Young Justice #45

World Without Young Justice Part 5: Bang Bang Bedlam's Purple Hammer

Peter David – Writer
Todd Nauck – Penciller
Lary Stucker – Inker
Ken Lopez – Letterer
Jason Wright – Colorist
Digital Chameleon – Separations
Tom Palmer, Jr. – Assistant Editor
Eddie Berganza – Editor

This month's cover is by the incomparable Humberto Ramos with Wayne Faucher and Ian Hannin colors. Well, I'd normally call Ramos incomparable, but these covers have not done the job for me. Great ideas. Poor execution. This cover parallels part one of this crossover, once again showing Bedlam playing the puppet master from the shadows, but this time we get the alternate versions of our heroes. Stephanie Brown instead of Tim Drake, a darker Empress, Doomsboy instead of Superboy, Billy as the Secret, a Wonder Girl powered by Dionysus instead of Zeus, and Bart dressed as Kid Flash instead of Impulse. Technically, he's unchanged by Bedlam's scheming — he's just wearing a different costume. The one hero missing from Young Justice #44 is Slobo, and there's a conspicuous empty space where he was. Perhaps original plans for this story included an altered Slobo, which could have been interesting. In hindsight, that spot on both these covers should have been given to Arrowette.

Our story picks up with Arrowette, Wonder Girl, Anita and Billy eating the Chinese food they agreed to at the end of Part 1. But Wonder Girl ruins the meal by suddenly tipping over the table and shouting, "IMPULSE!!!" Billy thinks she's just making a stupid joke, but Cissie and Anita both find the name Impulse very familiar. Cassie realizes that the "weird little guy" they saw a few hours ago is Impulse and they should help him. So Wonder Girl promptly marches out the restaurant without paying the bill, followed closely by Arrowette and Empress. Billy, however, thinks the whole thing is idiotic and goes his own way.

We then cut back to Bedlam's castle, where Matthew Stuart has finally noticed that Impulse has escaped his prison cube. The scout left in there does his best to convince Matt that he's the real Impulse, but Matt tests this by pounding the scout with his magic hammer, which fails to produce another scout. After grumbling for a bit (mostly recapping everything for readers that might have missed a few things), Matt decides to check in on his greatest enemies. Tim, "Conal" and Bart have just begun sneaking through Bedlam's castle, and Matt decides to wait for the girls to show up before he makes his move. In the meantime, he heads out to recruit some help.

Matt finds Billy brooding on a rooftop, and he tells Billy his friends are going to try to take his life away from him. Matt shoves his fingers into Billy's head and shows him the way the world was before he began changing everything — where Cassie, Cissie and Anita were much more heroic and Greta was Secret ... and Billy was Harm. Billy is horrified by the image of his alternate, evil self, crying out that he knew he was on that path, but he managed to turn away from it. Matt explains that if Billy's friends aren't stopped, reality will shift back to the world where Billy is a villain, and the heroes are still heroes, just slightly different. He offers Billy the chance to help him preserve this reality, and after thinking for a moment, Billy agrees.

Meanwhile, Cassie, Cissie and Anita have returned to the spot they saw Impulse's scout, the burning remains of Jason Todd's circus. Realizing they don't have a plan beyond this, the girls begin arguing among themselves. A new Impulse scout casually asks them how long they'll be arguing, and playfully asks Anita if she lost her clothes somewhere. Now that he has the girls' attention, the scout explains that the first scout they saw was sent just a second after Bart escaped from Bedlam, which was why it was so panicked and confused. This explanation only further confuses the girls, but Cissie does remember that Impulse's real name is Bart. The scout tells her that in the real world, her name is still Cissie and she's retired from being Arrowette — news she isn't too pleased to hear. The scout then tells the girls they need to hurry, and he leads the way to Bedlam's castle, with Cassie flying behind him, carrying Empress and Arrowette. Anita wishes they had a flying motorcycle or something to take them there.

Matt shows Billy his monitors displaying all his reality-altering tactics, including causing the Boston Red Sox to lose the World Series in 1986. Matt then grins in delight as his second recruit arrives. At the same time, Impulse's scout leads his additional helpers to meet the real Bart, Tim and Conal, who all shout out, "YOU!!!!" Cassie vaguely recognizes them as Kon and Robin. Tim insists on calling himself Tim, but he also vaguely recognizes Cassie. Conal, however, immediately starts flirting with Anita, who wishes she had a loa doll to torture him with.

Bart gets everyone's attention and tells them that even though his scouts are getting weaker, he managed to make one more and send it off to find Red Tornado so they'll be close to full strength. Nobody else remembers Red Tornado, so Bart moves on, providing a brief history of Bedlam and his current role in this crisis. Matt suddenly shows up and sends in Doomsboy to attack. Arrowette fires three sleeping gas arrows into his mouth, but Conal warns that Doomsboy won't be stopped for more than a few seconds by the gas. So everybody runs away, quickly meeting Secret in the next hallway. Billy apologetically attacks his friends, but Bart manages to find a nearby empty room he says they can hide out in until Red Tornado arrives.

When our heroes enter the room, however, they find Matt, Doomsboy and Billy waiting for them. Matt reminds them that this is his castle and he does have magical powers. He then works himself up into a rage, yelling about how awful it was to be trapped in a coma and how he'll never be helpless again. Matt grows into a giant and nearly smashes Conal, but Anita teleports him away in time. Tim boldly says they'll find a way to turn Matt's scheme against him. Cassie picks up on this, saying Impulse could send a scout back to prevent Bedlam's energy from returning to Matt so he stays in that coma and none of this happens. Matt initially says that plan wouldn't work, but then struggles to explain why. He turns to Billy and Doomsboy for support, but neither of them can find a flaw in this plan.

At Tim's prompting, Bart creates a scout, but Matt quickly ensnares it in purple bands. So Bart starts making tons of scouts, but Matt is able to catch all of them, while everybody else starts fighting Billy and Doomsboy. A scout then merges with Bart, who gleefully announces he's found the Red Tornado and she'll be here any second. Right on cue, the Red Tornado crashes through the ceiling — but it's not the android we all know and love. Instead, we're treated to the original Red Tornado from the Golden Age of comics — Ma Hunkel, a chubby, middle-aged woman, dressed in a cheap, home-made costume, topped off with a pot on her head. But as silly as Ma is, she gets the job done. She lands on Matt's shoulder and begins pulling his hair.

The arrival of Red Tornado provides Bart the distraction he needs, but as Tim notices, Bart isn't feeling too good right now. But Bart sends out another scout, thinking to himself that he might be a goner, much like the other Flashes in events like this. Matt slaps Red Tornado off him half a second too late, and the scout manages to begin its journey back in time to undo the damage Bedlam caused.

We suddenly cut to the Young Justice headquarters at the Catskills resort, where Secret is enjoying a late game of tennis with new member Ray. Secret is overjoyed to see Robin has appeared on the tennis court, accompanied by Superboy, Wonder Girl, Empress and Cissie, all restored to their happy, normal versions of themselves. As they slowly realize they're not in Bedlam's castle anymore, Ray asks if they always talk like they're in the middle of something that needs a ton of footnotes. Secret asks who Bedlam is and where Impulse is.

Impulse then arrives, gladly telling everyone that his scout managed to stop Bedlam's energy. Matt's still in his coma, which Bart says is sad, but it's better than the alternative. Bart's also pleased to report that he didn't die from making too many scouts. Robin tentatively asks Bart if his scout actually intercepted Bedlam's energy and then merged back with him. Bart confirms this, not quite realizing that he is glowing purple and also a giant. As Superboy says, "We've got a probbbblem ... "


And thus concludes the one and only crossover between Young Justice, Robin, Superboy and Impulse. And it actually was pretty fun. I love alternate realities and I especially love stories centered around Impulse. It was Bedlam's (understandable) hatred of Impulse that launched this whole thing, and it was the exploitation of Impulse's new power that made it possible. It was neat to see the destructive potential of Bart's scouts, as well as explore the limitations of this power. However, I feel Todd Nauck could have played up Bart's physical exhaustion a bit more in this issue.

My biggest complaint with this story was simply that I wanted more. I'm not saying we necessarily needed more issues, but we probably could have used the given pages a bit more economically. There was a bit of repetition in the Impulse issue, and the Robin issue devoted half its pages to a completely separate story. And I'm not saying we needed much more information, just a few more specifics would have been nice. Instead of merely saying that Young Justice changed, give us a quick panel of an Impulse scout taking a specific item that triggered the change.

Humberto Ramos' covers were a bit of a disappointment. And the Robin issue was the weakest both in terms of story and art. But Todd Nauck and Carlo Barberi both excelled on the artwork in their issues. And I was surprised by how much I liked Bart in a Kid Flash uniform.

Ultimately, though, this story did well for a five-part crossover with four different creative teams. I enjoyed the repetition of the issues ending with somebody shouting, "YOU?!" It was fun to see Jason Todd and the original Red Tornado. And it was truly fitting that the threat that created Young Justice was what brought them back together years later.

Brian Yardley, of Murray, Utah (my home state!), thanks DC for finding a home for the Ray, who had essentially been in limbo after his solo title was canceled in 1996. Brian also asks for Robin and Impulse to return to Young Justice, but if they can't, he suggests Damage, Bubble Boy, Razorsharp, Jamm or Chimera. Eddie Berganza admits the main reason Ray joined YJ was because Nauck wanted to draw him.

Tim Lapetino is also very excited to have the Ray back and he wonders how he'll interact with Robin, should he return to Young Justice.

Joe Kucharski III, of Collingswood, N.J., admits he wasn't interested in Young Justice until Our Worlds at War (see, event comics can bring in new readers!). Joe praises Peter David's humor and Nauck's art, and also thanks them for putting Ray on the team.

Brent Caley, of Irmo, S.C., says Ray is his favorite character, and he hopes he stays on the team even after Robin and Impulse return. Brent also asks for the Star-Spangled Kid to join Young Justice, saying she's too young for the JSA. Now for the new ads:

You don't customize your car, you customize everyone else's. Totaled! Less road, more rage. For Xbox.

It's time to duel! Yu-Gi-Oh! for PlayStation and Game Boy Color.

Power up! DragonBall Z: The Legacy of Goku for Game Boy Advance.

Got chocolate milk? With biker Matt Hoffman.

Next time, before we witness Bart with the power of Bedlam, we'll take a very quick look at our other alternate reality created by another genie with nearly limitless power in JSA #36.