This Saturday morning marks the season finales of both Young Justice and Green Lantern: The Animated Series. Since neither show has been renewed as of now, there’s a good chance they will also be the series finales for both shows. Now, there is a strong renewal campaign being led by both fandoms together, so all hope is not lost; but, for this week, I’ve been thinking about how special the shows are. In particular, how special the shows are for featuring several fantastic female characters. These are just a few of the badass women that have made my Saturdays a little brighter.

Carol Ferris
Carol has not always been written well throughout her history in the comics, but this might be one of the better versions of the character overall. She’s the first person to have the power of the Star Sapphire ring and be able to give it up. Carol is also the one to revolutionize the concept of love for the Star Sapphires. When Hal is sent back to Earth with no memory of being a Green Lantern, it’s Carol who helps him regain his memory and urges him to go save the universe. More than that, she breaks up with him only when she knows it’s not the right time for them to be together.

Probably best of all is when she’s called back to the Star Sapphires to be their champion for love — one minute she’s in the middle of a business buffet and the next she’s in outer space, called upon to fight Atrocious. And considering the situation, she takes it in stride. What’s great about Carol is that whether she has the ring or doesn’t, she always seems to be a huge part of why the day is saved.

Artemis Crock
Artemis Crock is kind of an anomaly. In comic book canon, she’s an antagonist. In Young Justice, she was brought onto the team out of nowhere with a secret. Since there was a supposed mole on the team, viewers were supposed to wonder if that was Artemis. After all, Artemis came from a family of criminals and assassins, but she wanted to be something better.

She grew stronger as she learned to trust her teammates, but she was always brave. Even when her dad told her that she couldn’t run from her family — that being a villain was in her blood — Artemis just wanted to be a hero. It would have been easy to have Artemis go back and forth between good and evil, self doubt and self confidence; these tropes are used so often and it can get frustrating to see them overused. So it was refreshing to see her go “No, this is what I want. This is who I want to be. I make my own destiny.” It’s a real shame the writers took her out of the hero life in season two, but the sacrifices she made while undercover just shows how strong a person she is. I just wish we could see more of her beyond the season finale.

Iolande
Iolande is one of the recurring GLTAS characters taken from established Lantern Corp canon. A princess on her home planet, we get to know Iolande over the course of her introductory episode “Heir Apparent” and while some in her court challenge her role as the singular ruler of her people, Hal and the Green Lantern of her sector have confidence in her. And when the lantern ring comes to her, she decides to take on both the responsibilities of the Queen of her people as well as the new Green Lantern for her sector.

Barbara Gordon

Some other Batgirl highlights? Well, she was a huge part of stopping the war world from destroying Earth. When Blue Beetle attacked the team later that episode, Barbara’s first instinct was to push Robin out of harm’s way while she felt the full force of the blast. Her detective work back in “Beneath” was the start of them figuring out the ancient Scarab technology. And if you count the tie-in comic (which I do), she also went toe-to-toe with Match AKA the Superman clone. Even Superboy had a tough time with Match and Barbara still fought him for an hour!

She’s smart, brave and as seen last episode, can knock four ninjas unconscious in a matter of seconds — all without superpowers. As much as I wish they would have given her more character focus, she’s still very badass on the show and I’m so glad she was included.

Aya
What better way to round off this list than with Aya. I’ve written about this complex original character earlier this year — how she went from being a bodyless nav computer to a robot who wants to be a Green Lantern to one of the bravest members of the crew. Of course, right after I wrote that piece was when things started going back for Aya. But what’s beautiful about her character is how human she really is; when her heart is broken, all she wants to know from Hal is how she can make the pain go away — how much more human can you get?

And she made the ultimate sacrifice twice. First she put herself in harm’s way to save Razer from the Anti-Monitor. Then she sacrificed her emotions and (with her emotions, everything that’s the fans love about her) so she could save her team. Sure, removing her emotions meant she didn’t have to feel the crippling heartache, but it was still the only way to save her family. And now that she is this cold, cruel mistress of the Manhunters, it only hurts more because the viewers love Aya so much and will make the finale that much harder to watch.

Over the last year, I’ve just been so impressed by both of these shows and how great all their characters are. But the truth is, there are plenty of other great female characters in Green Lantern: The Animated Series and Young Justice — who are your favorites?

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2012 was not the best year for my viewing experience. Besides Community being put on hiatus, the entire DC Nation block (Young Justice, Green Lantern: The Animated Series and the animated shorts) were taken off Cartoon Network’s schedule only 12 hours before air, only to have the Cartoon Network Twitter account happily announce later that day the block was coming back in 2013. I wrote about the situation back when it happened in October, but it is disappointing that we were never given a reason for the hiatus.

Still, this Saturday marks the return of DC Nation and needless to say, I’m very happy about it. The thing is, the episodes premiering this weekend also happen to be the ones that were still sold on iTunes for about 24 hours after the hiatus started, so I’ve already seen Young Justice‘s “Before the Dawn” many times over in the last few months. So without giving away spoilers, here’s why you should watch if you’re at all a fan of the show.

So if you remember from the last episode “Darkest,” undercover operatives Aqualad and Artemis had to kidnap three of the younger team members (in particular Blue Beetle) and blow up the cave in order to keep their cover. “Before the Dawn” is entirely about the team’s multi-layered mission to get the kids back. Missions like this were the norm last season and this one gives us plenty of opportunities to highlight several of the team members while keeping the story moving. For instance, we see more of Artemis and Kaldur undercover, but we also get to see M’gann struggle with the consequences of her actions during and leading up to the mission (something speculated several times over the summer by fans, actually). We also get to find out a little bit more about the future from which Impulse escaped and how Blue Beetle ties in to all of this. In general, we’re getting a clearer picture of the invasion that the season has been leading up to while also building on character arcs.

Personally, my favorite part of the episode was the focus on Batgirl and Robin. Both Barbara Gordon and Tim Drake are characters close to my heart thanks to growing up with the DCAU, but neither have had a huge amount of focus compared to the original team members and characters like Bart and Jaime. But in this episode, we get to see both of them working together to kick alien butt. And as a lifelong Barbara Gordon fan, it made me far too happy to see her take a leadership role, going as far as confidently making a very difficult but necessary decision by the end of the episode. Yes, Batgirl is awesome during this mission. Did I mention we also get an amazing cameo from another iconic Batfamily member that could potentially be foreshadowing a future team member?

So far, season two of Young Justice has had much more focus on the overarching plot and less on the characters. “Before the Dawn” is my favorite episode so far this season because it manages to balance character moments while still having plenty of action and adding to the overall story. The only negative about watching the episode was knowing that I’d be waiting months to find out what happens next, and considering there’s a pretty huge cliffhanger to end the episode … let’s just say I’ve been a very patient fan this winter. I’m definitely going to rewatch the episode this weekend when DC Nation return, but man oh man, I can’t wait for the weekend after to find out what happens next.

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It seems crazy, but we only have two days until Young Justice comes out of its hiatus like a majestic bear waking up from its long slumber to maul us with heartache and emotions. It’s been a long summer to wait, to wonder, to over-analyze the past episodes for any clues to what could possibly be coming. Since DC Nation started in the spring, I’ve dived head first into the Young Justice fandom and since the animation department is the only area that DC Comics haven’t thoroughly messed up this summer, I’m very glad to see Young Justice come back. Between the preview videos and the preview screenshots (on top of the comic that was released earlier this month), there’s certainly a lot to say about the potential of the show in the upcoming episodes. So here’s what I’m thinking …

Jade and Roy go after Kaldur

Wally comes back to the Team
Yes, this is mostly what I want to happen, but it does make sense. If the fastest way to get Artemis home is to stop the invasion then Wally’s going to do everything he can to help. Plus, he has a chance to see her and make sure he’s the one to fight her instead of a team member who sees her as an enemy. I’m also thinking if Wally does come back to the team that we’ll see more Bart and Wally interaction with Kid Flash becoming a speedster mentor. And any interaction with Bart means more possibilities to learn about his future.

Artemis and Kaldur struggle with their identities
This was something I picked up on in the Comic-Con trailer, namely that Artemis looks miserable in her role as a would-be bad guy. And I don’t blame her one bit! The great part of her character arc in the 1st season was her choosing her own path despite her father telling her that crime was in her blood. She choose to help people and be a hero — to make her own fate. Now she’s back in the role of a villain and I’m guessing she’s really good at it because let’s face it … Artemis kicks butt. Her father’s voice is in the back of her head telling her this is where she belongs and she’s struggling without the support of most of her teammates, especially Wally.

More Batfamily scenes
Again, this one is more on the wish list side of things, but that doesn’t mean it won’t happen. We know we’re going to see Tim fighting in civilian clothes and Barbara is supposed to have a decent size storyline in the comics, so building on those characters looks good. And yes, I want Dick and Barbara to get together because I’ve been rooting for these two in the cartoons since about 1994, but I just want to see more of Barbara because she’s my favorite. So if that means we don’t get a Dick and Babs romance but we still have the Bat kid trio working together, then so be it. Like pretty much all the season 2 added characters, I just want to see more character development from Tim and Barb.

M’gann isn’t going to hurt Kaldur or Artemis
One of the very first hypotheses that came from the fans after “Depths” was that the now very powerful M’gann would destroy her former friend’s mind like she did the aliens. She’d either get revenge by mind-attacking Kaldur or his mysterious new second-in-command Tigress. And it would only be later that she discovers they were undercover and she has become the monster she was always terrified of becoming. However, there are two reasons why I don’t think it’s going to go down that way. For one, Jade is already focused on the revenge plot. They could do both Jade and M’gann going after Kaldur, but that seems a little too cramped for a season already filled to the brim with plot. There’s also the matter of Superboy’s talk with M’gann in the last episode. After hearing how she hurt him, I don’t know if she’s going to use her powers in so many situations or to a degree of torture. I can see her almost using her powers in the way again but then stopping herself.

Jason Todd is Young Justice canon
OK, this isn’t a prediction — it’s a fact. In the promotional screenshot of Garfield, Jaime, Bart and Tim looking at Artemis’ memorial, you can clearly see the memorials of the other fallen heroes: Aquagirl, Blue Beetle and … a Robin? And that’s the moment when I audibly gasped and shook my hands in glee. Because ever since the first episode of the season when Dick told Tim, “Just … don’t die,” we’ve wondered if they were going to at least acknowledge Jason Todd’s existence.

Some fans have already gotten upset that Jason is dead in the series, but I see this as an overwhelming good thing. Look, as soon as we saw the new Robin was Tim, there were only two ways the writers could have gone: either they ignore his existence altogether or he was killed within the five year jump. This is the first time a DC show has even had Jason be a part of its universe — this is huge! And more importantly, remember that Young Justice has a history of establishing characters and bringing them onto the team later. His very existence in the show means there’s a very good chance they’ll use him again. I don’t think its going to happen this season, but I’m calling it now — next season we’re going to get Red Hood.

Fellow Young Justice fans — as the hiatus comes to a close, what do you think will happen to our young heroes?

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