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. One example of this is chasing after Professor Ivo's MONQIs. 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. For example, he was unsure of how to apologize after he overacted to Miss Martian's communicating with him with her telepathy. He is also pretty quiet and usually doesn't speak that often. Like Superman, Superboy seems to show signs of great awkwardness in dealing with subjects that he deems uncomfortable. The chief example of course is his lack of relationship with Superman. He has tried at least twice to form some sort of connection with the Man of Steel only to be rebuffed both times. He obviously feels a connection to Superman, and wishes to have him as a mentor and father figure, and feels angered that Superman does not feel the same way. This sense of isolation and loneliness causes him further issues regarding his interaction with his team. In addition, Superboy has issues regarding Cadmus, the laboratory that created him. His overreaction at Megan's use of telepathy arose in part because it reminded him of his telepathic subjugation by Cadmus' G-Gnomes. Superboy hates monkeys, possibly because they remind him of G-Gnomes and also because a G-Gnome created an illustion of Joker-ized Monkeys attacking him in the comics.

Characteristics
Superboy has short black hair. He also has ice blue eyes. He looks like a younger version of Superman around 15–16 years in appearance despite being 16 weeks old at the start of the series. Superboy wears a black t-shirt with the classic S-shield in red.

He sometimes wears a brown leather jacket overtop of his t-shirt. He also wears dark blue fatigue pants which are tucked into dark brown combat boots. When attending High School, he merely turns his t-shirt inside out. For swim-wear, he wears black and white swimming trunks.

Early life
16 weeks prior to July 4 (approximately mid-March), 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. He also seems to be able to comprehend Spanish as he used his super hearing and seemed to understand Bane when he was speaking to his comrades in his native tongue. Whether he can speak or understand other languages beyond that is unknown.

Present
On July 4, 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 would Superman do?"

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/Desmond, 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.

On July 8 at Mount Justice, Superboy and the other heroes were formed into a covert operations unit, The Team, and introduced to their fifth team member, Miss Martian.

Mount Justice: July 18, 11:16 EDT After Red Tornado denies the team a mission, Superboy is given his first taste of social interaction. In the cave, his team members introduce each other by revealing their secret identities. Superboy remains quiet as he is the only one without a civilian identity. Megan takes the opportunity to communicate to him telepathically, which only served to aggravate him and the others. After Megan receives pointers on what not to do, she comes up with the idea of taking a ride in her Bio Ship. Superboy remains where he is, but eventually relents when Megan asks him. On the Bio Ship, The Team receives a message from Red Tornado, informing them of a tornado at the local power plant.



While investigating, they encounter Mister Twister and do battle. The team, however, is handed a humiliating defeat after mistaking him for Red Tornado after listening to Miss Martians advice. Superboy snaps at Miss Martian, believing she tricked them into thinking Mister Twister was Red Tornado. but Kaldur defends her by telling him she did not do it on purpose. The rest of the team leaves to go after Mister Twister, with Superboy telling her to stay out of their way. Superboy and the rest of the team, barring Miss martian, soon catch up to Mister Twister while he is destroying a town and battle against him, though their attempts are fruitless. Miss Martian soon communicates with them telepathically and informs them of a plan. The plan is successful, as Mister Twister is fooled by Miss Martian's disguise. Superboy manages to grab hold of him and deliver devastating punches, before punching him into the water and leaving him to his other teammates to destroy. The defeated operator is then crushed with a boulder by Miss Martian despite Kaldur trying to stop her. Luckily, the operator was also a robot. Kaldur admits that he, and the rest of the team, should have trusted her more. Back at the cave, Superboy apologizes to Megan.

Caribbean Sea: July 22, 20:08 ECT Superboy and the others are aboard the Bio Ship to complete their assigned mission to investigate the illegal super steroid Venom. Nearing Santa Prisca, Aqualad is dropped in first to dispose of the security systems. After he completes this, he gives the green-light to draw closer. Approaching land, Kid Flash activates his stealth tech, and tells Superboy it is not too late to apply his. Superboy objects, as he wants nothing to do with capes and tights. After they land, Superboy uses his infrared vision to locate and spot enemies. This, however, does not deter Kid Flash from blowing their cover in search of Robin. Superboy is forced to defend his comrade by taking out Bane.

With the scuffle over, Aqualad and Robin discuss the situation and ultimately come to the conclusion that Kobra is hoarding Venom. Superboy hears Bane having a conversation with one of his men, discussing a plan to get what he wants. Despite this, Superboy simply smiles and does nothing. Bane soon deliberately interrupts the teams conversation and offers his help, to which Aqualad agrees. The freed Bane then directs them to a hidden cave, which leads the team inside the factory unnoticed. Robin and Kid Flash impulsively run ahead for their own business. Superboy, Aqualad, Bane, and Miss Martian are left to observe the shipment until Superboy hears an approaching helicopter. Bane soon proceeds with his hidden agenda by jump down and attacking Kobra's men, compromising their location. Forced to into action, Superboy, Aqualad, and Miss Martian take on the men.

A few weeks later, he and the team met Artemis.

Powers & 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:
 * 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.
 * Super Leap: To compensate for his inability to fly like Suuperman, Superboy uses the super strong muscles in his legs to jump incredible distances and heights.
 * 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.
 * Invulnerability
 * Super Hearing: This ability allows Superboy to hear things from a great distance.
 * Telescopic Vision: This ability allows Superboy to see things that are great distances away.
 * Super sense of smell: Uses this ability to track things by scent much like a bloodhound.

Potential powers
As a clone of Superman, Superboy will eventually gain the full powers of a Kryptonian, including powers he doesn't have now:
 * Heat Vision: He claims that he doesn't have heat vision, though as a Kryptonian it's presumed he eventually will.
 * Flight: Though he hasn't demonstrated the power of flight yet, it's presumed that he eventually will.
 * Super Speed: Superman is one of the few beings on the earth that can keep up with the Flash in a foot race. Therefore, as his clone, it can be assumed that Superboy will develop this abillity too.
 * X Ray Vision: One of the more commonly used powers of a Kryptonian. Although Superboy hasn't used it yet, it's assumed he eventually will gain this abillity.

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.

Superman
Superboy is Superman's genetic clone and is considered by many as his "son". During incubation at Cadmus Labs, Superboy was programmed to replace Superman if he died, or to defeat Superman if he "turned from the Light". Superboy 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. Batman explained this to Superman by saying "This boy needs his father", but Superman insisted that he was not Superboy's father and left. Superboy has since made attempts to conquer his anger, e.g. by seeking out the help of Black Canary.

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' weapon. He offered to introduce Superboy to Superman, and later convinced Superboy into rescuing them by asking "What would Superman do?"

Robin
Superboy originally snaps at Robin due to Robin ordering him to free Aqualad. However, any possible tension between the two seems to have subsided by the end of the episode with Superboy following Robin's plan to take down Blockbuster and Robin inviting Superboy to meet Miss Martian. The two become good teammates, and Superboy eventually starts using some of Robin's neologisms, including whelmed (from the terms overwhelmed and underwhelmed) and aster (from the term disaster without the prefix dis-).

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
After Miss Martian was introduced, she said to Superboy "I like your t-shirt." which surprised Superboy. In the next episode Welcome to Happy Harbor, it seemed those feelings went away after he yelled at her for reading the rest of the team's mind although he later apologized. By Drop Zone, the feelings between Miss Martian and Superboy are more apparent (much to the dislike of Kid Flash) with Miss Martian saying to him "It totally works for you, in that you can totally do good work in those clothes." along with her saying "You do have great ears." while staring at him intensely both times. Later in that episode while Kid Flash and Robin were arguing about the leader, Superboy and Miss Martian asked each other about who should take on the reins of leadership, with Miss Martian saying "After the Mr. Twister fiasco?" with Superboy responding with "You did all right." causing Miss Martian to blush. Also, in the end of the episode Bereft, Miss Martian is trying to defeat a villain in her mind after bringing back Superboy's memories. When a vortex forms with her and the villain in it, he goes in there and grabs her hand, shouting her name. He appears with her in her mind along with the villain, she says to him that he is too strong. He tells her she's stronger and he's stubborn; "together" they can defeat him. When she strikes the villain, the vortex disappears and she is in the air about to black out, then falls into his arms. She wakes up and their eyes meet for a long moment, he cups her cheek with his hand to pull in for a kiss, but is interrupted by the Sphere. It is Miss Martian who suggests he take the name of Conner in the episode Targets. He also seems to be protective of her, as seen when he tried to charge at the cheer squad after they dumped a bucket of water on M'gann's head.

Black Canary
At first Superboy refused to train with Black Canary, saying he's a living weapon and that it's a waste of his time. During a sparring session, she advises him to harness his anger and make sure that he is always active, rather than reactive, but when he ignores her advice she defeats him twice in quick succession. Before he leaves on a mission, she offers to be there for him when he's ready. After trying to fight the Amazo himself, he finally takes Black Canary's advice to heart, and later goes to her for support in dealing with his anger over his relationship with Superman. He continues training with her, and uses it during sparring matches.She becomes like a mother figure to him. After using one attack to take down Aqualad, Superboy proudly announced that he'd learned the attack from Black Canary.

Artemis
Superboy and Artemis have had very little interaction so far. When Artemis made a suggestive comment about him telepathically, fully aware that he (and every other member of the team) could hear her, he did not respond and his only reaction was to turn and look at her for a moment before leaving. Miss Martian later said that Artemis embarrassed Superboy, although Artemis quickly pointed out that Superboy himself hadn't said that.

Trivia

 * He is only 16 weeks old as of July 4 (the start of Young Justice), which technically makes him the youngest of all the members, even younger than Robin (who is 13 years old). However, he is still physiologically 16 years old.
 * Superboy is voiced by Nolan North (The same person who voices Superman).
 * Superboy understands Spanish likely a result of Cadmus's conditioning.
 * Superboy has an encylopedic knowledge of World History.
 * In Targets, Superboy takes on the alter-ego of Conner Kent. However, while "Conner" is suggested by Miss. Martian, Kent is suggested by Martian Manhunter. Although this is obviously the Manhunter's quiet attempt at connecting Conner to Superman's alter-ego "Clark Kent", Megan and Conner assume its to honor the deceased Doctor Fate, Kent Nelson. Conner however questions why he does not use "Nelson" instead.

Background in Comics & 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. Superboy has also had an extensive romantic history with assorted girls, such as Batgirl III (Cassandra Cain).
 * 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.
 * Superboy's refusal to wear a traditional costume is opposite from the comics, in which he wore several different spandex costumes before eventually settling on the more casual look.
 * In the comics, Superboy is a 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, Superboy was also introduced in the live-action series Smallville.