Young Justice

If it is true that All Girls Want Bad Boys it must follow that some boys may also want bad boys.

Kaldur can handle himself and having a calm and rational guy like Kal around would probably do wonders for Arsenal. Better than running about on his own and taking advice from Lex Luthor.

So between Sportsmaster and Black Manta who would you say was the better parent to their kids?

Sportsmaster.

Parenting is a sport, after all.

Now that I think about it, I think I can buy the idea that Kid Flash has a crush on Red Arrow. I mean, for the majority of season one he has this irrational hate-on for Artemis for "replacing" Speedy on the team (despite the fact that Speedy refused to join), and gets unbelievably excited about the prospect of him coming back, despite the fact that Red Arrow is has no likeable characteristics whatsoever.

Eh, I thought he was alright.

Re-watching "Alpha Male" also makes it really difficult for me to sympathize with the others. I get that they were angry at Kaldur for keeping the possibility of the Mole a secret but no one really gives him a chance to explain himself. Also, Conner's line ("Those things almost killed M'Gann)? Um, Kaldur was in that fire cage too. And Atlanteans are just as vulnerable to heat.

Hell, Robin was being especially hypocritical considering he kept his identity a secret from the others.

Speaking of disliking characters... I never really got why everyone hated Lagoon Boy so much. Most of his dickishness was in retaliation for Superboy being a dick to him for no other reason than that he dared to hook up with Connor's ex. Other than that, he was only ever a dick to Aqualad, whom he believed to be a traitor and a murderer, and was a definite Broken Pedestal.

It was Die for Our Ship, short and simple.

I was asking the same exact questions when the episodes aired and people would only give vague explanations why they thought he was such a bad person.

edited 30th Jul '15 12:16:49 PM by Lionheart0

Admittedly, the whole Die for Our Ship aspect of hating Lagoon Boy made me grin when I saw someone shipping Superboy/Lagoon Boy out of spite.

He was a replacement forced catchphrase character once M'gann moved on to being all Mind Rape-y.

Other than that I can't think of any particular beef I may have with him. Certainly not Die for Our Ship because I hated both of MM's ships.

edited 30th Jul '15 2:05:44 PM by Eagal

I saw something on the show's YMMV page claiming that his powers sucked.

...I've seen worse.

If not for Batman insisting on keeping secret identities, well, secret, Robin probably would have told the team long before he did. Let's face it, Dick is terrible at the whole secret identity thing. Come season 2 the original members of the team know who he is so presumably he told them at some point and Bats was either ok with it or threatened them with severe bodily harm if they ever let it slip. Wally knew the whole time, though it's unclear whether Dick told him or Barry let it slip. Besides, these are teenagers. Even being superheroes does not preclude them from being irrational and emotional in stressful situations (or any situation really). It's been awhile since I watched the episode in question, but really I'm not surprised the others lashed out when they found out Kaldur was keeping something from them. Superboy and Wally are hot-headed to begin with, Artemis does have something to hide, M'Gann is still adjusting to Earth culture and is very unsure of herself, and Robin is likely more upset that Batman didn't tell him (he's shown to be very jealous when someone else has Batman's attention) than angry at Kaldur.

I could buy Kaldur being bi way before him being asexual. He clearly has a thing for Tula/Aquagirl. An argument could be made for Kaldur/Roy if you tilt your head and squint a bit. Though didn't the tie in comics establish Dick had a thing with Rockett? He had one with just about every other female on the show....

It's not just that he had a thing with every girl.

It's that he did it and stayed good friends with them.

That's the difference between a Handsome Lech type character and a man of style and class.

Edit: Oh fuck. He's even the top image for the page!

edited 30th Jul '15 4:27:02 PM by HandsomeRob

It is one of his more endearing qualities.

Lagoon Boy could be a bit annoying, but he wasn't bad. He genuinely loved M'gann and he was only a jerk when Conner antagonized him. Plus the comic's reveal that he connected with M'gann because they both experienced prejudice in their homeworlds redeemed him a lot.

As for best dad, definitely Sportsmaster. Dude was proud of his daughter no matter what side she was in. Black Manta only had conditional love for Kaldur.

Sportsmaster used to knock out his daughters, dress them in superhero outfits and ditch them all over the world.

Father of the Year award: Zatara

Batman's a pretty good dad in this one, isn't he? When Bruce sees that Dick is feeling neglected, he takes the time to go play basketball with him.

While I liked this version of Bruce, I found his scolding of Clark for avoiding Connor to be rather unfair as Clark doesn't have the time, money or staff to take care of Connor as Bruce does.

Superman's behavior was the worst part about pre-skip. Well, that combined with Batman being up in his face about it.

The creators want to give Superman a less-than-ideal, yet very human reaction to a violation? Fine. At least let him explain himself.

And if you're going to make Superman look callous and cold, don't do that *and* then go out of your way to portray Batman of all people as a super-dad, especially being the whole team's mentor.

Superman did say he wanted to give Conner some time so he can identify himself as his own person, rather than just be Superman's clone. Not to mention the inherent uneasiness of Conner's creation and original purpose.

Also, I did see Batman's berating of Clark as projecting his parent hang-ups on him. Sorta justified when Clark and Conner start thinking of themselves as brothers, rather than the father and son dynamic everyone else was forcing on them.

edited 31st Jul '15 11:00:53 PM by GamerSlyRatchet

I saw it a little differently. My view is more Bruce saying yes, the way this person came to be was horrible, but he's here now and we need to make sure he doesn't turn on us. He's obviously going to relate more to Superman on account of sharing genetics, so it stands to reason Superman would be the best choice to mentor him in learning to use his powers wisely and influence his morality. The experience may also help Clark come to terms with what happened. Clark doesn't need Bruce's resources to be a mentor to Connor; all Connor wanted was for Clark to be there.

Though I will say it was a bit unrealistic for Bruce to expect Clark to be ok with the whole thing right off the bat. But Clark was being a jerk about it as well. Their little man date at the diner was a golden opportunity for Clark to talk candidly about how he felt and why he was so skeeved and for Bruce to listen and help him work through it. Which is what I think Bruce's intentions were, but his tough love shtick backfired. Then Clark got all pissy about it and stormed out before they could have that conversation.

So funny thing.

I'm watching the Impulse intro ep, and I just caught that it was written by Peter David, the original writer for the Young Justice comic, and I think the original Impulse comic as well.

Pretty cool.

I blame that more on the writers not letting Clark defend himself properly since there would be very real reason for why he'd be so nervous around Connor. A lot of writers struggle with making Clark flawed and sympathetic at the same time.