A lesson in bad drama: Healing

Hello, and welcome back to Fanfic Masochism

Deep in our hearts (or maybe not as deep as I think), many of us want to be superheroes. We want to have a lot of cool, amazing powers, and we want to use those powers to either a) do whatever the hell we want or b) beat up bad guys and generally be a large scale role model for people the world over.

That being said, most of the people who write superhero stories are not necessarily good at it.

You are now humming Linkara's theme song

There are many aspects of a superhero story that need to be addressed: Powers or no powers, secret origins, love interests, villains, that sort of thing. Handled properly, and the hero and universe does have a chance at making it big, or at the very least catching the attention of the viewers. Handled… oddly, and you get Healing, a Young Justice fanfic by Spawn of Nerdom.

Needless to say, spoilers ahead.

Our story opens with a note saying that this particular sequence is in Third-Person. I bring this up because this story likes to jump around a bit from first person to third, often within the same chapter. This is something that I feel is a bit distracting; if you bounce around from POV to POV too quickly, then it doesn’t give me enough time to settle in to one type of narration and it generally comes off as the author not knowing what kind of story he or she wanted to tell.

Whatever. This is the prologue, where we are introduced to our hero, Jupiter Williams.

Okay, that might be jumping the gun a teensy bit, but it is a valid concern. One of the biggest warning signs of a Mary Sue is if the character has a name that doesn’t seem normal within the context of the universe (Such as naming your character “Skye” in a universe populated by East Asian cultures). This is done so the character seems “special”, like their parents knew from the time the kid was born that they were going to be the best thing since sliced bread. Of course, since this is a superhero story weird names from the common man are common enough (seriously, Stormy Knight (Phantom Lady from “Uncle Sam and the Freedom Fighters)), but it still seems like an odd name, especially considering her rather bland last name.

Unless we’re talking about Ash Williams, but that’s something else entirely.

Anyway, at this point in time little Jupiter Williams is in the car with her parents. It’s a rainy day in Gotham, and the family is moving there due to Mr. Williams’ new job at the observatory owned by Bruce Wayne.

Start placing your bets for how long it takes for them to die.

And one thing I’ve noticed about this story is that almost every single sentence gets its own paragraph. Example:

“… but why are we moving to Got Ham?”

Her mom, Cecelia Williams, laughed slightly.

“It’s Gotham,” she corrected, “But it does kinda look like got ham, doesn’t it?”

Jupiter giggled and nodded.

“As for why we’re moving here,” she continued. “We got a job at the observatory. Bruce Wayne offered us the job.”

In my personal opinion, those last three sentences could be strung together into one, to read like this:

“It’s Gotham,” she corrected, “But it does kinda look like got ham, doesn’t it?” Jupiter giggled and nodded as her mother continued. “As for why we’re moving here, we got a job at the observatory. Bruce Wayne offered us the job.”

It might be seen as nitpicking, but I feel that having the lines strung together like this makes the story flow better. And that line “Bruce Wayne offered us the job” is clunky; get rid of it and absolutely no context would be lost. Maybe it would fit better if and when we meet the Prince of Gotham himself and Jupiter’s all like “Wow, Bruce Wayne!”

So, they drive, and after we learn that Jupiter has a fear of thunder, we go to the observatory. While they wait for Bruce to show up, Jupiter looks at some of the murals on the ceiling (is that standard in an observatory? I’m not an astronomer, so I wouldn’t know), and her first comment is wondering why the Big Dipper and Little Dipper are out of place.

Not yet. Her parents are astronomers, it makes sense that she’d know some of the facts (despite being five and unable to pronounce “Gotham”)… although why the painter got it mixed up in the first place is still up in the air.

We are also given a physical description of the girl: black hair, with green eyes behind blue rimmed glasses-

Stop that. It hasn’t been pointed out that this is unusual, and I’m sure there are real life people out there that have black hair and green eyes.

Anyway, Jupiter’s parents need to talk business with Mr. Wayne, so they leave her in a nearby nursery for a few minutes with a couple of books. Which books exactly? The author failed to mention, although considering where they are and who they’re being funded by it’s probably either “Astronomy 101” or “Dark and Brooding for Dummies”.

Business is wrapped up in one scene break and they return to the nursery, where Jupiter is diving in to, as I guessed, astronomy books. Bruce notes that the girl is even more intelligent than he had originally thought, even when considering her parents’ intelligence.

…

Mary Sue button, why haven’t you shown up yet? Bruce Wayne just noted that this character is unusually gifted and talented for someone her age.

Okay, that’s not a trait solely for Sues, but it’s often abused by them. A character who is more skilled at a young age than people who have spent many years training or perfecting their abilities is going to raise some eyebrows, and unless it’s handled properly they may very well be labeled a Sue. I’ll have to keep a closer eye on this.

So, Jupiter and her family hop back in their car to go to their new house. They get lost and-

-Get run off the road by another car. Both parents are killed, and Jupiter somehow survives with no injury whatsoever and is later picked up by Jim Gordon and the paramedics and taken to an orphanage.

Um… Why didn’t they call Bruce?

Think about it; Bruce personally hired these people to work with them. Obviously, their expertise means something to him, and losing them would be a major blow to whatever project he was working on. And the police could ID the bodies quickly enough, and would probably let Bruce know that some of his employees had just died. Adding to that, if Bruce did find out it’s likely he’d react beyond just being distressed at losing two star astronomers; Bruce is very protective of orphans, being one himself, and since he held her parents in such high regard it’s likely he’d try to do something to see that she was set until she became an adult. Heck, maybe he’d take her into the Manor like he did with the Robins and she’d end up mixed up in his life as Batman.

Or… not.

Even so, they wouldn’t just throw the poor kid in an orphanage; wouldn’t they look for next of kin or any living relatives before doing something like that? This isn’t the 18^th century; we have reliable records and contact information, so searching for relatives shouldn’t be that hard.

Moving on, our next chapter opens up ten years later with Jupiter having run away from the orphanage. Like any good Gothamite hero, she rants about how there’s no such thing as good and evil, but evil swamping out the good, with her as one of the good.

Let’s hope so.

Anyway, she’s running away from the orphanage. Why? Well, because they’re a bunch of abusive pedophiles, that’s why.

…

My biggest problem comes not from the pedophiles, but from what comes next: Jupiter gets picked up by the cops and taken to the holding cell at GCDP headquarters. Okay. Jupiter notes that Gordon’s not going to be too happy about this, but at least they’ll have a little chat. Gordon shows up and they chat about nothing at all, just that Jupiter’s dyed her hair to make skunk stripes and that she wants to be an astrologer (I assume the author was going for astronomer), and since she’s smart enough she might consider a dual major in medicine.

Okay, I’m beginning to see some warning signs.

During this conversation, are the pedophile orphanage directors ever mentioned? Nope. Never once does Jupiter explain why she ran away for whatever the directors did to her, and when they do show up Gordon just turns her over and goes back to his paperwork.

I know that Gotham’s corrupt and all, but you’re friends with JIM GORDON, one of the few honest cops in the city. Why don’t you just tell him and get him to arrest the assholes and then send you somewhere nicer? At the very least give me an excuse why you can’t; even Kalani had an excuse for not telling anyone about the evil voice in her head… a bad one, but at least she had one! You have no excuse for not telling Gordon about this!

And then there’s Gordon. He just passes her off instead of asking why this happened. You’re a cop, shouldn’t you be investigating why a girl would just up and run away from her caretakers, especially considering that this girl is a friend? Most actions have a motive, and Gordon’s competent enough that if he digs a little he could probably uncover the whole problem in the amount of time it takes to locate Miss Williams and get her back to headquarters.

WHY IS GORDON SO INCOMPETENT?!

Anyway, the directors take her back to the orphanage and start beating her with a freaking whip. WHY HAVEN’T YOU TOLD GORDON ABOUT THIS?!

We switch back to third person. Gordon’s talking with Batman and expresses his worry about Jupiter’s wellbeing. Bats asks why he didn’t go with her back to the orphanage.

THE GODDAMN BATMAN IS CALLING YOU OUT ON YOUR INCOMPETENCE! DO SOMETHING ABOUT THAT!!!

Oh, it gets worse; as it turns out, Gordon gave Jupiter a phone with his number on speed dial in case of emergencies. AND YET SHE HAS DONE NOTHING TO SOLVE HER ABUSE PROBLEM! YOU HAVE THE FREAKING COMMISSIONER ON SPEED DIAL, AND YET YOU’VE DONE NOTHING!!!

Kalani, I am terribly sorry for doubting your intelligence.

We cut back to Jupiter’s POV, and she finds herself in a padded room wearing an orange prison jumpsuit. Guess where she is, ladies and gentlemen?

That’s right! Jupiter’s just landed herself in the worst asylum in fiction, where sane people become just as nutty as the inmates and the Fool is king… admit it, Joker does run the whole place. Speaking of the Clown Prince of Crime, he’s in the next cell over, doing what he does best:

Is this story going to be how Mr. J turns Jupiter into Harley 2.0, a sister for Joker Jr.? That’d be cool… dark, but cool.

Oh wait, this isn’t the DCAU; that didn’t/hasn’t happened.

Actually, there’s no development on the Joker front, as an orderly comes in to bring Jupiter food and crazy pills. Still being a good person, she thanks him, much to the guy’s surprise.

“I’m just not used to getting a thanks from a person who is legally crazy.”

YOU WORK AT ARKHAM, YOU’RE SURROUNDED BY CRAZY PEOPLE, SEVERAL OF WHICH WOULD THANK YOU TO TRY AND GET UNDER YOUR SKIN!

They talk, and it turns out the pills are actually pain pills, since… well, have any of you seen The Passion of the Christ? Yeah, same thing, but not as severe. And somehow, the medical staff at Arkham was capable of repairing that kind of damage.

So, those guys at the orphanage were rapists and flogged Jupiter severely enough that she required almost a day’s worth of surgery? Why hasn’t Jupiter died from these beatings? WHY HASN’T BATMAN BEATEN THOSE ASSHOLES TO BLOODY PULPS?! AND WHY DIDN’T JUPITER CALL GORDON AND TELL HIM WHAT WAS GOING ON?!

SHE IS A BIGGER DUMBASS THAN SKYE!

So the conversation goes on, and instead of being severely traumatized and in pain from the beatings, the rape, and the surgery (another note: Rape as Backstory and other traumatic backstories are often abused by Sues) she seems… normal. Really, the conversation is about as calm as they come, even considering that they’re in Arkham Asylum. If Joker was making some commentary it would have been perfect, or even better if we saw the emotional trauma that this girl has gone through in the last ten years, but nope. It’s about as casual if you went out with your friends for lunch and talked about life the universe and everything.

42.

We cut to the Batcave, where Batman and Robin (since this is a Young Justice fic, I’m guessing it’s Dick Grayson, age 12) are scanning Gotham for any signs that Jupiter might show up… While scanning is one of the many tools used by Batman, it’s not really the most effective. Scanners can be fooled, broken, or the people he’s made contact with can be busy or, since this is Gotham, dead. I prefer his other method of gathering information:

Remember, we’re in Gotham. The mooks always know stuff.

They get a call from Arkham, the director informing them that Jupiter was brought in earlier. Not wasting any time, they hop in the Batmobile and drive off (Robin making some idiotic comment wondering why someone like her would end up in Arkham. This is Gotham, people have been thrown into Arkham for less). When they arrive, Commissioner Braindead (I refuse to call this idiot Gordon) is waiting for them. Why hasn’t he let Jupiter out, you may ask?

“I didn’t want to go in without you. You’re best at judging people. Especially if it’s someone wrongly accused of being insane.”

YOU ARE IN THE ROLE OF COMMISSIONER JIM GORDON!!! AT THE VERY LEAST YOU SHOULD BE ABLE TO DO SOMETHING WITHOUT BATMAN’S HELP!!!

Actually, these characters are drifting slowly towards OOC, so I’m just going to jump the gun and start calling Batman and Robin Crazy Steve and Boy Moron (with regards to Linkara for Crazy Steve).

So, Braindead, Crazy Steve and Boy Moron walk into Arkham and single out Jupiter from among the cells (How? She tells Joker to shut up, and he taunts her as if he were a regular inmate instead of making some bad joke or manipulation attempt).

Okay, I know Mary Sues have the side effect of warping people’s personalities, but this is the Joker we’re talking about; he never has one set personality other than “crazy”. He might hit you in the face with a pie, he might blow up a reservoir to the tune of “Raindrops Are Falling on My Head”. The only caveat is that he’s funny, or tries to be funny.

But then again, this is a Young Justice fic. Joker wasn’t funny in the one episode he showed up in. And he wasn’t voice by Mark Hamill.

And Jupiter has recovered quickly enough from her physical trauma that she gives Crazy Steve and Boy Moron a nice friendly wave.

YOU WERE RAPED AND FLOGGED LESS THAN THREE DAYS AGO! YOU SHOULD BE CRYING IN A CORNER, NOT ACTING LIKE IT WAS JUST A BAD CASE OF ALLERGIES THAT HAVE DISSIPATED!

So, Jupiter tells Steve everything, which is fitting since Steve did not do any detective work beforehand. The real Batman would have figured this out by now. She tells him about the whips and the running away, but doesn’t tell him about the rape. Steve and Boy Moron leave and tell Braindead to take over, since the girl is obviously not talking.

“Not Talking”? SHE JUST TOLD YOU PRETTY MUCH EVERYTHING!

So Braindead says that it’s his turn for interrogation, and Jupiter-

“Okay, but don’t feel like it’s your fault. I didn’t tell you sooner.”

DAMN RIGHT IT’S NOT HIS FAULT, DUMBASS! Has the commissioner on speed dial and does jack shit about it.

She tells him, and Braindead gets mad (Jupiter even compares it to Joker taking Barbara… is this a reference to Killing Joke, or am I missing something?). Braindead storms out and we get a cut back to third person. Boy Moron tries to add some levity to the situation, and as Braindead and Crazy Steve brood he goes to Jupiter and… asks her about what she thinks of the food.

I know you’re trying to lighten the mood, but this just feels rather insensitive. This girl has been beaten and abused and instead of trying to reassure her that it’s over and they’re going to help, you ask what the food’s like.

Of course, Jupiter can’t have any real emotional trauma, so she’s absolutely pleasant. I can’t say that I’ve met a lot of abuse victims, but I’m sure they don’t just chat up people like they haven’t got a care in the world.

They have their friendly chat until she makes a cup explode… No, that wasn’t a joke. She takes a drink of water and somehow the Styrofoam turns black and blows up with enough force to not kill Boy Moron but still throw him back several feet.

I’m pretty sure explosions don’t work that way, but this is a superhero story so I’ll let it pass… for now.

So, Jupiter wakes up from this finding herself in a small, high security cell. In Arkham.

…

Yeah, that’s Crazy Steve, not Batman, because you wouldn’t expect them to place a newly discovered metahuman somewhere safe, like the Watchtower. No, you keep them locked up in Arkham Asylum and hope that everything turns out swimmingly.

How long until Jupiter becomes a supervillain?

Steve comes in and offers Jupiter a deal: once her back heals, she can stay with Commissioner Braindead, or join his super-secret team. Jupiter being a rational person who is still recovering from severe emotional trauma, chooses to stay with the Commissioner, at least until she recovers being very close to a Mary Sue, decides she’s physically and mentally fit enough to take on superheroics and elects to join the team.

“-My life has never been easy, and I only expect it to get harder from here.”

Admittedly, the rape, the beatings, and the dead parents have been hard, but we haven’t been shown all that much of your backstory yet. And you made it harder on yourself by NOT TELLING THE COMMISSIONER, WHO YOU HAD ON SPEED DIAL, WHAT WAS GOING ON!

Shifting back to third person, Bruce is having lunch with Clark Kent, and the two are discussing (who else?) Jupiter. Bruce thinks joining the team will be good for her, since now she’ll have some friends and can master her powers.

Bruce Wayne=Charles Xavier of the DCU… Joking aside that is a valid concern. If Jupiter doesn’t have any control over her powers, people will get hurt when she starts making things blow up.

Clark is curious why Bruce seems so beat up over this.

“Why would you blame yourself? You did nothing-”

“-That’s the problem, Clark. I did nothing. I didn’t make it worse and I didn’t make it better.”

For ten years? You’re Batman, you’re not going to turn a blind eye to something like this for ten years. And if you actually cared about your employees, Brucie, you would have seen that their orphaned daughter got set for life. Also, it’s still mostly Jupiter’s fault since she didn’t tell anyone about this.

So, Jupiter is finally released from Arkham after… two months?! What the hell? Does it really take that long to determine if someone is insane or not (anyone out there who knows, please correct me). Furthermore, she’s still friends with the freaking POLICE COMMISSIONER! I’m sure he could have pulled some strings to get her transferred somewhere safer. And as a newly emerged meta, wouldn’t the Justice League be more invested in her recovery?

Whatever. Crazy Steve Batman takes Jupiter to the Zeta Beam, and they head over to team headquarters. Jupiter of course geeks out a little, because we can’t be shown the emotional trauma she’s gone through. Boy Moron shows up later and takes her for a tour of the base, ending with a nice meet and greet of the rest of the team.

For those of you that haven’t seen Young Justice… go watch it now. It’s not the DCAU, but it’s much better than most of the crap that populates TV nowadays.

Anyway, for those of you that need a reminder, we’ve got Miss Martian, Superboy, Kid Flash (Wally West), Artemis, Kaldur, and Robin (but you already knew that). Kaldur’s happy that there’s a new team member, the girls and Kid Flash are happy that the new team member’s also a girl, and Superboy’s confused because he hasn’t gotten the idea of stripey hair yet.

Meanwhile, Zatanna cries in a corner.

Don't worry Zatanna. We still love you!

The team has a small psychic conversation, where Artemis expresses her distrust for the girl (given her sister is Cheshire, I can’t blame her). Kaldur decides to be the more proactive member and welcomes Jupiter to the team.

How does Jupiter react? Does she squee at the prospect of hanging out with superheroes? Does she get herself all hyped up about working alongside them and actually being a superhero? Does she show off her powerset, just so they can figure out how best to integrate her into team tactics? Does she show us that she’s still broken up about being abused and beaten by her caretakers, and that these people will help her overcome her trauma?

She asks if they want to play video games.

I get that you’re all teens, and that’s one way that teens bond and stuff, but you’re in a SUPERHERO STORY!!! YOU’VE JUST MET SOME OF THE BEST YOUNG HEROES OF OUR TIME!!! AT THE VERY LEAST YOU CAN SHOW US SOME AWE AND ADMIRATION FOR MEETING PEOPLE WHO HAVE BATTLED AGAINST TERRORISTS, DEMONS AND MEGALOMANIACS, AND SOME EXCITEMENT THAT YOU’RE GOING TO BE JOINING THEM!!

The next day, Jupiter’s walking around and realizes she’s lost (she’s supposed to be in the main hall training with Black Canary).

Wow, Robin must really suck at tours.

Eventually the team points her in the right direction, and when she arrives she finds Black Canary, Batman and Green Arrow. Oh, and bouncy balls.

The best way to train a metahuman

Of course, since we don’t really know what her powers are beyond blowing things up, she… well, blows things up.

It's funny, because in his next life his girlfriend can do just that.

Black Canary, who’s been watching this the whole time, notes that while Jupiter’s clothes get shredded by the explosions, her skin is undamaged. And pretty.

BLACK CANARY IS NOT A LESBIAN!

Actually, it’s just girl talk; you know, talking about moisturizers and stuff like that.

If they do become lesbians, I might just take Mad Stan’s advice.

Dinah makes the suggestion that Jupiter should try and make the black stuff (the substance that causes the bouncy balls to explode) spread across the ball faster. As she practices, Jupiter makes a mental comment about how her powers are not based on emotions, but she can turn it off and on at will… or at least, she should.

I think this would have been better placed during a debriefing, when there are more qualified people around to research this idea.

As Jupiter practices, Black Canary says that Batman wants her to be Jupiter’s counselor, to help with the emotional trauma.

After training, we get another Third Person POV and-

Author, was is really so hard to decide if you wanted to write this in First Person or Third Person? This is getting annoying.

Anyway, Jupiter is exhausted from spending a day making things blow up. She goes to take a nap and what do we get? Bad dreams!

Not necessarily; bad dreams affect quite a few heroes, Sue or otherwise. As I mentioned in my “Harry Potter turns to the Lord” review, Harry had bad dreams all the time when Voldemort was taunting him. That being said, like many drama conventions bad dreams can be utilized by Sues as a cheap way to exposit backstory, destiny, and “Emotional Trauma”, without the side effects of having it actually impact their interactions with the other characters (My Immortal and Legend of Dumbass Skye utilized that method a lot).

What exactly do we see from these bad dreams? Well… Jupiter comes back from purchasing groceries, she gets assaulted by one of the caretakers, rape happens offscreen, she hides in a closet and the assholes think she ran away to Gordon.

…

… I feel let down by this. I was expecting the dreams to be a bit more… intense, especially considering what happened to our heroine. We get the actions, sure enough, but the emotion? The pain? Nope, don’t see any of that (in the dream, at least; she does start crying afterwards). In fact, in the dream Jupiter just gets dressed and dives in the closet as quick as can be, as if she’d had consensual sex with the guy.

Trying really hard not to compare this unfavorably to Korra’s breakdown in “A Voice in the Night”.

But enough of that! It’s not like we need to see Jupiter recover from this emotional trauma, for it is her first day of high school! It goes rather well, all things considered (although it cuts again to third person), and Jupiter even meets some of the friends Megan and Conner have made when not being Miss Martian and Superboy.

“Nice to meet you all. I’m Jupiter.”

Marvin’s eyes widened.

“You mean, like the planet?”

She nodded and took a bite of her pizza.

“Yeah. My parents were astrologers.”

Of course, she kills the moment by mentioning that HER PARENTS ARE DEEEEEAAAAAD! The team mopes and we get a decent therapy session with Black Canary- INTERRUPTING INTERIOR DECORATING!

She plans to paint her room to resemble the night sky, and Kaldur offers to help out.

…

They’re gonna get shipped, aren’t they?

Anyway, the project takes three days; during this time, we are told they discuss things that are important to the plot and generally screw around (not in that way- they have paint fights, which Kaldur cheats at given his power set). They even have pet names for each other: “Guppy” and “Boom Boom”.

What, didn’t want to call her Sparky Sparky Boom Girl? And I think they’re still beat at “fastest couple to come together” by Kalani and Mako.

Of course, things go sour when Kaldur accidentally walks in on Jupiter in the shower and sees her scars… That’s a tad bit cliché.

He walked away, wondering how she got those scars.

… I had too.

So, the team is watching a movie and Jupiter clocks out on Kaldur’s shoulder.

Laying the clichés on pretty thick, are we? What’s next, the smart guy of the group sees their attraction and decides to pair them up?

Robin glanced over at Jupiter, who had fallen asleep in Aqualad’s lap. He smiled at the sight.

Oh I am so gonna get them together, he thought.

DAMMIT!

So after the movie Jupiter goes to her room to sleep, noting that she doesn’t want anyone to find out about her past and prepares for a night without sleep.

… Kind of late to start bringing in the emotional drama, isn’t it? If we’d seen this maybe two chapters ago I might have appreciated it a bit more, but… Well, I guess it’s better than nothing.

But screw that! Two months later and the team finally goes on a mission!... Really? Two whole months before they go on a mission? The mission? Go round up some dude named Count Virtigo (guess Count Vertigo was busy), Wotan, Poison Ivy, and Joker.

Oh, and guess what her superhero codename is: Boom-Boom.

…

Well, Combustion Girl was already taken, but…

That’s not a good superhero name.

So, they find the bad guys, they fight the bad guys, it comes out that Jupiter was in Arkham and that breaks the teams trust-

Really, it’s just one cliché after another. First you have the cutesy relationship building, then the misunderstanding, the friend shipping them, the breaking of trust. All you need is the spaghetti kiss and everything will be complete

The fight scene is nothing to write home about. It’s overly choppy and bland, and it jumps around from character to character too much. When it’s all over, the team decides to have a nice long chat with Jupiter about her past.

WHY. DIDN’T. YOU. DO. THIS. EARLIER?! This is basically the subplots of three of the team members (Artemis, Miss Martian, and Superboy), only it’s so dragged out and doesn’t have any real effect on the heroine’s psyche that it’s like it’s not even there. Jupiter is just a statue, a statue that looks like it’s solid but is really made of hollow plaster and the only thing hollow inside is a rotten banana.

So we cut back to Jupiter’s POV-

STOP IT! JUST STOP IT! IS IT REALLY SO HARD TO CHOOSE ONE POV AND FOCUS ON THAT?! YOU’RE JUST MAKING THE STORY NEEDLESSLY COMPLEX AND CONFUSING! WHY CAN’T YOU JUST MAKE UP YOUR MIND ALREADY?!

So, they talk, and Jupiter’s story is so heartbreaking that it drives them all to tears-

BULLSHIT! Robin’s parents were murdered before his very eyes. Miss Martian is actually a species of Martian that is hated and despised by pretty much everyone. Artemis’ father is a terrorist and her sister is an assassin. Superboy is technically Lex Luthor’s son. How is your little sob story any more harrowing than theirs?

Kaldur goes in to Jupiter’s room, they talk and make up and decide to play UNO.

“Perhaps… you can teach me?”

“That’s the plan, Stan.”

Right with ya, buddy

So, enough emotional drama! It’s not like that’s interesting, or, you know, THE WHOLE POINT OF THE DAMN FIC! Seriously, it’s listed as a Hurt/Comfort fic. I kind of expected to see HURT AND COMFORT, not this emotionally drained crap.

Next up on our villain hit parade: the Light! As they approach, Vandal savage and Klarion are discussing their plans. Mainly: kill the interloping heroes.

“Actually, there is one I would like to see. The one they call Boom-Boom. I would like to asses her, maybe make a clone.”

First of all: it’s ASSESS, you moron! Secondly, you want to clone a girl who can blow stuff up? Over a shapeshifting alien with telepathy? Over Aquaman’s protégé? Over A CLONE OF SUPERMAN?! OVER ROBIN, BATMAN’S PROTÉGÉ?!

YES! YES! Jupiter is a Mary Sue. Her name is weird, her backstory is tragic and yet doesn’t have an effect on her basic personality, she goes from “zero” to “bang” in three days’ time, and she’s so special that the villains IGNORE MORE POWERFUL CHARACTERS TO FOCUS ON HER!

JUPITER, YOU SUCK!!!

…

Let’s just get this over with.

Klarion captures… “Boom-Boom” (reading this again, she sounds like a stripper). Savage and the rest of the Light have their villain monologue moment, the team catches up with Jupiter, who breaks out and-

The only reason they reached their target is because they are round, and round things roll quite easily.

Can I get a fic that doesn’t have terrible fight scenes?

And then everything blows up and EVERYONE DIED!... I wish.

No, Jupiter somehow makes an explosion strong enough to level the facility, yet somehow doesn’t die. Everyone lives happily ever after.

This story sucks. The idea is interesting, but the characters are hollow, the emotional drama has no impact on the story, the romance is clichéd beyond belief, Jupiter is a Mary Sue and one of the dumbest characters I have ever had to bear with, and I’ve read Voices and Legend of Skye. So much could have been solved if the characters just talked for a moment about things that actually mattered, but nooo, we couldn’t have that now could we?

If you want to have a hard backstory for your protagonist, show how it’s actually affecting them. Don’t have your rape victim be a cheery, bubbly character unless you show that the trauma is still there and it still hurts. And actually show us this, okay? Is it really too hard to show your characters suffering?

Hopefully, whatever I review next week will have some intelligence behind it.