Young Justice is perhaps one of the best cartoons in the DC Universe, but even the best can be far from perfect. Young Justice hit the ground running with its first season, establishing its reputation for mature storytelling, rich worldbuilding and a wealth of interesting characters. Although these elements were all highlights of the series, Season 3 showed that combining too many of them isn't always the best, and sometimes less is more.

As Season 4, Young Justice: Phantoms, draws nearer, there are 5 main areas the show can improve on to maintain its course as a legendary cartoon.

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1 - Cast Size

First and foremost, the third season of Young Justice suffered from an inflated cast of characters too large for any individual to get the space and attention they deserve. This mistake began in Season 1, starting with a core team that nearly doubled by the season's end. After a 5 year jump, the Team kicked off Season 2 with an even larger cast while continuing to grow yet again as the season wore on. By the time Season 3 continued the trend, there were just too many characters and not enough time to flesh out their stories.

Going into the Phantoms, the Team has had around 30 current or former members while Young Justice also involves additional teams like the Justice League and the Outsiders. Some simply need to fade to the background so the narrative can focus on a core group throughout the season. And with such a robust cast already, there is no reason to continue introducing new characters or new teams. With a smaller cast, all of the following problems become easier to fix.

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2 - Clunky Exposition

With so many storylines and characters intertwined in Young Justice's narrative, the only way the third season could effectively multitask was to provide heaps of exposition in every episode. This often came in the form of newscasts or internet posts consuming minutes of screentime that just was not cinematic, forcing the viewer to watch characters watching screens that explained plot developments to them.

At one point, in the episode "Influence," the team stops to check their cell phones where they watch a press conference held by Aquaman, which itself is watched by Lex Luthor at a U.N. summit, which is in turn played by G. Gordon Godfrey on a show viewed by Beast Boy on his phone. It's a good chunk of the episode's run time with very little happening and quite a lot explained. It's understandable why the writers would lean on such a narrative tool, but hopefully, with a pared-down story, such tools won't be necessary in Season 4.

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3 - Missions

Ultimately, Young Justice needs to return back to the basics that made the first season so great. A big part of that is the covert operations that not only gave the plots a flavor distinct from most other superhero shows, but also gave them an episodic structure easier to follow. Self-contained missions restricted to one episode are easier to follow, but Outsiders started with a mission to Markovia that lasted for 3 episodes with a fourth containing flashbacks developing the same mission.

Many of the season's best episodes centered around focused missions contained to the space of the episode. Batman, Katana and Metamorpho's reconnaissance of the League of Shadows stands out, as does Robin leading a team of Bat-sidekicks to tail the Mad Hatter. Such missions still advanced the overall plot, but suffered none of the emotional baggage or emotionality that made many missions with Geo-Force and Cyborg feel grating by comparison.

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4 - Action

In the same vein, Young Justice has such a talent for unique and engaging action that it felt too few and far between in Outsiders. While the complex plotting and character development is the defining quality that lifts Young Justice above many other shows, at the end of the day, it is an action-adventure program that needs to balance effective set pieces along with its other strengths. There were certainly moments of truly great action in Season 3, with Lobo's mission to kill Forager and the Outsiders fighting off Reach ships as standouts — they just did not come reliably enough or at the right moments.

Season 1 climaxed with an epic battle between the mind-controlled Justice League and the Team as the young heroes asserted their independence, and Season 2 ably balanced almost the entire cast intertwining in a mission to save the world, showing what their cooperation could achieve. But Outsiders' varied plot threads made it difficult for the plot to calcify around a single climax, and the split between the final showdown against Granny Goodness and the battle for the Markovian crown instead felt disjointed an ineffectual compared to previous finales.

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5 - Levity

wally west in yellow suit looking at masked dick grayson robin

The last missing ingredient that could truly make the fourth season the best one yet is as simple as a sense of humor. Although fleshing out characterization and interpersonal drama invests the audience emotionally in the show's characters, there is a balance such elements need to strike with a sense of levity or whimsy to keep the tone from feeling melodramatic or overwrought. Unfortunately, Season 3 just became too entrenched in such heavy elements.

Geo-Force and Cyborg's story arcs carry a lot of the blame there, consuming much of each character's screen time with impassioned outbursts with very little progression. This stands in stark contrast to the first season, where Kid Flash's presence alone lifted the spirits of the Team. While Young Justice shouldn't lose focus on action, it also need not lose its fun spirit, either. The series is at its absolute best when it successfully manages to balance all of its disparate elements. Weighing its insightful characterization with its charm and sense of wonder, there's no limit to how high Young Justice can soar.

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