Superman Through the Ages! Forum

I was reading for fun the Superman Story Submission Guidelines on this website. Found  here:  http://superman.nu/fos/guidelines/rant.php

While reading most of it I felt like pumping my fist and going, "you TELL it, MAN!" I suspect most of us feel the same way after reading statements like:



After all, if we weren't "classic" Superman fans, we wouldn't be here, right?

All the things mentioned in the writers submission box are elements that make Superman WORK, from him being confident and fearless in personality to having Clark Kent be a timid disguise compared to his hero identity.

Some things not mentioned include Superman's supporting cast. Does Lois work better as a marriage-minded moll or as a raspy, independent woman with pluck? Both are Lois, and both are successful characterizations, though as much as I enjoy Lois's schemes to get Superman to marry her, this is a fairly sexist concept that shouldn't be duplicated today.

(That said, I think Lex is a MILLION times cooler as a scientist than as a businessman; for one thing, his ability to function as a publicly adored corporate raider has a short shelf life. Doesn't the Security and Exchange department take the business license away from any company that blackmails the world with earthquake rays? Also, Superman being unable to topple his foe makes him look like an chump, because he can't put his greatest enemy in jail ONCE. An element of futility is inserted into Superman's battles with Lex. To say nothing of the fact that it takes Lex from a scientist, where he is an icon, the very ARCHETYPE of the idea along with Dr. Sivana, down to being a derivative Kingpin-clone.)

One point in the writers guide that I would contend with, however, as being 100% necessary to who Superman is, is this one:



Personally, I think Superboy is no more necessary to Superman than Superbaby is. Don't get me wrong: I love the oddity and imagination of the Superboy stories, especially when you've got a genius like Otto Binder or Jerry Siegel making some wonderful, enriching addition to the Superverse like Krypto or the Kryptonite Man.

Some things that are totally necessary to the Superman concept include an idealized Krypton (otherwise, its destruction is no tragedy), the Clark Kent persona being put upon and dull (otherwise, there's no irony in the disguise). However, Superman not being Superboy doesn't change who Superman is, or anything about him that works - it can't be placed in the same category as, for instance, Superman being intelligent (totally necessary to the character). In fact, Superboy can actually hinder Superman if placed in the context of an Earth-1 with other superheroes. If Superboy and Lex Luthor and others were fighting 15 years before every other DC hero even showed up, it does stretch credibility for the Earth-1 timeline. Why were there no other heroes active around this time? Wouldn't the presence of the world's ONLY super-hero disrupt Smallville's status as a small town? Did Barry Allen or Hal Jordan as teenagers read about Superboy in the papers? And finally, how can a character like Superboy justify his position as defender of the earth and all the universe when he sticks around a town with a population of under three digits? How much crime can there BE in Smallville, after all? If the Silver Age comics were to be believed, Smallville must have a Mobster-to-normal-person ratio of 4:1. After the first few years of MURDER, SHE WROTE, they moved Angela Landsbury out of Cabot Cove because all these murders happening in this one small town was really stretching plausibility. One would think that sweet old lady was bumping off a few herself!

Just because the reboot did away with Superboy doesn't mean we have to all get sentimental about it.

That said, Smallville's importance has been exaggerated in the Superman mythos after the 1980s reboot. Elliot S! Maggin understood what Smallville's role in the Super-Mythos was when he described it as a "womb" that he could use the anonymity of it to gestate. Superman could have been raised in the wilderness of Alaska or the deep Mojave desert and it would do the exact same thing that Smallville does, and Superman would be no different.

Its a tough call, obviously, Superboy resulted in some nice stories, and its hard to discount his role in the Legion and the mythos of a lot of characters introduced that met Superboy...the idea of Clark taking on the role of Superman after the death of the Kents did always appeal to me...

I've been a Superman fan all my life in a very general sense, but got into comics in 1997. When I began, I began with the post-Crisis Byrne mythology and it took me several years before I would go to anything pre-Crisis (I was having a hard-enough time catching myself up on post-Crisis, after all.) I was an avid proponent of Byrne's cold and sterile Krypton; it was only fairly recently that I came to accept a different view of Krypton (even though I still could not accept a Superman who gets all sentimental about his life there.) As some of these concepts and notions have made their way back into the Superman mythology, I resisted them all and then came to accept most of them. I have made many other similar concessions regarding some of the older Silver Age notions of Superman.

But one area I cannot accept back into Superman mythology is Superboy. JulianPerez raised some great points and addressed many of my concerns about the idea of the character. I really like the idea of watching Superman in his early years begin to master the disguise and the superheroics. Watching a boy do that just isn't as interesting or inspiring to me. (In addition, after over 10 years of the character's existence, I finally like Conner Kent / Kon-El.)

The real point of responding to this thread, however, was to respond to MatterEaterLad's comment about Superman becoming Superman after the Kents died. I don't see how that is any different from Bruce Wayne becoming Batman when his parents died. One of the most appealing things to me about Superman is how connected he is to his (Earth) parents. Maybe it's because I'm a loser Mama's-Boy, but I love that the most powerful man in the world needs two human people who raised him to be the moral person he is now. Say what you will about Jor-El and Lara's genetics and their contribution to raising him and whatever you will say about how attached he should be to them, if it was not for Jonathan and Martha Kent, he very well might not have turned out to be Superman, and he may not have been able to sustain the act. Their CONTINUED support of their son is just as important as their raising him and instilling morals in him as well as inspiring him to adopt the Superman identity.

Guess I'll go with the minority opinion so far and say that I always liked Superboy, and the idea of such, myself; seeing Clark learning to use his powers as a youth and developing the training that would make him the world's greatest hero as an adult is interesting to me (vs. seeing an adult Superman fumbling about for the first time...).

Also liked:

- seeing it set around 15 years or so behind whatever the then-current year was... nostalgia, and whatnot.

- Ma and Pa Kent as regularly appearing characters (vs. someone Supes sees on occasional trips home as an adult in the current comics)

- Seeing young Clark deal with certain elements of the DCU for the first time, such as his first meeting with a young Aquaman (who's in action as "Aquaboy"---as IIRC the only other active superpowered hero during Superboy's time, unless Air Wave counts...).

Would imagine that seeing how the general public would react to the idea of a superhero showing up in an isolated setting (Superboy as the Earth's only superhero) might make for a few interesting stories... vs. seeing Superman show up just before Batman, Flash, Green Lantern, etc. show up within a relatively short time (vs. years) afterwards per the current comics' continuity.

Re: Barry or Hal reading about Superboy in the papers: Would guess Barry probably read about Superboy, before going back to his pile of old Justice Society and Flash comics. ;-)

Hal as a teenager didn't just read about Supes, but actually met him, in an issue of "New Adventures of Superboy" in the 80's...

While the current SUperboy is OK, I don't think his existence would be hindered/impossible if there was a Kal-El Superboy in the past... if nothing else, would make for some stories with someone in the public trying to pressure Kon even moreso to live up to Kal's legacy or something (than he already must receive)...

Superboy rules!

Without him there would be no Legion of Superheroes, no Lana Lang, no Krypto, that should be enough to justify him.

Another vote against Superboy here. I never could stand him, really. The early comics showed Clark as a young man by his father's deathbed, promising to use his powers for good: that's his reason for becoming Superman in the first place. Superboy was added later, more as a gag idea than anything else. It seems to me that both readers and editors were less literal-minded in those days, and continuity was not really an issue. Everybody understood this, and took the Superboy stories for what they were. It's only later that everything got out of hand and they had to establish a kind of chronology.

I always thought it was a stupid idea. I always hated stories in which kids brought down spy rings and foiled robberies as a boy (and that goes for Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys and the Famous Five and all o' yez), and Superboy was no exception. I didn't want to read stories about kids fighting crime and I still don't. When I read about children, I want Swallows and Amazons or Kenneth Grahame. I want Christopher Robin, not Robin the Boy Wonder.

And who the hell would buy the Clark Kent disguise in a small community like that? "Hey, ain't that the Kent boy flyin' around over yonder in his pyjamas?" "Yep, sure is. looks like he's got that dawg flyin' too." Even if nobody did make the connection, the fact that Superman started showing up in Metropolis a few years later, when Clark Kent moved there, should have set some alarm bells ringing. Superboy just blows the whole secret out of the water.

And one last thing: "Superman" is a word. It means something. What the hell does "Superboy" mean? That he's better than the other boys? No, it means that he's a boy full of super. It's just silly, that's what it is.

Not to mention Pete Ross, Lex losing his hair, Bizarro, etc etc.  (Or TV's Smallville, for what it's worth). Superboy is as essential to classic Superman as Clark Kent.

As an intellectual exercise, Superman can always be whittled down to one or 2 core concepts.  But he's just not SUPERMAN without the accumulated shell of 50+ years of history.  Including Superboy.

As for Smallville and its high crime rate (proportionally higher by population than Metropolis, with its plethora of heroes?), it is easily explained by thriving economy, location near major auto routes, neighbouring states, and large cities.  Superboy's presence also acts as a lure for certain criminals, aliens, and time-travelers.  Not to mention tourists.  Perhaps because of this, I wonder if Smallville doesn't function along the same lines as Man-Thing's Everglades: a sort of DC-style Nexus of All Realities.

Stared at long enough, any element of the mythos will inevitably stretch our suspension of disbelief.  And ultimately, I'm less concerned with who Superman is or what he represents, than I am with entertaining stories, universe building, great art, and, yes, nostalgia.

No argument here! I'm not saying Superboy's stories were bad. Actually, they were pretty fantastic and made incredible contributions to the Super-mythology.

What I AM saying, though, is this: 1) Superboy is really not essential to the story of Superman, at least not as essential as the other things brought up in that webpage of writers submissions; 2) future incarnations of the Superman story ought not to have a Superboy, because really, if you give some thought, the idea (at least presented in the form it took) doesn't make sense.





I'm gonna have to agree with Johnny Nevada and disagree with Jor-L here. Superman is supposed to be an effective superhero. He's the very definition of competence. It is for this reason that Superman's battles against Luthor after the reboot don't really work: because by the very nature of reboot Luthor's concept, in order to keep him an effective villain, Superman can never achieve a total victory. Superman isn't supposed to be like Ralph, the Greatest American Hero, who lost the instruction book to his super-suit. Likewise, for better or for worse, Superman is not Spider-Man either, who loses as often as he wins.

The moment Superman first shows up ought to be the moment that he is all ready to be a superhero and the training wheels come off. The "he sees this for the first time" phenomenon, which is the kind of story people point to in order to defend the concept of Superboy, is inherently dull, because it isn't showing us anything that we haven't seen before. We already know Superman's powers and their full extent, so having him discover a new one that he can do isn't terribly shocking or interesting. We already know his powers, we already know what's going to happen to him. Telling a new version of a "story we already know," like how Kal-El became Superman, is one of the reasons ALL-STAR BATMAN was so dreadful: it showed us the origin of Robin, a story told approximately 14.7 billion times before.

One problem I have with the Silver Age Superboy, is that his characterization was interchangeable with the adult Superman; the fact that he was a kid was not used as it ought to make Superboy a different person. This type of "Superboy learns how to handle his powers and learn to be a hero" story that is pointed to as justification for Superboy's existence was never done.



The problem with this is, in order to make Superboy stories nostalgic and rural with the amber waves of grain and all that, the whole "Americana" look that was achieved in the SUPERMAN movie, you have to fix the stories in a single specific point in time.  This doesn't work for comic books, which operate on a sliding timescale. That is, the Fantastic Four made their famous flight "ten years ago," not "in 1963." Superboy was at first, set in the 1930s, then suddenly, they were in the 1960s. Put the Superboy stories in a specific period, pretty soon Superman will start getting pretty old. This might be an interesting decision to make, but it isn't how they choose to handle these kinds of characters.

It MIGHT be possible to create a vague "rural past" without getting into time-centered details, sort of like how the Batman Animated Series was not set in any specific time point.



The Superboy stories have many logic holes, but I don't think this is one of them. Pete Ross and Lana Lang move to Metropolis as adults; that doesn't make them Superman. People from rural areas move to big cities.



God, I hate those stories. The ones where some random kid jumps on his skateboard and saves the city from Godzilla.

I loved POWER PACK, but the stories there were achieved BECAUSE the characters were kids, not in spite of the fact they were kids. As opposed to something like STAR WARS: EPISODE I, where we are asked to swallow that a ten year old kid can win the space version of the Indianapolis 5000, and nobody at any level, even Jabba the Hutt (or his insurance broker), points out that it's fairly insane to have any sporting event where a ten year old is allowed to participate with adults, let alone one that has a body count.

Although Superboy might be interesting if they choose to make use of the fact Superboy's a teenage boy, and so his thinking is very different than the adult Superman: decent and incorruptible, but more hormonal, more emotional, less savvy.



Telle...telling ME about the value of continuity? My Irony-O-Meter just exploded.

You're right, of course, that Superboy's role in Superman's history is great indeed. Consider, though: are these things contingent on Superman being a BOY? Could these stories, and the elements they introduced, have been told with Superman as an adult? The only one that I can think of that could not be, off the top of my head, is the Legion of Super-Heroes: those hep cats that make the universe safe for malt shops and hand holding wouldn't invite an over-aged square like Superman in. But apart from the Legion, Krypto could be introduced to an adult Superman just fine; Lex and Superman could be foes as adults, Lana could become a rival of Lois as an adult (and she DID, by the way) and so on. The decision to have these other things happen when Superman is a boy is an arbitrary one.



Interesting point. If a rationale could be created as for why Smallville is so "busy," the constant stream of diamond smugglers and scientific laboratories and mafia squealers wouldn't create disbelief. People whine about the Kryptonite stories that were used over and over in the first season of Smallville, but I personally had no problem with them because the presence of Kryptonite provided a rationale for why weird things happen in what is essentially a boring town. When they started getting away from Kryptonite stories, suddenly the Smallville concept was stretched: in this tiny town, there was kryptonite, oh, AND witches, AND Native American ruins...

Ah yes, sliding timescales... Fred Hembeck once noted that Superman had met President Kennedy in the early 60s, then, years later, he met him again, but as Superboy this time... because of course the story was set in the past. It couldn't be long, Hembeck pointed out, before Superbaby flew into the Oval Office with a mighty cry of "Me am here, Mister Kennedy!"

I picked up a Punisher comic book not so long ago and was astonished to find that he is still described as a Viet Nam War veteran. He must be getting on a bit; I thought by now they would have had to upgrade him to the first Gulf War at least.

Anyway, I certainly am not knocking the Superboy stories per se: I loved the ones with the Legion that Curt Swan drew (what's the one where Shrinking Violet has to do some surgery on Superboy and escape by his tear ducts, so he has to think of Jor-El and Lara to make himself cry?), I just don't feel they have any place in the continuity (Note: I am not a continuity hound. I don't care about discrepancies, to be honest). Superman is an emblematic figure, he doesn't need all that luggage.

>>

The problem with this is, in order to make Superboy stories nostalgic and rural with the amber waves of grain and all that, the whole "Americana" look that was achieved in the SUPERMAN movie, you have to fix the stories in a single specific point in time. This doesn't work for comic books, which operate on a sliding timescale. That is, the Fantastic Four made their famous flight "ten years ago," not "in 1963." Superboy was at first, set in the 1930s, then suddenly, they were in the 1960s. Put the Superboy stories in a specific period, pretty soon Superman will start getting pretty old. This might be an interesting decision to make, but it isn't how they choose to handle these kinds of characters.

It MIGHT be possible to create a vague "rural past" without getting into time-centered details, sort of like how the Batman Animated Series was not set in any specific time point. <<

I meant "nostalgia" as in "oh, I recall that sort of stuff from 15 years ago" (from whatever the current year is), and letting Superboy's setting float behind the present (just as in 1991 or so we got an episode of the SImpsons about Bart being born in c. 1980, with appropriate trappings, but a 2000-ish episode features a kid Bart's age being born around the first Gulf War). Thus, the year would just be "15 years ago", not a specific year (since I agree that causes problems).

Sorry if I wasn't clear earlier...

Re: Smallville attracting an unusual amount of oddities: The "Smallville" TV show doesn't seem to have any lack of plot material to draw from, despite the town's size...

I wouldn't mind seeing a new Superboy series like the "New Adventures of Superboy" title from the 80's (and its increased emphasis on Superboy being a teenager, particularly the latter issues in the run---along with giving a still-unresolved subplot about Jonathan Kent running for city council and dealing with Smallville possibly getting its first shopping mall, with the effect it'd have on businesses...).

The main problem with Superboy is this: if Clark/Kal has already been Superboy for several years, it makes the first appearance of Superman very un-dramatic. "Oh, so he's grown up and calls himself 'Superman' now. OK, whatever." It should be "Wow! Who's this flying guy with the cape?"

I think the Superboy stories should've never been more than a "What If?" scenario, and making them canonical was a mistake.

marlon brandon as jor-el is very important to superman.

Ahhh, yes. Well, one of the great strengths of a mostly consistent continuity is that there are no real "problems," only inventive solutions waiting to be revealed. The guy that did the Marvel Appendix pointed out a possible solution on the ten year sliding scale, which has Thor, Flash Thompson, and Buzz Baxter going to Vietnam: on Marvel-Earth, there was a SECOND Vietnam War, 8-10 years ago.

I *DO* regret that Ben and Reed are no longer World War II veterans. It wasn't just a fun little detail; it was something that characterized them wonderfully as being men of that generation, and also as the source of the wonderful cameraderie that those two have.



It generally isn't wise to eliminate possible stories just to make one specific moment possible. Many writers have characters die off permanently for the sake of a single moment, which is shortsighted because it closes the door to any future stories that can be told with said characters. But the fact that if the Superboy chapter were closed, would ADD to the power of that specific Superman moment, all the better. I don't know about you, but I had my heart in my throat when Superman revealed himself in BIRTHRIGHT.

Great Rao, you wrote that writer's guide we're talking about. I'm wondering what your thoughts are on this.

Actually many citizens of Smallville thought Clark was Superboy & tried to prove it.  Clark always found a way to "prove" them wrong.  Helps to be a super-genius. :wink:   Remember Kendall Kent?  Didn't it seem weird that he wanted to adopt his brother's adopted son?  What if he believed that Clark was really his son?  Also Bruce Wayne lived in smallville for a brief time when he & Clark were around 13 or 14.  I imagine that people would notice how Bruce & Clark look like they could be brothers.  Since everyone knew Clark was adopted, maybe they assumed he was Bruce's illegitimate half-brother.  Thus by the time Clark moves to metropolis, it's accepted by everyone (other than Lana) that Clark can't be Superboy's secret identity.  By that point most of them came to believe that Clark was either Kendall Kent's son or a Wayne.



        Marvel's Handbook also mentions another possible explanation for the "sliding" time scales, a reality-manipulater is causing it somehow.

to answer the thread question...

"Must there be a Superboy?"

While Superboy is great and his stories are wonderful, does he have to exist? I say yes!

Ok, you can do without him and still have Superman, true, but it just wouldn't be as good, it just wouldn't be the real Superman, the one from the 50's to 86. Golden Age sure, post-crisis yes, but not the best version of Superman ever created.

Indeed, nearly all the great heroes were heroes nearly from birth. Hercules killed a snake while he was still an infant which was sent to kill him by Hera. Remember mere minutes after arriving on Earth, baby Kal-El saves Pa Kent by lifting that car. He was born to be a hero. The Kents didn't make him become a hero, they just made him care for and love humans and want to protect Earth, even if it wasn't his planet. Later, thanks to the Legion, he came to love and care for other aliens worlds as well.

I have to say that I come down on the side of Superboy, I really liked the  Smallville stories growing up, and gawd, anyone DC wanted to kill by bad soap opera and circular and stupid time travel in the 90s has got my vote to survive anyways...

Still, you liked Superbaby... 8)

This is only effective for one issue, after which, everyone says, "Oh yeah, the flying guy with the cape," and it loses whatever novelty it had anyway.
Not to mention when the millions of other superheroes show up: where is his sense of newness or originality then?  Superboy adds to that and makes him different: he was a teenage superman before there were any supermen.  

It is also part of the myth that he goes away for several years (ie, to college to meet Lori Lemaris) before coming back as a grown-up Superman, inviting a sort of surprise and wonder response from the people who missed him or got used to Superboy (or used to thinking of Superboy as eternally young or as an urban legend).

Actually, Superboy kept operating after moving to Metropolis for college, changing his name to Superman sometime in his junior year (with three conflicting accounts of how this happened---an early 60's story involving a lie detector and a professor, an early 70's story involving a social worker, and the 1985 "Superman: the Secret Years" miniseries, after a battle with Luthor and other events [including his relationship with Lori dissolving]).

An 80's story did show that Superboy spent a short period of time (days/weeks?) dropping out of sight from public view after moving to Metropolis (so as not to make the public suspect that Clark and Superboy were one and the same via moving to Metropolis around the same time). An amusing scene has people in Vegas taking bets on which city Superboy moved to (IIRC, Gotham City and Metropolis were even bets, while Miami and New Orleans were long-shot odds...).

Please tell me more: I know the 80s story, and the Silver Age lie detector story, but not the other two.  It's going to take some scholarship to finesse this into the Supermanica.
 :D

Julian, thank you for asking.  I probably would not have contributed to this thread if you hadn't.

I compiled that rant (http://superman.nu/fos/guidelines/rant.php) a very long time ago and had pretty much completely forgotten about it.  I hadn't looked at it for the last few years until you started this thread, at which point I went back and re-read it.


The above paragraph about Superboy was stolen from Maggin (http://superman.nu/Maggin/kc-maggin-interview.php).  His full statement was:

As far as I am concerned, Elliot is the guy who literally "wrote the book" when it comes to Superman.  He said the above, so it must be so.  I also happen to agree with it.  Mark Waid did some incredible gymnastics in Birthright to try to get around this and whether or not he pulled it off is up for debate.

My personal take:  I don't think Superboy is absolutely necessary, but I think he's a fantastic bonus.  A Superman who was Superboy can be an "A+" Superman, a complete success.  But a Superman who wasn't a Superboy can never get over "B+" or "A-". Almost perfect.  (Again, see Birthright for the best example to date of how to do this).

Much of the appeal for me with Superboy is nostalgia - "my" Superman (ie, the Bronze Age Superman) came with Superboy, and came with some fantastic Superboy stories (http://superman.nu/tales4/remembered/).  The lab in the basement, the blinking signal-lamp, the secret tunnel, etc - what kid wouldn't love having any of those things?  Before I even read comic books, I had my own lab in my basement.  It's just a really cool idea.

The existence of Lana Lang and Pete Ross makes absolutely no sense without the existence of Superboy.  They serve no purpose without him and the fact that they still exist in the DCU is a result of Superboy's continuing influence, is spite of the fact that he's been erased from current continuity.

Superboy's legacy is an inseperable part of the legacy and mythology of Superman that flows throughout the Bronze Age future-history.  I love all that stuff - the tie-in with the Legion - that he inspired them, and that they in turn inspired him; Maggin's "Miracle Monday" holiday; Superman's (and Superboy's) exploits being studied and debated by future historians, galactic renown, the legends through the ages evolving into mythology, Superman's ultimate destiny as the ultimate force in the Universe, etc.

I think that many of the questions that people are asking in this thread - did other young heroes-to-be know about Superboy (of course they did - he is who inspired them!), why were there so many super-villains in Smallville, etc - are dealt with pretty will in the Sam Hawkins stories.  In particular, check out the last chapter (http://superman.nu/superboy-lives/tomorrows-lesson/chapters/?chapter=13) of  Tomorrow's Lesson and all of Strange Visitor (http://superman.nu/superboy-lives/visitor/).

By removing Superboy, the sheer power of Superman's legacy is diminished.  Look at all the heroes of our legends, myths, and religions:  Hercules, Buddha, Jesus, The Muppets, etc - all of them had their first appearances as adults, and then, over time, additions about their "super-powered" childhood were inserted back into the stories.  It's a necessary part of the pattern.

Yet I really like the Golden Age approach of Superman not existing in any form until the adult Superman shows up on the scene.  Those stories are extremely powerful, primal stuff and are the character's perfect first appearance.

I think that it's possible to do both - to have your cake and eat it, too - which I'll get to in a bit.  First, I want to talk about an important distinction that hasn't been made in this thread yet:

(http://superman.nu/a/origins/chair.gif)
Look at the expression on that baby's face.  That's Superman, right there!  Elliot's words can apply here just as much, if not more-so, as they do with Superboy.

One of my biggest complaints about the 1986 Superman reboot is that not only did DC do away with Superboy, they also did away with a super-powered boy or teen in any form.  The 1986 Clark Kent in the "Man of Steel" mini-series didn't get any powers at all until high school or college or somesuch thing.

But contrary to their claims of "returning to Siegel and Shuster," in actual fact it had never been like that.  Even before Superboy existed, the baby Clark always had super-powers.  Even in the first Siegel and Shuster origin.  As a boy and as a teen, up until 1986, Superboy or no Superboy, the young Clark Kent was using his powers.  It's in the George Reeves pilot, it's in the Kirk Alyn serial, it's in the comics, in the Christopher Reeve movie, it's everywhere and it's fantastic.  I believe that when DC removed this one aspect of Superman's origin, they completely emasculated him.  This was the fatal poison in the root that, either directly or indirectly, led to all the other major flaws in the Iron Age character.

One of the best changes that DC has made in the last few years, back when they were still trying to "evolve" Byrne's origin instead of just tossing it away outright, was to give the young Clark powers again.  Now, with Birthright as the canonical origin (at least, until this Wednesday (http://www.dccomics.com/comics/?cm=4407)),  there is no debate: There was a young Clark, with super-powers, lifting up that tractor, being a Superboy in everything but name (and costume).

This is a very faithful return to Superman's many and varied roots, I think.

So should there be a "Superboy"?  I'd love it if there were, but I don't feel as strongly about the name and costume as I used to.  However, I think it absolutely mandatory that Clark was a super-powered youth, whether or not he had that costume yet.  So right now, there was a superboy, he just wasn't called that.

As a footnote, I've mentioned this before elsewhere in this forum, and I'll mention it again here - this is one possible way to have your cake and eat it too - a re-introduction of Superboy where there isn't one:

The Legion of Super-Heroes comes back in time to 21st century Smallville, meets the young super-powered Clark Kent, brings him back with them to the 31st century.  In order to join their club, he wears the Superboy costume and takes the name.  So the 31st century, the Legion, Clark Kent, and us, all get Superboy.  This is where he practices and learns.

When Clark comes back to the 21st century, he never uses the costume or the name.  Like the existence of his powers, the existence of this "after-school club" is one of his secrets that he shares with no one except his parents.  But he alone knows first hand the grandeur of which the human race is capable, because he has seen it.

Then, after he's grown to adult-hood and made that mandatory death-bed (or graveyard) vow to his father, he makes his first public appearance (in our time) as Superman, to help lead us toward that future.

(http://superman.nu/superboy-lives/tomorrows-lesson/chapters/images/flag.jpg)
:s:

The 1970 story appeared in Action Comics #393 (written by Leo Dorfman), and was called "The Day Superboy Became Superman!" It involved something about a social worker Superboy had met while at Metropolis University, who was urging him to become more socially aware (who urges him to "stop thinking like a Superboy and start thinking like a Super*man*", I think one line goes...). He changes his name at some point after she dies during a building collapse...

The 1985 four-issue miniseries "Superman: The secret Years" involved Superboy's junior year of college, including his relationship with Lori Lemaris, Clark's roommates (from the earlier "In-Between Years" series), and Luthor finally becoming an adult criminal. Art by Curt Swan, with inking by Kurt Schaffenberger (and written by Bob Rozakis). After a final major battle against Luthor, Superboy (after all he went through in the miniseries, which took place over the course of months, if not a year) decides it's time he called himself "Superman".

The editor's comments page in the "Secret Years" has Rozakis acknowledge the earlier lie detector/social worker stories of how Supes changed his name (with example panels reprinted from both), but says his story explicitly ignores both those stories (he regarded the lie detector one as just another "secret identity covering tale"). Rozakis' story also shows how Perry White finally becoming editor of the "Daily Planet" (the Earth-One George Taylor, previously seen in the story of Superboy's first day in Metropolis, is shown as retiring from editing the "Planet")... which earlier stories seem iffy on when that happened IIRC (perhaps he was really an *assistant* editor here, while still doing reporting duties...).

Re: trying to make them all fit together: Maybe all three stories happen concurrently, and by the time he fights Luthor (which takes place during summer vacation from Metro U.), he's ready to finally affirm publically *and* to himself (after mulling it over during the lie detector test) that he *should* be calling himself "Superman"?

I like the idea of infant Kal-El gradually becoming more "super" as he grew  older, and starting out somewhat "super" to begin with, just enough so you'd barely believe that it _was_ possible for the Kents to raise him.  

I never liked Superboy because he tended to suffer from "idiot boy scout" syndrome even more often than Superman did.  I think I identified more with Luthor than Superboy in many of those stories.  It was easier for me to think of him as this totally separate character from Superman since he was often in the future and a totally different setting with the Legion which I liked more despite Superboy than because of Superboy.  For every one good Superboy story, there were tons of crappy ones, IMO.

Perhaps I'm sounding like I woke up on the wrong side of the couch (bronchitis -- bleah) so I'll shut up now.

One rather important issue, no?

The only way to get around it is that there be a gap of several years between the last appearance of Superboy and the first appearance of Superman. DC never depicted it that way; in the Rosakis version, like the earlier versions, there's no gap at all.

Not necessarily.  It seems to me the citizens of Metropolis are pretty easily impressed and desperate for excitement of any kind.  Don't forget this city is home to a guy who actually pointed to the sky and yelled, with gob-smacked astonishment, "IT's A BIRD!!!!!!"

I tend to agree with Rao (as I often do): Superboy isn't essential to telling a good Superman story (I love the old TV show, and there was no Superboy there), but he sure is a wonderful addition to the mythos.  And removing him from continuity (1) left a hole which no new concept has come close to filling and (2) caused all sorts of problems for continuity throughout the DCU.  

I always looked up to and respected Superman, but I wanted to *live* in Smallville with Clark and Lana.  Well okay, maybe just with Lana.  Who needs the competition?

I only liked Superboy when he was in the Legion.  Other than that, his stories always bothered me.
For one thing, Superman concepts kept being backdated to Superboy.  For another, it stretched credibility too much that both Clark Kent and Superboy came from Smallville and moved to Metropolis.  It was just too much coincidence for the legend.

How ironic that the 2 best examples of "having our cake": the concept of Earth 2 and the concept of a Legion with Superboy as a member, were both done away with Crisis.

The love of a primal, WWII-era Superman with no Superboy past had its material form in the Earth-2 JSA and Mr/Mrs Superman stories.

The love of Superboy could easily be manifested solely in the Legion stories, with or without some sort of "pocket universe" crutch.

And I too feel that the Smallville characters are more empathic than the Metropolis characters.

Maybe you just had to be there, I loved the small town exploits of Superboy, not that I bought that many Silver Age tales, some, but a lot of funny ones from the late 40s and 50s were reprinted in the back of Adventure, and they were "period" automatically...

Johnny, I just realized that we had already discussd this over at the Superboy thread:

http://superman.nu/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=82&start=16

It's true that a lot of the Superboy stories were well written and very entertaining. It's just that I'm not certain they were necessary to the legend.  It always seemed more like DC wanting to squeeze one more Superman book out.

i'm waiting for post infinite crisis when we have many many many superman family books agian.

the further adventures of e-2 superman
superman
action comics
supergirl
supergirl and the LSH
powergirl
superboy of earth-prime (actually a cool idea.. and rumored)
and hopefully we get a kon-el last clone of superman comic.

There were two good options for the '86 reboot:

1) reboot the Legion from scratch (unlikely, as it was DC's 2nd-best selling title at the time)

2) keep the Superboy background, but change the details to make it more credible (examples: no one but the Kents knows that Superboy lives in Smallville; he's seen saving people around the country but is never seen in Smallville, hence no "Welcome to Smallville, Home of Superboy" signs; he has to use a Legion Time Bubble to travel through time; I could think of other things if I tried...)

DC did neither of these, hence the continuity mess.

Guess if I could have Superboy back again, I'd want Clark with a fully open career, vs. the "Smallville"-style "operating in secret" bit, which I never cared much for (granted, I never cared for "Smallville" *period*, but that's another topic ;-) )...

TELLE: Yeah, guess we did discuss this already. Still fun topic, though. :-)

Re: Superboy disappearing before Superman appears: Rozakis "Superman: The Secret Years" does have Superboy vanishing from public for three months, then re-emerging for a battle with Luthor (that's televised via satellites of Luthor's around the world), after which he publically announces to the world (judging from a "Daily Planet" headline) of his new name, "Superman".

Believe me, I'm not complaining.  It just boggles my mind that I asked the same questions in the other thread, and got similar answers from you.  Embarassing --I still haven't read Secret Years, etc.

I agree. Superman doesn't need Superboy in his history.
That being said, Its one of my favorite imaginary universes, the superboyand legion of super heroes pocket dimension.

I think Lois as crack investigative reporter would have long since tracked down Superman's secret i.d. to Clark in Smallville if all the superboy stories happened in her universe. she's too smart not to.

But I keep my pleasures separate.

I read super girl as a separate story.
I read superboy as as separate story.
and I read superman as as a sepearet story

that being said I love the KAMANDI issues with Supes in em.