Clark before Metropolis

[CTTT]

I feel that this is kind of muddied a little bit. I think with Golden/Silver Age, it was neat having a Superboy in Smallville fighting crime, a friendship with Lex Luthor, initial love in Lana Lang, his time with the Legion. It all adds to the mythology of Superman. But Post-Crisis, it all gets tossed aside or shoved under the rug. Why did it need to be? Instead we get glimpses of his time in Smallville, but it needs further exploration. If he wasn't Superboy before coming to Metropolis, what was he? I feel like the Superboy stuff should be reinstated.

[Jon Clark]

I agree it's muddled.

A lot of the Post-Crisis stuff had a largely un-super boyhood. Byrne gave us a Clark who had a few feats as a kid but was still able to think of himself as an exceptional high school athlete and not a superpowered being. During the triangle years they referred to a broken bone (arm?) Clark got as a child. Even Jon is shown to have been relatively normal for his first ten years of life. So if Clark's powers don't really show up consistently until hios mid/late teens then his not being a Superboy makes sense.

Pre-Crisis where his powers were apparent from the moment the Kents found him and where he was a super-strong indestructible preschooler, it is more complicated. It's hard to believe that Clark didn't either accidentally (using powers in public) or deliberately (showing off for friends) give away his secret before he was old enough to understand why a secret identity was needed. On the other hand, the idea of a kid with all that power not intervening where he could help doesn't sound like Superman to me.

My personal take leans towards Superboy simply because I don't care for the powers being that low-key for most of his life (no childhood injuries that regular kids get). And I can't accept the idea of Clark not wanting to intervene even at a younger age if he believed he could help (fires, floods, tornados, …)

[CTTT]

And I think too, with the Legion coming and asking Jon to join them, relies on the readers Silver Age Pre-Crisis reading to understand. Otherwise it just feels like some random meeting. A reader who just started reading Post-Crisis will wonder "what's the connection between Clark and the Legion?"

[Ascended]

In post-Crisis the line was something like Clark went to college and got his degree in journalism, then wandered the world for a couple years before arriving at Metropolis. A few stories over the years dug into that time, but generally it was pretty vague. And generally it was really boring. The COIE reboot took all the fantastic out of Clark's youth and made him (with a couple exceptions) just like everyone other hero; a regular dude until later in life when powers show up out of nowhere. It's pedestrian, boring, over-done, and infinitely less interesting and cool than the wild and crazy shenanigans young Clark used to get into.

Birthright had Clark earning college credits abroad but focusing on traveling the world. The story had a really great segment in Africa which set the tale up really well and established some good motivations for certain elements that inform the transition into Superman later on. Good stuff, but not a ton of exploration of Clark's "missing years."

I agree with you about the Silver Age style Superboy stuff. But not a direct transplant; I don't think that works as well today as it did decades ago. I want Clark in the costume and using the Superboy name in the future with the Legion, and I want him having adventures and doing heroic things in the present day before he becomes Superman....but in the present day I dont want young Clark wearing the suit or using the name. I want Clark's pre-Metropolis adventures to have a certain "Smallville tv" vibe; he's helping out and doing his part and acting like a hero, but he's not in costume and he's not doing anything in the public eye.

I like the idea that Clark has all these experiences as a young person, he meets all these incredible people, sees all these incredible places, and he spends his whole life knowing the world is a lot bigger than most people give it credit for. And he gets involved in that world, saving lives, fighting the occasional monster, traveling space and time, and eventually he decides that half the problem is that this stuff is all kept quiet. If you're not willing to arrest the evil wizard, there's no way to punish that evil wizard or contain him, and his evil gets to continue. So Clark goes public as Superman and pulls all that weirdness out into the open. I think that makes for a much more interesting origin than "I was a regular guy until I was 18, then I became a alien god-person and figured I might as well be a superhero."

But until he becomes SuperMAN? No tights, no Superboy name. Just a young guy trying to make a difference without letting his life become a circus.

[Kuwagaton]

And I think too, with the Legion coming and asking Jon to join them, relies on the readers Silver Age Pre-Crisis reading to understand. Otherwise it just feels like some random meeting. A reader who just started reading Post-Crisis will wonder "what's the connection between Clark and the Legion?"

Not really. I mean the Legion's history with Superboy was summarized early on by Byrne, it's just that we were also told that it wasn't the same Kal El as the one readers followed. I still don't think it's hard to appreciate (or find less confusing to older readers by the same token) on its own with Jon now, even if Bendis is your first Superman run.

The difference between Superboy and many other sci fi action stories that take place at different stages of a character or through generations is that it's built backwards. It's filling in the earlier life of a character, so there are usually some plotholes inherent. Unless you dance around the raindrops, but we didn't see that pre crisis probably because that's a joyless hassle compared to the alternative. Some of the modern stories had the same basic idea as Jenette Kahn and others, making Superboy an alt reality character. Alan Davis and John Francis Moore did it well imo.

As for not being "super" in Smallville goes, I'd say the main idea is to not undercut the impact of Superman. He's a lot less remarkable if there was some random small town version of himself doing the same stuff for decades.

[Jon Clark]

As for not being "super" in Smallville goes, I'd say the main idea is to not undercut the impact of Superman. He's a lot less remarkable if there was some random small town version of himself doing the same stuff for decades.

It always struck me the other way. Superman was more impressive for having this career that stretched through his entire life. The only other character that had that type of vibe was Dick Grayson. Superman at 29 (Pre-crisis age) had been an active hero for over two decades already. Post Crisis he was less experienced than Batman by a few months and had maybe a year or so on the other JLA founders. Plus he was preceded by powerful heroes in the JSA. He was just sort of an average hero compared to be the first public hero and the one with the longest career on Earth One.

[Superlad93]

Not really. I mean the Legion's history with Superboy was summarized early on by Byrne, it's just that we were also told that it wasn't the same Kal El as the one readers followed. I still don't think it's hard to appreciate (or find less confusing to older readers by the same token) on its own with Jon now, even if Bendis is your first Superman run.

The difference between Superboy and many other sci fi action stories that take place at different stages of a character or through generations is that it's built backwards. It's filling in the earlier life of a character, so there are usually some plotholes inherent. Unless you dance around the raindrops, but we didn't see that pre crisis probably because that's a joyless hassle compared to the alternative. Some of the modern stories had the same basic idea as Jenette Kahn and others, making Superboy an alt reality character. Alan Davis and John Francis Moore did it well imo.

As for not being "super" in Smallville goes, I'd say the main idea is to not undercut the impact of Superman. He's a lot less remarkable if there was some random small town version of himself doing the same stuff for decades.

It's interesting you bring up the idea that Clark as Superboy was always something that was built backwards. I've been working on the theory that, when it's all said and done, he functioned as his own separate version of Clark. He was "Ultimate Superman" before "Ultimate" was a thing. The literally just degared everyone or added in an equivalent. Lois had Lana, Jimmy had Pete, Lex had his younger self. As Superboy he's already the world's greatest hero, and becoming Superman would've just been reaching legal drinking age.

So, I find it fascinating that Post-crisis Superman either adopted or mixed in the defining aspects of pre-crisis Superboy. He got the Kents back, Lana and Pete were now a more frequent force in his life, and we get to see him navigate the start of his rivalry with Lex.

Do you think it's at all possible that the popularity of DC's "Ultimate Superman" aka Superboy influenced the writers who grew up with it to not just make Post-crisis Superman the way he was, but to also not bat an eyelash at the idea of Superboy being a young and separate character from Clark Kent? I imagine that's why making Conner or Jon were such natural things.

The Superboy IP has long since divorced itself from just being the prelude to Superman's adventures, right?

That's not to say that Clark can't have adventures as a kid or young adult, but scaling them up to the degree of what Pre-crisis Superboy got up to does under cut his impact as Superman.

[Tzigone]

It's interesting you bring up the idea that Clark as Superboy was always something that was built backwards. I've been working on the theory that, when it's all said and done, he functioned as his own separate version of Clark. He was "Ultimate Superman" before "Ultimate" was a thing. The literally just degared everyone or added in an equivalent. Lois had Lana, Jimmy had Pete, Lex had his younger self. As Superboy he's already the world's greatest hero, and becoming Superman would've just been reaching legal drinking age.

I agree with that sentiment.

That's not to say that Clark can't have adventures as a kid or young adult, but scaling them up to the degree of what Pre-crisis Superboy got up to does under cut his impact as Superman.

I very much agree. More than that, there's something meta about it to me - Superman should be the first superhero. Not Superboy, not any of the Golden Age heroes where Superman only appears a generation later. Superman should get the ball rolling. He should debut at 21-26 years of age. Before that, any heroics were surreptitious. There was also no one there to give him the idea of being a costumed hero - it wasn't part of the cultural consciousness the way it is in ours. Sure, there's a Zorro, maybe, but nothing to the level of the way we think of things. And then he decided to go public - maybe because he had the idea, maybe because of a big thing that had to be public, maybe because his parents were dead and couldn't be hurt buy it. No firm on idea on how the idea emerges, but it does.

As you perhaps can tell, I'm much fonder of the Golden Age (and yes, Post-COIE), where Superboy was not part of Superman's past, than I am of the Silver Age. Also, don't like the computerized lessons of Krypton, etc. I mean, where he grew up essentially a child of Krypton, fought Kryptonian villains from his youth, etc.