The one-shot Sins of Youth Kid Flash & Impulse was published with a cover date of May 2000. It was part of the Sins of Youth Event. Instead of trying to find a way to break the age swapping spell, teen Wally West and grown up Bart Allen decided to do a media blitz. However, various villians and disasters got in the way of their interviews. ("Media Blitz", Sins of Youth: Kid Flash & Impulse, DC Comic Event)
After a few weeks of Green Cigarette and The Duke of Oil pestering Thad for more high-paying jobs, Thad finally snaps and demands to know why they don’t just get actual jobs. Cig starts shuffling his feet awkwardly, but The Duke does have an answer: He’s legally dead, so that really cuts down on the kind of jobs he can get.
A little while later, Craydl finishes The Duke’s fake ID and papers. Thad hopes he never has to deal with them again.
Cig and The Duke start brainstorming ways to get lots of money quick, and find out that the used car dealership on the edge of town is going out of business. They get over there as fast as they can (i.e. on the bus) and find out that they have nowhere near the amount of money they need to buy the lot, so they call Inertia for a loan. Craydl picks up and, without telling Thad about it, wires them the (Justice League’s) money. They purchase the dealership with little to no trouble.
The first order of business is advertising, of course. They do some “research” into what’s “hip” (which was just Cig watching MTV) and they decide to start shooting their ad.
Two weeks later, Thad, Max and Craydl are watching TV when a... peculiar ad comes on. Thad almost falls out of his seat when he sees The Duke, wearing what someone who only has a vague idea of what rappers dress like. Then he starts what could be called an approximation of rapping. About car prices. Thad can’t bear to look or listen, Craydl has to put himself on mute so that his laughter doesn’t drown out the commercial and Max is just confused as to why this man thought he could rap.
Then Cig joins in. He is somehow worse than The Duke, as he can barely raise his voice, let alone stay on beat. A boom mic lowers on screen. The ad ends with the location getting shown on screen. but they decided to use a “radical” font, rendering the text unreadable. Max decides to check the place out to see if it’s on the level. He is not the only one who has “business” with the store.
Max goes the next day and finds the largest amount of terrible cars he’s seen outside of a junkyard. The Duke immediately starts trying to sell him a car. Max goes along with it, taking the opportunity to inspect the place. He comes to the conclusion that, while he could call the cops on them for trying to sell broken cars, he decides to leave them alone as no one could be dumb enough to buy from this place. Then he sees a truck (driven by Cig) with a filthy car in tow that, among other things, does not have wheels. Max decides that maybe he should call the police.
Right as he’s about to leave, a red, white and blue monster truck comes roaring through the lot, crushing half a dozen cars. It screeches to a halt and Glory Shredder pops out of the window, armed with a rocket launcher. He starts firing indiscriminately and (if he wasn’t completely drowned out by explosions) yelling for Green Cigarette to face justice. By this point Cig has already jumped into a ditch and Max has suited up.
The Duke decides that these cars are not worth getting shot with a rocket launcher and hops in the tow truck and gets the hell out of there. At least, he tries to. Glory Shredder drives after him for a moment before realizing “Oh, wait I have a rocket launcher!” He pulls the trigger in the same instant that Max punches him in the face. The rocket hits its mark.
A week later, Thad runs into Cig and The Duke. He really hopes that they don’t ask him for anything. They tell him that The Duke is legally dead again and no one wants to hire Cig because they don’t want Glory Shredder destroying their stores. Thad resigns to his fate, and starts looking for something for them to do.
In their monthly meeting, the Justice League discuss a problem that Martian Manhunter discovered: Someone is embezzling from the League. The amount started small, almost inconsequential, but the amount has increased over time. It went unnoticed until a rather large amount was stolen a month ago. However, everyone is far too busy to investigate but they promise to look into it when they have the time.
