J writes...

I once asked:
"Does your version of  Despro  have telepathic powers like in the comics, or can he do anything other than paralize with his third-eye? If he does have telepathic powers, why didn't he "hear" the conversation between Miss Martian and Guardian? Was it because he didn't have his third-eye open at the time?"

And you responded:
"You're assuming that his paralytic power isn't telepathic in nature. You're assuming that all telepaths operate on the exact same frequency. Neither of those are safe assumptions."

Actually I did assume his paralizing others was a mental ability...maby I should have stated my question more clearly.
What I meant to ask is:
Does he have any mental powers other than paralization, specifically communicating telepathically?

I guess I was kind of assuming that all telepathy would opperatin on the same "frequency."
Can you elaborate on this?

1) Psimon has no problem knowing when Ms. Martian is using her powers or getting into her mind. Do they operate on the same frequency, then?

2) Can telepaths change frequencies?

3) Do all martians operate on the same frequency?

4) Is the frequency the telepath operates on related to how powerful they are? (ie do more powerful telepaths operate on higher frequencies?)

Anonymous writes...

In the scene where Dudley disappeared before Billy's eyes at the start of "Misplaced", was the girl playing on the street outside (the girl whose mother disappeared) Mary Bromfield?

Anonymous writes...

You were previously asked about the religious practices of the members of the Team, but left out B12-15 and B24-26 because at the time the identities of those characters were still unrevealed. I thought the insight into the possible religious backgrounds of the Team members was interesting and neat, so I was wondering if you could take a stab at telling us what the religious practices of B12-15 and B24-26 would be, please?

Paul writes...

Regarding Troia and Sergeant Marvel, did you and Brandon Vietti go as far as figuring out how they were received by the other members of the Team during the time skip (as in, who they may have been great friends with, who they may have not got on so well with etc.)? Just curious to know if you have an image in your mind of the form their interaction with the other Team members would have taken.

Anonymous writes...

If you could sum up Troia's personality (while on the Team) in one or two words, like you did when you described Aquagirl as 'competent' in a previous answer, what would that word (or those words) be? Feisty? Level-headed?

Anonymous writes...

How is 'Troia' pronounced? Is it like 'Troy-a'?

Paul writes...

Are Billy Batson and Mary Bromfield brother and sister on Earth-16?

Todd Jensen writes...

I bought the final volume of the "Young Justice" trade paperback series today, and thought I'd give you a brief review of it.

I remember some of your viewers commenting on a map of Bialya in the second season and wondering whether it had annexed Qurac during the time-skip. The "Year Five" scenes suggest that they weren't so far from the truth.

Liked Clark Kent and Jimmy Olsen's cameos.

One of my favorite moments: Nightwing figuring out how to get a message to the teammates in Metropolis, based on sight being the one form of communication between Metropolis and the world outside that wasn't blocked.

I noticed seeds for a potential future story with the revelation that Kylstar has plans for galactic conquest in order to defeat the enslavers of his people. As well as foreshadowing of events in the second season of the television series with Brainiac convinced that Earth's doomed and that he'd better preserve a piece of it, in the form of Metropolis, before disaster strikes; presumably, he'd gotten wind of the Reach's plans.

And we get another argument between Jaime and his scarab that looks strange to everyone else.

I was glad to see another "Not the End" caption, like the one in "Clan-Building". It fits your style so well.

(I did wonder, though, what the significance of the fifth chapter's title was. It was the only one I couldn't link to "Monopoly".)

Anoy writes...

1).Does barry or bart hold any feelings of guilt over wally's...ceasing?
2).How does bart feel about being trapped in the past where he may meet his own father and possible himself? Does he care?

Anonymous writes...

I think the problem that quite a few people have, myself included, with Wally's character/story on Young Justice might stem from the fact that he was the 'normal' one amongst the members of the original team. And on a show that at it's core is built around angst and drama, the normal characters tend to get lost in the shuffle since they don't come with built-in storylines like a character with a criminal family/background (Artemis and Kaldur), leadership issues (Kaldur and Dick), an inferior clone made by the enemy (Superboy), or a Martian used to discrimination living on Earth. They're just harder to fit into the story of the show. So it's much more important to their characters for the show to create an emotional connection to the audience and develop some meaningful relationships for that character to make them relevant to the show at large. And that's where I think the show failed as far as Wally was concerned.

For instance, you've said that Wally was a very insecure person during the first season and one of the big reasons why you paired him with Artemis. But out of all the members of the team, he always struck me as being the only one that wasn't insecure about who he was, or his role on the team. He was never shown to be bothered by his inferiority to Barry in season one, and even a good portion of the fandom didn't even know Barry was faster until BLOODLINES in season two. In fact, it was Conner who got the inferiority to the mentor storyline fleshed out in season one. And it was never said that Barry didn't originally want him to be his sidekick on the show. Plus the only insecurity he showed with girls was with Artemis. But that was more of a by product of him thinking she hated him because he was a jerk to her when she joined the team, not because he was insecure about who he was. So the show never really established him as an insecure character during the first season. He just came across as an idiot and an occasional selfish jerk simply because he was an idiot and an occasional selfish jerk; not because he was trying to overcompensate for his insecurity because of that.

And it's more of the same in the second season. Wally had became a completely different character between seasons and the only explanation the show gives is basically time-skip happened. I mean, Wally nearly killed himself just to become a hero and absolutely loved being one throughout the first season despite everything that happened. He also was pretty much supportive of his friends no matter what during that season, too. But during season two, Wally wanted absolutely nothing to do with being a hero and was accusing friends of being traitors and blaming them for trying to stop an alien invasion that he couldn't care less about for the majority of the season. It's like the show tossed away whatever previous characterization he had to justify his retirement and get him out of the way before reverting him back to something much closer to his previous characterization in the final two episodes. Which is why I found it a little hard to use Wally's previous characterization during the first season to defend his character in season two when he's not even close to being the same character. And I don't mean to say it's impossible that he could change that much over the gap, but it's such a drastic change that I think it deserved some sort of in-universe explanation.

Another thing I'd like to mention is that you said that Wally's 'humanity' was what you liked most about his character, but I'd say that that was the biggest flaw that this version of Wally West had. I mean, one of the things I've always loved about Wally in the comics and on other shows is that he would normally do the right thing simply because it was the right thing to do. That was missing with the Wally on Young Justice to me. Everything was always about him and what he wanted. Sure, he'd say some nice things to his friends on occasion, but he was the guy that would basically throw an inner-fit at the thought of saving a little girl's life instead of working on another mission with the League. And whatever development he was suppose to get from COLDHEARTED didn't seem to stick or didn't happen as he was practically thrilled that someone got kidnapped simply because he was bored at the beginning of the Young Justice video game. And Wally sitting out the majority of an alien invasion where things get worse and worse goes against everything I've ever loved about him over the years, and the scene at the end of DARKEST pretty much destroyed the character for me. The only times he was shown to help out was when the situation suited his interest, such as retrieving Artemis in SUMMIT, or helping out his family in BLOODLINES and ENDGAME. If the situation didn't have something directly to do with him, he couldn't be bothered to help and that's just not Wally West in my opinion.

As for his relationships, I think the issue for me was how unbalanced they seemed to be. I mean, I can appreciate the slow build and subtlety the show did with building up Artemis' side of their relationship; though I did think the show relied a little too heavily on telling us that they were going to get together in an effort to make her small moments such as asking about his parents in MISPLACED or making the sling for his arm to mean more than they really did. The problem is that the show basically punched me in the face with Wally's side of the relationship in contrast. The show pretty much shouted that he should get together with Artemis in DENIAL, he had an entire episode in FAILSAFE where she's almost all he could think about, was basically her number one fan for the majority of INSECURITY, and was shown to do nothing but worry about her in season two. Artemis never had anything remotely close to those type of things during the two seasons while he was alive. That's because Artemis had a lot going on besides Wally, as she had her family/trust issues, being a mole suspect, and the undercover mission. Where as with Wally being the normal one, the show made Artemis his thing and smashed us over the head with it. That's why I always preferred the M'gann/Conner relationship despite never being big fans of their characters since neither side dominated their relationship. It was balanced. It never felt like one of them was way more committed to the other like it did with Wally and Artemis. And like a previous poster before me mentioned, I think his friendship with Dick was handled in a similar way. It's why their reactions to his death fell completely flat and contrived to me because Wally wasn't really ever shown to be as important to them as they made him out to be after he died. And as a character, Wally got very little out of those relationships himself.

And like most of the 'normal' characters, Wally was killed off because there's only so much a show feels they can do with them. You guys milked about as much drama/angst you could get out of his relationship with Artemis over the two seasons and because of that, Wally was no longer useful to the show because he didn't bring any drama/angst as his own character. In essence, as a standalone character he had no real story of his own and that made him an expendable character.

Unfortunately, it just seemed like the majority of the things that made Wally tick and were important to his character would seem to have been left out of the show for the most part. And I'd say that he's the only one out of the main cast of either season that was handled that way. It's why while I normally enjoy Wally in the comics and other shows (I loved him and Jay/Barry in the episode "Requiem for a Scarlet Speedster!" that you wrote for Batman: The Brave and the Bold, by the way), I had a hard time getting invested into his character on Young Justice. And the Wally you talk about here and the Wally that was on the show just seem like two completely different characters to me.