New Adventures of Superboy #1 (January, 1980)
"The Most Important Year of Superboy's Life!"
Writer - Cary Bates
Penciller - Kurt Schaffenberger
Inker - David Hunt
Colorist - Gene D'Angelo
Letterer - Ben Oda
Editor - Julius Schwartz
Cover Price: $0.40
Super-short preamble today... I'm about shoulders deep in my final research paper. I'm calling it my "Chrissertation" much to the annoyance of my wife.
Onward to Superboy's birthday! Looks awfully warm in Smallville for February 29th, don't it?
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We open as sixteen-year old Clark Kent smugly stands next to his birthday cake ready to blow out the candles. Lana asks why Clark's cake has 17 candles on it when he's only 16. I guess she's never heard of "one for good luck", eh? He isn't sure either, and just says adding an extra candle is something Ma and Pa have done since his eighth birthday. This leads us into a flashback... to Clark's eighth birthday, back when Ma and Pa were much... older. A helpful footnote informs us that this occurred before they were rejuvenated by some chemical.
This is right around the time that Clark made his first public appearance as Superboy... which surprised me a bit. I always thought he was an early teen, however here, he's barely eight!
As he flies over Smallville, he notices an airplane in an apparent nosedive... and so, he heads in to help out. Turns out, this plane was barreling toward the ground on purpose... it's the Flying Aces Stunt-Pilot Show! Man, Smallville's got everything! Superboy takes the opportunity to do some aerial hot-doggin' himself.
After getting his fill of oohs and ahhs, Superboy retreats. Unfortunately, he winds up in the path of a strange purple spaceship. He is struck by a beam and pulled on board. He wakes up in a room and is addressed by a pair of speakers. They promise the boy they mean him no harm... and they just want to study him. Likely story, right? Superboy's all "screw this" and escapes with ease.
Back at the Kent home later on that evening, the family settles in for a birthday tradition... home movies! Clark is bored out of his mind... but plays along anyway, and it's a good thing he does... because their flick is interrupted by the same alien spacecraft he'd escaped from earlier that day!
During the interruption, we learn the origin of Myla and Byrn... two survivors of a fallen race of cat-cheeked creatures. As they escaped their radiation-pummeled planet, they took a plague serum. This serum doesn't just cure them... it activates bio-chemicals in their advanced brains which grants them immortality! The immortality was only supposed to last during the healing process, however, at this point... their brains will not allow them to age or die!
Their story continues... their craft wandered through space for several million years, until one day... they saw a tiny rocketship aimed toward the Earth. Any guesses who might have been on board?
The aliens then beam themselves into the Kent living room, where they give Superboy a bit of a sales pitch. They wish to trade in their eternal lives, by (somehow) transferring his aging factor into them... and their immortality into him. Ay yai yai. Plan B is just as dumb, and concerns giving Superboy everlasting youth... so he'll forever be eight. Jon and Martha really ain't keen on the thought, but Superboy kinda mulls it over.
Byrn hands Superboy a strange-looking laser syringe thing... and he takes off to weigh his options. The aliens beam their monitoring system onto the projector screen, and they watch Superboy make his decision... the extraction occurs, and it looks as though Superboy is going to be immortal!
He returns home to share the news of his decision, but they already know. The aliens thank him up and down, and before taking their leave, induces selective memory-loss on the boy so he'll never regret his decision. Once the Kents are alone, Superboy informs his parents that everything they saw on the screen, didn't quite happen the way it looked.
It turns out, Clark negated the extractor beam with his own heat vision... giving the impression that the aliens were no longer immortal. He then uses his telescopic vision... well, it would've probably been "telescopic vision" in the Silver Age, here it's just Super-Vision... anyhoo... he uses that to take a look at Byrn and Myla... who have already started to age. The placebo is in effect.
We wrap up with Jon and Martha vowing to put an extra candle on his birthday cake every year as their "secret token of thanks" that their boy won't be an eternal eight-year-old.
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Hey, this was a fun little issue. Not sure how I feel about it for a series-launching #1, but dug it well enough.
I mentioned above that I was surprised to see Superboy "in action" at such a young age. I really thought he was a teen/pre-teen, wasn't expecting him to be in the single-digits, age-wise. Granted, my Superboy is Kon-El, and he was always depicted to be a teenager. Might just be a bit of Superboy-transference on my end.
Another thing, and it's silly... if I see a birthday cake with an extra candle on it... I'm thinkin' "one for good luck" or "one to grow on"... I would never expect a huge story (featuring immortal aliens, no less) to explain it! Like I said, it's silly... and I'm just having fun with it. Gotta wonder why Lana would ask though... or why she'd count 'em! The best case scenario, she makes it look as though Ma Kent doesn't know how to count! Okay okay, enough candle talk.
The immortality swap deal was totally ridiculous. Gotta have brass ones to ask an eight year old if they wanna either live forever, or remain the same age forever. Luckily, they didn't ask just any eight year old. Superboy shows he's wise beyond his years by understanding the potential psychosomatic nature of Byrn and Myra's immortality. Getting to the root of the "mind over matter", he was able to end the aliens' suffering without risking himself.
Some of the neatest stuff in this book is in the 35 Years of Superboy text piece (below, click to enlarge). I never knew that the first issue of Superboy had him (mistakenly) growing up in Metropolis! Lotsa great info here, always enjoy reading the history of characters and properties. This piece is well worth a read.
Heck, the whole package is worth reading. It's a bit corny, sure... but for a Bronze Age approximation of Silver, this was a lot of fun. It doesn't look like this has been collected, or made available digitally as of this writing, but shouldn't be too terribly difficult to find, nor too spendy when ya do.
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(Not the) Letters Page:
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Interesting Ads:
New Adventures of Superboy #18 (June, 1981)
"Superboy's Do-it-Yourself Doom!"
"Day of the Costume Change!"
Writers - Cary Bates & Bob Rozakis
Penciller - Kurt Schaffenberger
Inker - Dave Hunt
Colorist - Jerry Serpe
Letterer - Ben Oda
Editor - Julius Schwartz
Cover Price: $0.50
It's been a long day in Chrisville... so let's unwind in Smallville.
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We open with Carl "Moosie" Draper sulking by the water. He's apparently madly in love with Lana Lang, however she only has eyes for Superboy. He wishes that the mysterious Kator would have soundly beaten his foe to expose him for the over-rated fraud Draper believes him to be. He chucks a few stones into the drink, and notices in the rippling reflection... Kator! And he's got a plan to make Moosie's wildest dreams come true!
Elsewhere, young Clark Kent is walking home from school, and we get the quick and dirty on Kator. Looks like via use of the Mind-Prober Ray, Superboy was able to fill in some of his memory gaps from Krypton, including those of his father Jor-El building robots... and so, Superboy created his own robotic foe as a way to keep his powers sharp by using its own independent thought to attempt to outsmart our boy. That bot is Kator... and he first appeared the issue before this one, not that there are any helpful editorial notes or anything.
We shift to the Kent's General Store... which makes me remember that there was, at one time, a Kent's General Store. Anyhoo, Ma is working the counter, and it would appear to the patrons that Pa is out sick. In actuality, he's... get this, seated at a table with his finger hovering over a button with which he could deactivate Kator should the bot-boy return, and get "out of hand". What an existence...
The next morning we join Superboy as he flies through the streets of Smallville. He passes Moosie, who uncharacteristically smiles and waves. He's not really happy to see Superboy, however... he's happy to see Kator about to (theoretically) put a whuppin' on his arch-foe!
And a battle rages. Kator grabs the Boy of Steel by the cape and drags him far out into space. They struggle among the stars until Superboy realizes that his powers are fading. Turns out Kator purposefully brought the battle into the path of a comet that had passed through a red Sun! They're also too far out for Superboy to successfully contact "at the button" Pa. Uh-oh.
Thankfully, Superboy is not without his wits. He decides to thrust himself through the path of the crimson comet... which, er... gives him his superpowers back? Okay well, he's also back in the proximity of a yellow Sun... somehow. Anyhoo, from here Superboy does what he should do most of the time when dealing with a baddie... he grabs Kator and throws him into the Sun! No foolin'.
Superboy returns home, where he gets an "I told you so" lecture from his parents. They didn't quite cotton to the idea of a Krypto-science-A.I. critter loitering around their fair town always looking for a fight. Pa drops the killswitch into the garbage... which, ya know... might not be the best idea. Just sayin'.
Elsewhere in Smallville, we rejoin our old friend Moosie. He is following the directions of a glowing gadget given to him by Kator, into the hills. Apparently Kator had a contingency plan... when he ceased to be, the trinket would begin to glow, and Moosie would do as it told. The tired, sweating Carl finally comes across a cave. Inside it is an apparatus "far out hardware" he'd been instructed to sit in. He is, obviously, pelted by rays.
Back at the Kents, Clark is on the phone with Lana Lang... when he hears a terrible struggle. He suits up and heads out. He sees the Lang house now has a smoldering hole where Lana's bedroom is, and has to use his telescopic vision to locate his gal. He tracks her down at the athletic field behind the high school.
But, Lana's not the only one he finds there. No, he also finds... Kator 2.0? Seems to be a bit heavier than last time, right? Okay, we all know it's Moosie Draper in the get up. They start to fight, but Superboy's punches are powerless. Wouldn'tcha know it, Moosie buried some Kryptonite under the football field. Just how is Kryptonite so plentiful anyway?
Superboy lets Moosie nail him with an uppercut to send him out of the range of the Kryptonite. They fight into the sky, and Moosie appears to vaporize after a particularly powerful punch. In reality, the husky Kator has phased inside Superboy, threatening to blink him out of existence... because science? It's not worth thinking too hard about because Superboy is able to shake him pretty quickly.
He returns home to dig the killswitch from the bin... and isn't able to find it! He looks up to find Moosie sitting on the Kents' (reinforced?) dining room table. He reveals that he knows Clark Kent is really Superboy, because it wasn't just the powers Kator passed down, but his knowledge as well! Seems like poor planning for Superboy to share that bit of information with a robot he is crafting with the express purpose of being his worst enemy, right? Anyhoo... before Moosie can go any further, Pa Kent pushes the killswitch, and puts the baddie on the ground.
Superboy grabs Moosie and brings him to the Mind-Prober Ray in the basement. He figures if running it normally fills in memories... throwing it into reverse should do the opposite. Sure, that sounds legit. And so, Moosie gets the Professor X special, and his mind is wiped clean. Before we close, we learn that Moosie will grow up to become the Master Jailer! Dun-dun-dunnnn.
Our second story begins with Lana Lang buying a bolt of fabric at the Kent General Store. She is planning on making a new dress before they begin high school the following week. She suggests perhaps Clark change up his look as well... maybe grow his hair out, get some "mod" clothes. He kinda shrugs it off, because apparently his hair doesn't grow on Earth... and he wears his normal CK outfit for certain reasons... which I don't recall. Well, just because Clark can't change, doesn't mean Superboy can't shake things up, right?
And so, he designs a new Superboy outfit... and it's yellow. It's like, really yellow. Ma Kent sews it up just in time for a geyser to become radioactive. Boy, it's lucky they were watching that channel!
Anyhoo, Superboy heads out... and notices that his powers are dampened. He feels the stinging pain when he touches the acid, and he actually sweats from the 110 degree temperatures. He fights his way through in his weakened state, and caps the geyser with a giant stone. Gotta mention, I can't help but notice that the sky is very red during this bit... so maybe it's the red Sun Earth looks to be under that is affecting his powers. Okok, probably not.
He leaves, passing over a carnival where he sees some crooks carrying guns (and a briefcase... they've always got a briefcase!). He uses his telescopic vision... which is fuzzy. No matter, he swoops in and takes out the baddies... however, not before being shot at several times. He can actually feel the impact of the bullets... but only on the yellow part of his costume!
He returns home with the realization that the yellow costume is reflecting the power-giving Sunlight from him... leaving him too weak to properly be Superboy. Hmm... I'm no scientist, but I'm not sure it works that way... at least with UV rays. Anyhoo... he hangs his new-old togs in the closet, vowing never to don them again.
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Man, I love these ridiculous Superboy stories. They're like the perfect mix of the Silver Age and late pre-Crisis wack.
The idea that Superboy would build the robot of his own demise is pretty interesting. It definitely doesn't feel like something out of an 80's book, pre-Crisis or not. I mean, that just doesn't sound like a good idea no matter how you slice it.
In reading these New Adventures issues, I'm actually quite surprised that Clark Kent didn't grow up to be a hyperviolent sociopath. I mean, it seems like in every issue there are classmates out to get him! That's gotta really skew a kids sense of reality, right? Talk about an invitation to a victim complex.
Overall, this is a great series with which you can sorta (and I mean no disrespect here) turn your brain off and just enjoy yourself. I'd recommend it to anyone who wants to take a break from contemporary "think too hard" comics where every nuance and story beat needs to be addressed and analyzed... by some nitwit on a blog... ahem. This series is yet to be collected or made available digitally, so if you're down for a romp through sorta-1950's Smallville, you're gonna have to be down for a romp through the bins.
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Letters Page:
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Interesting Ads:
New Adventures of Superboy #9 (September, 1980)
"How to Stamp Out a Superboy"
"The Day of the Lost Clothing!"
Writers - Cary Bates & E. Nelson Bridwell
Pencillers - Kurt Schaffenberger & Rich Buckler
Inkers - Dave Hunt & Romeo Tanghal
Colorists - Gene D'Angelo & Jerry Serpe
Letterer - Ben Oda
Editor - Julius Schwartz
Cover Price: $0.50
These issues of the New Adventures of Superboy always seem to draw me in with some wacky cover copy. If it ain't The Misadventures of Superbaby... it's the chance to peek into Superboy's Secret Diary! Now tell me, who could pass up an opportunity like that? Not me, that's for sure! I mean, maybe we'll find out that he has a super secret crush on Lana Lang... as if there's any other girls in this book, right? Well, ones who get names anyway... Anyhoo, let's get down to business in Smallville, circa a long time ago.
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It's Monday morning at Smallville High... and Clark Kent is dead! You really wouldn't know it to look at his former (non-Lana or Pete) classmates or even his teacher though. It's just another day for them. We check in with Lana, who at this point doesn't know that Clark is secretly Superboy... and Pete, who does know... but Clark doesn't know he knows... ya know? But we know that he knows and that's all that matters, see? A-hem. Anyhoo, Pete is recounting the "death" of his best pal... he and Clark were canoeing up Smallville River when a mysterious geyser erupts which capsizes the boat. Superboy is quickly on the scene to rescue Pete, but claims that it was too late to do anything for poor Master Kent. Further, Superboy leaves it to Pete to tell everyone what's happened to Clark. Remember though... Pete knows Superboy and Clark are one in the same.
We shift to a territory by (but not on, clearly) the Rocky Mountains where Superboy is lending a helping hand to some miners by hurling large boulders into the ground... while they drink their coffee. Must be government work! Anyhoo, the workers notice that Superboy does not appear to be his normal jovial self (which tells me he does a lot of their work for them).
Back in Smallville, Lana and Pete pay a visit to the Kents. Ya see, Lana has Clark's geology notebook... and she figures Ma and Pa might want it... because, why not right? Pa graciously accepts the book, and the kids leave while their pal's parents sob. Pete thinks to himself how they must be putting on an act here, because he knows that they know that... ya know...
Back with the Teen of Steel, we watch as he literally sews a hot air balloon back together somewhere over the Atlantic... with a giant needle and spool of thread. Love silly stuff like this! The ballooners comment that the Smallville Sensation looks pretty down in the dumps.
Back in Smallville, Pete slaps himself in the head because he forgot his term paper inside Clark's notebook... d'oh! So now he needs to revisit the Kents and just make an overall nuisance of himself. Before he knocks, he hears Ma and Pa lament the loss of their son. Pete begins to wonder what could possibly be going on if the Kents no longer know their son's secret!
We soon learn that young Pete Ross isn't the only eavesdropper zeroed in on the Kent home... Superboy himself is watching over his adoptive parents as well! He recalls that the Kents have somehow been robbed of their "Superboy memories" and he decided that until he knows how or why that occurred he'd probably steer clear. So, like any rational fella... he fakes his own death, and puts his parents through the worst pain one could ever imagine. Good lookin' out, Clark! Here is where we also learn that Superboy has some eavesdroppers of his own... you may know them as the three folks that Superman would eventually *spoilers* kill during the John Byrne run.
We get to listen in on the Phantom Zone Criminals... General Zod, Jax-Ur and Faora Hu-ul... and we discover that they can "communicate telepathically" from the zone to the Earthly plane... and really, they're just screwing with young Kal-El to be jerks. There doesn't appear to be anything deeper going on here... their revenge is just making Kal sad... and hoping that he eventually goes off planet. Well, I got some good news and bad news Zod-Gang... you'll eventually get your wish, but you won't like how we get there!
The baddies continue to look on and see that the stress is starting to get to the Boy of Steel. He's slipping a bit... being less thorough in his super-duties, which almost winds up causing a small village to get decimated by a flood. Zod and company yuk it up, while Superboy reflects on his exhaustion... and so, he heads to his new Himalayan Headquarters (just go with it).
He wallows a bit before busting through the mountain because he is "... bored stiff!" The Phantom Zone Criminals are still watching, and are tickled transparent at Superboy's erratic behavior... and their part in it.
Back in Smallville, Pete Ross wanders through the woods in search of Superboy's secret trap door back to the Kent house... and whattaya know, he finds it... pretty easily. You probably don't want to leave a trap-door shaped lump in the middle of the woods where your trap-door is being hidden.
As young Pete works his way through the tunnel... for what reason, I haven't the foggiest... Ma and Pa Kent enter their son's bedroom. They consider the ramifications of what they're about to do... and speak in whispers. What follows almost defies explanation... well, rational explanation anyway... Pa sets his pipe down in a box of tissues. Yeah, Jonathan Kent is a budding arsonist...
Pete emerges from the trap-door and ventures up to Clark's room... we learn he's still a pervert eavesdropper, and overheard the sinister "burning down the house" plan. And so, like any mild-mannered teen... he helps stoke the flames, and gets that bugger goin' real good.
It isn't long before the entire Kent house is up in flames. Ma and Pa stand outside watching... which will probably not help their pending insurance claim... when Superboy finally arrives on the scene. He extinguishes the flames with his super-breath... and everything is cool... except, ya know... the house burned down.
Superboy grabs his parents and flies them off to safety. Meanwhile Pete is nothing more than a pile of ashes... no, no he's not, we'll get back to him soon... Kal watches as his folks stir back into consciousness, and as soon as he knows they are okay, he takes flight... destination: off-planet. Though, a moment later, he smacks himself in the head (two head slaps in one issue, nice!)... and, with a goofy grin returns to his parents' side. The Zonies are positively perplexed by this puzzling turn of events!
Apparently, the Kents were wearing a "secret signal" in their pockets in the form of "compressed packets of Clark Kent clothes"... okey doke... this tells Superboy that they have gotten their memories back! Yay... too bad you're now homeless...
The folks share their tale with their son. While Martha was doing laundry she got zapped with a telepathic blast. This allowed her to eavesdrop on the Phantom Zone Criminals, and understand their evil plans. She brought Jon in on the caper when she thought the coast was clear. Turns out they were able to use one of Clark's "space trophies" to gain all their wonderful knowledge back. Wow.
We wrap up this whacked out tale with Clark returning... from the dead, mind you... and just going back to school. On the way he stops by his pal Pete's house, and finally tells him that he is, in fact Superboy. Hey Clark, maybe you should ask him if you can move in for a bit... on a count that your Pa burned your house down! All's well that ends well...
Our next story starts with Flash Thompson knocking the lunch tray out of "puny" Peter Parker's hands... wait, no that's not it at all... a-hem. A bully called "Bash" knocks the tray out of "puny" Clark Kent's hands... there we go... this causes Clark's sweater to get a nasty milk stain on it. I didn't know milk stained... but, believe it or not... it's vital to the story, so we'll just go with it.
Later that day, there is a hold up at Mr. Trotter's Drug Store. Clark performs his normal wardrobe change, and leaves his CK clothes behind the bushes.
Bash witnesses Superboy flying away and heads to the bushes where he thinks he saw him take off from. As Superboy is boppin' baddies, Bash sees Clark's (yellow, ew) milk-stained sweater laying in the pile of Superboy-civvies. Uh oh. He grabs the evidence and runs off to spread the word. Luckily, he just happens to forget Clark's specs.
Superboy trails Bash, and is able to use his heat vision to pump the bully full of radiation... no, that's not it... he uses his heat vision to "dry clean" the soiled sweater. He then goes home, and grabs an identical sweater from his collection of... identical sweaters, and dumps a glass of milk on it, much to Ma's bemusement.
Back at school, Bash is pleading his case that Clark Kent is Superboy... when Clark Kent arrives, with his stained sweater. Bash is bamboozled, and throws a fit (and the sweater). We wrap up learning that this is why Superboy's cape has a hidden pouch in it where Clark can stash his civvies while he's fighting the never-ending battle.
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What a weird book. Really now... we've got Superboy faking his own death... Clark's classmates and teacher not really noticing or caring that he's dead... the Kents burning down their house... after receiving temporary telepathic powers via a Kryptonian artifact that was hidden in their laundry room... What in the bluest of hells is going on here?!? Then... and then, we get a bit where Flash Thompson the school bully deduces that Clark Kent must be Superboy because he found his soiled shirt behind the bushes. What a world!
I mean, I gotta say that I enjoyed it thoroughly. It was just too whacked out for me not to. I'm sitting there and I see Pa Kent drop his lit pipe into a box of tissues... it's like, there's no way, right? He's not really going to burn down their house, is he? The answer is, yes... he was really going to burn down their house. Just so silly... almost anachronistically so. This does not feel like a book from the 1980's.
General Zod is still a character who makes me yawn... but I definitely liked seeing him here, alongside the other couple of Phantom Zone Criminals. The last time we talked about this trio, it didn't work out so well for them, did it? It was neat seeing them outside the context of them being killed-real-good. Though they are outrageously goofy.
The story here... while I liked it... I can't help but feel as though I missed something. Superboy/Clark left after his folks forgot his Superboyness... because, why exactly? It's not because he's protecting them from people stuck in the Phantom Zone, because they tell him about that! I dunno... just seemed kinda slapdash. Then there's the ending... suddenly it's just a-okay to return home? Why? Weirder still, how does he explain that to his classmates, right? I'm willing to give it a pass just because it reminded me of that zany Silver-Age DC Comics nuttiness. I figure that's probably the tone this series is going for. I've got plenty more from this run, and at first blush they do appear to be something straight out of the mid-sixties... and that's not a bad thing.
If you're down for a real strange tale from when Superman was a boy... you can do far worse than this not-too-far-from Crisis series.
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Letters Page:
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