Thursday, March 24, 2016

Superboy or No Superboy, That is the Question

Most of you know, I'm a Superman guy. Ever since I saw the Super Friends cartoons and the Christopher Reeve movies, I've loved the character and what he stood for. However, I came into the comics "Post Crisis" and that Superman had never been Superboy. I liked how it was handled and thought then, and still do now, that it made more sense to have Clark Kent grow up like a typical mid-westerner, even if that meant he got a bit of an ego.

Of course, part of the problem with there being no Superboy is that it kind of screws up the Legion of Superheroes, who were patterned after Superboy's example. DC did a neat trick by having a Legion villain create a pocket dimension where a Superboy existed, but that's a little convoluted.

The Irredeemable Shag had a great idea about making Power Girl the inspiration for the Legion, and I really like that approach. Mainly because it kills two birds with one stone, as the Post Crisis Power Girl was all kinds of wonky.

Recently, though, I found a "chocolate & peanut butter" moment, and that was when Kira and I discovered the 2006 Legion of Super Heroes cartoon. I originally avoided this because it obviously had Superboy in it and, apparently, I had taken my pretentious douche-bag pills and thought that they'd "get it wrong." Luckily, I've mellowed with age.

The premise, of the first season, at least, is that teenage Clark Kent, who has never been Superboy, is taken to the future by the Legion to help out against the Fatal Five. He finds out about his destiny to become Superman and embraces it. He stays there for several adventures, and then the Legion returns him to the moment that he left. So you have Superboy with the Legion, but there isn't a Superboy in history. It works for everyone (I think).

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2 comments:

  1. It was the perfect way to deal with the problem and not an entirely bad series.
    May revisit it soon while it's on amazon Prime

    ReplyDelete
  2. We've only seen a few episodes so far, and I'm enjoying it.

    ReplyDelete