Perth is having a heatwave, so I’m spending most of my time hiding under the air conditioner feeling sorry for myself. While doing not a lot.
When I have ventured out, I’ve gotten into the habit of wandering into stores to take advantage of their aircon between errands. This has included some secondhand bookstores, one of which (it turns out) had a very large comic collection. I hit paydirt a week or two ago while idly browsing and immediately spent way too much money getting a stack of Young Justice comics. A couple of Robin and Impulse comics as well. But mostly Young Justice.
First lot of YJ. Sorry about the terrible picture quality.
This is one of my favourite comic series as, alongside some 90s Batman GN’s and the Impulse series, it was what got me addicted to comics. So ever since I found these, I’ve been swapping between getting incredibly sentimental and incredibly excited (think high voice, squeeing, flapping-arms-wildly style, which is not pretty on a 12-year-old girl, let alone me). It is also a series that, despite currently having a TV show based on a mixture of it and early Teen Titans, as well as a current comics spin-off of the tv show, hasn’t been reprinted in any format (for the most part). This is a never ending source of frustration for me but that’s probably a rant for another day.
So of course, I was back at the shop a week later and this time I’m fairly sure I went through the entire comic collection they had and managed to pull up another pile of them that had been mis-sorted.
Young Justice, now with slightly better photography
Of course, if you look closely you can see the comics I’ve gotten aren’t the complete set, nor are they all consecutive issues. Now I am waiting for several ebay orders, including a giant stack of the last 20 or so. After this round arrives I still won’t have entirely the complete set but shipping to Australia is really bloody painful and I’m already pretty close to eating lentils and rice for the rest of the week already. So it will have to wait another few fortnights.
Young Justice, with Spoiler alongside shitty photography.
YJ for the most part focused thematically on friendships and growing-up issues rather than saving the world as such. While doing this it managed to have a real fun, quirky humour and avoided excessive angst and melodrama, despite being about teenagers, mostly by not taking itself too seriously. It also managed to play with rather cliche plot lines in a relatively fresh way. #30 Secret vs. Spoiler for example, has a love triangle gender reversal, with Secret and Spoiler feeling they have to duke things out to win over the Robin of their dreams. And I do mean fight it out.
Young Justice #30 is helped by the fact that I love Stephanie Brown. She has my favourite costume as Spoiler and alongside Tim Drake is one of my favourite characters. I may have bought a few random comics containing Stephanie as Spoiler and Robin as well.
It’s not a particularly deep series, and it is flawed (which I may go into sometime) but it is an incredibly entertaining and addictive comic. It avoids tripping up into the angst and grittiness that so many comics rely on to give them an edge, which is refreshing compared to Post-RIP Batman comics I have been reading. In any case, good effort for a series that is so obviously aimed at younger teens and a style of fun that I think DC really seems to be missing at the moment.
