How Young Justice: Phantoms explores superhero grief

It isn't easy being a superhero. Sure, you get to dress up in fun costumes, fight crime, and hang out with friends...but if there's one thing Young Justice has proved over the course of its run so far, it's that such heroics come with significant risk. Above, you can watch an exclusive clip from an upcoming episode of Young Justice: Phantoms where founding members Dick Grayson (Jesse McCartney) and Kaldur'ahm (Khary Payton) reflect on the friends they've lost over the course of the animated superhero series so far.

"We are extremely reluctant to kill a character," co-creator Greg Weisman tells EW. "Our audience may believe we're cruel bastards, and we are! But we don't kill any character lightly. Death is a fact of life, and if we're going to do a show with sci-fi and magic but still try to make it feel real, then death has to be a part of that. The trick is that it's never 'okay, that character's gone, so we're never mentioning them again.' Personally I'm fascinated with those who survive."

HBO Max Aquaman (Khary Payton) and Nightwing (Jesse McCartney) grieve together on 'Young Justice'

If you've watched the first half of Young Justice: Phantoms (currently streaming on HBO Max), then you know that Superboy (Nolan North) was the latest casualty. Having arrived on Mars to marry his longtime girlfriend Miss Martian (Danica McKellar), Superboy was trapped by a bomb laced with kryptonite shards, which appeared to have killed him. Now, the season 4 subtitle Phantoms suggests that maybe death isn't totally permanent, but in the meantime, Dick and Kaldur have been left to grieve.

They aren't the only ones. Beast Boy (Greg Cipes) was on Mars with Superboy, and has been dealing with the aftereffects of his best friend's death ever since returning to Earth. The young superhero is clearly going through depression and post-traumatic stress, but his friends don't necessarily see it.

"We never wanted to make a show where problems are solved in 30 minutes and never affect the characters. That's not how real life works," co-creator Brandon Vietti says. "Beast Boy was the perfect character for us to dive into such a complex story and show issues of mental health in a way we hadn't before. We wanted to not just show these stories from Gar's point-of-view, but from the point-of-view of people he lives with, how they interpret what he's going through, and how they respond."

To make sure they were taking the right approach to depicting grief, Vietti and Weisman worked with Dr. Janina Scarlet. The host of the Superhero Therapy podcast helped the Young Justice team with sensitivity readings on this plotline and how people suffering from depression affect those around them. As the first half of Young Justice: Phantoms was wrapping up, Beast Boy's girlfriend Perdita (Hynden Walch) seemed to realize what was happening to him. But when she confronted him about it, he rejected her offer of help.

"There's a limit to what you can achieve when the person you're dealing with refuses to get help," Weisman says. "Obviously the storyline isn't over, we've got half a season left, and all of this will continue to play out. If people are looking for a quick fix, they're not gonna find it in this show. We're not dropping it either."

New episodes of Young Justice: Phantoms hit HBO Max starting March 31. Watch the exclusive clip above.

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