I realize that Justice League and Justice League Unlimited are pretty much the same show; certainly there’s no question that they’re in the same continuity. But I’m considering them as different shows for this discussion because the I think there’s a difference in a story with a relatively small cast and one with a cast of dozens.
I’m left out the various Superman & Batman series because I only want to talk about shows with an necessary team dynamic.
If I absolutely had to choose just one of the four listed, I’d go with Teen Titans because it was absolutely fun, but still had serious - even dark - arcs.
And unlike Young Justice isn’t tainted by being named after the most over-rated comic book ever. (Seriously, PAD is a hack, who managed to hit gold for a year and change in X-Factor, then flushed it all down the drain again.)
But the best DC cartoon is Legion of Superheroes, which has all the advantages of Titans (except for the kick-ass theme song), PLUS it’s LSH (which is actually worth 3 plusses), plus there’s Brainie’s obvious crush on Superman.
I didn’t include LSH because I never watched it. Therefore, by Rhymer Rule 394, paragraph d, it does not exist.
Also, it’s Brainy, not Brainie. Everybody knows that. And Brainy is NOT A ROBOT! He’s a super-genius, a long-lifer, occasionally a lunatic, frequently an asshole, but he is NOT a jelly donut.
I used to love the Batman and Superman cartoons watching them through elementary school, middle school, and high school. I’m very disappointed they’re not on the list because I feel like they’re groundbreaking as far as animation goes, particularly Batman. Not only was it darker than just about anything else that was mainstream, but it was a powerful portrayal of the character. A large part of the reason why the other cartoons are successful is because of these, not just because they broke ground, but because they established the two main heroes that everything else is based around.
However, playing by your rules, and not really happy with you splitting Justice League and JLU, it’s still tough to choose between them, though I’d give a slight edge to JLU. The reason why Justice League is awesome is that it managed to focus on a small handful of characters and make them all valuable members of the team. They really had an awesome dynamic. I also liked that essentially every episode was part of at least a two-parter, so they weren’t just doing a monster of the week, they had time to make it interesting. What made JLU awesome though is that they had that on-going storyline from episode to episode, and I love that they were able to come up with a compelling storyline, it really brought the the level of epicness that a team THAT powerful needs to be challenging and interesting. I felt like the team dynamic was gone, replaced much more with a sort of military-like approach, but it worked well and they managed to give just about every hero some time in the limelight. But really, that they had the whole Cadmus storyline, and did a non-campy version of the Legion of Doom, and all that was great.
But really, the best episode of all was the one Epilogue in JLU, tying in Batman Beyond and showing a rare moment into Batman was just awesome.
I voted for all four because I don’t really have a favorite. I loved watching JL and JLU when they were on (I have JLU on DVD.) and I loved Teen Titans when it was on. Teen Titans still shows on the channel The Hub but I don’t get that channel anymore :(. And I’m loving watching Young Justice now. I really enjoyed the Cadmus stuff and it seems Supes is coming around to be comfortable around Conner.