#spyboy/young justice

[jewishcissiekj]

Alright, so Cissie is back.

(Green Arrow (2023) #1 cover art by Sean Izaakse)

I feel like I’m calm enough after the unbelievable burst of excitement and happiness this cover gave me when I first saw it, so let’s talk about this.

First off, I have to say that until I saw this cover last week, I didn’t think Cissie should be Arrowette again, and this cover gave me different ideas and hope for Cissie’s future, so my judgment might seem clouded. 

So first, to any Meghan Fizmartins and co out there listening who have no idea why Cissie quit being Arrowette, here’s a “brief” summary:

After her Counselor and mother figure, Dr. Marcey Money, gets killed by her ex-boyfriend, Cissie (rightfully) throws a fit and blames the lack of gun control in the U.S. as the reason for the murder. After that, she puts on a darker version of her Arowette costume (the same one Sean Izaaksa used for the GA cover), and goes to hunt down Marcey’s killer and his friend that was with him. During the chase, Cissie questions herself how much of a “Good Guy” is she, chasing down these men like that. At the end of the fight, she fires a killing shot from her bow, intending to kill Dr. Money’s murderer, when Superboy comes out of nowhere and catches the arrow. Then, she runs away and cries, confused and distraught. In the next issue she’s in a catatonic state following her actions, and after she gets out of it she breaks her bow and declares it’s not hers anymore. In the next issue she quits Young Justice. She makes it clear she never wants to be Arrowette again in the rest of the series, saying she can’t lose control again and talking about how her mom forced her into the hero life. 

For a much more extended and detailed version I recommend reading Young Justice #15-17, it’s a great story and a great read.

Now, she has donned the Arrowette suit a couple of times after quitting, most, if not all, were pretty weird and out of character. 

Starting off, we have that creepy thing in Spyboy/Young Justice, which I’m not 100% sure is canon at all, but it’s still worth talking about for a bit. In this miniseries, Cissie doesn’t actively choose to be Arrowette again any way, with Kon & Bart stealing her clothes while she’s in the bath and replacing them with the Arrowette costume, basically forcing her to put it on. They did give her a choice as to which costume to wear, the darker version from before or the usual one, and she chose the usual one, but I don’t feel like we should really give them credit for that. After that, she walks around in the costume, but doesn’t shoot a single arrow (she almost does, but she gives up on it) or fight, and is really just Cissie in a costume and less Arrowette. She also talks about how her friends are uncomfortable with the ‘Cissie’ part of her and they don’t know how to react to her with one of the spyboy characters. Overall I don’t hate it, except for the way they actually got her in costume.

Next we have the most confusing one yet. In Wonder Girl (2007) Cissie tells Cassie she could always go back to Arrowette for her (and later on in the miniseries she actually does), Completely disregarding her quitting storyline. That might (probably) be the writer’s mistake, but I’d like to think Cissie was at a point in her life here where she made peace with the whole “Arrowette” thing and with her mother and is just willing tp help an old friend with her slightly unusual skillset. She also previously hadn’t completely associated her archery with Arrowette (she competed in the Australia Summer Games an won a gold medal during ‘98 YJ), so maybe she’s just come to peace with that part of it all now. But since that is never specifically said in the series, I’m only assuming stuff.

Since then, she wasn’t seen as Arrowette or in general for more than 10 years, only showing up again in Young Justice (2019):

There’s no real explanation for her coming back this time other than, again, like last time, she’s made her peace with Arrowette and is only helping an old friend (Conner, this time) dressed in the most generic Archer-superhero outfit that came out of nowhere. She was barely in the series, but her return was handled badly anyway. Unless, of course, you’ll consider my theory from the previous time she came back canon, it’s pretty annoying that Brian Michael-Bendis brought her back, instead of Anita for example (which would’ve made much more sense), even after stating she was retired.

Now we have my least favorite handling of Cissie post-quitting.

Oh, Dark Crisis: Young Justice, the definition of shattered hopes. 

This is complete and utter bullshit. Not only Cissie kept being an archer after quitting and had several storylines in Young Justice (1998) related to her archery outside of Arrowette, Cassie not only knows that, she was literally there for half of it. Cissie is an archer, and that’s a part of her that she pretty much completely separated from her Arrowette persona, and she made that clear in more than a few instances during the original Young Justice run. I hope Joshua Williamson isn’t taking Cissie character lessons from this run, which not only handles Cissie quitting weirdly, but is outright spreading misinformation about Cissie.

Has Meghan Firzmartin even read the original YJ run? I don’t think she did, at least not fully. Cissie quit because of very specific reasons I've previously stated, not this. She also has a good relationship with the rest of Young Justice, and definitely doesn’t see them this way. 

Even though Cissie isn’t Arrowette at any point in this run, it feels much worse than any of my prior examples. Also, she is basically running around as Arrowette there, just without the costume. I hope the new Green Arrow series will ignore DC: YJ, because it’s just bad.

So to sum it up? I’m not completely disappointed Cissie is Arrowette again. I do hope Williamson will actually handle her past and not make her a whole new character for his run. I think a Cissie as Arrowette story can be interesting, if it’s at least implied she felt with her trauma from her quitting incident and made peace with everything the name and the costume mean. However, with all my high hopes, I'm still being realistic and I'm gonna say I don’t think I'll get everything I want in the new series. The series is currently a mini-series of six issues, unfortunately (but preorders might change that and give us more issues! Preorder the first issue!), and it tackles a seemingly large cast of characters with a lot of mysteries and questions around them and their appearance in the book. And with the actual plot being them trying to find/retrieve Ollie from where he was last stuck in in Dark Crisis, I do think there'll be space for good character interactions but not for a lot of individual character exploring. Overall, I think the series will handle Cissie’s return basically how YJ (2019) did, with a mostly unexplained return, but I guess a girl can dream about more.

[soleminisanction]

Having now read all of SpyBoy to learn Butch's story and just what's going on with his mom (and oh my God there is SO MUCH going on with his mom it's nuts) this conversation is now both very sweet and incredibly hilarious.

[lesbian-cowpoke]

IM SOBBING LOOK AT THEM LOOK LOOK LOOK

(Young Justice/Spyboy #1-3)

[ectonurites]

guys. guys. do you KNOW about HIM

(Spyboy/Young Justice #3)

[un-pearable]

universe please plop a perfect young justice 1998 reading order into my lap bc EVERYONE is leaving something out... im 99.9% sure i finally collected every issue but none of these lists can agree on where things like young justice no mans land happen and half of them dont even include their cameo in stars and s.t.r.i.p.e . does spyboy/young justice mean nothing to you

[coverpanelarchive]

SpyBoy/Young Justice #1 - 3 (2002)

[alvindraperzzz]

Young Justice/Spyboy #3

Every time their mini clone things speak I imagine their voices sounding like the chipmunks or kitten Yzma 

[dc-trinity90s]

Adventures Of Superboy (Kon-El/Conner Kent) Cover Date December 2002 - Storylines/Events: Fighting MAAD - Spyboy/Young Justice

[jewishcissiekj]

It's the 28th Cassieversary btw dropping some of my favorite Cassie pictures (just random ones from my gallery tbh)

Can't name them all and my head hurts like shit so if anyone knows more it'll be helpful but mandatory messy sources/artists list (some of these are extremely useless): Ivan Reis, commission | Phil Jimenez, from the end of his WW run I believe | Young Justice Secret files? don't remember the artist but I'm trying my best here) | Todd Nauck, Young Justice (1998) #7 cover | Nicola Scott, from Teen Titans #89-100, whichever one had a December cover date (this one was for a meme so I needed a panel from that issue just don't remember which) | Ugh Teen Titans 2003 OYL Rose backup story but I have legitimately no idea what artist or issue | Fabian Nicieza, Teen Titans (2011) #11-14 (I'm bad at specific issues) | Somewhere in New 52 TT no flipping idea where | Pop Mhan, Spyboy/Young Justice #2 | David F. Walker, Young Justice (2019) #19 | Gary Frank, Wonder Woman (2006) Annual #1

[cryptocollectibles]

SpyBoy / Young Justice #1 (February 2002) by Dark Horse and DC Comics

The spy-villain organization of S.K.I.N.S. (Supreme Killing Institute) might have a new ally in the form of the nation of Zandia, a country populated entirely by criminals. They have both been approached by the deadly duo of REMbrandt, the artist of dreams, and Annie Mae, the diminutive Japanese crime boss. They've hatched a plan to control the dreams of their victims and give these incarnations physical form. Only SpyBoy and company, and Young Justice, have experience to deal with these threats. They'll have to join forces if they hope to defeat this deadly alliance, and discover REMbrandt's true identity!

[soleminisanction]

Having only ever read the Young Justice crossover before chancing on a really good deal at my local comic shop ($25 for the entire series, including floppies of the afforementioned crossover), I don't know exactly what I was expecting from SpyBoy. But between the demographic and the humor and the SD characters and the massive amount of Peter David puns and all the joking James Bond references...

I was not expecting there to be actual deaths in this thing, let alone deaths that are at least as bloody and over the top as a Kingsman movie. Or for Bombshell's backstory to involve a suicide attempt. Or for some of the jokes to be as sexual as they are.

In retrospect it makes a lot of sense coming from the guy who created the Mighty Endowed. Still, it's kind of a fascinating look at the slightly different tone Young Justice might've had in the universe where DC let David name his secret agent characters Nuk 'n' Futz.

[greta-hayes]

hey so i’m trying to make myself a comic read list to make sure i read all the comic stuff about young justice and it’s member’s (-graduation day as it couldn’t even get that Anita is human right). does this list look good or should add to it (if i should let me know what to add

The team itself:

Young Justice Book One

Young Justice Book Two

Young Justice Book Three

Young Justice Book Four

World Without Young Justice

young justice book 5

Young Justice (2019)

Spyboy/Young Justice

Members:

Impulse (95)

Superboy (94)

Robin (93)

Wonder Girl (2007)

Amethyst, Princess of Gemworld (83)

Amethyst, Princess of Gemworld (85)

Sword of Sorcery

Amethyst

Booster Gold: 52 Pick-Up (some members show up)

Batman: Universe (issue #1 is when Jinny showed up)

Superman: Reign of the Supermen

Convergence: Zero Hour

Superboy: Lost

Sideways (2018)

The Ray

Justice League of America: The Ray Rebirth #1

[willczek-art]

I got myself a waterbrush, since I kinda stumbled into it at the art shop and decided I need a boost to try painting again :D

So I started with adding colors to some of little sketches I have laying around in my sketchbook :D First is a panel redraw from SpyBoy (that I read bc it had crossover with Young Justice and then turned out to be pretty interesting?), second being a random doodle of my boy Andy (with ”he asked ‘what?’ too many times, but still has no idea what’s going on” kind of vibe :v)

It’s honestly a lot of fun and paper is holding up way better than I thought it would, so expect a part two :V

[ectonurites]

(it's a gif, might take a sec to load) last april fools day i did art of Mister Sarcastic, thought this year i'd highlight some other Tim disguises

comic panels of each one under the cut for reference bc not all of these are as widely known LMAO

Caroline Hill and Rob Roy:

(Batman #626, Spyboy/Young Justice #1)

Gary Glanz and Alvin Draper (there's multiple Alvin Draper looks tho):

(Robin #112, Young Justice (1998) #23)

Jeremy Johnson, Todd Richards, and (the original) Alvin Draper:

(Stars and S.T.R.I.P.E. #5, Batman: Seduction of the Gun, Robin (1993) #22)

[un-pearable]

young justice/spyboy is hilarious for a wide variety of reasons (including clumsy early 2000s americans-translating-anime/manga-tropes) but most importantly i’m here for bart “grew up in a video game” allen and his gameboy

[young-justice-comics-week]

Young Justice Comics Masterpost

Do you want to read comics about the original Young Justice team but you don’t know where to start? Worry not! As part of the upcoming Young Justice Comics week, which takes place between June 5-11 2017, we decided to give you the perfect recommendation list!

The following list includes almost every appearance of this amazing team:

1. Young Justice: The Secret 2. Young Justice: A Word Without Grown-Ups #1-2 3. Young Justice (1998 - 2003) #1-55. In more detail:

#01-04, Young Justice Secret Files #1, #05-11

Heck’s Angels: #12, Supergirl #36, #13, Supergirl #37, #14

#15-19

Sins of Youth Crossover: Sins of Youth #1|Superboy #74| One shots: Aquaboy and Lagoon Man, Batboy and Robin, JLA Jr., Kid Flash and Impulse, Starwoman and the JSA Jr., Superman Jr and Superboy Sr, The Secret and Deadboy, Wondergirls| Young Justice: Secret Files| Sins of Youth #2

#20- 34

Our Words at War:  Young Justice - Our Words at War #1, #35-36, Superboy #91, Impulse #77, #37

#38-43

A World without Young Justice Crossover: #44, Impulse #85, Robin #101, Superboy #99, #45

#46-55

4. Titans vs Young Justice: Graduation Day #1-3

You can also read:  Young Justice Issue One Million| Young Justice Secret Origins 80-Page Giant #1| Young Justice  No Man’s Land #1| Stars and S.T.R.I.P.E. #2,5,6| Wonder Woman #153|  Spyboy - Young Justice #1-3| Impulse #78 |Teen Titans v3 #50