Young Justice, Book Two

Young Justice (1998)

by Peter David, Todd Nauck (Illustrator), Lary Stucker

Who says you need to be an adult to save the world? Certainly not the members of Young Justice, a group of teenage superheroes out to make the world a safer place.

The team's members are a formidable group: Robin, Batman's protege; Superboy, with the awesome powers of his namesake; Impulse, heir to the legacy of the Flash. They've added three powerful young women--eagle-eyed Arrowette, brave Wonder Girl and supernaturally powerful Secret--to their team, making them stronger than ever.

Young Justice soon forges an alliance with Supergirl after they discover an evil man who calls himself Dante running a literal hell on Earth. Supergirl must use her powers as an Earth angel to stop Dante from allowing his army of demons to run free, but she can't do it alone. It's up to Young Justice to help her in this quest. Can Young Justice stop these forces of evil and keep the world from being overrun by demons?

Find out in these classic stories by Peter David (SUPERGIRL), featuring art by Todd Nauck (TEEN TITANS GO!), Lary Stucker (TEEN TITANS) and others. Collects YOUNG JUSTICE #8-17, YOUNG JUSTICE 80-PAGE GIANT, YOUNG JUSTICE IN NO MAN'S LAND, SUPERGIRL #36-37 and bonus content from YOUNG JUSTICE SECRET FILES #1.

Genres: Comics, Dc Comics, Superheroes, Graphic Novels, Graphic Novels Comics, Batman, Fiction

384 pages, Paperback

First published February 21, 2018

About the author

aka David Peters

Peter Allen David, often abbreviated PAD, was an American writer of comic books, novels, television, films, and video games. His notable comic book work includes an award-winning 12-year run on The Incredible Hulk, as well as runs on Aquaman, Young Justice, SpyBoy, Supergirl, Fallen Angel, Spider-Man, Spider-Man 2099, Captain Marvel, and X-Factor.
His Star Trek work included comic books and novels such as the New Frontier book series. His other novels included film adaptations, media tie-ins, and original works, such as the Apropos of Nothing and Knight Life series. His television work includes series such as Babylon 5, Young Justice, Ben 10: Alien Force and Nickelodeon's Space Cases, which he co-created with Bill Mumy.
David often jokingly described his occupation as "Writer of Stuff", and he was noted for his prolific writing, characterized by its mingling of real-world issues with humor and references to popular culture, as well as elements of metafiction and self-reference.
David earned multiple awards for his work, including a 1992 Eisner Award, a 1993 Wizard Fan Award, a 1996 Haxtur Award, a 2007 Julie Award and a 2011 GLAAD Media Award.

Reviews

[Mizuki · Rating 3 out of 5]

Review for Young Justice book one: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Review: Young Justice book 2 https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Review for Impulse book 1: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

(1) 3.5 stars. I think Book One is better! I know this volume was first published in 1998, but the artwork really isn't for me. Not saying it's bad artwork, but I just don't like the style of this older stuff...sometime the angles and how the character's body parts were put together is just......simply wrong.

(2) Is there an attempt at trying too hard to be funny!?

(3) The storyline about how Secret (a character who I don't remember seeing in other stories) regaining her memory, and how the team got into Gotham during the No Man's Land crisis and did a little crime fighting, plus the bonus pieces at the ending parts are nice, but the rest of the story, not so much.

(4) To be honest, the Earth 1 Teen Titans story at least makes a lot more sense than this.

(5) It's the first time I get to see Superboy in action, which is nice.......he is hilarious from time to time, he even gets smitten with Freak, Poison Ivy's plant woman. XD

(6) Plus OMG so in this version of the story Superboy's dads (in the term of DNAs) are no longer Superman and Lex Luthor!? It's such as a loss. *evil yaoi fangirl smirks* XD XD

(7) Did the author(s) really think the kids who read this comic would understand the references on The Good, the Bad and the Ugly? I mean, those kids hadn't even been born when the movie first came out! So...is there any kid out there who likes Spaghetti Western!?

(8) I absolutely love the story with Impulse acting in the position of a hard-boiled black-and-white film noir detective trying to solve a murder mystery, whilst as Robin and Superboy are......goons? (They are cool looking cute goons, mind you) As you can imagine Impulse is as goofy as he can get when he is a detective and he is even worse when the femme fatale tries to flirt with him.

Although it's sucky for Wonder Girl who gets the stereotypical role of the secretary and she is the one who actually solves the mystery yet no one thanks her. (and don't worry, it's a self-aware joke)

(9) I also absolutely love it when Wonder Girl and Arrowette are trapped in the setting of a black-and-white Dracula movie and they have to fight their way out among vampires and one Dracula's bride who is Secret whilst looking for their missing friends. As a fan of old horror movie, I'm thrilled.

(10) I don't like the first part of the comic all that much, I especially dislike the story with Supergirl in it. However, as a movie maniac, I enjoy the last story and the four or five short stories with so many movie references.

(11) To honest, I just don't know what's the difference between Young Justice and Teen Titans. XD

(12) Before I go I have one thing to rant about: would people just stop writing Goddess Kali off as a villain and saying shits about she wants to destroy the world!?



I will look forward to read more of this series.

[Chad · Rating 3 out of 5]

This volume has lost some of the humor from the first volume. The one shots and event tie-ins continue to interrupt the book. There's also a crossover with Peter David's Supergirl book that is fun, but more Supergirl than Young Justice. This batch of stories just never get past more than alright.

[Ben Truong · Rating 4 out of 5]

Young Justice: Book Two continues where the previous trade paperback left off collecting ten issues (Young Justice #8–17) of the 1998 on-going series with Young Justice 80-Page Giant, Young Justice Special #1, and Supergirl #36–37.

The core issues of the trade paperback has the Young Justice or various members of them team combating various villains such as Roland Desmond as Blockbuster (Young Justice #8), the Thugee Cult (Young Justice #9), Acolyte (Young Justice 9–10), All-Purpose Enforcement Squad (A.P.E.S.) (Young Justice #11 and 17), Department of Extranormal Operations (D.E.O.) (Young Justice #11), Demons, Harm (Young Justice #14), and Richard Pulilio (Young Justice 16) with having Cissie King-Jones as Arrowette quitting the team (Young Justice #17).

"Heck's Angels" is a four-issue cross-titled storyline (Young Justice #12–13 and Supergirl #36–37) that has the Young Justice teaming up with Linda Danvers as Supergirl to fight against Dante, who is a human/devil hybrid with supernatural powers.

"Road Trip" is a one-issue storyline special (Young Justice Special) that has Kon-El as Superboy and Bart Allen as Impulse taking a road trip to Gotham City, and Tim Drake as Robin is the only person that could stop them, but he has been kicked out of Gotham City, because of the recent earthquake. Finally, Young Justice 80-Page Giant is a collection of six vignettes staring the team or members of the team.

Peter David (Young Justice #9–17, Supergirl #36–37, and Young Justice 80-Page Giant), Chuck Dixon (Young Justice #8, Young Justice Special, and Young Justice 80-Page Giant), Scott Beatty (Young Justice Special), Beau Smith, Jay Faerber, Larry Stucker, and Peter Tomasi (Young Justice 80-Page Giant) wrote this trade paperback.

For the most part, it is written rather well. David has wonderfully continued the adventures that the team has gone through with a varied of villains and even steps up to write two issues of Supergirl to make a four-issue cross-title storyline. Dixon writes two issues, which centers on Gotham City and the Batman Family – particularly Tim Drake as Robin. The additional vignettes seem a tad superfluous, but fun to read.

Todd Nauck (Young Justice #8–10, 12–14), Richard Pulilio (Young Justice #15–17), Leonard Kirk (Supergirl #12–13), Coy Turnbull (Young Justice #8), Angel Unzueta (Young Justice #11), Andy Kuhn (Young Justice Special), Justiniano, Sergio Cariello, Tommy Lee Edwards, Ryan Sook, Keron Grant, and Dietrich Smith (Young Justice 80-Page Giant) penciled the trade paperback.

For the most part the pencilers have distinct penciling styles and suffer from too many cooks in the kitchen, as some pencillers are better than others, and it is up to the individual taste, the artistic flow suffers greatly. However, it is mitigated greatly as most penciled had one story or vignette to depict.

All in all, Young Justice: Book Two is a wonderful continuation to what would hopefully be a wonderful series.

[Chris Lemmerman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Young Justice's second book of adventures collects issues #8-17, plus some Supergirl crossover issues, a No Man's Land one-shot, and an 80 page giant special. This series isn't content with just being an ongoing, is it?

The first three or four issues of this one are fairly standard Young Justice affairs. The team deals with interpersonal relationships, a crazy cult involving teddy bears, and the rebirth of a demon. This is what the book can be when it's just left alone; it's funny, with a big heart, and some very 90s artwork. Todd Nauck's style hasn't evolved too much since these issues, but there's definitely a looseness to his pencils here that you don't get nowadays.

Next we get some tie-in stuff. The Supergirl four-parter is a double edged sword; it's a very good Supergirl story, but her current status quo at this point is super confusing if you haven't been reading her book (which I haven't), and Young Justice are basically relegated to being supporting characters in their own book. It did however peak my interest in Supergirl's ongoing series, so I guess that's a success. Leonard Kirk pencils the two Supergirl issues, and his art is almost unrecognizable compared to his present day work. It blends in with the rest of this volume fairly easily, though.

Next up is a Day Of Judgment tie-in that brings back Harm from the first volume, as well as playing into the Secret mystery that continues throughout this volume. The No Man's Land tie-in is a silly little story that isn't essential to either Young Justice or No Man's Land, but it's fun anyway. Plus Lagoon Boy!

The final few issues of the volume are where things really kick into high gear as Arrowette takes on gun crime and the emotions run really high. Add in a prison break for Secret and some more developments with Red Tornado and there are a lot of cliffhangers going into what I hope will be volume 3.

Last but not least is the 80 Page Giant. This ties off the plotline relating to Bedlam from the first Young Justice mini-series in a very wordy tale that then throws in a lot of other writers and artists as the Young Justice team parody basically every movie genre you can think of, to various degrees of success.

This one's a bit more up and down than the first volume, since it's being pulled in a few different directions thanks to larger DC universe events, but it's still exactly what it should be; teen superhero books can learn a lot from Young Justice.

[Chris · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's all so very '90s. The art, the humour (for lack of a better word), the over the top villains... it does have a complete lack of the grimdark edginess that tends to creep into comics so I appreciate that.

I didn't find it as problematic as the first volume but there are still some moments that make me wonder "Why did you think that was a good idea?"

This also includes a few crossovers with other storylines involving Supergirl or No-Man's Land that really upset the flow of the main Young Justice story, but that's what you always get with collected editions.

I don't really feel like continuing with this, it's a bit of a slog but this volume does end in the middle of a storyline so I would need to get the third volume to continue that.

The storyline that is half finished involves a group trying to end Young Justice, publicly because they're literal children putting their lives in danger. Privately it's obviously because they want to take out a group of superheroes.

Considering the volume ends with the casual destruction of a national monument and Superboy's flippant "nobody will notice", I can't help but agree with them. There's also a Robin/Superboy leadership feud that's introduced but I honestly can't see that going anywhere because Superboy is an idiot and Robin is genius who should be in charge.

Anyway it's pretty obvious that Young Justice will go rogue, prove they've been setup and everything will be fine, but I don't really feel like reading it myself. So I think I'm done.

[James DeSantis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Book 2 as a whole is where Young Justice begins to get its footing.

The story starts off simple enough. The young justice work together to take down underground evil bad guys with the help of Supergirl (Another series Peter David was writing at the time) This turns out some great scenes and funny moments. Then we have a dark story where Arrowlette losses someone close to her. It's both sad and also kind of a nice message on gun control even back then. We also get a story with Red Tornado's kid and wife and it's pretty strong as well to show a more human side to the mentor of the Young Justice. Last we have the team working together to rescue Secret.

Lots of moving pieces here and mostly they all work. The team dynamic is great. The art is bombastic and fun. The humor works for the most part. The serious moments strike hard because they come out of nowhere. I also think the ending leaves a nice little cliffhanger for us. The crossover stuff with supergirl was okay and the "old Justice" team is kind of lame. But overall, this is a solid fun collection of late 90's galore of comics. A 3.5 out of 5. I'll bump it to a 4.

[Jerry (Rebel With a Massive Media Library) · Rating 3 out of 5]

While the artwork and stories were still fabulous, this second volume raises the amount of objectionable content, particularly when the heroes find themselves in a version of perdition.

[Daria · Rating 3 out of 5]

(3.5 stars, really)

The second volume was a bit less strong in my opinion, and I'll start with the bad just to get it out of the way. Honestly, almost none of the arcs were enjoyable to me. The Desmond arc felt like filler content, where they were like "oh we don't know what to do with these issues so we'll just insert the main Bludhaven villain right here. The only reason the zombie kids arc was interesting was because of the Red Tornado storyline (which we'll get to in due time). The Super Girl arc was. Something. The last arc was camp but the "episodes" were not really long enough for me to actually enjoy them, besides the WWII one, which was nice. The one gratifying thing about it is the ending, which I really enjoyed. Something about non-human things wanting to find humanity really gets to me.
The Red Tornado arc was really enjoyable. I really liked seeing a story focused more on him, I loved how all of the Young Justice stories kept happening and then turning back to him. The arc where they all go to try and help him get his daughter out? Amazing. I loved the dynamic.
Now.
The best arc.
The /only/ arc. That matters.
Arrowettes.
CORRECT. I LOVED IT. She gets to leave. She realises she never wanted this life. She wasn't meant to be a hero. She did it because her mother made her to, and then she continued to spite her. She realised that it takes too much out of you. That she wants to be something else, anything else. She almost killed a man and she has no clue how to cope with it. She's grieving both the loss of her councilor and the loss of her innocence and the loss of her childhood. Her saying that school was the only refuge where nothing bad was supposed to happen really got me. Overall, just and amazing ass arc. 10/10.

[Patrick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Book 2 is actually a bit higher quality than Book 1.

I don't have the nostalgia for this like I did the first handful of issues. It's a fun, silly read with an art style that reminds me of days gone by.

[Vitor Aurungo · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

[Brendan Mckillip · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'd rate the book higher, Peter David's Young Justice is a lot of fun to read, but the crossover David did with Supergirl - and which is included in this volume - drags this collection down. First, David's take on Supergirl in the 90's was sorta strange. I don't recall all the details, but she was some sort of angel on Earth or something like that. There really isn't much of an explanation in the two issues of Supergirl that are included in this YJ collection to complete the crossover story, so the character, her motivations, and her abilities all seem ill-defined. Plus, he includes a lot of sub-plot storylines in the two Supergirl issues which are confusing to us who have never read Supergirl. Second, the artwork by Leonard Kirk is just bad. Character's faces look different from panel to panel, anatomy is poorly rendered at times, and the composition of pages can be cluttered and odd. It's unfortunate that the crossover had to be included because I enjoyed the rest of the stories in this collection.

[Alex · Rating 3 out of 5]

What a fun (until it wasnt) volume! The recurring beef I have is the core series issues usually are very entertaining, but the tie ins and spin off issues usually bring the whole package down. Impulse usually does one or two things every issue to make me laugh.
The kids being brainwashed by subliminal TV messages issues were wild and tapped into the 90s TV panic. The Supergirl/pocket of hell crossover felt more of her plot than the teams, and it was jarring. Harm's crazy comeback was a surprise but interesting. The vol picked up in the back half with a series of great issues and drama. It got real dark during that "PSA" gun control issue, the poor therapist didn't deserve that. Arrowette's actions and fallout are disappointing, but it is her decision.
I admit I kinda tapped out on the 80 page annual issue, as much fun as diff art styles can be.

[Raul Reyes · Rating 3 out of 5]

A mixed bag. I really disliked the “demon” arc with supergirl since it was much more tied to whatever was happening in her series, so there were parts where I was confused and, in general, the villain was pretty boring. On the other hand, I really liked the final Arrowette. I think that her character has a lot of potential, so I sad if her leaving is permanent, but I think the story’s message was pretty well executed. Although, I’m disappointed that the conversation is entirely focused on gun violence instead of femicides. The special at the end was actually not a drag to get through, but the first arc, while entertaining enough, had some racist undertones. I did like the fourth wall breaks though, and I wish we get to explore more the team dynamics in the future.

[Shannon Appelcline · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don't recall Young Justice being so juvenile when I read it decades ago, but sadly it is. This is cartoon entertainment, occasionally funny, but not David's best work at all. (Maybe it doesn't compare favorably to the continued usage of these characters by Johns in Teen Titans; I dunno.)

In any case, this is a fine, light comic. It's got some unfortunate 90-isms, such as the usage of the Psyba-Rats, including sword-arm girl. But it also occasionally rises above its shallow foundation, particularly in the Arrowette arc near the end, but also in the Supergirl crossover (another David comic of the era, but a less juvenile one).

[Anna Mick · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hilarious things about this volume of "Young Justice" in no particular order:

- Villains taking shots at Cissie's Arrowette costume (harsh!!!)
- Cissie using Bart's crush on her to break him out of a trance
- Cassie thinking Kon is flirting with her when he is simply not
- Bart briefly hypnotized into believing he is Batman and Tim being annoyed about it
- Red Tornado got married???
- Supergirl being thoroughly annoyed with all of the possessed YJ team

I love these characters even if sometimes the situations they get into are wacky and don't make a lot of sense. A kiss for YJ team

[Sean · Rating 3 out of 5]

The second book of Peter David's fun, 90s epic, Young Justice didn't exactly hit the same way as the first volume. While the book continues to be funnier than I remember, there were too many lulls. In particular, the Supergirl crossover was pretty bad. It was such an odd time for her character and its not a good storyline. I loved Arrowette's dramatic turn and David handled it well. The art continues to be frenetic and fun. Overall, a fun book that had a giant lull in the middle.

[a ☕︎ · Rating 3 out of 5]

a few good arcs in this one: the return of harm, a villain from vol. 1 who was murdered by his own father; cissy’s departure from the team due to the murder of her school counselor; and the final multi-parody arc (nosferatu w secret as the bride), which i thought was cuteeee. i like that david seems to respect adolescent readers...his writing style is sweet and ‘juvenile’ in what i feel is a thoughtful way.

[Kris Ritchie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Definitely the weakest part of this series were the crossover issues and it brought the rating down. I find the Linda Danvers Supergirl to be pretty boring. Also the 80 page special was meh.

The regular YJ stuff was great, but when half of the volume is material I didn't care about it's hard to give a high rating.

[Nate]

Young Justice continues to be a fun and goofy read, this time with some pathos. Red Tornado and Arrowette in particular are given emotional arcs, while the 80-Page Giant contains some legitimately beautiful writing about an entity inside Red Tornado. That’s easily the best issue here. The rest is what you’d expect from this series: amusing at times, but mostly hokey and never more than decent.

[Eli Ransom · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found this one had too many of its plots involving crossovers to follow and wasn't sure even if I was to read the ones connected with it, what order to do it.
I'm going to continue this version of Young Justice, as it is the easiest to get access to currently, but I'm hoping the others will be more enjoyable (for books in this version, and the other reboots).

[Kendall Stark · Rating 2 out of 5]

Too much cheese

The main problem I have with this book is that I didn't know what was going on half the time. Most of the content is explained in other comic books that aren't this one, leaving me completely lost.
Also, what little story I got was spoon fed to me in cheesy dumps of exposition. That I did not like.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

The standard YJ issues are quite fun, with a pretty surprising dramatic turn in the "dark" Arrowette issue after all the silliness preceding (and postceding(?)). The 80-Page Giant and the Secret Files stories aren't so engaging, although I did enjoy the profile pages from the Secret Files - clever to frame them as DEO file entries, so the page only knows what the DEO knows.

[Wren Worthington · Rating 2 out of 5]

The art hurts my eyes (except for the supergirl crossover issues, those were fine) and there is the usual level of 90s Yikes only slightly abated by decent characterisation and dialogue. Ngl if this wasn't both a classic and one of the very few runs that feature my fav team I probably wouldn't read it

[Jadyn❀ · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sometimes it’s really funny. Sometimes it’s kind of boring, or I have no idea what’s going on (like in the Supergirl crossover that apparently made me forget I was even reading this book for 6 months). Cissie was one of my favorite parts, so I hope she’s not leaving for good.

[Nathan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mostly really good.. but there's a lot of badly drawn filler in the shape of the 80pg Giant and the No Mans Land special.

[Belfry · Rating 3 out of 5]

Actual rating: 3.5 stars

[KP · Rating 4 out of 5]

The art style took a little while to get used to, but these are really fun and enjoyable.

[Bryce Perry · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reading this reminded me of why I stopped reading DC comics in the 90s. Horrible art, stories that go nowhere, the thinnest characters imaginable... Make mine Marvel, I guess

[Steven · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not quite as good as the first issues, there were some gems such as the return of the golden age sidekicks and the dialogue between Superboy and Robin.

[Ision · Rating 4 out of 5]

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