Superboy

"No capes, no tights. No offense."

- Superboy refusing to wear a costume

Superboy (also known as Project Kr or Conner Kent ) is a genomorph, a clone of Superman (hence a Kryptonian) and a member of the Team.

Personality
Although he wants to be a good hero, Superboy has anger issues. Having spent his entire 16 weeks existence as a science project and mind-controlled puppet, Superboy is defiant and does not like being told what to do or to be dismissed. He often behaves with an air of extreme confidence, due in large part to the fact that he is Superman's genetic clone, and was created in order to replace him. This makes him exceedingly overconfident in his abilities to the point where he ignores the help of others and impulsively throws himself into situations that he cannot handle on his own. However, despite this confidence he also worries about living up to his namesake, Superman. Due to the fact he had never really had the opportunity to interact with anyone until recently, Superboy is somewhat anti-social and seems to have a hard time getting along with others or showing his emotions. As such he constantly behaves in a confrontational manner, to all people, even those who are attempting to be kind towards him. Even simple things like making amends with people who he has wronged, is a tough concept for him to understand. However, he has learned quickly and is not quite so silent, to the point of even carrying on a conversation without getting angry.

Physical appearance
Superboy is a genetic clone of Superman, and so shares many of Superman's physical traits. Despite being 16 weeks old at his liberation, he is physiologically 16 years old. Superboy has short black hair and ice blue eyes. He is slightly taller for someone of his physiological age and is quite muscular, likely due to his Kryptonian genes. He is typically seen with a frown on his face, rarely with a smile. A recurring theme for Superboy is that he is considered quite handsome by almost all girls near his physiological age.

Superboy wears a black t-shirt with the classic S-shield in red. He sometimes wears a brown leather jacket over his t-shirt. He also wears dark blue fatigue pants which are tucked into dark-brown combat boots. He wears a belt with a large buckle. When attending High School, he merely turns his t-shirt inside out.

Early life
Sixteen weeks prior to July 4, Project Cadmus initiated Project Kr. The intention was to create a clone of Superman that could replace Superman if he died, or defeat Superman if he "turned from the light". The result was Superboy. He was kept in a containment cell along with three G-Gnomes, who telepathically controlled him, but also educated him with the knowledge of a boy of his age.

Present
Aqualad, Robin and Kid Flash discovered him when they were investigating Cadmus, and decided to free him. However, Mark Desmond used the G-Gnomes in his cell to make Superboy attack and knock out the three young heroes. When it was decided that Cadmus would clone the young heroes as well, Superboy took them to the cloning chamber and stood guard. When they woke up, they tried to reach out to Superboy and convince him to help them escape. Aqualad finally convinced him by asking what Superman would do in his situation.

With the others, Superboy fled Cadmus. Although they were apprehended by the collective force of Cadmus genomorphs, Dubbilex convinced his brother genomorphs to release Superboy and let him make up his own mind—Dubbilex wanted Superboy to blaze a trail for all genomorphs, to show them the way to be free. However, they were interrupted by Desmond, who drank a vial from Project Blockbuster and transformed into a powerful monster. In rage, Superboy attacked Blockbuster, but appeared to be outmatched. By working with Aqualad, Robin and Kid Flash, they were able to defeat Blockbuster by weakening the structural support of the building and collapsing the roof on him.

Outside, Superboy was able to see the moon for the first time. He also met Superman and the rest of the Justice League, but was disappointed and angered by Superman's reaction to him. Along with Aqualad, Robin and Kid Flash, he demanded that the League recognize their ability and let them go on more missions. Whilst Batman deliberated, Kid Flash took Superboy with him to his house, as he had nowhere else to go.

After three days of loafing about, Mary West sent Wally and Superboy off to the mall to buy new clothes for Superboy, who had been wearing his solar suit for three days. During shopping, the Terror Twins robbed a nearby jewelry, forcing the two to react. They fought the villains in the food court and the parking lot, where they were met by Flash and Superman. Superman was off, chasing the twins, before Superboy could talk to him.

Superboy and the other heroes were formed into a covert operations unit, the Team, and introduced to their fifth team member, Miss Martian.

After Red Tornado denied the Team a mission, Superboy was given his first taste of social interaction. In the cave, his team members introduced each other by revealing their secret identities. Superboy remained quiet as he was the only one without a civilian identity. Megan took the opportunity to communicate to him telepathically, which only served to aggravate him and the others. After Megan received pointers on what not to do, she came up with the idea of taking a ride in her bio ship. Superboy remained where he is, but eventually relented when Megan asked him. On the bio ship, the Team received a message from Red Tornado, informing them of a tornado at the local power plant.

While investigating, they encountered Mister Twister and engaged him. The Team, however, was handed a humiliating defeat after Miss Martian mistook him for Red Tornado. Superboy sent Miss Martian away angrily.

Even without Miss Martian, they couldn't defeat Mister Twister. She came up with a plan to defeat him though; by impersonating Red Tornado, she distracted the villain and Superboy could land some punches on him. He was defeated shrotly after. Back at the cave, Superboy apologized to Miss Martian for snapping at her earlier.

The Team was assigned to find out why the export of Venom from Santa Prisca was stopped. It was supposed to be a reconnaissance only, with no contact. It got out of hand after Superboy spotted patrols nearing their location. Superboy managed to take out many, including Bane. As Aqualad and Robin discussed what to do, Superboy noticed Bane conferring with his men. He did not trust the Santa Priscan powerhouse when he suggested working together.

After Bane helped them inside the factory, Superboy fought Kobra's muscleman Mammoth. Superboy was forced to retreat. Aqualad formed a new plan, and Superboy now went after Sportsmaster. They gained the upper hand, and both Kobra and Sportsmaster were forced to escape. The factory was destroyed in the process.

Superboy responded to an emergency in Metropolis, where a bridge was collapsing. He did not know Superman also responded to the situation, and was not happy when the Man of Steel upstaged him. He also refused to spend time with his clone to test the limits of his powers. Superman flew away to another emergency, and Superboy returned home angry.

Back home at the Cave, Black Canary taught the Team martial arts. Superboy was still angry over being ignored by Superman, and the thought that someone without super strength would tell him what to do only made it worse. Black Canary demonstrated the importance of her lessons by flooring Superboy twice, which caused Superboy to step out. The lesson was cut short by Batman, who called in with a mission. The Team would have to guard pieces of Amazo, an android that fought off the Justice League earlier that day, as they were transported to safe locations. Before leaving, Canary informed Superboy that when he needed her, she would be there for him.

Superboy ignored his teammates during the mission as much as possible, guarding the shipment headed for New York. He was still angry, and when MONQIs attacked the truck, he vented their anger on them. It did not go successful. After taking out several, one blinded him by shooting straight in his eyes. They crashed the truck, and got away with the parts of Amazo. Superboy ditched his comm link and jumped after them, refusing help from his teammates.

Superboy tracked the sound of the MONQIs to a train. Inside, he found Professor Ivo, as well as the reassembled Amazo. He destroyed many of the remaining MONQIs, before Amazo attacked him and knocked him off the train. He crashed into Gotham Academy, where after a short fight in the halls and science labs, he was joined by Robin and Kid Flash. Superboy changed tactics; he attacked Ivo, which meant Amazo now not only had to fight the heroes, he also had to protect his master. This occupation allowed Superboy to deliver a punch to Amazo while he was midway through intangibility. It destroyed Amazo, but Ivo managed to escape.

Back at Mount Justice, Batman commended the Team on the League's behalf, despite "complications" during the mission. The League was impressed, though when Superboy asked about Superman, Batman assured him it would take some more time. With everything wrapped up, Superboy approached Black Canary, ready for her training.

Superboy and the others were introduced to Artemis. Red Arrow gave them a mission, to protect Serling Roquette from the League of Shadows while she worked on a way to counter the Fog, a nanorobotic infiltrator she was forced to make for the Shadows.

Whilst the rest of the Team guard Roquette, Robin and Superboy took the bio ship and chased the Fog to Philadelphia. They were too late to save STAR Labs, but managed to save Wayne Tech from being detroyed. Superboy engaged the Fog's operator, Professor Ojo, and defeated him.

Red Tornado sent the team to investigate Kent Nelson's disappearance. They headed to the Tower of Fate in the hopes of finding the Helmet of Fate. With the key, they easily got inside, but it got worse from there. Kid Flash set off the tower's security systems in an attempt to impress Miss Martian.

Inside, they were confronted by Abra Kadabra and Klarion. Superboy tried fighting off Abra Kadabra, but did not succeed until the wizard's equipment was taken away.

The Team fought Clayface, but Superboy was taken down, along with the rest. Batman was forced to intervene and took out Clayface himself.

The Team returned home, where Batman told them to clean up and head home. Superboy was not amused, as the Cave was his home.

Later in the day, Superboy watched the television, thinking to himself, seemingly ignoring the white noise coming from the television. M'gann asked if he would like to help her make dinner. Despite saying no, Superboy still got up to help her. He ended up with most ingredients on his face after M'gann's telepathy could not sustain the ingredients. She apologized and tried to clean it up, all-the-while apologizing. As she gets to his face, she stared at him, creating an awkward silence between the two.

Immediately after Aqualad came back from Atlantis, the Team, was sent to investigate a power surge in the Bialyan desert. Miss Martian's telepathic link with the team was intercepted by Psimon, who used his own mental powers to make everyone forget the last six months.

Because Superboy did not exist yet six month ago, he became an enraged, mindless creature. He attacked some of his former teammates, as well as Bialyan soldiers, until Psimon sedated him telepathically. Superboy was imprisoned and tortured, but with help from Miss Martian and fellow captive Sphere, broke free. M'gann restored his memories, and with his help, they defeated Psimon. They made it back to the bio ship in Qurac, taking the Sphere with them.

Like any boy his (apparent) age, Superboy was expected to go to school. He was unfamiliar with the concept of a secret identity, but took the name "Conner Kent" on Miss Martian and Martian Manhunter's suggestions. He was uncomfortable with having to change his shirt inside out to hide the S Shield on the chest.

At school, "Conner" did not start well. Before classes even started, he almost got in a fight with Mal Duncan after he harassed Marvin White. Marvin, and everyone else in the school, had a superhero logo on their chest. Mal had Superman. The two stared down, but the teacher Lucas Carr sent them all to homeroom.

In class, Carr showed the pupils the news, and planned to discuss the situation in Rhelasia with them. After Marvin showed he wasn't paying attention, Conner stepped in to tell the class what he knew about Rhelasia, and questioned their dispute, as they had little reason for animosity in his eyes.

After classes, Megan tried out for the cheerleader squad. Conner watched from the bleachers, and wanted to interfere after the cheerleaders dumped water over Megan. She telepathically told him not to, which caused him to make a terrible fall face down on the track. After she was formally inducted to the squad, Conner gave Megan his coat, and carried her books, so they would not get wet.

Powers and abilities
As a genetic clone of Superman, he has the normal abilities of a Kryptonian who has absorbed the solar energy of a yellow sun, but his powers are greatly inferior to Superman's because of his young age and he currently lacks some of Superman's advanced abilities, like flight. He revealed that he does not have heat vision when Kid Flash was worried that Superboy was going to fry them. As of now, his powers include:


 * Physical
 * Super strength: The ability is one of Superboy's main resources. This allows him to easily pick up or carry heavy objects. Superboy's strength limit is between lifting a car and a bus.
 * Super leap: To compensate for his inability to fly like Superman, Superboy uses the super-strong muscles in his legs to jump incredible distances and heights.
 * Invulnerability Like Superman, Superboy is nearly indestructible. This invulnerability allows him to rush into dangerous scenes with little care for what might actually happen. Out of all his teammates, Superboy has taken the most damage from his battles but has displayed no lasting injuries. He has been tackled through walls, shot with guns and explosives, and had his feet dipped in lava,. He has yet to be permanently injured, but he does experiences pain.
 * Super hearing:
 * Telescopic Vision: This ability allows Superboy to see things that are great distances away.
 * Infrared/Thermal Vision: This ability allows Superboy to see in the dark and to detect heat signatures, and even see Miss Martian while she is camouflaged.


 * Mental
 * Multilingual: Superboy can understand and speak many languages outside of English. He is at least fluent in Spanish,
 * Encyclopedic Knowledge: Likely due to the G-Gnomes, Superboy has an encyclopedic knowledge of World History.

Equipment

 * Solar suit: Upon being released from his cryogenic suspension in Cadmus Labs, Superboy wore a white solar suit with a red Superman S-symbol on the chest. The suit allowed him to absorb Yellow Sun radiation to fuel his powers even underground. The suit was damaged during the fight with Blockbuster. While staying with Wally West, he continued to wear the tattered solar suit until he bought new clothes from Forever Sixteen in the Central City Mall three days later.


 * Motorcycle: Superboy has his own personal mode of transportation: a customized motorcycle. He used this on his mission to guard the Amazo parts. He left it behind to go after the MONQIs. He liked working on it in his spare time.
 * Sphere (Super-Cycle): This piece of New Genesis technology is actually a "she" that bonded with Superboy. Some months later, Sphere's abilities were brought to light.

Superman
Superboy is Superman's clone. During incubation at Cadmus Labs, Superboy was programmed to both take over from Superman if Superman ever died and to defeat Superman if Superman ever went bad. He respects Superman, to the extent that Aqualad was able to convince him to resist the G-Gnome's telepathic control by asking "What would Superman do?".

Originally, Superboy longed to meet Superman, although when they finally met, Superboy was angered by Superman's initial reaction of surprise and near disgust at having a clone. After the matter was explained, Superman tried to show some support for him, but failed and quickly excused himself. Over the next several days, while staying with Wally West, Superboy repeatedly wondered if Superman knew where he was, and when they'd meet again.

Since then, Superman has actively avoided Superboy and tried to push responsibility of him onto Batman and Red Tornado. Even when Superboy directly asked Superman to help him figure out the extent of his powers, Superman refused and quickly left. This apparent rejection made Superboy angry and led him to make several reckless errors of judgment, such as attempting to take down the powerful Amazo by himself.

Aqualad
Aqualad was the first person who reached out to Superboy. Aqualad recognized that Superboy had been controlled by the G-Gnomes when he attacked the three sidekicks trying to rescue him from Project Cadmus, and he was the first to say that Superboy deserved a life of his own, in addition to being Cadmus's weapon. He offered to introduce Superboy to Superman, and later convinced him to rescue them.

Kid Flash
Kid Flash was initially creeped out by Superboy. He did not make a favorable first impression when he expressed surprise at Superboy's ability to talk. However, when Superboy realized that he could not fly like Superman, Kid Flash reassured him by saying that the ability to leap tall buildings in a single bound was still cool. Following the battle with Blockbuster, Kid Flash was the one who told the Justice League that Superboy was a member of their new Team. Kid Flash also let Superboy stay with him at his house immediately after the fight, since he had nowhere else to go and Kid Flash said "I figured it'd be cool for us to hang". During this time, they appeared to get on quite well.

Miss Martian
Miss Martian and Superboy liked each other from the moment they met, and throughout their missions came closer and closer together. The eventually became a couple, but have yet to tell their friends. Nonetheless, Aqualad and Robin found out easily.

Artemis
Artemis had a crush on Superboy when she first met him - before she came on the Team. During her first mission, she did not shy away of openly flirting, which made Superboy uncomfortable.

Background in other media

 * In the comics, when Superboy was first introduced, he lacked all the powers he currently demonstrates in the cartoon series. Due to the fact he escaped his growth tube before reaching maturity and due to issues regarding cloning a Kryptonian (a Kryptonian is completely indestructible thus collecting a DNA sample is nearly impossible), Superboy was instead given tactile telekinesis, which allowed to him to simulate Superman's primary powers (flight, strength, invulnerability). As time passed and Superboy matured, he began to manifest all the normal Kryptonian powers, causing him to use his tactile telekinesis less and less. In the cartoon however, Superboy has not developed tactile telekinetic abilities. Instead, his powers are mostly the same as Superman's, although he lacks some abilities such as flight and heat vision.
 * Superboy's personality is distinctly different in Young Justice from how it was in the comics. In the comics, Superboy was immature, talkative, flirtatious and comically rude, which slowly was replaced with a more mature attitude. Here his personality is more brooding and somber, with bouts of uncontrollable anger and with a lack of understanding basic human interactions at times.
 * Superboy's romantic relationship with Miss Martian is something introduced specifically for the series. In the comics, Superboy had a long-term relationship with Wonder Woman's second sidekick Wonder Girl (Cassandra Sandsmark), that ended recently. Before that, he had multiple love interests, including Tana Moon, Roxy Leech and Serling Roquette.
 * Superboy's current non-relationship with Superman is reminiscent of the comics, in which there was several years of awkwardness and distance between the pair before at last Superman accepted Superboy properly into his life and into the Kent Family.
 * In the comics, Superboy is a hybrid clone made from the DNA of Superman and Lex Luthor. It is currently unknown if he has any relation to Luthor in Young Justice.
 * Young Justice marks Superboy's first appearance outside of comics. Soon after his appearance on Young Justice.