Welcome to another week of DC Weekly! Where we take a moment to look back at the week that was for DC news and events. We have the highly anticipated first episode of Gotham‘s final season No Man’s Land. Also we got the word that a Batwoman pilot is on it’s way for The CW and Aquaman continues to rise above the rest of the DCEU. But this week we will be spotlighting the highly anticipated return of Young Justice: Outsiders to the DC Universe streaming service.

It’s almost 6 years since we last saw Young Justice: Invasion leaving a lot of fans begging for a third season, especially after the events that transpired at the end of the season. This time around, it’s airing exclusively on the DC Universe’s streaming service, which by the looks of it will be releasing three episodes every Friday. This is something that although annoying because of having to pay an extra cost, is believed to benefit the series overall according to Greg Weisman, producer on Young Justice: Outsiders who I had the opportunity to talk to back at San Diego Comic-Con this summer.

“We’re on a streaming service, we’re not on Cartoon Network, we don’t have Cartoon Network’s standards of practices department sort of saying what we can and can’t do, that has freed us up. I’d say this season is more mature, it’s a little darker,” said Wiesman.

This is something that was also noticed by some of the cast of the series, noting the freedom that putting the show on their own streaming service offers. Stephanie Lemelin, voice actress for the popular Artemis character on the series offered her thoughts on the differences, “It definitely feels different. Well, the stories are more mature and it’s a darker, sexier, scarier, sadder, more exciting universe, a little bit. And, you know it already started out good, so it’s just a little bit more liberated to tell the story, like I said, in a more adult way.”

Since the beginning of the series we have seen a lot of growth of the characters in the series, which is why they have become so beloved by viewers. One of the things that they use to achieve their style of storytelling is their timeline. While many other shows ignore timelines, Young Justice has been faithful to keeping their timeline in tact to be able to let their characters grow and mature something that Weisman says that although proud of, also provides a challenge.

“One of the unique things about our show I think, that makes it kind of special, is the passage of time in a way that the fans can follow. You know, we have those time stamps, a decision I regret every time I have to do math and figure them out,” said Wiesman. “Believe me, time zones is math. It allows you to track how old characters are and how much time has passed and I think that’s something sort of unique because most shows, animation and even live action shows, time doesn’t seem to pass in a lot of ways. On M.A.S.H. the Korean war lasted for eleven years, you know what I mean, but in our show there’s this passage of time that you can track and you can see how the characters grow and mature with that. That’s a really key, important grounding element in this series.”

Between the first and second season of Young Justice, there was a 5 year break. The third season Young Justice: Outsiders takes place 2 years after the events of the second season. We find the world of heroes at a crossroads as organizations like the United Nations, led by Lex Luthor of all people, have really hurt the public opinion of the Justice League, leading to some members to want to work outside the rules of the Nations. The result is various members to quit the league taking some of the Young Justice members with them.

But the bigger problem is as we have seen in the trailer, metahuman trafficking. With many young people manifesting abilities, this has lead to the rise of a new industry of groups trafficking kids to meet various demands of living weapons. Kids that test positive for the metagene are transformed by force into living beings of molten rock, while those that are not simply disappear. The League, tied down by politics is powerless to do anything, leaving Nightwing and a few other heroes to go into the kingdom of Markovia, the main source of Earth’s trafficked metas, and take out the culprits.

The first three episodes released this week titled Princes All, Royal We and Eminent Threat do a great job at setting up the their world five years later. Something they don’t need to spend to much time on as they assume that you have already recently watched the first two seasons over again in anticipation. Also they some time focusing on some of the international geopolitics that are plaguing the heroes work and introduce us to Markovia and one of the series’ new heroes Brion Markov and Halo. Being that the show barely dropped yesterday, I will leave my review for another time, but it seems that it already has had a lot of positive feedback online.

In other television news, this week we also go the news that The CW is moving forward with the Batwoman pilot. It would seem that executives are happy with what they saw during the Arrowverse‘s crossover event Elseworlds, that featured that debut of Ruby Rose’s Kate Kane aka Batwoman’s character. The series will be produced by Greg Berlanti and the pilot will be helmed by Game of Thrones alumni David Nutter. Although I am excited to see Rose’s Batwoman again, I am more excited about what other characters either or villains we will be able to see on her series.

Aquaman has reached quite a few milestones this week as it passed Zack Snyder’s Batman V Superman to become the highest grossing DCEU film of all time. Not only that but as I write this, news has came out that it has also passed Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises to take the top spot for any DC film ever made in foreign markets. Currently the film sits at a total of $887.6 million and it still has a chance to pass the one billion mark going forward. Not too bad for the hero that can talk to fish.

With as long as this column has been this week, we’ll leave Gotham for next week, but as always we’ll wrap this up with my top DC comics for this week. For more in-depth coverage on these books and others be sure to listen to The Comic Source Podcast!

5. Books of Magic #3 written by Kat Howard with artwork by Tom Fowler
4. Teriffics #11 written by Jeff Lemire with artwork by Viktor Bogdanovic
3. Justice League Odyssey #4 written by Joshua Williamson with artwork by Philippe Briones
2. Detective Comics #995 written by Peter J. Tomasi with artwork by Doug Mahnke
1. Heroes in Crisis #4 written by Tom King with artwork by Clay Mann

Another busy week for all things DC! What news stood out to you this week? Let us know in the comment section below!

Don’t forget to share this post on your Facebook wall and with your Twitter followers! Just hit the buttons on the top of this page.