Superboy: The Long Kon

Now, I like Jon Kent just fine. I'm enjoying Super Sons, I love the dynamic between Jon and Damian and I want that series to go for a hundred issues.

The thing is that Tim Drake is about to come back and I am very fond of the idea knocking around the internet that the mysterious prisoner he shockingly recognises is Bart Allen (whose pre-Flashpoint self should still be running around somewhere). Cassie is... around somewhere and fixing her would be not difficult. You'd probably have to ignore a lot of her New 52 origin but that's basically what Rebirth reintroductions are all about!

Which leaves us with one last member of the Young Justice Big Four: Connor “Kon-El” Kent, the Superboy that I grew up with.

Part of me is going to hope forever for a proper Young Justice generation reunion but I think DC is rather done with Kon. They have a new Superboy and its hardly a title that accomodates multiple characters at a time like Robin has for the last decade or so. Kon was rather conspicuous by his absence from the flashbacks setting up the new unified pre-Flashpoint/New 52 version of Superman continuity when it reached The Death of Superman.

This is comics we're talking about, though, and nothing stays buried forever. Hell, the racist caricature from the very first Detective Comics cover appeared in New Super-Man not so long ago so there has to be some chance for a character whose worst sins are a) a crap New 52 title (hardly unique) and b) spending the 90s in a leather jacket costume that aged real badly real fast, right?

Reading Tea Leaves: the new Young Justice line-up

I put my hands up, I did rather sleep on the original two seasons of Young Justice. In my defence I don't know if there was any way for me to actually support it since it never seems to have come out on DVD out here. I've seen a couple of episodes on Youtube and it seems interesting enough and definitely something that someday, eventually I'd get around to watching.

Well, someday is right now because DC just announced the team line-up for season three and it is glorious:

I mean, its a line-up of some of my very favourite of DC's teen superheroes (plus Arsenal and Beast Boy). Its got Tim (I presume that's Tim in Red Robin mode, I guess it could be Damian but looks too old), Bart, Cass and Arrowette. That's four of the six foundational members of Peter David's Young Justice. I mean, I doubted Secret would ever turn up, though I am curious about Superboy's absence.

That having been said, whoever thought we'd see Arrowette on television? She's hardly a famous face, long eclipsed by Mia Dearden as Speedy.

(I miss Mia. Come on, DC, rebirth that girl...)

Then there's Jaime standing next to a character that the write-ups inform me is called Thirteen. I can only hope that means Traci 13, who was an amazing character in the original Jaime Reyes Blue Beetle ongoing and I am constantly annoyed by her demotion to walk-in cameos in Superwoman.

Static is always nice to see in these things, especially after how shortchanged the character got in the comics last time he was prominent. I think his title was one of the first cancellations of the New 52 and I don't think he's been seen since. I like the redesign, I've always prefered the versions of Static that lean more towards street clothes than a traditional costume.

And Spoiler! Oh, if there's one DC pairing I ship more than Jaime and Traci its Tim and Steph. And her new design is so damn cool. I can't wait for a wider audience to experience this character. This character has meant so much so deeply to a certain generation of comics fans (of which I am, unshamedly, a part) and having her break into the big time here warms the heart.

And Arsenal and Beast Boy are... there, I guess. Still, I shan't complain, as an Outsiders live-up this is pretty much perfect as far as I'm concerned.

Now, to find halfway decent copies of the first two seasons ro be caught up before this debuts...

The Comics Ramble: Young Justice Rebirth

For context: there are rumours out in the wild about the future direction of the DCU now that some of the mysteries of Rebirth are being revealed in the like of Superman Reborn and the upcoming Batman/Flash crossover The Button. Amongst them are the tantalising concepts of Bart Allen returning as part of a speedster themed team book and Tim Drake escaping his current presumed death to lead the Outsiders. Whether this is true or not we'll see. Also, the recent announcement that the Young Justice cartoon would return for its long-awaited third season leads me to ask:

Can the Young Justice kids/third generation Titans get a little of that Rebirth return to form, please?

Of all the characters mangled by the New 52, that particular generation were the worst maimed and for the most part they've just been ignored since Rebirth. Tim Drake, being a Batman mainstay, got back on form pretty quickly. He lost the showgirl wings and returned to being the smartest and most independant Robin in the pages of Deective Comics. Steph Brown and Cass Cain, once written off by a DC editor as the “toxic” Batgirls, have had a massive resurgence since turning up again in the Eternal series. As for the rest of that generation, well...

Bart Allen is now Barr Torr, a mass murderer and part-time amnesiac from an aggressively anti-theist future; Cassie Sandsmark is trapped in a suit of armour that literally tortures her; Superboy is destined to go mad and kill everyone because apparently that's just what happenes to Kryptonian clones now; Solstice was trapped on a horrible future penal colony with Barr Torr but then he returned to the present and I don't think anyone's too sure what happened to her; Mia Dearden, as far as I can tell, no longer exists in any shape or form; nor do Secret, Empress or Arrowette.

As much as people complain about the sexual politics of Red Hood And The Outlaws, to me the absolute platonic example of the New 52 aestethetic is that Teen Titans series. Everything about it was miserable. Every character that survived was transformed into something painful and edgy and somehow more Nineties than the way the characters were written when they were actually created in the Nineties.

I admit, this offends me more than most of the New 52's acts of butchery because that was “my” generation of teen heroes. Peter David's Young Justice and Chuck Dixon's Robin were the first DC comics I ever bought, Geoff Johns' Teen Titans is one of my favourite titles ever and no matter how many Robins DC shoves my way Tim Drake will always be the greatest.

Rebirth is a nostalgia project, something I am usually sceptical of and this is no exception. I am extremely dubious about the idea of introducing the Watchmen characters into the universe they were created to satirise and, as ever, the titles I like the most are the ones that push in new and interesting directions like Simon Baz finally getting his own GL title after six sodding years. Still and all, it would be nice to get a little nostalgia going for what is rapidly becoming DC's “lost generation”.

In a way, I understand it, there isn't much real estate for them to occupyright now. Wally West the younger is Kid Flash, Jon Kent is Superboy and Donna Troy might not be using the Wonder Girl name but she's only just recently returned and they're only just getting into her latest origin story. The first generation of sidekicks is having a hard enough time getting restablished without the their latter day counterparts coming back. Also, as much as all those twice monthly books obscure the fact, we're still very early on in the Rebirth experiment. Its been less than a year and already we've regained married Superman, the Titans are a legacy again, hints have been dropped of the Legion Of Super-Heroes and Justice Society coming back, amongst others.

The thing is, though, that I would like some assurance that the Nineties and early-2000s aren't being left in the dust because those were, at times, good years for DC creatively. Also, not to be too mercenary, but there is a TV series to be marketed here.

And I just miss them. I miss Bart and Cassie and Kon as I knew them, not as the ostentatiously tortured characters the New 52 relaunched them as. Rebirth and its predecessor DCYou brought the fun back to a lot of characters and having this crew back together, especially now the Dick Grayson generation are being treated as experienced veterans again, would definitely fall in line with that.

Plus, pre-Flashpoint Bart is still running around somewhere out there, one of that crossover's lingering plot points that has never been referred to since. Maybe he could jump out of the Speed Force and reawaken some memories.