Superman Through the Ages! Forum

Goofy idea for a poll, I guess, but here it is:

Which decade/time-era setting (if any) did you like best as the setting for Superboy stories?

From what I've seen in various stories, Superboy was set in:

1. The 30's: IIRC Weisinger's editorial fiat of setting him in the early to mid 30's (since Super*man* first appeared in '38) was held to through the 1960's Super-books.

2. The 40's: Apparently a few stories had a 40's setting (the ambiguous time-era earliest Superboy stories and, IIRC, one story from the early 70's involving Hitler)

3. The 50's: Superboy's setting through the 70's comics. Recall the opening captions during Superboy's "Adventure Comics" run reading: "Eisenhower was president...the NY Yankees were the #1 baseball team... Lucy was the queen of TV...." Also the era chosen for Clark's teen years in the first "Superman" movie.

4. The 1960's/early 70's: the 80's "Superboy" run up through his book being axed moved his time era up to the late 1960's, with Smallville apparently entering the 1970's when the title got cancelled---recall a story with Clark and Lois seeing a Beatles-knockoff rock group, along with a few hippies showing up (Schaffenberger-style). Also the story of Smallville (apparently as a sign of its entering the 70's) being threatened with the possibility of its first shopping mall being built as a (never-finished) plotline...

5. Other: Insert some other era here---"Smallville"'s present-day setting? Some vaguely-defined-time-era setting? What?

What I chose:
As entertaining as the 50's setting was, I chose "1960's/early 70's". Might be my interest in general in that time era, the thought of wondering what Superboy would've made of  Dr. Martin Luther King or the Apollo missions or "flower power", etc., or the 80's Superboy comics I've been buying back issues of lately, or even the amusing thought that my parents would've been Superboy's age in those stories... ;-)

(Guess if they'd kept Superboy around, though, setting-wise he'd pretty much be a contemporary of myself---assuming a 29 or 30 year old Superman in the present, he'd be a teenager in the early 90's...)

Personally I liked the 50's.  I recall when it was a big deal that the strip was moved from the 40's to the 1950's.  The 60's/70's was near the end of the character's run (prior to being wiped out of continuity) and I don't think the creative teams were doing their best work on Superboy.

Here's my vote for the 30s.  All the early Sboy stories, great classic art, and the fantastic possibilities of a pre-WW2 world without a superhero, space-program, etc.

Both the 30s and 40s worked for me, Superboy really deteriorated for me beyond that...