JLA Presents: Young Justice

Young Justice was a popular team book back in the day. It featured a new generation of DC's teenagers and was written by PAD. Probably everyone who follows DC comics knows that. So what Morrison has to do with it?

For most people Young Justice and PAD are joined at the hip. But the entire thing started with Dezago and he was supposed to write the ongoing before he was replaced, for one reason or another, by PAD. But before getting replaced he did three important issues: Young Justice Secret #1 and JLA: World Without Grown-Ups #1-2.

Secret one-shot introduces... Secret. Character that would later become a regular, but from what I know has nothing to do with Morrison. More relevant is World Without Grown-Ups issues because they have "special thanks to Morrison" in their credits.

So supposedly Morrison had plans for JLA Jr. story arc. DC editors probably had plans for launching something like Young Justice for a while as well. So probably both sides decided (or editors decided and Morrison agreed) that this story arc should be done outside of JLA ongoing and work as a launching point for Young Justice ongoing.

So my guess would be that Morrison provided the basic idea(s) behind the story and Dezago turned it into a decent story. Basic idea is that evil genie and some kid split the world in two, one with grown-ups and another with kids. And obviously core of Young Justice (Robin, Superboy and Impulse) are going to solve this problem.

Evil genie would later return during PAD's run and we'd get more information on his background, but I'm not sure if the genie was Morrison's or Dezago's idea. Or if PAD consulted with them when he used him or it was entirely his own idea to flesh him out. So I'm not going to follow that plot thread.

Interesting bit is that this storyline has some similarities with Crisis Time Five. Maybe Dezago didn't use all of Morrison's ideas and this story got split into two with certain elements being shared? Or maybe Morrison just reworked it. Or maybe editors liked what Dezago delivered and said "Grant, do it again!". After all, Crisis Time Five led to JSA's revival. So two big team books launched with similar (same?) storyline.

So anyway, should you read World Without Grown-Ups? Well main reason to read it is if you are Young Justice fan and it is usually collected with Young Justice ongoing... so you probably had already read it before reading this blogpost. And if you are Morrison's fan? Nothing spectacular, but I have read so much crap based on Morrison's ideas or characters that a story that is simply okay stands out.

Before wrapping this up I should mention that this entire blogpost was based on a twitter thread by dstransmissions, a real expert on all things Morrison. I just used way more words to say the same thing. So yeah, go read his blog/site if it hasn't been taken down yet.

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