Young Justice #6

Seven Crises Finale

Brian Michael Bendis Script
John Timms Art
Gabe Eltaeb Colors
Wes Abbott Letters
John Timms & Alejandro Sanchez Cover
Brittany Holzherr Associate Editor
Mike Cotton Editor
Brian Cunningham Group Editor

Our main cover is our first from our new artist. It's simple, straightforward and effective. The white background is fine since these characters are more than colorful enough on their own. The pink shards all over the place almost makes this the sequel to issue #5's cover — our heroes have broken free of the pink crystals, and, as such, Gemworld itself.

The variant cover is by Ramon Villalobos. I had to take this image from dc.fandom.com, since DC decided to be so stingy (they even seemed to delete Villalobos' credit from the digital version — there was a suspiciously empty space in the issue's credits). This feels a lot like a Frank Quitely cover — for better and worse. I like the idea behind it, but I don't think it works for me. Making Impulse a scattered, blurred image was a unique touch, though.

Our story opens with an exact repeat of last issue's recap page, so we'll skip that and head right to the part where our heroes have unexpectedly found themselves in a jungle with Lord Opal nowhere in sight. Robin admits this sudden shift terrified him, which Impulse point out is really saying something, since Robin grew up in a house with Batman. Luckily, Amethyst is able to explain that what they just experienced was a confirmation of her worst fears — whenever Lord Opal uses his powers, large parts of reality shift. Wonder Girl then spots an injured Lord Opal being carried away by his men back to his castle.

Superboy then formally introduces himself to Amethyst, saying he's heard a lot about her. Cassie and Tim are both bewildered by this statement, and they demand to know how Conner is here. Bart joins in on the questioning, asking, "And how do you have a baby?" Everybody stops and stares at Bart for a moment, who awkwardly adds, "I don't mean how do you make a baby ... I mean how did you, specifically, have one? ... A Gemworld baby and wife." Conner sarcastically thanks Bart, then begins to tell his tale.

Long story short, when Conner first arrived on Gemworld, he encountered a very pregnant woman being harassed by the soldiers for being a widow. So Conner posed as her husband to protect her, in return receiving a place to stay while he waited for Young Justice to find him. Tim asks Conner what was the last thing he remembers about him, but Conner snarkily says, "That you just asked me that question." Bart astutely declares, "Such a good answer!"

Tim explains that he recently learned that somebody erased Young Justice from his memory, so he went to Metropolis to try to find Conner, which is when this whole adventure started. Bart is randomly attacked by a tiger in the background, while Cassie says she remembers everything about Young Justice. She and Tim save Bart from the tiger, while Tim points out how odd it was to hear Bart yelling "Young Justice" back in Metropolis. Unfortunately, we don't learn how much Bart remembers ... yet.

The conversation turns to Teen Lantern, whom nobody remembers. She introduces herself as 11-year-old Keli Quintela from La Paz, Bolivia. Apparently she has hacked into a Green Lantern ring and is able to use its powers without the knowledge of the Green Lantern Corps. She was in Metropolis to try to get an internship at the Hall of Justice. Jinny Hex then introduces herself, saying she inherited her great-grandpa's mysterious trunk from her deceased mother. She took it to Metropolis to try to find some answers. She shows the trunk's contents to the team, but not the readers. However, we do know there is one item labeled "Do not touch," which Impulse really wants to touch.

Amethyst tells the others she can help send them back home once they deal with Opal. She explains that his powers come from a gem of pure black opal. Before she can finish laying out all the defenses and obstacles protecting the gem, Impulse shows up with it. He went into the castle, past the "tentacle guy" and everything, and brought it back in less than a second. However, the Dark Lord Opal immediately realizes the source of his power is missing, and his castle transforms into a monstrous giant.

Superboy asks if they have a plan, and Impulse says he left it in his "late-'90s costume." So Superboy happily punches the castle in the face, while Robin asks Teen Lantern to protect the gem. When Bart hands it to her, he introduces himself with, "Hi! I'm Bart! Timber." Keli thinks his name is Bart Timber, but Bart was just calling the impending fall of the castle monster. Right on cue, the castle comes crashing down, but then begins to shoot lasers from its eyes. Cassie tells Bart to get the "opal thing" away from here, to which Bart replies, "What? Like, now?" So Cassie urges him forward by calling him "cutie."

Bart takes off with the gem, but by the time he returns, he sadly finds the fight is over. Lord Opal emerged from the castle to directly engage Young Justice once more, but was soundly defeated by their combined teamwork. As consolation, Robin lets Impulse finally shout out, "Young Justice is back!" And with that, our heroes prepare for their journey home, first stopping at Conner's farm to say goodbye to the woman who posed as his wife and her baby.

Amethyst brings Young Justice to the Gemworld Royal Meeting Hall, requesting that they thank the heroes for their work and immediately send them back to Earth before launching a full investigation into Opal's affairs. And to help smooth things out with her house, Amethyst announces she will voluntarily return to Earth, as well. The council agrees to this and loads everybody onto a platform, which teleports them away. But unbeknownst to our heroes, they were betrayed and sent somewhere else entirely.




Quite a bit happened here. Was it too much? We spent six issues building up the Dark Lord Opal, but when it came time to defeat him, everything went by so fast we really didn't get to appreciate it or let anything sink in. That's my main complaint with this series. There is so much going on — so many characters, so many questions, so many backstories — that it kind of dilutes the main story as a whole. That said, I'm still having a lot of fun here. Bart had some of the funniest lines in his entire career in this issue. And how awesome is it that he's able to sneak into castles and steal highly protected gems while his teammates are still in mid-sentence? That is an effective use of super speed. I'm still super curious about Bart's memories. Was his reference to his '90s costume a throwaway, fourth-wall-breaking line, or does Bart actually remember that he was Impulse more than 20 years ago? I hope we get the answer to that question. As of May 2020, we're still waiting. In the meantime, we have some new ads:

This issue included an astonishing eight pages of ads for Event Leviathan, written by Brian Michael Bendis.

The DC Nation interview is with John Romita Jr., artist on Superman: Year One.

Next time, we'll finally return to Young Justice: Outsiders, which had a ridiculous hiatus in the spring of 2019.