Comic Book Review: The Best of DC #7: Superboy

Comic Book Review: The Best of DC #7: Superboy edited by Julius Schwartz

With the success of Superman as a character and a cash cow, it was pretty much inevitable that the comic book company would find ways to expand the franchise. Thus in 1944, Jerry Siegel was convinced to create tales of Superboy, Superman when he was a boy. These stories didn’t quite fit in with what had happened with Superman in the earlier comic books, but continuity was much less of a concern in the Golden Age.

Comic book buyers also ate these stories up, so Superboy became a long-running feature. Due to a sliding timeline, the stories were set approximately 15-20 years before “present day” without (usually) specifying a particular year. This would also lead to some anachronisms, with 1920s automobiles coexisting with 1950s fashions, for example.

One of the running gimmicks for Superboy stories was to have him meet people that would become important in his life as Superman. And that’s the primary focus of this volume, collecting some of the better stories of this type, plus a few extras to fill out the page count.

“Superboy Meets the Young Green Arrow!” art by George Papp, features one of the two superheroes who were backup features for Superboy for years between the Golden Age and Silver Age. Clark Kent is invited by his friend who is a girl Lana Lang to participate in planning of the Smallville High School historical pageant, but Clark begs off as he wants to do some puttering about in his workshop.

By which he means Superboy’s workshop. He’s trying to create a Time Viewer that will allow him to look into the past and solve crimes that he can then follow up in the present. He’s especially interested in a gold robbery from two months ago. However, due to an atmospheric disturbance, it winds up peering into the distant future of 1959.

Superboy witnesses an archery exhibition by future crimefighter Green Arrow as he shows off his trick arrows. He then sees GA take off his costume and mask to become wealthy playboy Oliver Queen (bizarrely, we see Ollie greeted by a butler, even though in his own stories no such servant appeared.) Then the atmospheric disturbance ends and the Time Viewer doesn’t work anymore.

Interesting glimpse of the future, but kind of irrelevant…until the next week, there’s a new transfer student at Smallville High, Oliver Queen, who will be joining Clark Kent’s class! (Some of our younger readers might have thought this kind of bull was only an anime thing, but here we are.) Clark decides that he will help fate along by inspiring Ollie to become an archer.

This is somewhat of an uphill battle, as young Oliver has no interest in archery, and is a very bad shot. Clark tricks Ollie into donning a Robin Hood costume for the school historical pageant (Robin Hood was a real historical figure in DC continuity.)

The historical pageant is harassed by people dressing up as the historical enemies of folks the kids are dressed up as. Oliver is pressured by Clark and Superboy to use archery skills to defeat the “villains” but winds up using the bow and arrows in creative ways that don’t involve direct archery. The historical villains turn out to be an elaborate plot by the gold thieves to smuggle their loot out of the country, but Oliver helps expose the truth.

Oliver still has no interest in archery afterwards, and Clark accepts that fate has not called him to turn the boy into Green Arrow. That will have to wait for a certain ocean voyage. (And presumably, Ollie transfers back out of Smallville High shortly thereafter.)

Let’s talk about Smallville itself for a moment. For much of its existence, the location of the town was ambiguous. It was written most of the time as a largish rural town (possibly a county seat) with whatever geographical features nearby that were useful for the story. Generally, it was consistent with either upstate New York (since most of the writers lived in New York City) or Ohio (where Siegel and Shuster had grown up.)

It didn’t officially move to Kansas until the 1970s to be consistent with the beloved Christopher Reeve movie. But it’s stuck there ever since.

Smallville is in many ways America as it never was but should have been, a town small enough so that all the locals know each other by name or at least face, but large enough to hold mysteries and adventures. Most of the people are decent folk, with a few cranks and jerks, but the community pulls together when disaster strikes. And disaster strikes a lot, so it’s a good thing they have Superboy. It’s very much the sort of nostalgia for small-town American boyhood that Walt Disney, Ray Bradbury and Jerry Siegel share in their stories.

“The Super-Clown of Smallville!” art by Creig Flessel, focuses on one of Clark’s less pleasant classmates. Alvin Wilson is the nephew of famous TV comedian Tod Wilson, whose show involves him playing pranks on people. Alvin thinks his own practical jokes are just as funny. Lana points out that the people on TV are paid to be the butt of Tod’s jokes, while Alvin’s victims are not volunteers. His pranks are likely to get him in trouble.

Sure enough, when Alvin impersonates an alien to startle a dignified-looking chap, the man gets very sore-headed about it. Especially as the briefcase he dropped breaks open to reveal a golden statuette. The next day, Alvin makes the connection to the recent theft of a golden statuette by “the Museum Gang” of whom there are no pictures or descriptions. He decides to contact the police.

While he’s doing so, the criminals decide to get rid of the one witness that can identify their boss. Alvin spots the toughs tailing him and contrives to notify Superboy. Superboy comes up with a zany scheme. He will impersonate Alvin for a couple of days while the real prankster is stashed in a comfy cave. That way, the crooks will attack Superboy, proving their guilt.

During the next few days, Clark in Alvin disguise pulls “pranks” to keep up the deception, but each actually helps instead of hurts because he’s a good boy. He also has to dodge the suspicions of Lana after he carelessly doesn’t change a ring Alvin doesn’t wear.

Once the crooks reveal themselves, Superboy turns them over to the cops and releases the real Alvin. Alvin learns how much his reputation has improved due to Clark’s behavior as “him” and resolves to give up pranking.

“Dark Strangler of the Seas!” story by Frank Robbins, art by Bob Brown and Murphy Anderson, starts at the seashore, where fishermen pull up what looks like some kind of human-shaped sea monster. It’s actually a human covered in sticky crude oil. Superboy rushes the figure to an industrial detergent plant to try to scrub the suffocating cover off.

Underneath is a boy about Superboy’s age, and surprisingly, he struggles to dunk himself under water rather than allow the Boy of Steel to have him breathe air. It’s Aquaboy, who will grow up to become Aquaman, another of the long-running backup features.

Aquaboy explained that he had come across an oil-soaked porpoise, and was too late to stop it from choking to death. He traced the problem to a leaking oil tanker, telepathically instructing his other fishy friends to vacate the area before boarding. The crew mocked the idea of fixing the leak, citing the importance of profit over the lives of a few fish.

When Aquaboy tried to fight, he slipped on an oil slick and was overcome, coated in crude, and dumped overboard. The porpoises pushed him to shore hoping that the humans could help, and here we are.

Superboy wants to try the proper method of addressing the issue first, peacefully talking to the oil company involved to see if there’s a negotiated solution. But the executives at Trans-East Oil Co. are not interested. Bringing all their ships up to code would take weeks, maybe months, and cost them millions of dollars in delayed profits. The destruction of the ecosphere is a small price for progress, this is for the good of the people!

Disgusted, the boys move on to the direct action part of their plan. Finding the leaking oil tankers and “dry-docking” them in the middle of the desert. There Superboy drains out the oil (this is stupid, but he’s a teenager) before taking the emptied ships to be repaired properly.

The top men at Trans-East discuss what to do about this threat, and Selim suggests hostage-taking. (This is back when the negative stereotype about Arabians was being greedy, sneaky, cruel oil sheiks.)

While the boys continue their work, the oil executives arrange for one of their tankers to be filled with explosives instead of oil, and import a special bait. Marita, Aquaboy’s girlfriend! You may be going, “Who?” and rightly so, this is her only appearance. She’s clearly meant to look like a teenaged version of Aquaman’s future love interest Mera.

Marita is dangled, looking like a damsel in distress, but when Aquaboy goes to rescue her the net is actually for him. Apparently they made a good offer to her, because she doesn’t hesitate to betray Aquaboy. Which would explain why he never mentions her again.

When Superboy comes to rescue his ally, it’s revealed that the ship is rigged to blow the moment he tries to save Aquaboy. The oil company will keep Aquaboy just barely alive if Superboy stops abducting their ships.

Superboy pretends to fly off defeated, but he’s actually just going far enough away so he can fly in so fast that by the time the ship explodes he and Aquaboy are already gone.

Now that Trans-West has done something illegal enough that land dweller governments will do something about it, their operations fall into slightly less openly evil hands. Superboy and Aquaboy part ways, pledging to keep up the good fight.

You can really tell this is from when DC Comics got “relevant” for a while.

“The Millionaire of Smallville!” story by Leo Dorfman, art by George Papp, introduces Clark Kent’s millionaire uncle, Kendall. In accordance with tradition, Uncle Kendall is rich in material things, but is single and childless, so his life feels hollow. His plan to alleviate this is to adopt Clark himself. First off, Clark loves Ma and Pa Kent like the good adoptive parents they are. Also, Uncle Kendall is not privy to the fact that he’s also Superboy. So Clark is not in favor of the idea.

After Kendall leaves, he’s involved in a near-crash that Superboy saves him from. He faints from the shock, and awakens with the delusion that Clark has agreed to become his son. The doctor warns that Kendall’s every whim must be followed to ensure he does not become permanently insane, so Clark has to play along.

What follows is broad humor as Clark has to suffer rich people clothing and activities and being shunned by his classmates as they think the money has gone to his head, while coming up with dodges to get away to perform Superboy’s tasks.

Finally, he consults the doctor, who admits that a repeat of the shock might reset Kendall’s mind, so Superboy stages another near-accident. It works, with Uncle Kendall restored to his senses and Clark is free to return to his normal life.

Uncle Kendall Kent was very rarely used, and has been long forgotten in the present-day comic books.

“Superboy Meets Lois Lane!” written by Otto Binder, art by George Papp, takes us to the summer camp near Smallville. Camp Hiawatha has separate boys’ and girls’ campuses across the lake from each other, and it is to the girls’ camp that teenage girl Lois Lane has come for a vacation and the possibility of seeing Superboy.

By coincidence, one of her cabin mates is Lana Lang of Smallville, a girl who meets Superboy on the regular.

The running joke of the story is that Lois does not (yet) share Lana’s obsession with finding out who Superboy really is. So she keeps sabotaging Lana’s wacky schemes for that purpose, earning Superboy’s appreciation. Meanwhile, the narration constantly reminds us how different their relationship is in the future, hoho.

In a Superdickery moment, Superboy tells both girls he’ll go to the big dance with them–because he knows they’re going to develop poison ivy rashes and be unable to attend, so he technically isn’t breaking his promises. Boo, Superboy.

“Plague from the Past!” story by Leo Dorfman, pencils by Bob Brown, inks by Murphy Anderson, starts in Egypt. Professor Lang and his daughter Lana are trapped in the tomb of Senfru, a royal wizard who died 4000 years ago. Fortunately, Superboy noticed when they missed their check-in time, and bursts in.

Relieved, Professor Lang shows the Boy of Steel what he’s uncovered. This includes an hourglass which according to legend, can send the user back an hour in time if they believe in the power of Anubis, god of the dead. Superboy tries it, but there’s no effect beyond a faint glow, so he assumes it and all the other magical tools in the tomb are fake. As a nod to reality, the professor notes that he has to turn his discoveries over to the Egyptian government.

But because that would be boring, we skip to the next day, and the Egyptian authorities have kindly allowed Professor Lang to take home some of the artifacts from the tomb, including the hourglass…and the sarcophagus of Senfru himself. Superboy flies the Langs and the goodies back to Smallville and its really stocked museum.

As they’re unpacking the artifacts, Professor Lang mentions that he’d like to display the mummy, but the sarcophagus is inscribed with a warning that anyone who opens it will release the Curse of a Thousand Deaths. Superboy scoffs and volunteers to open the case himself, as he’s invulnerable and won’t be affected if there’s a trap. Inside is a mummy…and a weird cloud of sparkling dust, which has no effect on Superboy.

Professor Lang and Lana start choking, so Superboy flies them away to their home, noting that a draft has blown the dust out a window, where it will no doubt dissipate harmlessly. Except that by the time he reaches the Lang house, both of his companions are in a coma, have high fevers, and are marked with strange skin blotches.

When Superboy heads to the local hospital, he finds an epidemic already in progress. Anyone who comes into contact with the sparkling dust has the same symptoms as the Langs, and the medical staff are already beginning to suffer the same fate.

As Superboy flies over Smallville High, he sees that his fellow students are dropping like, well, flies. He gets to the radio station, where the entire staff is already in comas. Reasoning that broadcasting a warning would just start a panic, Superboy plows a moat around the entire town of Smallville to contain the plague.

Realizing he hasn’t checked in with his folks, Superboy rushes to the Kent home, only to find Ma and Pa already stricken. In less than an hour, the impetuous youth has doomed his entire community and everyone he loves. Wait, an hour?

Superboy rushes to the museum, and although he still does not worship Anubis, he now believes in the cruel power of death, and flips the hourglass. This sends him back an hour, at the cost of smashing the hourglass so it can never be used again.

This time he opens the sarcophagus in space, allowing the dust to spill out into vacuum far from any inhabited world.

(This lesson would not stick. Ma and Pa Kent would eventually die from a “cursed” treasure chest containing an incurable disease that Superboy had brought them.)

“Lex Luthor Imp” written by E. Nelson Bridwell, art by George Papp, opens with Superboy flying near Smallville’s Superboy Museum (as opposed to the regular Smallville Museum of the previous story.) The stone statues of Superboy flanking the exit suddenly spout water at each other. This can only be the work of Master Mxyzptlk!

Yep, the fifth-dimensional imp (teen version) is back to work more mischief. But there’s a new element. Lex Luthor, juvenile delinquent who will grow up to become Superman’s archenemy, aims an analyzer ray at Mxyzptlk. It produces a numerical printout of the results, which he feeds into a computer he put together over the last few months.

This allows him to alter the analyzer ray to duplicate fifth-dimensional imp powers within himself. Mxyzptlk is annoyed that a third person is inserting himself into the two-person relationship he has with Superboy. Lex starts by getting revenge for Superboy causing him to lose his hair by attempting to make him bald, only to give the Boy of Steel shoulder-length locks that fall into his eyes.

Lex and Mxyzptlk compete in pranks for a bit, until Superboy is able to trick the imp into saying his own name backwards, which banishes him to the 5th dimension for ninety days and undoes his changes. However, Lex still retains his copied powers.

Even getting Lex to say his name backwards doesn’t make him lose the abilities. Lex dismisses Superboy for a bit while he renames all the prominent spots in town after himself and erects statues to his ego. Superboy uses the respite to find out how Luthor pulled off the duplication in the first place.

Turns out that because the duplication relied on a numerical code, the trick is getting Luthor to say his name backward in that set of numbers. End of problem for now, and in his homeland of Zrff, Mxyzptlk makes sure that Luthor will have his memory of how to do that erased.

“The Kryptonite Kid!” written by Jerry Siegel, art by George Papp, features the title character, who will grow up to become Kryptonite Man. Lana Lang is throwing a party at her beach house, with Clark Kent and his friend Pete Ross in attendance. We’re reminded that Pete knows that Clark Kent is Superboy, but Clark doesn’t know that he knows.

The Kryptonite Kid shows up (this is his second appearance) and we get a recap of his origin. He was a criminal on the planet Blor serving time in prison (presumably tried as an adult for his crimes, though it’s not explained exactly what he did) when he was offered a pardon if he would go up in an experimental spacecraft with a test dog. The craft passed through a Green Kryptonite cloud which somehow imbued boy and dog with radiation that did not kill them, but turned them green and gave them the ability to turn anything they touched into Green Kryptonite.

Somehow, KK was able to pilot the craft to Earth, where he tried to destroy Superboy for…reasons. He was about to win when Mxyzptlk showed up and transported the criminal to a fifth-dimensional prison, as if Superboy was dead, the imp couldn’t play with him anymore.

Kryptonite Kid’s 5th-dimensional jailers could only keep him for a brief time under their laws, so he’s been returned to Earth. KK turns a globe of the Earth into Kryptonite, but Pete Ross stumbles into the room, “accidentally” knocking away the poisonous object, and since KK’s radiation does not harm normal humans, he runs away.

Superboy tries sending one of his robots after KK, but as soon as it touches him, it turns to Kryptonite, showing that it’s an unliving being. It leaves Earth so as to never be able to harm its creator.

Kryptonite Kid challenges Superboy to a showdown at an artillery range, where he disables the Boy of Steel with a Green K cannonball. He offers to let Superboy go free if the Boy of Tomorrow instead sacrifices his dog Krypto. Superboy agrees that he will deliver a Krypto.

Being evil, KK knows that Superboy will be haunted forever if he sacrifices his dog to save himself, and yet he cannot lie. Sure enough, a Krypto shows up and apparently perishes from Kryptonite poisoning. The evil alien takes off with his own dog, only to have Krypto suddenly show up and shove the spacecraft into a red space cloud.

This cloud is made up of Red K dust that turns evil people good. Kryptonite Kid and the dog are now glowing red and repent of their past misdeeds. It’s revealed that the “Krypto” they saw die was a robot with a lead outer casing. The reformed criminal now heads back to his homeworld to serve out his sentence.

However, Red Kryptonite’s effects are only temporary, so Superboy knows that the Kryptonite Kid will probably revert to type and come after him again another day.

“Superboy Meets Supergirl!” art by Curt Swan & George Klein, fills out the issue. In 1960, Supergirl is hanging out with her cousin Superman. He mentions that he was often lonely as a teen with no other super-people he could be playmates with. Supergirl is feeling her own lack of someone she can really let loose with. (The Legion of Super-Heroes does not come up.)

Impulsively, Kara decides to break the time barrier and go meet her cousin back when he was Superboy. She briefly explains her backstory, and the two are glad to play together.

They have some superfun, and then stop an alien invasion together. Only afterwards does Supergirl suddenly remember that Superman never met her when he was Superboy, so he can’t retain this memory. Fortunately, she remembers that the fragrance of a flower on the planet Albo causes short term amnesia even in Kryptonians, so Superboy makes a quick trip there.

Afterwards, Clark still longs for super playmates, and Linda Lee (Supergirl’s secret identity at the time) looks forward to perhaps revisiting the experience at some point.

It’s a fun story, but we knew from the beginning that there would have to be a reset.

The inside back cover has a text piece by E. Nelson Bridwell explaining how the stories were chosen. Including one story he wrote himself just because he could.

These are all okay stories, but none are truly memorable. Primarily recommended for fans of Silver Age Superboy; at least some of the stories have been reprinted in other collections.