OK, I know that by saying the following that I’m going to risk ticking off every fan of the Young Justice animated series, but here it is: I didn’t (and still don’t) like the YJ version of Superboy. At all.
I had become a fan of Superboy (Kon EL) ever since I read the DC vs Marvel comic book mini series, and ever since then, I’ve been wanting to see Superman’s clone Conner make his animated TV debut. Alas, what we got was this.
“Frustrated grunt!”
It’s bad enough that the shows’ producers went with the T-shirt and jeans look for the character, which doesn’t even look like a super hero costume. It looks like he’s fighting in street clothes. Still, it’s better than his costume in the Amalgam universe where he was fused with Spider-Man to become Spiderboy.
No, just no.
YJ gave Superboy a completely different personality than the one that he had in the comics. This Superboy doesn’t make wise cracks. He has no sense of humor. Instead of having tactile telekinesis power that mimics Superman’s power of flight, he just is able to leap considerable distances.He broods all the time and starts dating Miss Martian…and later gets dumped by her.
Ugh! Teen soap opera drama. Pass me Mr. Bucket!
THIS is the Superboy that I wanted to see on the small screen. The Kryptonian Kid. The one with the tactile telekinesis powers and the cool black jacket. Stylin’!
The Conner from the comics was cool. he was cocky and over confident. I imagined someone like Edward Furlong (circa Terminator 2) doing Conner’s voice.
But no, we don’t get the interesting version of Superboy. That would have been too good. Instead we get stuck with this hot headed brooding lame-o with leaping powers. He was like the Hulk, only without the charisma.
“‘Ooh! Look at how dark and tormented I am!’ Sheesh, what a whiner!”
So now, DC reset it’s universe a couple more times since then and it seems that there’s yet another Superboy out there; Jonathan Samuel Kent, the son of Clark Kent and Lois Lane. I haven’t read any of the current comics yet, so I don’t have a strong opinion on this character yet, positive or negative, nor do I have any idea where Kon-El fits in with this continuity, or if he’s there at all.
Hmm…The costume’s OK. I like the jacket with the S shield on it, and the red sneakers are a nice touch. This is starting to sound like a Pop Dream…
I’ll have to read the Rebirth comics before I state how I feel about this version of Superboy, but he already has the advantage of not being the Young Justice version.
I don’t know if we’ll get a Superboy on Cartoon Network’s Justice League Action or on any other DC animated series, but if we do, please don’t let it be the Young Justice version. Even if it’s not Conner Kent, let it at least be a Superboy who doesn’t need to wear nicotine patches for his powers, one who knows what jokes are and who actually SMILES sometimes.
OK, that’s cute. I’ll give you that one, DC.
Twin Images 
I know all too well the sting of getting burned by an adaptation: the Young Justice version of Superboy is to you what the X-Men: First Class movies’ version of Beast is to me. As I mentioned in “Beauty of the Beast”, I didn’t even remotely like the Nicholas Hoult take on Beast, he was so far removed from the character that I admired from the comics and TV shows.
Years ago I was at a Borders bookstore and I saw an instructional book on how to draw DC characters in the Bruce Timm/DCAU style. One of the characters the book taught you to draw was Superboy (it was The Kid, as that was the version that was in the comics at the time). I had hoped that this meant that Superboy would be appearing in a DCAU show at some point, but unfortunately that wasn’t the case.
I wasn’t wild about the YJ version of Superboy either. Jury’s still out on Jonathan Samuel Kent. I do like his look: he’s cute and his costume is a decent mix of The Kid’s costume and a traditional Superman costume.
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Relevant: Young Justice has been uncancelled.
http://deadline.com/2016/11/young-justice-warner-bros-animation-productions-season-3-1201850391
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Um…yay?
According to that article, the series won’t be returning to Cartoon Network. One likely choice to air the series will be Netflix. That’s good news for fans of YJ, but personally, I think I’ll pass. YJ lost me after the 5 year time skip for season 2. Unless Warner Brothers Animation is going to reboot the series so that we lose all of that convoluted mess and we actually get a decent version of Superboy, I wont be watching. Someone let me know when Justice League Action finally premieres.
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Yeah, like Cartoon Network, I’m personally done with Young Justice. Too many characters and convoluted plots and twists for me to try and keep track of, too much teen angst and shipper nonsense, plus a time skip (and I hate time skips). I hope this new season of YJ lives up to fans’ expectations, but YJ just isn’t my jam. Unless we’re going to get something simpler, more lighthearted and radically different from what we got on CN, I’ll be skipping this one. Pass-a-dena.
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