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.

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