Young Justice: Outsiders preview: New host platform and new villains

Young Justice: Outsiders will feature some of the founding members of the Outsiders team, as well as new threats against the Young Justice team and meta-humans overall.

Young Justice: Outsiders premieres this Friday, Jan. 4 on DC Universe. To prepare, we’ve been reading the exclusive DC Universe interviews between the show’s producers, Brandon Vietti and Greg Weisman, refreshing our comic trivia, and strategically timing our binge rewatching session for the earlier Young Justice seasons to align with the moment the first episode of Outsiders makes it to the streaming platform. You’re obviously hyped about the debut of the third season of Young Justice, just like we are, but we can expect to see some changes to the impending season.

While the Outsiders season will likely reference moments from the previous two seasons, this season marks the first time Young Justice will premiere exclusively on DC Universe. Since the series previously ran on Cartoon Network from 2011 to 2013, the advantages of Young Justice being housed on DC’s streaming service could shine in this season — as the series will be able to hone the tone from the previous seasons and incorporate more of DC Comics and the streaming platform’s creative liberties.

The weekly episode schedule will deviate a bit from the DC Universe’s weekly series updates we grew accustomed to with Titans. Instead of airing one episode every week, DC Universe will release three episodes of the series every Friday. This will give us a chance to have a mini-binge watching session while we wait for the streaming service to upload the episodes each week, which makes Fridays seem even more extraordinary to us.

With three episodes airing every Friday, we can expect to see the mid-season finale on Jan. 25, when we’ll have to endure an extended break from the Outsiders team until June. (We know: We’re already dreading the season’s intermission too.) Beyond the abridged weekly binge sessions and the supplementary episodes that include interviews with the series’ creators and actors, Young Justice: Outsiders will focus on a new overarching threat.

That’s right: Meta-human trafficking will be an overwhelming issue for the heroes in the third season. We can assume the first three episodes will set up this recurring villainous arc. However, it will also introduce new characters and dynamic relationships between the members of the team.

Young Justice: Outsiders still. Image via WB Television Distribution.

Like the Outsiders that formed in the 1980s in the DC Comics timeline, the upcoming season will spread out instead of focusing on a few founding members such as Black Lightning and Batman. From the trailers alone, the opening episodes will probably delve into Oracle, Katana, Metamorpho, Nightwing, Geo-Force, Tim Drake (just to name a few) and their respective narratives.

If you’re planning on watching the opening episodes of Young Justice: Outsiders this Friday, then you obviously have a DC Universe subscription. If you’ve missed some of the Outsider-related news updates on the platform, we have some DC Universe exclusive articles you might want to review in case a refresher on the team:

• “5 Reasons to Get Whelmed for YOUNG JUSTICE: OUTSIDERS“
• “Who’s Who in the Outsiders”
• “We Chat with the Producers of YOUNG JUSTICE: OUTSIDERS“

Aside from these few articles and their supplementary comic book recommendations, you’ll obviously want to enter DC Universe’s Ultimate ‘Inside the Outsiders’ Young Justice Sweepstakes. After all, we need to quench our Young Justice fandom somehow until Friday.