By Scott Tipton
March 19, 2003
HE’S JUST A SMALL-TOWN BOY
So who here is watching SMALLVILLE on the WB? A lot of you, right? I’m not surprised. It’s a good show, well conceived and well executed. I like it a lot. What I’m not so crazy about, however, are these kind of remarks, which I hear frequently:
“You know what I like about SMALLVILLE? It’s so original. Clark Kent growing up and dealing with his powers? Clark and Luthor friends? It’s such a fresh approach to the material.”
I agree, it is an original approach to the Superman mythology. It was especially original when Superman creator Jerry Siegel first came up with it in 1945. Far from being an all-new approach to the material, the WB’s SMALLVILLE is actually one of the most faithful Superman translations yet. Let’s look a little closer at SMALLVILLE, Superboy, Luthor, and how everything fits together. Or at least, how it used to.
Are the basics of SMALLVILLE pretty much the same as the comics? Clark Kent growing up in Smallville with his friends Pete Ross and Lana Lang?
Essentially. But first, a clarification. Back in 1986, DC Comics started over from scratch with Superman, in an attempt to modernize and freshen up the character. In the process, much of his past adventures and history were abandoned, including the concept of a teenage Clark Kent with powers who had adventures as Superboy. The comics we’ll be discussing today were all published in the first 40 years of Superman’s publishing history. So if you pick up a new Superman comic today, bear in mind that according to DC nowadays, the stories I’m talking about never happened.
Anyway, starting in 1945, Jerry Siegel began recounting the adventures of Superboy, young Clark Kent growing up in Smallville, Kansas, with his adoptive parents, Jonathan and Martha Kent (or Pa and Ma Kent, if you prefer). At first, Superboy acted in secret, so no one in Smallville would figure out that he was really young Clark. In time, Superboy’s appearances would become increasingly public, and Clark and his parents would find other ways to allay any suspicions about the fact that Superboy apparently lived in a small Kansas farming community. With the occasional help from Krypto, of course.
Krypto? Who’s Krypto?
Why, Krypto the Super-Dog, naturally. A quick digression:
Everybody knows the basic Superman origin, right? Noble scientist Jor-El of Krypton sends his only son to Earth in a rocket, mere seconds before the planet explodes. Jor-El’s no dummy; you’ve gotta test the rocket before you go stuffing your infant child into one. So Jor sends up a smaller test rocket for an orbital spin, with baby Kal’s puppy Krypto along for the ride. Tragedy strikes when the rocket is hit by a passing meteor in orbit, and off goes poor Krypto, careening off in to deep space. Apparently there’s no Kryptonian equivalent of the SPCA.
Jor-El doesn’t have too much time to feel bad about it, since not long afterwards the planet is consumed by quakes and he’s strapping little Kal-El into the next giant rocket, while Lara looks on and hopes for the best.
Having taken the long way around, Krypto’s rocket lands on Earth a few years after Kal-El’s, giving little Clark Kent a super-powered playmate. Naturally, the lesser gravity and yellow sun of Earth affect Krypto just as they did Clark, so Krypto can fly, is super-strong and invulnerable, has the heat vision (and there’s nothing more hilarious than when Krypto occasionally busts out the heat vision), the whole package. Throw a red cape on the pooch, which Clark wastes no time in doing, and there you have it. It sounds a little silly in retrospect, but Krypto was a pretty big part of the Superman mythology for decades, and he’s even back nowadays in the current Superman comics, having just recently appeared in the best-selling BATMAN by Jeph Loeb and Jim Lee. (Loeb, by the way, is a story editor on SMALLVILLE, and I’m guessing he’d have Krypto on the TV show in a heartbeat if the producers would let him…)
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End of digression. Back to Pete Ross. Clark’s best friend, just as in the TV show, was Pete Ross (although in the comics, Pete was a blond white kid). Also like the TV show, Pete knew that Clark Kent was secretly Superboy. The interesting twist was that, although Pete knew, Clark didn’t know that Pete knew. Pete discovered the big secret when he accidentally saw Clark changing into his Superboy costume during an emergency on a camping trip.
Costume? Superboy wore a costume?
Yep. The familiar red-and-blue Supersuit, just sized down. Anyway, the Pete/Clark dynamic took a odd turn after that, as Pete would quickly jump in to help out with his lame excuses whenever Clark would need to get away to change to Superboy. Clark, by the way, would repeatedly chalk it up to “a lucky break.” Right, Clark.
How about Lana? Still the subject of Clark’s unrequited love?
Not really. While Lana Lang was still Clark/Superboy’s primary love interest, Lana wasn’t really a fully drawn character, and was more of a redheaded small-town version of the original Lois Lane, hopelessly in love with Superboy while showing zero interest in Clark, all the while snooping and plotting to find out who Superboy really is. In fact, the Chloe Sullivan character on SMALLVILLE is much closer to the Lana Lang of the comics, what with the snooping and conspiracy theories and all.
And Lex Luthor? Surely the concept of Superboy and Lex being friends is a new idea …
Not at all. This concept used to be central to the Superman/Luthor relationship, and its removal from the mythos was, along with the elimination of Superboy, the biggest misstep in the Superman revamp of 1986. In the 1960 story “How Luthor Met Superboy,” by Jerry Siegel and Al Plastino, the origin of Lex Luthor’s hatred for Superman is finally revealed.
When Superboy stumbles across a huge kryptonite meteor, he lays near death until young Lex Luthor happens along. Lex is a teenaged scientist, he’s the world’s biggest Superboy fan, and he has a fabulous head of hair. He also has a tractor, which he swiftly puts in gear, pushing the meteor away from Superboy, and earning Superboy’s eternal gratitude. Lex and Superboy become fast friends. To help repay Lex, Superboy builds him a top-of-the-line scientific laboratory.
Spurred on by Superboy’s generosity, Lex decides to devote his genius to creating a cure for kryptonite, so Superboy need never again fear exposure to the deadly mineral. He does this in his spare time, while developing his other project, just a little thing called artificial life. Super-genius that he is, it’s not long before Lex has accomplished both tasks, and in his jubilance, he accidentally knocks over some bunsen burners and the like, and soon a fire has broken out in the lab. Here’s where it all goes bad.
Superboy soon notices the fire and rushes to the rescue, extinguishing the fire with his super-breath. Unfortunately, in doing so, Lex’s lab is reduced to a shambles, and not only is all of Lex’s work irretrievably lost, but the spray of chemicals about the lab causes all of Lex’s hair to fall out. The newly bald Luthor is furious, and quickly turns on his former pal, accusing Superboy of intentionally sabotaging Luthor’s achievements out of jealousy. Lex destroys his kryptonite antidote, and rededicates his genius to a new purpose, the destruction of Superboy.
To my mind, the Superman /Luthor relationship was all the more tragic, all the more powerful when there was all this backstory to give it texture. Here’s arguably the most brilliant man on Earth, and he wastes his life and genius on idle hatred and vengeance. It made Luthor’s actions weigh more heavily on Superman as well, as it highlighted Superman’s fallibility. Without that single mistake as a boy that turned Lex down the wrong path, who knows what amazing benefits to the world Luthor might have provided? The Luthor in today’s comics (and animation, for that matter) is your typical run-of-the-mill evil millionaire type, with no real scientific genius of his own and no real motivation for wanting to destroy Superman. Sure, there’s some sort of “He’s the one thing I can’t control, so I must destroy him” mumbo-jumbo, but who can really connect with that? Pettiness, jealousy, betrayal: these are motivations I can identify with. They made Luthor a real person, and one that, despite being supposedly “evil,” the reader couldn’t help but feel some respect for.
The guys at SMALLVILLE get it. Lex is often the most likable character on the show, and as the series progresses, I’m looking forward to seeing his alienation and betrayal when he finds out who and what Clark is, and how his supposed friend has been lying to him for years.
Okay, you sold me. Where can I find some of these comics?
Well, that’s a bit of a problem. To date, there hasn’t been one definitive “Best of Superboy” reprint collection published by the good folks of DC. Aside from going to comic conventions and hitting the back-issue bins for old issues of SUPERBOY, ACTION COMICS and ADVENTURE COMICS, you might want to try and track down some of these:
THE GREATEST SUPERMAN STORIES EVER TOLD
Published in 1987, this collection only has one Superboy story in it, but it’s a winner: “The Battle With Bizarro,” the 1958 introduction of Bizarro, Superboy’s (and later Superman’s) imperfect duplicate, for whom good is bad and right is wrong.
SUPERMAN IN THE SIXTIES
This 1999 collection has several of the more significant Superboy appearances, including the definitive origin story and “The Last Days of Ma and Pa Kent,” in which Clark learns that even all his power sometimes isn’t enough. And to cheer you up after that, check out “The Halloween Pranks of the Bizarro Superman”: it’s exactly how it sounds. Good stuff.
SUPERMAN IN THE SEVENTIES
Only one Superboy story in this 2000 collection, but the premise alone should be enough to pique your interest: Superman vs. Superboy in “Judge, Jury … and No Justice!” Handsome art by Dick Dillin and Dick Giordano drives this tight little time-travel gem, with a surprising appearance by Pete Ross. This trade paperback also includes perhaps the single weirdest Superman story of the 1970s: “I Am Curious (Black)!”, which features Superman using Kryptonian science to turn Lois Lane into an African-American so she can truly understand the Black experience.
Seriously. You’ve gotta check it out.
Comics 101 is here every Wednesday to answer your questions about all things comics. Send your queries to stipton99x@moviepoopshoot.com. Remember, the only dumb questions are the ones you don’t ask.
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