‘Young Justice: Outsiders’ Showrunners Address the Latest Time Jump

It took five years, but the new season of Young Justice is finally upon us.

The fan-favorite animated series has finally returned thanks to Warner Bros.’ new streaming service DC Universe, showing the further adventures of Nightwing, Aqualad, and the rest of the team as they undertake covert operations against the biggest villains.

But the new season won’t be picking up right where Young Justice: Invasion left off. Instead, they’ll be making use of yet another time jump in Season 3.

There are events alluded to in the premiere of Young Justice: Outsiders, such as Aqualad’s promotion to the new Aquaman and his role in the Justice League, while the inclusion of Spoiler and Katana are a bit more mysterious though fans of the comics might have more insight. Producers Brandon Vietti and Greg Weisman and art director Phil Bourassa addressed these changes in an interview with ComicBook.com.

“We do have those discussions, as we’re crafting the beats of the stories. And there are some big events that we can sort of rely on for ‘the big fans in the room’ will get, but we’re also okay if a new fan in the room doesn’t get it,” Vietti said in reference to iconic storylines from the comics filling in the blanks. For example, in Season 2, a young Robin holograph is on display in memorial of Jason Todd, with Tim Drake currently serving that role.

In clips already released of Season 3, Nightwing is being helped by Oracle over their communications line, teasing that Barbara Gordon suffers an unfortunate fate at the hands of the Joker in between the new seasons.

Bourassa addressed this aspect of the new season, saying that they will take comic books as inspiration but will always tell their own story.

“We’re also careful though that if we’re in essence, using the time skip as an ellipsis, that if we got, you know if we explain as much as we need to,” explained Bourassa. “So if you got a fan who wants to go and do the research, that’s great but if you got a fan who doesn’t, they’ve got all they need to know in order to precede and, the flip side of this is also that because our version of the DC Universe is slightly different in places similar in other places. You can never be a hundred percent sure that even if you’ve done the research that that’s exactly how things went down in our version of it.”

The producers declined to reveal how much time has past between Seasons 2 and 3 of Young Justice, but fans can expect it to be addressed in the opening episode.

The first three episodes of Young Justice: Outsiders premiere on DC Universe tomorrow, January 4th.