Young Justice: Kids in hot-pants fight crime and dignity

Never underestimate the influence television can have on the soft-cabbagey head of a child. We've all heard the story about the kid who saw Superman and killed his dumb ass trying to fly off a roof, and I myself spent an entire week slow-dancing-the-fuck out of Kelly McGillis and building barns after watching the movie Witness.

If you consider the effect Harrison Ford saving Amish children had on an impressionable 9 year old, can you imagine the repercussions of a show that glorifies the idea that children in swimwear could effectively battle flying serial killers? The answer is shocking and involves a good deal on slightly-melted Nerf-Guns at the local morgue.

Thankfully Cartoon Network's Young Justice has managed to create a team of characters that no self-respecting child would wish to emulate. There are documentaries about farmers who suffered penoscrotal degloving at the business end of a wheat-thresher that rank higher on a child's 'want to be when I grow up' list than 'member of Young Justice'.

To prove this point, I have examined each of the characters individually to rate them on an Emulation scale calculated from my ass

AQUALAD
The team is led by Aqualad, a name chosen only because Fillet-o-man and Ball-gargler had already been taken. Aqualad is basically a mermaid and contributes as much to a combat situation as any young boy riding a sea-horse ever could.
Emulation Rating 3/10
His super powers include 'difficult to drown' and 'Atlantean sorcery and science'. At the end of the day kids are more likely to idolise Esther Williams in a wizard's hat.

ROBIN
Robin joins the team with the incredible super-power of 'almost being 14'. Armed with a utility belt filled with 90% bat-shaped Frisbees and 10% millionaire-crime-fighter's-semen, Robin is probably the strangest choice for crime-fighting. In the business of punching unkillable gorillas and interplanetary Ninjas, a weedy orphan in hugs-where-it-counts battle-tights is probably the kid you'd pick last. I guess since Batman basically paid for his membership, they didn't have a choice. Put it this way: if Christian Bale told you to put a 9 year old child with polio on your lacrosse team, you'd better start God-damn working out how to attach a stick to an iron-lung.
Emulation Rating: 0/10
If the only thing standing between me and a vicious Dracula'ing at the hands of a space-vampire was a nubile young circus acrobat, I would take my own chances. I'd prefer that my inevitable toe tag read 'Died with some fucking dignity'.

KID FLASH
Kid Flash is the resident speedster. Empowered with the ability to move like lightning, the young hero suffers the side effect of an accelerated metabolism, meaning that after running he is compelled to eat much like Kirstie Alley did upon leaving Cheers.
Emulation Rating: 6/10
Kid-Flash is actually pretty cool for a kid in a banana-yellow unitard. 'Running fast' is an awesome power that is shared only by Michael Johnson and my neighbour's cat but as far as I know, neither has been asked to fight the inter-dimensional warlord, Darkseid.

SUPERBOY
Superboy is the 16 week old clone of Superman. Based on the levels of pissing, snapping and screaming he does in every episode, I suspect that the imperfect cloning process left him with a vagina that has never experienced the fresh freedom of Tampax-Pearl. True to every Superman-themed cartoon ever made, Superboy conveniently forgets that he is super-fast, super-strong and virtually made of fist whenever the plot needs drawn out. I guess the writers knew that there isn't a bad guy on the planet that an unkillable Kryptonian couldn't murder in a fraction of the time it took a marshmallowy-thighed orphan to do a tightly choreographed somersault.
Emulation Rating 5/10
Kids pretending to be Superboy who is pretending to be Superman is the same kind of double negative you get when you pretend the crying hitchhiker giving you a handjob is actually Wonder Woman.

MISS MARTIAN
Miss Martian is the sensitive member of the team. Filled with insecurities, identity crisis and body image problems, she encompasses all the problems a woman faces in our often shallow, complicated world.
Emulation Rating: 2/10
When your powers include 'feelings' and 'nagging', you become about as good in a laser-battle as every one of my ex-girlfriends.

ARTEMIS
Finally Artemis is the team's Green Arrow. I imagine when DC brainstorms for character ideas they simply use a list of famous fictional names and combine them with exciting body features, ultimately ending up with 'Robin Hood with Tits' or (sadly not included in this roster) 'No gag-reflex-Zorro'.
Emulation rating 6/10
Artemis is an expert in archery and brings the noble art to every villain thwarting adventure. Unfortunately most of these arrows are tipped with boxing gloves and/or crazy green ninja smoke. I'm no big city toxophilite, but when faced with an angry Lex Luther and laser that explodes heads, it would be more effective just to put down the projectile whoopee-cushion and apologise.