Young Justice is heading for a huge Beast Boy twist
Beast Boy’s heartache throughout Young Justice: Phantoms seems to be slowly burning towards an explosive ending for the character.
WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Young Justice: Phantoms, streaming now on HBO Max. This article also contains discussions about self-harm and suicide.
Part of what has always done Young justice Outstanding is the maturity with which he treats his viewers, trusting them to capture the complex global plots and the vast psychological depths of his characters. It’s not always clear where the series is heading or which direction it is heading, but in the frequent departures of the final season of its plot to mull over Beast Boy’s disturbing sanity, it seems to point to a dark path for to come.
There has to be a greater emphasis placed on the narrative space offered to the worsening condition of Beast Boy. The story so far has already been a one-time look at deteriorating mental health, but the series can take its sober description to an unprecedented degree.
Even since the start of Season 4, Beast Boy’s mental state is far from flawless. Headed to Mars, Superboy confided in his fiance, M’gann, about his adopted brother’s erratic behavior. This behavior became all the more erratic among the Martian population, where psychic attacks subjected them to panic attacks that threatened strained diplomatic relations with the extraterrestrial people. Superboy’s apparent death at the end of the story arc proved to be a breaking point for Beast Boy, and despite his disengagement from the plot of subsequent arcs, the series spends an inordinate amount of time wearing his attention to his mental state which worsens as a young hero abstains from the missions of the Outsiders, pushes back the attempts of his friends to contact him and spends more and more time in bed.
It’s a simple story structure for understanding that the more time a series spends on a topic, the more important it becomes. The show’s preoccupation with Beast Boy proved curious even at the start of its crisis, as the asides had so little to do with the action of the episodes and developed little to no other aspects of the world. As a thought-provoking portrayal of a famous and cheerful character struggling with mental health issues, the Asides proved to be exceptional, giving Superboy’s death an emotional weight rarely seen in the superhero genre where deaths are so often reversed or canceled to the point of cliché. Now, after seven episodes of focus, the narrative importance and tension that builds up in Beast Boy’s story arc swells to such an extent that it seems to point to a dark direction: suicide.
Addressing these grim realities of mental health and suicide would certainly live up to the show’s unwavering realism, with a greater amount of violence since his departure from Cartoon Network ahead of the show’s resumption in Season 3. The Season 3 also featured an extended period and serious look at Artemis’ grief and the healing process by which she accepted it, establishing how the deaths of major figures are not to be taken lightly. By reinforcing the importance of Beast Boy’s grief, but showing that his sanity is deteriorating rather than improving, Young justice may well be building a way to further hammer home the resonance of Superboy’s own death – a direction that seems all the more likely given Superboy’s possibility of survival.
The Arc of Mars periodically featured the Legion of Superheroes traveling in time stalking Superboy from a distance where they vaguely made mention of a mission and its consequences not yet fully revealed. After Superboy sacrifices himself to prevent a gene bomb from devastating the people of Mars, it seems entirely possible and even likely that the Legion intervened at the last moment to save the half-Kryptonian hero in order to take him into his own. chronology. . While the public may be familiar with such setbacks of fortune, portraying Beast Boy contemplating or even completing a suicide attempt would be an unprecedented and monumental step toward combating the reality of what it means. apparent death of a character in the universe.
By showing Artemis’ healing process to overcome the death of Kid Flash, Young justice gave an important and realistic treatment of mortality that showed how difficult grieving can be, even though it offers hope in coping. Reversing Superboy’s death without further consequences would mar the maturity and depth of the previously established series, but showing just how much the grieving process can go the other way, and how much worse it can get. more because of pre-existing mental health issues, the show may offer a more comprehensive and complex look at the larger problem.
There is definitely something about the brewing of big consequence to Beast Boy. The latest episode not only shows his teammates’ inability to tell him about his obvious lethargy, but also a disturbing look at the sleeping pills he increasingly relies on for rest. Given that there are so few other developments in Beast Boy Asides, it’s hard to imagine what else the series might be heading towards, but wherever the character’s path ends, it will be without. no doubt a tough and difficult trip.
Depression and suicidal thoughts are a serious problem in the real world. If you or someone you know is having thoughts of suicide, contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255 or visit www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org
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