Superman Through the Ages! Forum

I finally found where that map of Smallville was---in "New Adventures of Superboy" #22, from 1981. I scanned it in (with some effort---small scanner required scanning it into two parts and putting it back together again). Here it is, albeit auto-shrunken by Flickr (though I have the original easier-to-read original bigger size I can email to whoever wants it):

http://static.flickr.com/61/214734567_f765d63281_b.jpg

Thanks Johnny!  I've been curious about this since Kurt Busiek mentioned it in another thread awhile ago.  When I was a kid I loved maps and schematics of my favorite superhero's homes and vehicles.

I wonder if the forest behind the Kent home was know as "Trapdoor Woods" to all of Smallville!

Fanstastic! If it's ok with you Johnny Nevada, I would like to use this for the Supermanica so that everyone can enjoy it, I would have do some PS magic to make the file size smaller however.

It'd be fine with me... could email to you the original file (that wasn't resized by Flickr) if you want.

Sadly, I have the not so super dreaded dial-up  :l:  :gloom:

So that one that you posted would work fine, thanks :) :s:

Not if Superboy wanted the whole flipping world to know about said door (and his secret identity), it wouldn't be called such. ;-)

Some of my observations about the map:

- As I mentioned before, the map shows Gotham City and Metropolis as twin cities---perhaps one possible way of getting around the lack of space on the east coast for accomodating two NYC-sized cities (via treating them like Baltimore and Washington DC, or Newark NJ and New York City)?

- Smallville (and/or the surrounding outlying area)  has a large enough Jewish population to sport a synogogue.

- Smallville apparently has its own TV station? Would think Smallville would get its TV from Metropolis or another nearby bigger city; guess it could just be an independent TV station built by someone who for some reason thought a TV station for Smallville was a good idea (a la the small Indiana city of Lafayette (home of Purdue University) having one broadcast TV station, channel 18, but getting all its other TV from nearby Indianapolis... though its channel 18 is a CBS affiliate). Are there any Superboy stories that feature or mention Smallville's TV station (besides just showing the characters watching TV)?

- Some of the 80's-added Superboy characters (such as Bash's friend Hunk Wales and "Astralad" Joe Silver) have their houses pointed out on the map.

- Smallville apparently doesn't have a seperate junior high school; maybe it's a facility attached to the grade school (as seen in some smaller towns around here), or a throwback to the old days of elementary school going up to 8th grade.

Yeah, aside from the Gotham/Metropolis locations (that I hate, LOL... 8) ), I have to admit the synogogue and the TV station jumped out at me...

I can't find a proper bar anywhere on the map. Is Smallville a dry town?

Head to "Dave's Tavern" in the block north of City Hall... 8)

Ah, there it is, conveniently located a short walk from St. Ignatius Church!

What an awesome find! Thanks, Johnny!

I don't know if the Stationery Store would be the same size as a Theater.

Lo and behold, there is the home of the teacher from Bates's "The Computer That Saved Metropolis!"

You mean all this time Metropolis was in DELAWARE?!?

Notice that there are no chain stores... back then every shop bore the first or last name of the owner... I guess today, there would be one block labeled "Wal-Mart" and that would be it for the stores!

Is it just me or does it seem weird that Gotham City is bigger than Metropolis? What's the point of the name if Metropolis isn't the largest American city?

In fact, I wish they had done a similar map of Metropolis eventually... not every last street, but the major locations, like they would show the highlights on a globe of Krypton.

There are also some railroad tracks, as well, and a bus station.

I wonder...if someone needs to fly into Smallville (excepting Superboy, of course!) would they take a plane to Metropolis Airport and then just drive in to Smallville?



My understanding of Metropolis is that it is supposed to be in many ways sort of like many Canadian cities: not as big, but cleaner and more high-tech in many ways. Metropolis is like New York not in terms of size, but on the fact it is on the cutting edge in many fields.



That would be interesting. The most interesting thing about my entire DELUXE MARVEL UNIVERSE HANDBOOK is the map of Manhattan containing addresses of everyone and where they live in Manhattan. Of course, we know that Dr. Strange lived in Greenwich Villiage (along with his hippie girlfriends), but also it definitively gave locations for places that were rather vague: Sersi's Loft, for instance, is in Soho (along with Alicia Masters's studio), Matt Murdock's townhouse was on the Upper East Side along Lexington Avenue, and the Baxter Building is on the East Side, several blocks north of 42nd Street.

In the very last issues of "New Adventures of Superboy", a Smallville councilman wanted to build Smallville's first shopping mall----which of course would threaten various Smallville businesses, including Pa Kent's store. Several others urged Pa to run for city council, while Pa discovered some underhanded reason for wanting a mall to be built. However, the comic was cancelled before the storyline could be finished...

Would presume a similar storyline today would be Smallville (even the Smallville of teenage Clark's current time-era) trying to fend off a Wal-Mart-type store coming to town, instead. (In real life, various small towns have faced Wal-Mart coming along to blow away the various Kent General Stores...).

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I wonder...if someone needs to fly into Smallville (excepting Superboy, of course!) would they take a plane to Metropolis Airport and then just drive in to Smallville? <<

One 80's Superboy comic I have has the Kents driving into Metropolis to fly to Coast City (to visit relatives there) from Metropolis Airport, so for big trips to/from other parts of the country, looks like they'd have to head into Metropolis and head to Smallville from there.

Other comics I've seen suggests Smallville should have a very small airport or landing strip somewhere for small personal aircraft (biplanes, Cessnas, etc.), if the early 60's Jimmy Olsen-meets-Superboy story means anything.

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Is it just me or does it seem weird that Gotham City is bigger than Metropolis? What's the point of the name if Metropolis isn't the largest American city?
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I thought that weird too.... I'll chalk it up to artistic error and/or the extra area actually being Gotham City suburbs... ;-)