Superboy (Earth-16)

**Superboy** (also known as **Conner Kent** and **Kon-El**, "born" March 21, 2010) is a Genomorph, a hybrid clone of Superman and Lex Luthor, and a founding member of the Team.

## Personality

Even though Superboy has anger issues, he aspires to be a good hero like his genetic template, Superman. Superboy doesn't like being commanded and behaves confidently. Despite his overwhelming confidence, in reality, he worries about living up to the namesake of Superman.

Superboy is somewhat anti=social, and has a hard time showing emotions. However, he quickly learned to conversate and control his anger problems. He's much more mellow now, and has become more experienced and learned how to use his vast intelligence.

## History

On March 21, 2010, Project Cadmus initiated Project Kr. It was based on Project Match, an earlier attempt to clone Superman. Because of the incomplete DNA sequences, "Match" was deemed a failure, a mistake they did not repeat on Project Kr. For this new project, gaps in the sequences were filled with human DNA, with Lex Luthor as the donor. He was kept in a containment pod along with three G-Gnomes, who telepathically controlled him and educated him with the knowledge of a boy of his physiological age.

### 2010

Aqualad, Robin, and Kid Flash discovered Superboy at Cadmus. When they freed him, they briefly fought before Superboy was convinced that they were on his side. The group of four stood up to their mentors and were gifted a headquarters in Mount Justice, where they would be operating as a team. They were also introduced to Miss Martian.

On a mission to Bialya, the team encountered Psimon, who erased their memories of the last six months. This left Superboy with no memories at all, and he was captured and tortured. When Miss Martian rescued him and restored his memories, he took Sphere as a pet.

Superboy, Aqualad, Kid Flash, and Miss Martian were captured when Mount Justice was invaded by Red Torpedo and Red Inferno. Though they were rescued by Robin and Artemis, he was knocked unconscious by Red Tornado. Superboy, like the others, was furious to discover Aqualad knew there was a mole on the Team.

On a mission in India, where they were investigating Kobra-Venom enhanced animals, Superboy picked up a new pet, whom he named Wolf.

The Team was introducted to Zatanna, with whom they went on an unauthorized mission with to find Tornado. They discovered that he had not actually betrayed them and helped them to stop Red Volcano.

Superboy, like the rest of the Team, was left devastated after a simulation run by Martian Manhunter where he died sacrificing himself to allow the others to infiltrate an alien mothership.

Superboy received a message from Lex Luthor, urging him to investigate Cadmus. There, he found another Superman clone and attempted to free him like the Team freed him. However, due to the clone having no Human DNA, he was enraged and mindless. Superboy was forced to put him back into his pod. Luthor then gifted Connor power enhancers known as Shields, which were used to enhance his powers and give him the full powerset of a Kryptonian.

Superboy and the rest of the Team responded to an alert that Cheshire was spotted at a airplane crash-site, only for it to be a trap. The Team succeeded in defeating the enemies, but realized there must really be a mole. Superboy, Artemis, and Miss Martian revealed their ties to the enemies, but the rest of the Team didn't mind and helped them to ambush the people blackmailing them.

When they returned to the Cave, they were shocked to find out that Red Arrow was the mole. Roy explained that he was under the Light's control, and they helped him infiltrate the Watchtower and free the League from the Light's control.

At New Years, Miss Martian and Superboy kissed. Later, Superman congratulated him and attempted to conversate with Conner. When the two realized the similarity between their civilian names, Superboy attempted to apologize, but Superman seemed proud of the connection.

### 2011-2015

Superboy broke off his relationship with M'gann because she attempted to make him forget he was mad at her for infiltrating villain's minds. She then started dating Lagoon Boy, which displeased Conner, who though La'gann was a jerk.

Superboy, Nightwing, and Miss Martian were invited to join the Justice League, but politely declined, stating that they were happier with their places on the Team.

### 2016

Superboy helped with a mission to guard the launch of a satellite. He temporarily posed as Superman for a press conference. The mission ended terribly, with the satellite destroyed and Artemis seemingly killed by Aqualad.

Superboy was in the Cave when it was infiltrated by Kaldur's gang, who blew up the Cave. He was lucky to escape before before the explosion happened.

Superboy then disguised himself as a Manta Trooper in order to help rescue their fellow Team members from Black Manta. However, when they were about to escape, they encountered Black Beetle, who easily took out most of the team, including Superboy. However, Blue Beetle held him off long enough for everybody to escape.

Superboy was present at the Hall of Justice when it was attacked by Despero. Despero mentally subdued most of the heroes and was about to finish off Superboy before Bumblee intervened, who was then also mentally subdued. Mal Duncan drove Despero away from Superboy, who then recooperated and went to assist Mal.

Zatanna then cast a spell that stunned Despero, allowing Superboy to take down the enemy. Despero's robot servant then activated an explosive, causing the Hall of Justice to crumble around them.

Miss Martian and Lagoon Boy were ambushed. Lagoon Boy was injured, but uncaptured, which was luckier than M'gann who was captured.

Superboy lashed out at Nightwing, telling him that he knew about the secrets he hid and how M'gann fried Kaldur's brain.

Superboy was captured by Blue Beetle along with many other members of the Team on the Warworld. He was trapped in a stasis cell under the Reach's control along with the others. However, they were freed by Arsenal, Virgil, Ed, Tye, Asami, and the rest of the Team.

Superboy helped to infiltrate the Light-Reach summit. The battle ended with the capture of the Reach ambassador, Black Manta, the Brain, and Monsieur Mallah.

Superboy, along with 39 other heroes, helped to disable the 20 MFDs set up by the Reach. However, Conner, along with the other Team members, arrived just in time to see Wally sacrifice himself to stop a MFD already in chrysalis mode.

## Powers and Abilities

* **Kryptonian physiology:** As a partial genetic clone of Superman, he has most of the physical abilities of a Kryptonian who has absorbed the solar energy of a yellow sun. However, due to the human DNA supplied by Lex Luthor, he lacks the more advanced powers of flight and heat vision and presumably is incapable of ever acquiring them. In addition, his existing powers are considerably inferior to Superman's.
	+ **Super strength**
		- **Super leap**
	+ **Invulnerability**
	+ **Super hearing**
	+ **Infared vision**

### Abilities

* **Hand-to-hand combatant:** While normally relying on his sheer strength, Superboy has developed highly proficient combat skills from his training under Black Canary. He is especially good at grappling and takedowns.
* **Genomorph programming:** While Superboy was being force grown, G-Gnomes telepathically fed him information in lieu of a traditional education:
	+ **Multilingualism**
	+ **Encyclopedic knowledge**

## Equipment

### Vehicles

* **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.

## 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 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 pre-New 52 comics. There, 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.
* This is his first animated appearance.

## Original Article

1. ↑ http://youngjustice.wikia.com/wiki/Superboy