Young Justice: Outsiders episode titles could reveal a new villain

The first letter of each Young Justice: Outsiders episode title could decode a new villain in the series.

We’re not subtle about our clue sleuthing. Whether we’re trying to decode trailers, episodes, interviews, or use the comics as our personal key to unlock a cinematic puzzle, we’re shameless when it comes to fan theories. Young Justice: Outsiders isn’t immune to anyone’s theories. There could be very well be a message hidden in the titles of this season’s episodes, and, based on the decrypted hint, it may reveal a major villain.

YoungJustice.tv notes the complete listing for the titles for each of the 26 episodes this season:

"“Princes All,” “Royal We,” “Eminent Threat,” “Private Security,” “Away Mission,” “Rescue Op,” “Evolution,” “Triptych,” “Home Fires,” “Exceptional Human Beings,” “Another Freak,” “Nightmare Monkeys,” “True Heroes,” “Influence,” “Leverage,” “Illusion of Control,” “First Impression,” “Early Warning,” “Elder Wisdom,” “Quiet Conversations,” “Unknown Factors,” “Antisocial Pathologies,” “Terminus,” “Into the Breach,” “Overwhelmed” and “Nevermore.”"

Does anything seem peculiar about these titles, beyond the obvious perilous overtone this season? If you have any apprehension that these titles aren’t just apart of a dire theme in season 3, then you’ll probably agree with a hypothesis circling the web that the first letter of each title forms an acrostic message.

The acrostic spells out, “Prepare the anti-life equation,” the same infamous equation that Darkseid is obsessed with, and we’d be excited to see the apocalyptic pseudo-deity… if that didn’t mean trouble for our favorite young heroes.

We already know from the initial Young Justice: Outsiders trailer that the third season would include some New Gods. Plus, previous seasons have featured Easter eggs of Apokoliptian technology and character cameos, so it would make sense that Young Justice has been building to a God-sized reveal.

The cynical ruler of Apokolips has a relatively longstanding history in DC Comics history, from brief cameos in other animated series, the Darkseid War or various comic featurettes as an overarching supervillain who just happens to be fixated with controlling all living creatures.

From the Outsiders premiere episodes, we already know that meta-human trafficking is a growing concern for the (sort of) newly formed team of heroes. It would make sense that Darkseid would be the currently faceless villain behind the syndicate. Now, finding individuals with the meta-human gene and forcibly turning them into meta-humans so he can control them won’t necessarily help him with his lifelong obsession with the anti-life question. But Darkseid could be using Count Vertigo as a pawn behind the operation, so he can gradually gain control over the meta-human population on Earth.

Growing his horde of followers, organically or through glorified mind control chips, would allow Darkseid to gain power and notoriety on Earth so that he can progress his mission to rule over all of humanity.

Do you have any favorite Darkseid moments, or do you just have some theories about Darkseid in Young Justice: Outsiders? Let us know in the comments below.