Young Justice, Ultimate Spider-Man, and superhero-cartoons

So a few months ago they announced the Young Justice cartoon and the first thing I did was go to Peter David's blog to see if he was involved. Peter David was the sole writer of this comic book title (with the exception of a two issue stint by Chuck Dixon). He started on issue #1 and continued until it was canceled to make room for Geoff Johns' Teen Titans relaunch.

Young Justice was a spin-off from JLA (Justice League of America) at first featuring just Robin, Superboy (a teenage clone of Superman), and Impulse (the ADD kid Flash of the future). They found a club house and essentially just hung out together and got into trouble. It was exactly what a teen superhero book should be. It was filled with fairly light-hearted and funny stories, but also had a lot of interpersonal drama. Eventually, the team filled out (so to speak) with some girls including Wonder Girl, Arrowette, and the Secret as well as several others.

Unfortunately, Peter David's blog informed me that he didn't know more about the series than the rest of us, so I was afraid that the series just took the name of the comic and nothing else... like Teen Titans.

Well, a couple weeks ago, Disney announced plans to create a new Ultimate Spider-Man cartoon which I found hugely disappointing mainly because they already have a cartoon about a teenage Spider-Man currently on air... and recently, they confirmed that Spectacular Spider-Man will be canceled.

What I liked about Spectacular Spider-Man (other than fantastic writing, animation, and voice acting) was that it seemed like the perfect blend of the original Stan Lee/Steve Ditko Amazing Spider-Man comics and the Bendis/Bagley Ultimate Spider-Man comics. Although it stayed mostly true to the original interpretation, it borrowed elements from the new series to update it a bit. On the whole, I enjoyed it a lot more than Ultimate Spider-Man.

My problem with the Ultimate Spider-Man (and to a larger extent, the Ultimate universe as a whole) is that it started off with a good premise, but just seems to meander in whatever direction after that. There is no focus and often it seems like the entire story is just an excuse to show a new twist on a character. For this reason, I'm not really invested in the characters.

To make a long story slightly shorter, I found out today that although Spectacular Spider-Man was in fact canceled, showrunner Greg Weisman (probably best known for the awesome Gargoyles cartoon) would be running Young Justice.

So for those of you keeping score (like me), I guess we can call this a draw? I'll miss Spectacular Spider-Man, but now I'm really looking forward to Young Justice. If Weisman reaches out to Peter David and adds him to the writing staff, we can call it a victory.