Clark Kent: Superboy?

[magha_regulus]

As far as the secret identity goes, let's not forget about Superboy's robots. I'd love for those to make a comeback.

[Zero Hunter]

Never been a fan of young Clark as Superboy except when he is with the Legion. If he only ever put the suit on when he was with them in the future then I'm cool with it. Running around Smallville style no thanks.

[Jim Kelly]

As far as the secret identity goes, let's not forget about Superboy's robots. I'd love for those to make a comeback.

This is another subject where Superboy would need to stop being so chatty and telling everyone about his robots. The whole point was to make people believe Superboy couldn't possibly be Clark Kent, because they would see them both together at the same time. However, if they know he has robots, it all falls apart.

[Jon Clark]

This is another subject where Superboy would need to stop being so chatty and telling everyone about his robots. The whole point was to make people believe Superboy couldn't possibly be Clark Kent, because they would see them both together at the same time. However, if they know he has robots, it all falls apart.

That only works until some writer has Superboy call in multiple robots to deal with some threat. Or until one of the robots is destroyed in public view.

A lot of Superman/boy issues require writers to think about repercussions beyond the story they are writing. Few writers do.

[Jim Kelly]

That only works until some writer has Superboy call in multiple robots to deal with some threat. Or until one of the robots is destroyed in public view.

A lot of Superman/boy issues require writers to think about repercussions beyond the story they are writing. Few writers do.

This is true. And I'm straddling the fence on this one. Because I liked all those stories where a Superboy/Superman robot went haywire. Which seemed to happen with most of them. But in those days, it was like stories were written on an Etch A Sketch and characters never remembered what had happened from one adventure to the next.

I'm trying to anticipate the complaints of current readers and how to address their psychological trauma. But it's hard to balance internal logic and merry mayhem.

[Thor-Ul]

That only works until some writer has Superboy call in multiple robots to deal with some threat. Or until one of the robots is destroyed in public view.

A lot of Superman/boy issues require writers to think about repercussions beyond the story they are writing. Few writers do.

This is true. And I'm straddling the fence on this one. Because I liked all those stories where a Superboy/Superman robot went haywire. Which seemed to happen with most of them. But in those days, it was like stories were written on an Etch A Sketch and characters never remembered what had happened from one adventure to the next.

I'm trying to anticipate the complaints of current readers and how to address their psychological trauma. But it's hard to balance internal logic and merry mayhem.

That is why the look alike robots were mostly a silver age trope. That was a time when the adventures of Superboy were mostly episodic and the continuity was not that tight, so the multiple robots were not a problem, because every issue was, mostly, their own adventure. In modern times, most of the Superman Robots have a less than human appearance. There was the occasional superrobot who looked like Superman, but now those are the exception and not the rule.

[Thor-Ul]

Never been a fan of young Clark as Superboy except when he is with the Legion. If he only ever put the suit on when he was with them in the future then I'm cool with it. Running around Smallville style no thanks.

You mean "running around Smallville style, no thanks" or "running around, Smallville style, no thanks"?
Commas, commas.

[bat39]

Funnily enough, I too was recently thinking about how the classic Superboy set-up could work today.

Personally, I'd prefer it to be some kind of Black Label story and not part of mainstream Earth 0 canon. And it would be set in the present day - how would the Superboy stories work in 2022?

I think there are two ways to swing it. Either we go with the idea that Clark as Superboy is a bit of an urban myth (rural myth rather ). His powers levels are probably close to those of the 1938 Siegal/Shuster Superman (though they gradually evolve) and his adventures in and around Smallville are similarly pretty low-key. Or you go all out with the idea of Superboy with his full powers becoming a global hero, and the impact that has on the world. I guess the only thing that would really shock the world more than a 25 year old who can fly showing up one day is a 12 year old who can fly showing up one day.

I'd prefer something closer to the first approach. Clark as Superboy mostly tries to keep things low-key but over time word spreads. Plus, all this is happening in the present day, so cellphone cameras and social media means that Superboy's existence inevitably becomes known. But still, while he wears the suit and demonstrates some powers, his powers are limited enough that people don't entirely believe he's actually superhuman and think a lot of his feats are exaggerated or outright fabrications or have plausible non-superhuman explanations.

Also, I'd really focus on building the classic supporting cast and giving them their due. Jonathan and Martha Kent of course. Lana Lang and Pete Ross. Chief Parker. And of course, Lex Luthor. I'd expand on the idea of Lex and Superboy (though maybe not Lex and Clark) being friends and allies early on before their falling out.

The Legion would definitely be a part of my Superboy reimagining as well.

In my mind, this is the way to go with Superman, if they want to revive interest in the character. Too many comics and movies are in a rush to age up the character, get him married, make him a father. Most people these days like to see how a character started out, all the struggles they went through early in life, what events made them become a hero. There's so many stories to be told about that stage of Clark's existence.

If anything I think people are tired of origin stories these days, particularly Superman's. Aging him up, getting him married, and making him a father, are relatively more original angles to take with the character, but at this point even they're at risk of being overdone.

I kinda agree with Matt Reeves that the 'Year 2' era is what tends not to get explored a lot for superheroes, which is why he made it the focus of his Batman film. The hero is established, the origin is done, but this is the era where we see the hero become the legend. Funnily enough, while the Superboy stories are a prequel to Superman, they can also serve this 'Year 2' function if we start out with an established Superboy and then basically get the story of how he's growing and evolving through years of adventures - with the endpoint being Superman.

[Jim Kelly]

It's a matter of perspective and from which position you're looking at a character.

The tagline for SUGAR & SPIKE was "Tomorrow's Teen-Agers." So suppose you took that seriously and assumed that the fifteen year run of SUGAR & SPIKE was simply telling the origin story of Tomorrow's Teen-Agers and the real end was getting to their teen years when their heroic adventures would truly begin. Looking at Plumm and Wilson from that perspective, you're not likely to appreciate the baby-talk years as a concept unto itself. It's always going to be a preamble.

Superboy was around for forty years. While the tagline might have been "The Adventures of Superman When He was a Boy"--that really didn't dominate when reading the tales set in Smallville or in the 30th century. Sure, sure, he's going to be Superman some day, but that's not what it's really about. The hero is Superboy and these are the adventures that matter--they aren't a prologue.

[Jon Clark]

I would say that one drawback to the classic Superboy was that "Superman as a boy" sort of limited certain aspects.

The same way the JSA members of the All-Star Squadron were limited. We all "knew" that Jay Garrick and Joan couldn't die in those 1940's tales since we'd seen them later in life in those Flash and JLA/JSA crossovers. On the other hand do we really knw anything about the Pre-Crisis Johnny Quick's fate? Or Neptune Perkins (again Pre-Crisis)? So Roy could do things with those characters (like marry Johnny and Libby) without having to square it with modern day Earth-Two.

We all knew Superboy's future. The Kents died when he was 18- not earlier (in Superboy's time) or later. We knew Clark wasn't going to become evil or even a hunted vigilante for more than any single story. Like Duo Damsel we knew there was no long term romance for Superboy, either with another Legionnaire or with someone like Lisa Davis because none of them played a role in his adult life.

There were two Bronze Age tales I recall. One was a 3-issue arc in [I]Superman[I] where Supergirl gaslit Superman that Krypton was a figment of his imagination. The other was a two issue New Adventures of Superboy tale where two Kryptonian criminals gaslit Superboy that they rather than Jor-El and Lara were his biological parents. While on a certain level I knew both tales weren't going to upend what was known about his origins, I found it easier to take the Superman story at face value. I knew that the criminals claiming to be Clark's true parents had to be lying simply because Adult Superboy (aka Superman) still referred to Jor-El and Lara as his biological parents. Unlikely as it was, there was a better possibility that Krypton would be revealed as a pipedream in a story set in the present than that Superboy would learn something about his life that Superman never acknowledged.

So maybe Clark on Earth-Zero being Superboy is less interesting than seeing a teen Kal-El on a new Earth where we aren;t guaranteed he'll become Superman some day.

[Jim Kelly]

When I read Superboy comics, I wasn't reading them for the origin or the connection to Superman's later life. Maybe the first time, I did. The cover for ADVENTURE COMICS 355 (April 1967) had Superman on it and that's why I bought it--that being my introduction to the Legion of Super-Heroes. But in the very same month I bought SUPERBOY 137 (April 1967), my first issue of that comic--and I don't remember now which comic I read first and if I bought them both at the same time.

I read SUPERBOY because it had young Clark working at his parents' store (I was fascinated with that) and it had Ma and Pa Kent, Lana Lang and Krypto the Super-Dog. I was involved with that situation. At some level I knew that certain characters probably wouldn't die (but some could), but I was too swept up in the story for that to matter. And some Smallville tales could be very frightening--like Ray Bradbury's SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES. Small towns have a creepy factor about them.

I read SUPERBOY because he was a boy and I was a boy and I related to his experience, which fed into my own hopes and fears.

Superman was a definite thing back then. Now he isn't. Who is Superman and what is his continuity? That's a grey area for me these days. I have no idea which furniture is nailed down in the universe anymore. It seems like the comics--along with the movies and T.V. shows--could throw everything out tomorrow and start all over again.

I remember that Gerry Conway story in SUPERMAN 307 (January 1977) - 309 (March 1977)--and it did trick me. At first, anyway. Later if I really thought it through, I guess it made no sense. But because it was Conway from Marvel Comics, who seemed to be given carte blanche to do whatever he wanted--I believed he could throw out decades of continuity to remake Superman how he wished. There was always that possibility that the publisher--desperate to bring in new readers--would completely change the status quo and destroy everything I loved.

[Johnny Thunders!]

I think this comes down to “Should There Be A Superboy?”, and should it be Clark? I say yes, I like runs of the Legion without Superboy, but I love the stories with him. If the Superboy character is from 1938, that predates General Zod, the Phantom Zone, Braniac…Superman like the Fantastic Four has become an idea factory that has all these ideas that have taken life beyond their beginnings. People like Superman ideas but not tied to Superman. I haven’t read a better version of Superboy than young Clark Kent. And even if it isn’t Clark, the Superboy idea always sticks around. Still without Clark as Superboy we might not get Spider-Man and Peter Parker. I think it’s not a case of too little story with Clark/Superboy, it’s too much, and with Superman, people want to excise whole chunks of story.