The following contains spoilers for Dark Crisis: Young Justice #1, on sale now from DC Comics.
With the Justice League dead and Dark Crisis just beginning, emotions are high in the DC Universe. They're leading to some shocking results amongst the heroes of Young Justice though. Whilst everyone was mourning the loss of their heroes and mentors, Wonder Girl had a very different reaction.
As all the heroes gathered to pay their respects in Dark Crisis: Young Justice #1 (by Meghan Fitzmartin, Laura Braga, Luis Guerrero and Pat Brosseau), Cassie Sandsmark saw her fellow Young Justice teammates and old friends Tim Drake, Conner Kent and Bart Allen in the crowd. As Robin, Superboy and Impulse, they had fought alongside Cassie's Wonder Girl back in the '90s, when they formed Young Justice. They were all best friends, but she was surprisingly cynical to each one of them in this issue.
Cassie acted as the issue's narrator and her commentary on the events of Dark Crisis was quite shocking. She focused entirely on the bad, with little to no hope in her voice. She talked about how life recently has been a "long parade of funerals" with a particular reference to the recent death of Hippolyta. During that time event, Cassie was almost having fun solving the former queen's murder. Seeing her go so deeply depressing now really hits readers.
What hits harder though is how she views her friends. She went straight for all the hard-hitting stuff, like Conner's devastating death in Infinite Crisis. She criticized Tim for still being Robin and harshly pointed out how he was tragically unable to save any of the father figures in his life. As for Bart, she basically said he had no identity of his own and just followed the other two. All of these are majorly low blows. Even if she is grieving the death of Diana, that's no excuse for anything she said.
The comic painted Cassie as being totally out of line. That's even more so the case when Young Justice actually gathered around after and talked. Even the retired Cissie King-Jones, formerly Arrowette, was there, and she got the same treatment too. Cassie resented Cissie for retiring and saw it as her abandoning them. Generally though, Cassie's cynicism speaks to the endless cycle of Crisis after Crisis that she and her friends have had to endure. She's angrier at how these major cosmic events have ruined their lives than her friends themselves.
Despite being young, they've all been in comics for around three decades now. Almost all of them have died at some point, which Cassie pointed out. It was so traumatic that she even mentioned that she wished Tim, Conner and Bart had stayed dead. Wonder Girl's cynical view of the DC Universe speaks to a certain few fans who may be fed up with the cycle of death and rebirth that has hit comics. The endless cycle that Dark Crisis is really all about.
The inciting incident of this story, the disappearance of Robin, Superboy and Impulse, serves to change Cassie's point of view. When her friends are actually gone, she takes back what she said about wishing they had stayed dead. In fact, she's increasingly frustrated by the fact that she's the only one that seems to care they’re gone. Everyone else is too concerned about the other consequences of Dark Crisis.
The missing members of Young Justice are stuck on their own perfect Earth, where all the pain they've been through across the years never happened. They're back to the beginning, in the '90s. Wonder Girl's journey to find her friends will almost certainly change her mind. It's more than likely that her cynical view of the DC Universe will slowly fade away, as she rediscovers the wonder and glee of being a superhero and being a part of Young Justice. Dark Crisis is all about legacy, so what better story for these now oft-forgotten heroes than to have them rekindle the passion they lost through all the turmoil and Crisis, all in an entirely new Crisis.