The team is back!Cast
Young Justice is a 2019 comic series written by Brian Michael Bendis and drawn by Patrick Gleason, set to be the flagship title of Bendis' own Wonder Comics. The title will unite the original trio of Tim Drake, Conner Kent and Bart Allen, aka Robin, Superboy and Impulse, and they form the new iteration of Young Justice. Joining them is another iconic Young Justice character, Cassie Sandsmark aka Wonder Girl, and three newcomers in the form of Amethyst, Princess of Gemworld, who is set to get her own title down the line; Jinny Hex, the great-granddaughter of the legendary outlaw Jonah Hex; and Teen Lantern, an eleven-year-old Bolivian hacker named Keli Quintela who has somehow hacked a Green Lantern Power Battery.
The first arc involves Jinny, Tim, Cassie, Bart, and Keli coming to Metropolis for reasons of their own, only to end up fighting off an invasion from Gemworld, which has been affected every time Earth had a major crisis (which is to say, a lot — seven of them, in fact) and now they know it's Superman's fault. The five young heroes end up crossing into Gemworld in pursuit of the retreating invaders, where they meet Amethyst and Conner. Together, they must unite against the machinations of Dark Opal.
Not to be confused with Young Justice: Outsiders, which despite carrying the name and launching at around the same time, is not tied to this comic in any way.
The series ended after 20 issues.
Young Justice contains examples of:
- A Day In The Lime Light: Certain issues will focus on individual characters, and their stories. For example, issue 2 is about Cassandra Sandsmark.
- Affirmative-Action Legacy: Jinny Hex is the teen female descendant of Jonah Hex and doubly so as she's a lesbian.
- Artifact of Doom: Whatever is in the back of Jinny's trunk, it's frightening enough for the Kingdom Come Dr. Fate to request that she take it back to her world post-haste.
- Atrocious Alias: During the team’s jaunt through the multiverse, Tim defeats his Earth-3 counterpart and takes his costume and name, becoming “Drake”. At the end of issue 18, Tim’s back to being Robin with everyone telling him what a terrible name it was. The team was even planning an intervention but Batman beat them to it.
- Beard of Sorrow: Conner's grown a scraggly beard when he reappears. Living in Gemworld and becoming a farmer does that to you.
- Black Box: The Green Lantern Rings and Power Battery technology has always been an invention, at least by scientific means, only the Oans could manufacture which makes Teen Lantern's hacking of their technology more impressive. Subverted when it's revealed she did no such thing. She saw an alien with the gauntlet and battery pack left for dead in a junkyard and took it off him, eventually learning how to work it herself.
- The Bus Came Back: This marks the return of Young Justice after 16 years of dissolution.
- In addition, The series marks the return of Kon-El and Cissie King-Jones, both of whom haven't been seen since before Flashpoint
- Call-Back: When the team drops in on Earth-C, Captain Carrot recognizes the human-types from the "Multithirsty"
- Chekhov's Gunman: Amethyst appears here and is set to get her own series later.
- Child Prodigy: Teen Lantern. For Christ's sake, she hacked a Green Lantern battery.
- Cheap Costume:
- Cassie Sandsmark just has a Wonder Woman tank top, a brown jacket, a black skirt, leggings and tennis shoes; not really much of a superhero outfit. She still manages to make it look cool, especially in the first issue variant.
- Same thing for Teen Lantern; her "costume" just looks thrown together in a hurry.
- Civvie Spandex: Superboy, just like his earlier version during the '90s.
- Call to Agriculture: What Young Justice finds Conner doing. He elaborates that when he arrived, he saved a pregnant widow from being harassed by some guards for her single parenthood and being a peasant farmer. She takes him in and he works on her farm while waiting for his friends. Apparently it's a Kent family tradition.Conner Kent: Like Pa Kent always said: "Just farm. The answers will come."
- Complaining About Rescues They Don't Like: Young Justice and Amethyst save Gemworld. Their reward? Being shot into the multiverse because the rest of Gemworld's ruling party had had enough of Amethyst's actions and are actively racist towards the Earthlings.
- Continuity Nod:
- During the invasion from Gemworld, two ladies groan about their cafe getting wrecked again. These are the same two who had Rogol Zol's fight with Superman tear through their store in Action Comics #1000.
- In issue #5, when Zatanna accidentally unlocks Tim's memories of the pre-Flashpoint universe, we're shown not only most of the recognizable members of the original Young Justice, including Arrowette, Empress, Secret and Slobo, but also JLA (1997) line-up and past mentors Red Tornado and Snapper Carr.
- Continuity Reboot: As this is set in the post-Flashpoint/Rebirth continuity, the title is this to the original Young Justice.
- Somewhat averted, in that Bart alludes to there being a previous incarnation of the team in the first issue. Indeed, when Bart says that Young Justice is back, Tim flat out says "Not without Conn—". While Bart has been shown to have his pre-Flashpoint memories, Tim hasn't aside from his original origin. Issue #5 rectifies that by revealing that Zatanna unlocked those memories.
- Costume Evolution: Tim, Bart, Conner and Cissie get looks inspired by their original Young Justice designs, but with added touches to keep them current.
- Dark Secret:
- Somewhere between the end of the New 52 Teen Titans run and the first issue, Cassie is going through something that makes her not want to use her powers. Before she joins the battle, she's obviously crying because of it. Issue 2 reveals that Zeus tried to recruit her to be a guardian of the realm, she refused because she was tired of people telling her what she should be and The Call Knows Where You Live.
- Issue 4 seems to suggest that Dark Opal has been running Gemworld in secret.
- Double Take: Everybody pulls one when Impulse lets it slip that Conner has a kid. That includes Amethyst's horse.
- Faking the Dead: Turns out Cluemaster did this after getting gutted at the end of Batman Eternal, but Spoiler didn’t buy he was dead at all.
- More Diverse Sequel: While it still retains the all-white core foursome, they're joined by Teen Lantern (Afro-Latina), Naomi McDuffie (African-American), the Jackson Hyde Aqualad (African-American and gay), Jinny Hex (a lesbian), with Miguel Montez (Hispanic and gay or bisexual) as an ally.
- Mythology Gag:
- Amethyst's design is based on her design from the Amethyst, Princess of Gemworld shorts.
- Arrowette's new costume is based on her "Dark Arrowette" costume from the original run
- "Near and Dear" Baby Naming: Baby Martha, quite obviously named for Martha Kent.
- One-Steve Limit:
- Averted with Superboy. Conner and Jon Kent will be sharing the moniker, with Bendis reassuring fans that, no, Conner's return doesn't mean Jon gets replaced. He's said that the two will eventually address the use of the name.
- Also, there's Tim returning to Robin while Damian is also holding the title. This was eventually averted as well as Tim eventually took up the name of Drake.
- The Psycho Rangers: A trip to Earth-3 pits the team against their evil counterparts.
- Refusal of the Call: Jinny's mom protected the trunk that she now watches over, but refused to really do anything with it, claiming that "it was none of her business". Knowing she was going to die, she decided to finally pass it off to Jinny.
- Ret-Canon: Issue #15 reforming Young Justice into a sprawling "Young Justice League", complete with official ties to the Justice League, seems to be bringing it more in line with its cartoon counterpart.
- Retcon: According to Bendis, Conner has always existed and has simply been missing the whole time, meaning the New 52 Kon-El is now a totally separate character, if he even still exists at all. It's implied that Conner was around before Dr. Manhattan caused the New 52 and him being teleported to Gemworld caused him to slip through the cracks.
- The Reveal:
- Issue #5 reveals that Tim Drake now remembers the original Young Justice and the old continuity, explaining how Tim remembers Conner when he didn't in "A Lonely Place of Living".
- Issue #10 reveals that Jinny's trunk is filled with legendary artifacts such as an ancient Green Lantern Ring, ray guns from Rann and even Ray Palmer's shrinking belt. It also reveals that Jinny is a lesbian.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: In issue #3, Conner ends up coming to grips with the fact that he's a clone and shouldn't be held down with the idea of living life normally, thus he dumps school.
- Snap Back: Tim and Bart are now back to being Robin and Impulse again, as opposed to Red Robin and Kid Flash. While Bart's return as Impulse was shown at the end of "Flash War", it is currently unknown what would push Tim to take up the Robin moniker.
- Super Team: A team of mismatched young heroes with differing powers.
- Vague Age: It's not clear how old Bart is, at least biologically. At times he seems to be as young as he was when he was first created, at others he seems closer to Tim's age. In a vulnerable moment he admits that even he has lost track. "Am I six? Am I nineteen?"
- Wham Episode: Issue #5 which reveals that Tim had his memories of the pre-Flashpoint timeline restored before the events of the series, which is why he was in Metropolis in the first issue.
- Wham Shot: Issue #3, the sight of Conner's Gemworld wife and child, though they aren't his.
- Wife-Basher Basher: Conner takes after Clark with this as in Issue #6, when he accounts arriving in Gemworld. He witnesses Lophi, a peasant pregnant widow, being harassed by some Opal guards for being a single mother, especially since her husband died in a war likely instigated by them. Connor proceeds to approach them and claim he's her husband to rescue. When one of the Opal guards attempts to attack him, he catches the punch and crushes his arm.
