Anthonynotes
06-29-2001, 02:34 AM
Well, here's my summary/listing of various details regarding the old Superboy and Smallville mythos, as per the new TV show "Smallville" apparently using/reinterpreting some old references from the comics. Will also indicate the "current" comics' status of said references where feasible/possible. All for when "Smallville" debuts this fall and for the edification of....um....guess just Mad Hatter and me. Uh....enjoy!
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The "Old" Superboy/"young Clark Kent" mythos:
- Kal-El was sent to Earth somewhere between a mere infant and 2-3 years of age (depending on who was writing), from an exploding Krypton that was quite the utopia (albeit with a garish Buck Rogers look) by loving parents Jor-El and Lara. (See: "Two Mice and a Baby" for what this "old" version of Krypton [right down to what Kal's rocket looked like] for details...).
[CURRENT COMICS: The loathsome and wretched "birthing matrix"/"sent as a fetus" stuff. No further comment. :-x ]
- After landing on Earth, Clark gained his powers instantaneously (upon exposure to our yellow sun), and gradually discovered what all his powers were over time. Depending on the writer, we saw some "Superbaby" stories of a 3-year-old Clark wreaking wacky/comedic havoc with his powers (see "Two Mice and a Baby")
[CURRENT COMICS: Clark doesn't gain his powers fully/discover them all until he's 16 or 18 years of age]
- At the age of 8, Clark is allowed by Ma and Pa Kent to embark on a career as Superboy, wearing a costume woven from the blankets that he was wrapped in when sent to Earth. Since the material came from Krypton, and any object from Krypton gained invulnerability under Earth's yellow sun, his costume itself was also invulnerable.
[CURRENT COMICS: Ma sews his costume from ordinary, uh, Spandex...and thus, it'll tear as easily as, um, Batman's, I guess...]
CLARK KENT: In the old comics, he adopted the disguise of glasses as a means of differentiating himself from his Superboy identity. He also pretended to act, well, "mild mannered" (or even outright "nerdy"/"wimpy") to do so. Usual Clark clothes consisted of a red sweater, jeans, and horn-rimmed glasses, with his hair combed back. Clark made it a point to abstain from school sports, feeling his powers would provide unfair competition for the other boys...
[CURRENT COMICS: the also-wretched-and-loathsome "Clark was a jock supreme in high school" stuff. :-x ]
MA and PA KENT: In the old comics, still his foster parents, and played an active role in giving support to Clark's superhero career as Superboy (pretty much the same as all those "Clark having dinner with the folks" scenes from S:TAS). In this continuity, they died after Clark had turned 18, when they were accidentially exposed to a deadly tropical virus (and Clark, for all his powers, wasn't able to do anything to save them).
For the first years of Clark's life, the Kents lived on a farm, but sold it, moved directly into Smallville itself, and bought a general store in Smallville when he started kindergarden. (I think I recall something about the "Smallville" TV show having the Kents own some sort of store, though it'd be doubtful it'd be a general store....) [CURRENT COMICS: Alive, of course, and never owned a general store/still owning a farm (both Byrne changes by the way, Hatter)....still quite supportive of their son's super-career.]
LANA LANG: Created in the early 50's, she was originally a red-headed teenaged version of Lois: a love interest for Clark/Superboy, and someone who often suspected Clark of being Superboy (at least in the 50's-60's stories; by the 70's, they seemed to have dropped the "secret id" obsession and settled for "where'd Clark disappear to?" bits). Lived in a house next door to the Kents. Father was Professor Lang, an archaeologist who kept bringing various artifacts (that'd wreak trouble). [CURRENT COMICS: Not sure if her dad's still an archaeologist/alive; now knows that Clark and Supes are one and the same.]
PETE ROSS: Clark Kent's best friend as a teeanger. Blonde-haired kid. As youths, Clark and Pete often went camping together, and on one night, Pete accidentially saw Clark change into Superboy while on such a trip. Pete never told anyone (including Clark) about this knowledge, though (being too much of a "pal" to do so), and tried to aid Clark in secret when he could...
[CURRENT COMICS: Pete married Lana, and doesn't know Clark is Supes.]
CHIEF PARKER: In the old and new comics, the Smallville chief of police (who played a bigger role in the old Superboy comics).
THE LEGION OF SUPERHEROES: A 30th century team of teeanged heroes, all founding their organization on the legendary status of Superboy. Travelling back in time to SMallville, they invited the Boy of Steel to join, and (thanks to Superboy's ability to travel through time under his own power) did so, joining them on many fan-favorite stories...they were such big fan-favorites, in fact, that they wound up taking over as the "lead feature" of Superboy's book by the early 70's (and continued to gain popularity...they're still quite popular with comics fans to this day, for their sci-fi bent/the personal lives of the Legionnaires/etc. :-)
Other characters in the old comics included various teachers, one-shot classmates of Clark and Lana's (including a Flash Thompson ripoff who liked to bully Clark), and a Professor Potter (a [very] wacky inventor who was Lana's uncle...doesn't exist in the current comics, but his closest analogue is Professor Hamilton).
Other artifacts of Superboy stories (none of which are found in the current books) included:
Robot duplicates of Superboy/Clark: used in case he needed to be, ahem, "two places at once" (to cover his secret ID, *not* to pull cheap spatial distortion gags :-)
A lab in the Kent house basement, with a tunnel leading from it to the woods (so that neighbors wouldn't spot Superboy flying in and out of the Kent house constantly)
Krypto would show up in some stories (was sent up as a test subject by Jor-El in the old stories, but couldn't be brought back; drifted eventually to Earth, where he was found by Superboy. Under the ground rules of "any life form from Krypton gains superpowers/a boost in intelligence under yellow sunlight" rule at the time, Krypto gained superpowers and Snoopy-level intelligence [thought balloons, usually sarcastic ones re: whatever the current situation involved]). [CURRENT COMICS: Krypto (sans thought balloons) recently apparently has made a comeback. If Barbara Streisand can do it, I guess so can Krypto ;-) ]
A "signal lamp": A specially-made-by-Superboy table lamp would be set to blink on and off in the Kent household when one of three individuals pressed a special button to signal that Supes was needed: Lana's father, Chief Parker, and the President of the United States (see my fanfic story "Brain's Mission For Pres. Reagan" to see its typical use)
Various alien invasions/etc. often struck Smallville (natch), but the town was also hit by a rather high number of bank robbers/gangsters... [CURRENT COMICS: with no Superboy career, Smallville's been mostly ignored by current writers, and is pretty much a dull place, usually used only for Ma and Pa-having-dinner-with-Clark scenes....]
Superboy changed his name to Superman sometime during college (around age 18 or 20 IIRC)...
Finally, Superboy was the only hero on Earth at his time; other heroes had yet to gain their powers (like the Flash) or were still in training (ol' Batsy, aka Bruce Wayne...of which a teenaged Bruce might be an interesting inclusion for a one-ep cameo on "Smallville"). There was one story that used a youthful version of Aquaman, but generally, Superboy was considered the Earth's sole and first superhero.
----
I guess that's the basics of everything to Superboy's old stories; wonder if this'll be remotely useful for going into fanboy mode once "Smallville" hits the airwaves, or whether I'd have been better off saving it for pointless overanalytical complaints about that show :-)
-B.
That was...geeky.
-----
The "Old" Superboy/"young Clark Kent" mythos:
- Kal-El was sent to Earth somewhere between a mere infant and 2-3 years of age (depending on who was writing), from an exploding Krypton that was quite the utopia (albeit with a garish Buck Rogers look) by loving parents Jor-El and Lara. (See: "Two Mice and a Baby" for what this "old" version of Krypton [right down to what Kal's rocket looked like] for details...).
[CURRENT COMICS: The loathsome and wretched "birthing matrix"/"sent as a fetus" stuff. No further comment. :-x ]
- After landing on Earth, Clark gained his powers instantaneously (upon exposure to our yellow sun), and gradually discovered what all his powers were over time. Depending on the writer, we saw some "Superbaby" stories of a 3-year-old Clark wreaking wacky/comedic havoc with his powers (see "Two Mice and a Baby")
[CURRENT COMICS: Clark doesn't gain his powers fully/discover them all until he's 16 or 18 years of age]
- At the age of 8, Clark is allowed by Ma and Pa Kent to embark on a career as Superboy, wearing a costume woven from the blankets that he was wrapped in when sent to Earth. Since the material came from Krypton, and any object from Krypton gained invulnerability under Earth's yellow sun, his costume itself was also invulnerable.
[CURRENT COMICS: Ma sews his costume from ordinary, uh, Spandex...and thus, it'll tear as easily as, um, Batman's, I guess...]
CLARK KENT: In the old comics, he adopted the disguise of glasses as a means of differentiating himself from his Superboy identity. He also pretended to act, well, "mild mannered" (or even outright "nerdy"/"wimpy") to do so. Usual Clark clothes consisted of a red sweater, jeans, and horn-rimmed glasses, with his hair combed back. Clark made it a point to abstain from school sports, feeling his powers would provide unfair competition for the other boys...
[CURRENT COMICS: the also-wretched-and-loathsome "Clark was a jock supreme in high school" stuff. :-x ]
MA and PA KENT: In the old comics, still his foster parents, and played an active role in giving support to Clark's superhero career as Superboy (pretty much the same as all those "Clark having dinner with the folks" scenes from S:TAS). In this continuity, they died after Clark had turned 18, when they were accidentially exposed to a deadly tropical virus (and Clark, for all his powers, wasn't able to do anything to save them).
For the first years of Clark's life, the Kents lived on a farm, but sold it, moved directly into Smallville itself, and bought a general store in Smallville when he started kindergarden. (I think I recall something about the "Smallville" TV show having the Kents own some sort of store, though it'd be doubtful it'd be a general store....) [CURRENT COMICS: Alive, of course, and never owned a general store/still owning a farm (both Byrne changes by the way, Hatter)....still quite supportive of their son's super-career.]
LANA LANG: Created in the early 50's, she was originally a red-headed teenaged version of Lois: a love interest for Clark/Superboy, and someone who often suspected Clark of being Superboy (at least in the 50's-60's stories; by the 70's, they seemed to have dropped the "secret id" obsession and settled for "where'd Clark disappear to?" bits). Lived in a house next door to the Kents. Father was Professor Lang, an archaeologist who kept bringing various artifacts (that'd wreak trouble). [CURRENT COMICS: Not sure if her dad's still an archaeologist/alive; now knows that Clark and Supes are one and the same.]
PETE ROSS: Clark Kent's best friend as a teeanger. Blonde-haired kid. As youths, Clark and Pete often went camping together, and on one night, Pete accidentially saw Clark change into Superboy while on such a trip. Pete never told anyone (including Clark) about this knowledge, though (being too much of a "pal" to do so), and tried to aid Clark in secret when he could...
[CURRENT COMICS: Pete married Lana, and doesn't know Clark is Supes.]
CHIEF PARKER: In the old and new comics, the Smallville chief of police (who played a bigger role in the old Superboy comics).
THE LEGION OF SUPERHEROES: A 30th century team of teeanged heroes, all founding their organization on the legendary status of Superboy. Travelling back in time to SMallville, they invited the Boy of Steel to join, and (thanks to Superboy's ability to travel through time under his own power) did so, joining them on many fan-favorite stories...they were such big fan-favorites, in fact, that they wound up taking over as the "lead feature" of Superboy's book by the early 70's (and continued to gain popularity...they're still quite popular with comics fans to this day, for their sci-fi bent/the personal lives of the Legionnaires/etc. :-)
Other characters in the old comics included various teachers, one-shot classmates of Clark and Lana's (including a Flash Thompson ripoff who liked to bully Clark), and a Professor Potter (a [very] wacky inventor who was Lana's uncle...doesn't exist in the current comics, but his closest analogue is Professor Hamilton).
Other artifacts of Superboy stories (none of which are found in the current books) included:
Robot duplicates of Superboy/Clark: used in case he needed to be, ahem, "two places at once" (to cover his secret ID, *not* to pull cheap spatial distortion gags :-)
A lab in the Kent house basement, with a tunnel leading from it to the woods (so that neighbors wouldn't spot Superboy flying in and out of the Kent house constantly)
Krypto would show up in some stories (was sent up as a test subject by Jor-El in the old stories, but couldn't be brought back; drifted eventually to Earth, where he was found by Superboy. Under the ground rules of "any life form from Krypton gains superpowers/a boost in intelligence under yellow sunlight" rule at the time, Krypto gained superpowers and Snoopy-level intelligence [thought balloons, usually sarcastic ones re: whatever the current situation involved]). [CURRENT COMICS: Krypto (sans thought balloons) recently apparently has made a comeback. If Barbara Streisand can do it, I guess so can Krypto ;-) ]
A "signal lamp": A specially-made-by-Superboy table lamp would be set to blink on and off in the Kent household when one of three individuals pressed a special button to signal that Supes was needed: Lana's father, Chief Parker, and the President of the United States (see my fanfic story "Brain's Mission For Pres. Reagan" to see its typical use)
Various alien invasions/etc. often struck Smallville (natch), but the town was also hit by a rather high number of bank robbers/gangsters... [CURRENT COMICS: with no Superboy career, Smallville's been mostly ignored by current writers, and is pretty much a dull place, usually used only for Ma and Pa-having-dinner-with-Clark scenes....]
Superboy changed his name to Superman sometime during college (around age 18 or 20 IIRC)...
Finally, Superboy was the only hero on Earth at his time; other heroes had yet to gain their powers (like the Flash) or were still in training (ol' Batsy, aka Bruce Wayne...of which a teenaged Bruce might be an interesting inclusion for a one-ep cameo on "Smallville"). There was one story that used a youthful version of Aquaman, but generally, Superboy was considered the Earth's sole and first superhero.
----
I guess that's the basics of everything to Superboy's old stories; wonder if this'll be remotely useful for going into fanboy mode once "Smallville" hits the airwaves, or whether I'd have been better off saving it for pointless overanalytical complaints about that show :-)
-B.
That was...geeky.