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.

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. 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.

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 team, Young Justice, and introduced to their fifth team member, Miss Martian. 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
 * Super Strength
 * Invulnerability
 * Super Hearing
 * Telescopic Vision
 * Super sense of smell

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.

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.
 * 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 use "Nelson" instead.

Background in Comics & Other Media

 * In the comics, when Superboy was first introduced he lacked all the powers he current 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.

Notable Quotes

 * "Hm, I don't seem to have heat vision, so I suppose helping is my only option." - Fireworks
 * "Stay out of my head!" - Welcome to Happy Harbor
 * "No capes, no tights. No offense." - Drop Zone
 * "Fine... feeling the aster." - Schooled
 * "Modern Rhelasia was created in 1855 and ruled by the boquen dynasty untill it was divided by the great powers into north and south Rhelasia after World War 2." - Targets
 * "But why are they fighting they're all humans, I mean Rhelasians right?" - Targets