some spoilers ahead, but I'll try to keep them to the first part of the show.

One of my cohorts recently threw down the gauntlet (or possibly spandex glove) by comparing Young Justice to Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes. As he pointed out, they are for different age groups, so it might not be entirely fair to compare them. While YJ gets to have complex storylines full of brooding and woe (and veiled references to drug use, with Red Arrow's latest story arc), A:EMH is much more about fighting bad guys and stopping cartoonishly evil schemes that usually consist of "taking over ____," revenge, and theft. This isn't to say that it's completely silly: Captain America still mourns over the loss of his entire world, Hawkeye and Black Widow have tension while going back and forth on just how evil Widow is, and at one point the Hulk is rejected and goes off to be alone. These moments are great, but they're fairly rare, because the show is about something else: it's about saving the world, and being mighty while doing it.

 The Hulk must go / So you cannot see the depth / Of his loneliness.

Why Young Justice is better than Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes

This show is better...

...than this show

Having just finished watching the first season of Young Justice, and having previously watched the first season of Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes, I think now is a good time to pause and consider what makes Young Justice a better show.

The Legend of Korra: All Fears Dispelled

Ages ago, back on my original blog, I wrote about my initial excitement for The Legend of Korra, the followup to the Avatar: the Last Airbender cartoon. Now, the first two episodes of The Legend of Korra have been made available online, for free, in high definition! If you have not seen them yet, then I guarantee you that you have something better to do than reading my ramblings. Go get the episodes!

Young Justice Looks Like it's Going to Rock

I would sum up Young Justice as being somewhere between Teen Titans and Justice League/Justice League Unlimited. That's high praise indeed, as I am a huge fan of both shows.