Superboy: Yes or no?

[superduperman]

Do you think Superman should be a costumed Superboy? You can have quantifiers like only with the Legion or something. If so, under what circumstances do you think he should? What restrictions, if any, would you put on it?

[Ascended]

Yes, Clark should be Superboy.....but with quantifiers.

First; no big public adventures. The arrival of Superman needs to be a huge moment in human history, but if Clark has been flying around as a public figure in the Midwest for years, in the same costume and using basically the same name, then Superman isn't a big deal, its just a graduation.

So Clark's teen adventures should be covert, without a costume or codename or any public recognition. He can be a folk tale and urban myth the people of Kansas share with tourists, but nothing else.

Additionally, when he's in the future with the Legion Clark *should* wear the costume and use the Superboy name. It's the only time when he should. Now, if his powers haven't grown beyond Golden Age levels (as with Morrison's Action) then Clark can use a flight ring and/or force field belt to make up the difference, but he definitely has to be part of a larger heroic community, with all the trappings, when he's with the Legion.

[Jim Kelly]

I've seen "both sides now," as Joni Mitchell would say, and I much prefer the adventures of Superman when he was a boy to not having those adventures.

[Celgress]

Yes, Clark should be Superboy.....but with quantifiers....

This is my stance as well. He can be Superboy in the Legion but with qualifiers.

[Sacred Knight]

Yes. But only with the Legion. Any decent adventure he has in the suit and being called Superboy happen in the future. After said adventures certain memories like the name Superboy and the costume are wiped from his memory. He'll remember the team, he'll remember the future, but to him they just called him Clark and he was in regular clothing. When he's not in the future, he can be at times tempted to do some superheroing around Smallville, but he does it in great secrecy, very cloak and dagger. I toy with the idea that Smallville is so tight-knit and trust worthy that some adults within the community are in on the secret as well. But I go back and forth on that. Furthermore, any relic or reference to his own influence and legacy that he might accidentally see in the future is also wiped. This way to him by the time he's an adult and just about ready to become Superman, the name, the costume, its new to him. And he has no clue of his exploits and what he's going to mean to the world. What fantastical thing he knows going in is that a long time ago he made some time traveling friends from the future and visitied that future. But he has yet to grasp the explicit ties it had to him. Not until much later on, should the Legion eventually feel prudent to let the adult Superman finally remember the whole thing.

[Jim Kelly]

To use the MCU as a point of contrast, it's been pointed out that the X-Men don't work in the same world that has the Avengers. So if they're going to re-introduce the X-Men, they'll have to somehow justify the mutant-hating in a world that accepts Thor and Captain America. Somehow, when Stan Lee was wriing the comics, there wasn't that problem.

This happens when you divide characters off from continuity and then try to bring them back in again. Superboy was perfectly fine on the old Earth-One. Now that continuity has shifted, it's hard to put him back where he belongs, without explaining away the inconsistencies.

However, what I loved about the Superboy I grew up with was that he was a celebrity. Eveyone on Earth knew about him. There was a big sign on the outskirts of Smallville that said it was the home of Superboy. Aliens travelled through time and space to meet the Boy of Steel.

I would rather change DC continuity to fit that reality. I don't think the main Earth is made any better by not having any super-heroes in its past. If it didn't have the JSA, then it would at least have other costumed heroes in its history. So the fact that there's a kid super-hero would not be especially unusual.

[Kuwagaton]

That's a good point. I'm really not one to believe that Superman has to be the first superhero, and I think that idea is maybe a little worse with Superboy. I think it takes away from the small town silliness of the old stories and tv show.

When it comes to the "main" Superman it's a no from me, but I hate to make it sound so simple. I like Superboy well enough and don't believe compromise is needed for the concept, but it's a staple of an earlier time. Comics are so serious now among other factors, and Superboy just doesn't fit. Johns even brought it back to do nothing with it, for probably the most definitive example of how it translates.

[Jon Clark]

Superboy to me just fits the type of Superman, I prefer.

I like the powers from Day 1 approach. They can be dialed down so Superman was still only "leaping an 1/8th of a mile, lifting cars, and surviving things short of small explosions" in his early career. But by the time he is a teen it should be obvious he isn't just a human with exceptional strength (i.e. No one human no matter their training can do this stuff).

And Clark's desire to help shouldn't just appear one day after he has moved to Metropolis. He should have the desire to do the same types of things Superman does since his youth. And I don't buy that if he is active at say age 16 that somehow he manages to keep to the shadows for years until he encounters a need to go public as Superman.

I don't buy the "acting in secret" working for a young inexperienced Clark long-term and I don't accept a Clark that had powers but stood by when bad things happened. So to me Superboy's existence is a given. Clark has to act and if he is discovered while acting it can't be without a cover like "Superboy". My concession to the Legion is that they give him assistance in a number of ways. It may be that Clark's public debut doesn't occur until after he has been trained by the Legion for a year or so beforehand. Or it may be that they intervene enough in his early days to cover any blunders (like Chamelion Boy posing as Clark or Ultra Boy acting as Superboy when he needs to be in both IDs) until Clark has the super hero role down better. Or maybe the flight ring is something he uses during his Legion membership that allows Superboy to get places faster so Clark's main adventures are all far enough from Smallville that no one connects him to it (or Clark).

[Jim Kelly]

Somehow Alan Moore was able to make all this work with Supreme--having a bright but outré past and living in a more grounded present.

[Vampire Savior]

I'm going to go with yes, but only with the Legion. Otherwise, I think Superboy diminishes the coming of Superman. I'm of the mind that John Byrne got that part right.

[qwertyuiop1998]

yes,i mean superboy i perspective is some explanations to why when he become superman his capability and mature method,superboy experience made him more capable as a superhero
beside,his powers made him is not normal even him pretend to be,and superboy a part of his unusually manifestation(positive point)

[Netherman14]

Only with the Legion in the 30th century, should Kal/Clark be functioning openly as Superboy. otherwise, his superheroics at Smallville should be a lot more covert until he moves to Metropolis and becomes Superman.

[daBronzeBomma]

As virtually everyone else has said: yes. And as half of those have said: but only with the Legion.

Clark needs to have been Superboy prior to being Superman. When he publicly debuts as an adult, it's the biggest deal (up until that point) on the DCU Earth.

Clark needs to already have the experience to know what to do as a hero. How to fully and most effectively use his powers in almost any given scenario involving much less durable life forms. How to not cause wanton destruction. How to deal with enemies who have his own level of power. He needs to have that confidence that he knows what he is doing.

All that comes from him learning from his rookie mistakes from his full-time "college days" of being a costumed Superboy (jeans & t-shirt & workboots & cape outfit, please).

Because without the Clark as secret Superboy, we get the Clark from MAN OF STEEL: completely unprepared and overwhelmed from going public and making a lousy first impression on the world.

I hope when they inevitably hard-reboot the entire DCU around 2024-25, they incorporate the Legion and Superboy into Clark's backstory.

[The World]

Superboy!Kal is just good fun, there's been no effective replacement either for that kind of childhood in the character's history. It's produced quite a lot of content for something that DC keeps trying to bury and frankly was actually significant to the character in the long term. Other Gen 1 Superhero's have had attempts to make them kid superhero's but it doesn't really stick the way it does with Supes. It was one of Siegel's original ideas for the character IIRC, and it fits that a guy with no real inciting incident to spur on his superheroics probably made a lifelong habit of doing superheroics. You can spruce it up for modern times and maybe not have him go public with a suit and all but there definitely should be adventures to be had in his childhood. Percy Jackson, Harry Potter, etc. The concept already has gotten a cartoon anyways.

IDK it just kind of fits in my eyes.

[superduperman]

I feel like I should have included more options here but I'm not sure what they should be. Superboy is a very complicated character with a very complicated history. It's part of the reason I've never felt fully comfortable with him. The versions of Superman I grew up with didn't really have Superboy as part of his history with the exception of the Superboy TV show and even then he was in college by that point and a legal adult. The Legion stuff always bothered me in that it always felt like they were putting him in harms way before he had a chance to become the hero that history says he becomes. Sort of like going back and putting George Washington in a modern day battle and just kind of hoping he doesn't get killed. Especially if we're dealing with a Superboy who isn't fully powered yet. It's one thing to have a version like the old Earth 1 who was crushing coal into diamonds at two, it's another to have something along the lines of New 52 who was still vulnerable to bombs.

My ideal version of a Superboy is something more along the lines of Smallville where he helps people in secret but doesn't necessarily have a costume. A super-boy only in the most generic sense. As sort of a precursor to his future career as Superman. I kind of agree that there is no real way to do it in the modern day where someone doesn't put two and two together if he operates out in the open. I find it interesting that both Johns and Morrison tried to bring the Legion back into his history but neither really did anything with them. Which begs the question: Is there any use for them in his history today? Morrison didn't really do a "Superboy" in the technical sense. And Johns didn't seem to have a reason to bring him back other than as an excuse to sort of "fix" Legion history. He was a solution to someone else's problem. I do agree Superman needs a sort of "learning curve" to avoid mistakes. And an early career before his official debut seems like a good way to go. Whether that needs to involve a costumed career as Superboy is up for debate.