Superboy: There’s a lot of history here, isn’t there?
Red Tornado: Yes. This is where it all started. When the Justice League was first formed, this was their base of operations.

Superboy (after getting shot): I guess that answers that! Ghosts… can’t shoot you.

Previously: Seeking to prove themselves to their mentors Aqualad, Kid Flash, and Robin collaborated to investigate the Cadmus genetic laboratories in Washington, DC. They discovered and liberated a teenage clone of Superman called Superboy. Batman recognised the potential in the new group as a covert team able to go where the high-profile Justice League is otherwise unable to operate. Batman has now brought the youths to the Justice League’s old Mount Justice headquarters to brief them on their new mission and their new team-mates…

Miss Martian, the Martian Manhunter’s niece, will be joining Superboy, Kid Flash, Aqualad, and Robin. Kid Flash takes an instant shine to Miss Martian, but she seems more interested in Superboy. Batman and the Martian Manhunter then announce that Superboy and Miss Martian will be living in the Cave full-time with the Red Tornado. Everybody else leaves and Superboy and Miss Martian are left to pick their rooms. They quickly discover that all the sleeping quarters are identical, except for a small cubical which Superboy decides to take. Miss Martian is polite, but Superboy still prefers the claustrophobia of something like his old Cadmus Pod. She then leaves to retrieve her belongings with her uncle and Superboy chats with the Red Tornado. He tells Superboy that the Cave became the Justice League’s original headquarters after “a crisis brought them all here” and then leaves to retrieve updated protocols for the Cave’s computer systems.

Superboy is left to wander around the Cave alone. He pauses for a moment and images of his recent escape from Cadmus flood into his mind. He shakes off the odd day-dream when he sees somebody moving in the shadows and hears laughter from around the corner. He gives chase and finds a kid with a mop of hair trying to use a computer system calling while shouting “I’ve got to call the Justice League.” The lad turns and exclaims “You’re not supposed to be here!”, but he appears to he talking past Superboy to somebody else.

Superboy turns around to see who it is but there is nobody behind him and when he turns back the youth and the computer he was using has vanished. Everything in the room eerily vanish and reappear as Superboy shifts his attention. When the youth reappears Superboy hears him call himself “Snapper”, but they both turn when their hear the laughter again. The youth is still ignoring Superboy when they are both shot from the shadows by poisoned darts. Superboy is distracted by watching “Snapper” collapse that he doesn’t see their attacker sneak up on them. He is knocked to the ground and looks up straight into the face of the Joker. The clown asks him “Don’t you just love surprises?”

• The introductions occur on July 8th.

The first regular issue of the Young Justice comic book is set between “Fireworks” and “Welcome to Happy Harbor” and sets up how Superboy and Megan came to live in the Cave. It’s as much an introduction to the Cave as it is to anything else and features a flashback to an old storyline from the comics. This is also Art Baltazar and Franco’s first issue after the zeroth issues by the cartoon writers Kevin Hopps and Greg Weisman. The switch is seemless and beats like Superboy’s preference for the closest is carried over.

CBR’s Doug Zawisza even notes that this comic is “book is strong enough to be enjoyable all by itself” with reference to the cartoon itself. The team only have twenty-pages to play with and have to use a good chunk of that recapping scenes from the second episode. It serves to integrate the comic with the cartoon so isn’t wasted, but it does limit their own original content. I guess we can’t have everything, but this comic strikes as good a balance as I’ve seen before.

The new material is great and writers and artist do a good job in conveying the haunting effect of the disappearing/reappearing Snapper Carr. It’s a hard thing to do and they do it well. The appearance of the Joker here is nicely handled and is hailed by Superman Homepage’s Adam Dechanel for pre-empting Mister Twister with a “a far more formidable foe”. There is an apparently throw away line in “Welcome to Happy Harbor” where Aqualad says that the badguys discovered the Cave’s location and this story appears to expand on that.

The Verdict

Page 1-4 – This sequence follows on directly from Young Justice (vol. 2) #0 and occurs simultaneously with the epilogue of “Fireworks”. Young Justice (vol .2) #0 showed Superboy’s attempt to stay with Kid Flash’s family in Central City and how he liked sleeping in Kid Flash’s closest as it reminded him of his Pod from Cadmus.

Page 5 – Where does Aqualad go? It’s mentioned in “Downtime” which is set on August 27th that it’s been two-months since Aqualad has visited Atlantis so he must be living somewhere other than Mount Justice or Atlantis during the course of Young Justice’s adventures.

Page 8 – Superboy once again choses to sleep in the closet. This is the second issue that Superboy is shown being in the closet and you really mush wonder in the writers are implying something about him.

Page 11 – The comic book secret origin of the Justice League’s cave headquarters was revealed in Secret Origins (vol. 2) #46 (December 1989). In that issue the Justice League are drawn to a mountain in Rhodes Island after their costumes suddenly get up and walk away on their own. It turns out that the entire Mountain is a what the Flash calls a “macrochip”, a form of mineral consciousness that records everything around it. Long ago an alien space ship had been landed/crashed near the mountain. The descendants of those aliens were responsible for animating the League’s costumes. It was an unusual way of triggering a replay of the mountain’s memories so they could pay their respects to their ancestors one last time.

That adventure ended peacefully, but the League took quite a shine to the memory mountain and decided to use it as their base. The entire story is told by the old mountain who has now been abandoned by the League for their gleaming new satellite.

Page 12 – Superboy has a flashback to the events of “Independence Day” and “Fireworks”.

Page 17 – Snapper is Snapper Carr. He appear in the Justice League’s very first adventure in Brave and the Bold (vol. 1) #28 (May 1960) as a young lad who had lived near the Justice League cave headquarters during their early adventures. The League were fighting the atomic power alien starfish Starro and it was Snapper who gave the League the way to beat him. Thereafter Snapper became the Justice League mascot. His name comes about from his habit of snapping his fingers when he’s excited (this was the early 1960s, people didn’t have much to do back then). He was a sort of sidekick who hung around the League’s headquarters and never went on any missions.

Snapper’s association with the early League ended in Justice League of America (vol. 2) #77 (December 1969) after a story featuring the Joker. The odd haunting in this issue and the Joker’s presence seems to pull heavily from that story so to avoid spoilers I’ll put off discussing it until next time. There is a very brief appearance in “Welcome to Happy Harbor” of a man who I took to be the present day Snapper (he watches the Red Tornado fly past and smiles). Snapper Carr, the comic book version, returned in the original Young Justice (vol. 1) comicbook and became a second mentor to the group – somebody easier to relate to than the emotionless Red Tornado.

Page 19-20 – The Joker’s appearance and that of Snapper Carr reminds me of a sort 1970s mod look. The Joker is of course Batman’s arch-foe and really needs no more discussion beyond pointing out that this is the very first look at the Joker from the Young Justice universe.