I thought Scott Lobdell's first New 52 Superboy collection did fairly well by everyone's favorite clone; the second volume, even interrupted by the "Culling" crossover, also worked well enough up to its end, marred only by a standard "villain of the week" story by Tom DeFalco and a handful of guest artists. Unfortunately, Superboy Vol. 3: Lost ultimately goes wrong too; it starts out fine with DeFalco and art by series regular R. B. Silva, but it gets mired in the over-long "H'el on Earth" crossover, and again a variety of guest artists fail to impress.

Near the end the book gets really substandard, mainly as the current team tries to wrap things up before new writer Justin Jordan comes on; only some hints of what Jordan might do make me optimistic for the next volume.

[Review contains spoilers]

Again, Superboy Vol. 2: Extraction's final issue (excluding the interesting Zero Month chapter) was a stumble, as Tom DeFalco seemed to introduce a peer group for Superboy including a stereotypical rich jock, a stereotypical rich "brain," a Paris Hilton-type, and etc., depicted by two guest artists and three inkers in one issue. It's a pleasant surprise, therefore, that DeFalco's opening chapter deals with some of these same characters -- now depicted by R. B. Silva -- and succeeds.

This new chapter has a vibe that the earlier one didn't, reminiscent of Jimmy Palmiotti and Dan DiDio's (making his DC debut) Superboy stories from the early 2000s, positing Superboy as a twenty-something landlord in a kind of superhero domestic comedy. That may not be for everyone, but Superboy as a "twenty-something stranger in a strange land" works here, and again Silva's art helps mightily.

The initial "H'el on Earth" chapter also works, again by DeFalco and Silva. DeFalco had a good issue last time teaming Superboy and the Teen Titans' Bunker; he achieves the same good interplay between the characters in this issue. The rest of the Titans get involved, and DeFalco has a good mix of the old and the new here -- it's Superboy fighting alongside the Titans, reminiscent of the pre-Flashpoint universe, but at the same time it's always clear the Titans don't completely know or trust Superboy, adding a greater dimension to their interactions.

From there, "H'el on Earth" begins in earnest. It's not a terrible crossover as they go (the Superman issues by Scott Lobdell and Kenneth Rocafort are pretty solid), but Silva steps out for most of the Superboy issues, replaced by a variety of artists with differing styles and talent levels. There is some good stuff here, especially as regards Superboy's interactions with Superman and the members of the Justice League, many of whom he's meeting for the first time; as with the Titans issue, DeFalco offers a good mix of something that feels both familiar and fresh. At the same time, the crossover is much too long -- thirteen issues (I read it going back and forth between the third Superboy, Supergirl, Superman trades) -- and a lot of repetitive fight scenes and information recaps tend to slow it down.

Most egregious in the thirteen-part crossover is the Superboy annual collected here. In it, a Fortress of Solitude weapon shunts Superman and Superboy to a pocket dimension in the midst of fighting H'el, and they have to interact with an alien landscape to get home. The banter between Superman and Superboy is at times amusing, but there's only so much the reader can take before it begins to grate, and also the story factors not at all into the rest of the "H'el" crossover (what we had here, I'm guessing, was the idea for an annual in search of a story to tell in it); had I bought this on its own, I would have felt cheated. Also there's an "artist," two "pencillers," and two inkers on this one, and it really marks a nadir for the art in this volume.

In terms of writing, the Superboy issue that follows the "H'el" crossover is the lowest point, written by DeFalco, Lobdell, and Tony Lee (the additional hands suggesting trouble, I think, not extra effort). The issue commits two sins here, the first of which is that it re-introduces the villain Plasmus as a hulking beast with a terribly hackneyed German accent, and Wonder Woman's fearsome enemy Dr. Psycho, now a buffoonish fortune teller; neither presentation does those villains justice. Second, the issue spends much of its time on this ridiculous Dr. Psycho taking a trip through a kind of dreamscape of Superboy's mind, though this neither forwards the plot nor reveals anything the reader doesn't already know; the chapter is filler, essentially, and obviously so. It ends with Psycho finding Lex Luthor in Superboy's head, something the next and final issue reverses offhand in such a way that suggests that wherever this issue was originally going, it's not where it ended up.

For all of these reasons, it's therefore also a pleasant surprise that the book's final issue is perhaps the best of the bunch. Lobdell finally tells the origin of Harvest, whom Lobdell created in Teen Titans and Superboy, and the way the origin weaves through events of Action Comics and Superman is plenty engaging. We also meet Jon Lane Kent, son of Superman and Lois Lane; I thought he would turn out to be Superboy but Superboy is his clone instead. Either way, I know Jon Lane Kent is due to appear in this book again; it would be interesting enough to read about Superman and Lois Lane's son, but I'm especially curious given they're not even a couple in the New 52.

This, plus the promise of writer Justin Jordan coming on, is enough to bring me back for the next volume. Superboy Vol. 3: Lost did not end well, and based on this volume it's not a great surprise the title has recently been cancelled. Between Jordan and then Marv Wolfman, however, I'll give the final books a shot, if only to see "the Kid" out the door.

[Includes original covers, though not the full "WTF" gatefold cover]

Next week, Supergirl Vol. 3: Sanctuary and more Action Comics.

Though Scott Lobdell's Superboy Vol. 2: Extraction doesn't break any new ground necessarily, fans of Superboy Kon-El's various solo series should find something to like here. Lobdell generally does right by the cloned Kryptonian; new Superboy writer Tom DeFalco's issues suffer a bit, if perhaps from the effect of fill-in artists, though there's plenty hints that better things are on their way.

[Review contains spoilers]

Extraction, with Teen Titans Vol. 2 and Legion Lost Vol. 2, collect amongst themselves all the parts of the "Culling" crossover between the titles. I had previously complimented "Culling" for how it seemed like one big story with all the characters, rather than each title focusing on its own characters as Green Lantern crossovers often do. Taking the two "Culling" issues collected at the beginning of this trade away from the rest of the crossover, however, does reveal them to be more Superboy-focused than I'd originally realized.

The Superboy trade lacks the "what came before" pages that the Teen Titans volume has before its "Culling" issues, but again I think a reader who's only reading Superboy and not the other parts of "Culling" won't be confused. Lobdell narrates the stories in Superboy's voice (this voice being one of the best parts of Lobdell's Superboy stories), and the recaps that Superboy gives seem to me sufficient for the reader to understand what's happening (that, and the fact that very little actually happens in "Culling" except a series of fights).

Those who thrilled to the romance between Superboy and Wonder Girl, mourned Superboy's death in Infinite Crisis, and then were stymied by what happened when Superboy returned, will enjoy Lobdell's first post-"Culling" issue, which sees Superboy and Wonder Girl trapped on a deserted island. Seems to me Lobdell still intends a Red Robin/Wonder Girl pairing (and rightly so, what with Superman dating Wonder Woman now and Superboy and Wonder Girl having been an item in the old universe), but the tension or perhaps rivalry between Superboy and Wonder Girl is fun, especially the bit where Wonder Girl introduces Superboy to food for the first time.

The trade follows this issue with the "deserted island" issue from Teen Titans, which is useful for explaining how Superboy gets back to his own time. The Titans collection, though already overloaded with an issue of DC Universe Presents, could probably have used the Superboy issue included too, if only to explain why Superboy and Wonder Girl were popping out of a hatch in the bottom of the jungle ground.

At this point, Lobdell moves to "plot" and DeFalco comes in for "script," beginning the transition between writers. The first of DeFalco's issues, a team-up between Superboy and the Titans' Bunker, plus a villain from Lobdell's Titans, is also fun; Bunker seems to steal the show in just about any comic he's in. I liked Lobdell and DeFalco's exploration of Superboy's morality -- he fights bad guys, yes, but he also sees no problem in "borrowing" money from a bank to support himself. In the old universe, Superboy and Supergirl were both ardent crimefighters almost from the start -- I think we'd never have seen Superboy rob a bank in the old universe -- and I appreciate that the writers are taking risks with these characters and making them more than just cookie-cutter superheroes.

The art by Superboy artist R. B. Silva helps the transition from Lobdell to DeFalco feel more natural, though Silva's Bunker looks unusually wide (especially in his civilian clothes) as compared to how Brett Booth draws him rail-thin.

The issue that follows, however, uses two guest artists and three inkers, and this plus washed-out colors lessens the impact of an already-troubled issue. Superboy is out at a club with his non-distinct new friends (who I hope don't become this title's supporting cast) -- the stereotypical "cool" guy, the stereotypical "brainy" guy, and so on. A woman with equally run-of-the-mill telepathic powers marches in to collect a debt from one of Superboy's friends, the Kid of Steel gets in the way, and a fight ensues. There's little that's impressive here (except a nicely grotesque two-page spread), and the lackluster art only contributes to the sense that for DeFalco, this one's a stumble.

The book finishes more strongly, however, with the Zero Month issue by DeFalco and Silva, with much brighter colors. The origin issue simultaneously shows some behind-the-scenes action of the first issues of Superboy (making the ties to "Culling" a bit clearer) and also offers some insights into the New 52 Krypton (look for the Supergirl cameo appearance). We don't learn much we didn't already know here, but the end teases an epic confrontation between Superman and Superboy. I had not heard great things about the "He'l on Earth" crossover between the Super-titles, but this issue, and the foreshadowing of what might happen between Superman and Superboy, makes me much more eager. Had Extraction ended on issue #12, I might not have picked up the next Superboy trade, but the Zero Month issue restored my excitement for this series.

Those still missing the Superboy in Smallville days may never be satisfied by Lobdell's take on the character (and heaven help those still missing the Superboy in Hawaii days), but I find this a rather refreshing take on the Superboy character -- and one that certainly finds its roots in the animated Young Justice Superboy, even if not in the comics that came before. It's hard to say who's extracting what from whom necessarily in Superboy: Extraction, but it won't be hard for DC to extract my money for the next volume.

[Includes original covers]

One more stop on this Teen Titans trip: a review of the Ravagers collection is coming up, plus Brian Woods's Star Wars and Matt Kindt's Mind MGMT!

Scott Lobdell has been one of the DC Comics New 52's most controversial writers, whether for minor infractions (continuity revisions within the New 52's own Teen Titans) or major (Red Hood and the Outlaws's Starfire kerfuffle). Less has been said about about Lobdell's Superboy (collected in Superboy: Incubation), perhaps because it's just plain good -- a story, as Superboy ought be, of misguided teenagers flailing about, trying to do the right thing, not always succeeding but giving it their best effort. Fans of the Young Justice cartoon, especially, ought be satisfied with this one.

[Review contains spoilers]

The reader might feel an amount of fully-justified whiplash following Superboy around the events of Incubation. He is a prisoner of the mad-science organization NOWHERE, he's their weapon, he's abandoned them, he's rejoined them, he's attacking them. Such is the struggle for identity that Lobdell presents through Superboy -- cloned and born fully-grown, Superboy rebels against the only parents he's ever known, even as he continues to return to them for direction and validation. Along the way, Superboy also struggles with the heroic ideal -- he does not save every endangered person he encounters, refusing to blindly accept the "Super" in his makeup.

Superboy is a narration-heavy book, likely to a fault -- a comic that's all action is equally bad, but at one point, when Superboy considers his life while floating before the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree, Lobdell packs twenty thought boxes into two pages. All of this thinking, however, serves well the Stranger in a Strange Land aesthetic of the book -- Superboy analyzes everything, ad nauseum, in part because he's truly conflicted about what he believes and who he wants to be. Lobdell takes the time in Incubation to truly get into Superboy's head, and it's appreciated.

There's nary an appearance by Superman in this book, but the new Supergirl stops by to knock Superboy around a bit. Incubation's release is poorly-timed (it takes place after events in both the first Supergirl and Superman collections, despite that they won't be released for a few months), but Lobdell deals with the new continuity well and succeeds in making Supergirl likable despite that she's generally angry and arrogant. Neither the new Superboy nor the new Supergirl fit in -- she knows too much, aware of what destroyed Krypton and frustrated no one on Earth will take her seriously; and he knows too little, pushed around by NOWHERE and now determined to resist all authority. They are, the reader must admit, a pleasant change from the clean cut, super-mentored, toe-the-line Super-family of the old DC Universe, and it'll be thrilling when they finally do interact with the Man of Steel himself.

Those who followed the "old" cloned Superboy from the beginning can't feel that they're missing much. Sure there's no Tana Moon or Newsboy Legion, and Superboy's not off to Hawaii with Dubblex, but Lobdell's still got the tactile telekinesis, and even finds a creative way to give Superboy his Kryptonian name Kon-El. (An especially nice touch is that Superboy has to be concentrating to use his telekinesis, such that a sneak attack can still harm him.) There's also varied items that evoke the Jack Kirby influences from Karl Kesel's Superboy series -- Superboy fights some beasts reminiscent of Kamandi's sentient animals and also a fiery woman resembling the animated DC Universe's Volcana, herself based on Kirby's Victor Volcanum (who also fought Kesel's Superboy); NOWHERE's Centerhall's relationship with the new Superboy echoes that of the old Superboy's relationship with Project Cadmus's Guardian. Certainly on purpose, Superboy's origins and demeanor mimic the same on the Young Justice cartoon.

But even more compelling than Superboy in this volume is Lodbell's use of Caitlyn Fairchild and Rose Wilson. The surprise of former-Wildstorm character Fairchild's appearance her is long since spoiled, but it makes hints at thirteen super-powered characters no less fun. DC hasn't pulled the trigger on a Gen13 book yet, and perhaps with the spin-off series The Ravagers they don't have to; Fairchild's integration into Superboy and the DC Universe here is seamless, preserving old, likable elements of the character while giving her new purpose. The new Rose Wilson also combines the best of old and new; Lobdell makes her both tough and sympathetic -- at times more sympathetic than Superboy, especially in her concern for Fairchild -- such that the audience again feels they've gained more than they've lost.

R. B. Silva's pencils mesh perfectly with the story Lobdell tells; Silva's sparse lines are cartoony while still realistic -- maybe the only problem are instances where Superboy, shown in head and shoulders, resembles Klarion the Witch Boy. Shane Davis's covers are a coup for the series (even though it's a Super-title, Superboy isn't that high-profile), kind of like Resurrection Man getting Ivan Reis covers.

Writer Jeff Lemire is certainly no slouch, but his last pre-Flashpoint Superboy series saw Kon-El chasing undead farmers with his high school friends. The whiz-bang sci-fi of Superboy: Incubation, in contrast, does feel fresh and new -- and especially the idea that the new Superboy doesn't automatically have Superman and the entire Justice League always ready to get him out of trouble. Scott Lodbell's more controversial works are still to come, but to read Superboy on its own, there's no cause for concern so far.

[Includes original covers, brief sketchbook by R. B. Silva]

Wednesday (also known as Halloween), go out and get your copy of Superman: Earth One, Volume 2. Read it. Then come back here Thursday, because we're going to have a lot to talk about. See you then!

Look, I'm still riding high on writer Jeff Lemire for his stellar debut volume of the DC New 52 Animal Man: The Hunt. And certainly it's a joy and a wonder to be holding Superboy: Smallville Attacks, a collection of eleven issues of a standalone Conner Kent series, twenty years after the character debuted and ten years since his last series ended. Certainly, if this were an ongoing series with another volume on the way, I would buy it.

I just can't quite come around to agreeing that this title deserved its "Best New Series" Eisner nomination.

Superboy: Smallville Attacks is an excellent showing for the Conner Kent character, and exactly what the character needed. It is a pitch-perfect story of supernatural weirdness in a small town -- but unfortunately, it is so on-level as to fail to really hold any surprises other than being a good platform for the title character.

[Review contains spoilers]

As in Geoff Johns's Superboy: Boy of Steel, Smallville Atacks makes reference to Superboy's fade haircut-and-jacket days. This was, again, about twenty years ago, and it's amazing how the character has evolved since then. Created whole-cloth (for the most part) by Karl Kesel and Tom Grummett, the character has continually appeared in one DC Comics title or another ever since. Superman and company have been around over seventy years, long enough that it's easy to think of them as ever-present; to see a character like Conner Kent emerge, however, and then subsequently become enough a part of the DC Comics mythology that he grows, changes, and even continues into the DC New 52 is wholly fascinating. "Whatever they touch turns to myth," indeed.

To Jeff Lemire's credit, Superboy: Smallville Attacks picks up right where Johns's story left off, with Superboy relishing his life in Smallville alongside sidekick/potential arch-nemesis Simon Valentine and love interest/genetic cousin Lori Luthor. Johns offered some basic Superman tropes to underline Superboy's Smallville life, and Lemire plays them both toward and against type -- Simon seems poised to become Superboy's Lex Luthor at every turn, but in the meantime functions as his Jimmy Olsen (Valentine's the red hair, which Jimmy and Lex shared, poses significant confusion). Lori Luthor could as easily be Superboy's Lois Lane or Lana Lang, if not for the fact she and Superboy are related, something that fits into the story's general "small town weirdness" aesthetic.

In the first pages, Lemire enters the Phantom Stranger, giving Superboy a supernatural vibe we haven't seen in the Super-titles since Peter David's Supergirl. (With the Phantom Stranger's renewed role in the DC New 52, fans might want to take note of one of his final, rather continuity-heavy appearances here.) Most of Superboy's adventures in the book are not magic-related until the conclusion, but definitely the book has a "spooky" aspect that differentiates it from the Superboy series previous. In the book's conclusion, Lemire uses the sorcerer Arion and the Viking Prince; combined with Phantom Stranger, Superboy begins to mine the less-visited corners of the DC Universe in a way, again, we don't often see from a Super-title.

What's in between that beginning and end is a mixed bag. Superboy has fairly routine battles with the Parasite and Poison Ivy, and invaders from the future. There's a race with Kid Flash, possibly the best issue of the bunch not for the race, but how Lemire sets as its background Lori's common small-town loneliness. The Return of Doomsday crossover interrupts; there's a one-off "alternate reality" issue that sets up stories that never quite play out, and then the book is into its conclusion. The superheroic conflicts are mundane largely because they're besides the point; more time is spent on Conner talking over his partnership with Simon or discussing his relationship with Lori, or pondering the darkness that the Phantom Stranger warns is inhabiting the town.

All of this adds up to a lot of talking and not much else. Don't get me wrong, I don't mind a chatty comic (see two personal Greg Rucka favs, Gotham Central and Checkmate), but Smallville Attacks is written in single-issue style; any number of chapters have Superboy thinking back over the events of previous stories or wondering about the location of the mysterious "Broken Silo" (something he's simply told toward the end of the book) without much progress being made. Even Superboy's major conversations with Simon and Lori only re-establish the status quo, though perhaps more might have been in the offing had this series not ended with the DC New 52.

Lemire offers a nice Court of the Owls-type jolt when he finally reveals the zombie city that's supposedly existed under Smallville for hundreds of years. Unfortunately, however, the city of zombified farmers are no different than your average Walking Dead clip, and while I give Lemire points for using Phantom Stranger Tannarak, he emerges as just another Ming the Merciless-eqsue sneering villain. As with Smallville Attacks's Silver Age elements -- a character names Psionic "Lad," thought balloons -- the book does what it does well, but it never surprises nor achieves much more than what appears to be on the surface.

Still, however, Lemire and artist Pier Gallo achieve what many creative teams have not -- to write a respectable, readable Superboy character; Gallo is another of those treasured artists who refrains from making the men ridiculously buff or the women gratuitously sexy, just drawing people. The list of guest appearances Superboy has made in titles where he's portrayed as a sarcastic buffoon might be second only to those lists for Guy Gardner and Kyle Rayner. The fact that Lemire writes a mature Conner Kent, one who could hold his own series, will be sufficient for most of the characters' fans.As with (Red) Robin Tim Drake, in the DC New 52 we keep Superboy but largely lose this current incarnation, and Superboy: Smallville Attacks is a wonderful send-off for the character despite what misgivings I might have about it.

[Includes full and variant covers.]

We'll complete our two-week send-off of the sidekicks of the "old DC Universe" next, with the Collected Editions review of Teen Titans: Prime of Life. And don't miss the earlier parts of this series with our reviews of Teen Titans: Team Building and Red Robin: Seven Days of Death.

Number 1039


Fredric Wertham, George Washington and the Boy of Steel


I'm showing this Superboy story because it was mentioned in the infamous Seduction of the Innocent by Fredric Wertham, M.D. When you've read the story I have a couple of pages from SOTI scanned with pertinent paragraphs highlighted. Then I have my own opinion of what Wertham said.

I continue to be fascinated by Wertham. He'd be an interesting person to study even if he hadn't gotten into the business of condemning comic books. Click on the Fredric Wertham link in the box below for more of what I've had to say about Dr. W.

"George Washington's Drum" is drawn by John Sikela and Ed Dobrotka, and is from Superboy #2, 1949:

***********

What did Fredric Wertham have against Superboy?

It's safe to say that Dr. Fredric Wertham, author of Seduction of the Innocent, never met a comic book he didn't hate. He found fault with Superman, who reminded him (a German emigré) of the Nazi superman. Wonder Woman was frightening to boys, Batman and Robin were a homosexual wish dream. The list goes on. Wertham slandered them all.

He also had ways of exciting emotions of his core audience, parents, teachers, even government officials, in his battle against comic books. In the two pages I've scanned from SOTI he used the universal propagandist's tool, turning his enemies' own words against them. He quoted an article from the Child Study Association of America, and quickly established it was written by a writer who worked for the publisher of Superman.* He ridiculed the writer's choice of comic books as being unrepresentative of comic books sold to kids. He gave the writer's words to number 10, Jungle Comics, a twist. As quoted by the article writer, "sometimes women are featured in these stories as captives or intended victims." At the bottom of his paragraph scoffing at this writer's claims he inserted this zinger, ". . .and she tries to make parents believe that the sexy wenches in the jungle books are just "fair maidens"!) The article writer didn't say anything about sexy wenches or fair maidens. Those are Wertham's words, poisoning the well with a negative buzzword ("wenches") and sarcasm ("fair maidens").

Wertham went into the argument against comics with his guns firing, and had the comic book publishers ducking for cover. The industry as a whole knew there were a lot of things in comic books that kids probably shouldn't see.** But kids also went to movies, listened to the radio, and presumably read other material that may have things they shouldn't hear or see. What kid hasn't? (By the way, it's called growing up.) By zeroing in on comics Wertham kept the hatred focused, even if he went askew at times with his arguments. To him the Superboy story focused on a "uniformed superman-youth" rather than "the father of American democracy [George Washington]." But of course it did. It's not a history lesson. It is entertainment, a fantasy like other fantasies of time travel. It used historical characters and events for its own purposes, which is what fiction does. This was his answer to the article writer's claim that "History is often a dull subject. . . .Through comics it could be made a fascinating study." He used the Superboy story as an example of kids getting the wrong historical information from comics. I think the kids who were old enough to read the story had heard of George Washington*** and knew that Superboy going back in time was just fantasy, an extension of the whole concept of a Superboy.

Wertham caps off this paragraph by throwing something in that blindsides the reader: "Similarly, it must be admitted that a lesson about anthropoid apes is less 'dull' when accompanied by a picture of the animal about to rape a girl." Where were we talking about apes raping girls? What does that have to do with George Washington or Superboy or American history? Well, nothing, but in Wertham's mind they must have had equal value: Superboy helping George Washington=ape raping girl. He threw everything into his argument: ridicule, slander, misquotes, non sequiturs and conclusions coming from...where? Of course, he was a prominent psychiatrist, a social reformer, the de facto leader of the anti-comics movement, and if he threw things into his argument that didn't make sense to you, well, maybe you just read too many damn comic books!

*The writer he refers to is presumably Josette Frank, a consultant on children's literature to the Child Study Association of America, as listed in comics published by DC.

**Some self-righteous publishers would say it was the "irresponsible publishers" who put out the disreputable comics. That usually meant EC and its imitators.

***Kids my age during the 1950s and '60s had access to wonderful books like the Landmark series of history books for young readers, when we could tear ourselves away from our historically inaccurate comic books, that is:

[This guest review comes from Todd Wagener of Brown Bag Comics]

The Adventures of Superboy hardcover collection from DC came out recently and I was thrilled! I had only read a few of these stories due to the fact that DC has not reprinted them before now, and was really feeling quite antsy to get them. Superboy was a mainstay favorite of mine, due in no small part to the fact his adventures were more fun and bound by the mind of a child, and not by the grown-up standards placed on him as an adult in Superman. Also, Superboy helped found my favorite team ever, the Legion of Super-Heroes!

That said, this book should have been one of my most valued collections, but it fell short. DC has decided that the hardcovers of classic Golden Age and Silver Age material should be printed on newsprint instead of a nicer, glossier or slicker paper. I know that these are not DC Archives, which are quite wonderful on their own, but when you reprint material that is available only in books from the 1940s and has not been seen in a modern reprint collection, you have a duty to make the presentation as nice as possible.

After all, DC is charging $39.99 for this book, and for only $10 more, it could have been an Archive instead. I, for one, would have been happy to purchase it as a DC Archive for $50, but that wasn't to be. Heck, if you were going to put it on low quality paper, why didn't DC print it as a DC Showcase like it was initially going to be? You must give the consumer quality if you are going to charge a quality price.

Now for the other drawback to this book: the binding is so tight that actual panels are obfuscated beyond readability! Knowing that Golden Age pages were larger than Silver Age or certainly Modern Age pages, DC should have decided to shrink the images slightly to avoid putting panels within .75 of an inch of the binding. As it is, most of the time you read Adventures of Superboy, you have to break the spine to read the words of important dialogue. In fact, it seems the writers of Superboy at the time had an edict that the third panel on a page was the primary dialogue/exposition panel and thus, all important data is in that panel.

I normally read my books and enjoy them, but I treat them like the library books I borrowed from the library when I was a kid and was told to treat them gently since they were not mine! So now as I have been purchasing these hardcovers, it really hurts me to break the binding or even push it to the limit just to read the story. I value my hardcovers just like I value my individual comics as more than just reading material, but rather as collectibles that others will want to buy or trade for. And who wants to buy books that aren't neat and have the spine looking like someone who got forty lashes!

The stories are dated but fun, and I liked the fact that they are presented in order from the first appearance in More Fun Comics #101 up until the change in title to Adventure Comics - all from the Golden Age. These are not the more science-fiction-y, young Superman versus young Lex Luthor-type Superboy stories that most readers are familiar with from the Silver Age. In these, the writers make a specific point of how a young Clark Kent showed morals and good upbringing to a generation of readers long before Fredric Wertham published Seduction of the Innocent! The style of these stories was always to entertain first, and provide moral/ethical leadership second. Personally, I enjoyed seeing Superboy play along to help a man pose as Santa Claus to give unfortunate children gifts -- it's a classic, timeless concept that many artists and writers have re-used over the past sixty-plus years.

In 2010, these kinds of stories might even seem naive, but in 1945 the goal was to teach children to be civil and not to judge people based on race, creed, or financial circumstances. In the story "Happy Birthday," for instance, Clark is going to a schoolmate's birthday party that has apparently been ruined because her father has been questioned for a crime and exonerated -- but this causes none of her schoolmates to come to the party except for Clark. Superboy decides to make this right by seeking out the inspector in charge of the case and taking him back to the classmate's houses to tell them that the girl's father was questioned by mistake and the real robber was already apprehended. All of the mothers call one another to make sure that the classmates go to the party. To top it off, the day is also Clark's unofficial birthday. Sweetly amusing, that is why this book is such a gem: it shows the distinct difference in society's innocence between 1945 to today.

Also, you won't find any villains or even characters that populated the Silver Age Superboy, with the notable exception of a very young Perry White. Perry makes an appearance in "Perry White, Cub Reporter" (originally from Adventure Comics #120). You see the future-editor of the Daily Planet get his job at the Daily Planet and how a young Clark Kent helped him do so, even though the story never actually became part of DC continuity (though it is echoed in the current Smallville mythos -- ed). Even more notable is that, though Perry is recognizable, this early Superboy's parents in this series aren't the Ma and Pa Kent we're so used to.

I can't really say I had favorite stories here, but it is a favorite era of mine. The 1930s and 1940s were a better time to be an American and to be a kid. This is a time when kids played on the river on homemade rafts and people having to go to the sheriff instead of phoning him. It's the time when doctors made housecalls and might even have performed surgery on the kitchen table, as shown in "Weather, Hurricane!" from Adventure Comics #106. There's stories here of kids making toys to sell for money for an operation in "Toytown, U.S.A." from Adventure Comics #104 and a story about careless driving in "Super Safety First" from Adventure Comics #112. That story uses the headline "Careless Driving Kills And Maims More Than War," which is interesting since it was published in 1947!

As for the issues included in this volume, they include all of the Superboy stories from More Fun Comics #101-107 and Adventure Comics #103-121. This covers almost three years of stories from DC's archives. And the work of such writers as Jerry Siegel, Bill Finger and Don Cameron along with the art of Joe Shuster, John Sikela, George Roussos and J. Winslow Mortimer bring to life this wonderful time. But the cover by Michael Cho, while evoking the time, does not really help "sell" the collection to newer readers. At a time when groundbreaking covers by Alex Ross are being done for other collections, DC used a light-hued cover of Superboy carrying a wagon with a boy, a girl and a dog in it. The color palette is a little weak, and will look washed out on the book shelf alongside your copies of the current Blackest Night collection or Absolute Crisis on Infinite Earths volume.

Nonetheless, this is a book made for fans to love and admire the early work of the World's Greatest Hero. Event comics, in my opinion, are short-term excitement, but good writing is a long-term prize. The Adventures Of Superboy is that long-term prize to be read, enjoyed and re-read again for years to come.

I've been a fan of Superboy -- Conner Kent, Kon-El, or for those who were there in the beginning, "the Kid" -- for a long time. By a long time, I mean I've got every issue of the Superboy series, every issue of Young Justice -- heck, I've got every issue of Superboy and the Ravers! And indeed, I'd venture Superboy's death in Infinite Crisis is about the first time a comics character's passing really got me (and that I truly believed he was dead). Having followed the character from the start and enjoyed his various Karl Kesel, Peter David, and Geoff Johns incarnations, I felt after Infinite Crisis that I really would miss this character.

To that end, I'd have been glad for just about any story that has Geoff Johns writing a newly-resurrected Superboy, even Superboy sitting around reading the phone book. As a matter of fact, the Superboy: The Boy of Steel collection isn't quite far off that -- the real comic book-type action of this story is relegated to a few brief pages at the end, while the rest mainly shows Superboy reconnecting with his friends and being glad to be alive. This won't, I imagine, be the most riveting stuff to every reader -- depending on your perspective, this book could very well reflect a host of problems with DC Comics -- but for this Superboy fan, it's a welcome, welcome volume.

[Contains spoilers]

The clone Superboy, in his early incarnation, largely symbolized 1990s comic book excesses; while Superboy wasn't as muscle-ripped nor his adventures as bloody as some, his sarcasm and leather jacket oozed "kewl." Similarly, Johns' Superboy reborn reflects the new twenty-first century comic book sensibilities; this Superboy, like the also-resurrected Hal Jordan and Barry Allen alongside him, is basically good and clean-cut, and iconic -- he lives in Smallville, hangs out with Krypto, is good friends with Robin (now Red Robin), and so on. It's a Superboy as easily recognizable as Superboy can be without actually being a young Clark Kent, perfect for Underoos and heralding roller coaster rides, and one that someone who comes to Superboy after experiencing DC Comics in movies or on TV can easily recognize.

I know and agree with the reasons this trend is potentially bad for DC Comics, but it works for me because I'm the target audience -- someone who has some affinity for this Superboy even more so than for Hal Jordan or Barry Allen. At one point Superboy and Wonder Girl joke around a picnic table about their old Young Justice hair styles, and it's not so much a plot point as it is Johns reaching out and shaking hands with those who get the joke -- a "welcome to the mothership" moment, if you will. Indeed, the real draw of Boy of Steel is mainlined nostalgia, if that's your kind of thing; if the story isn't reminiscing about Young Justice and enjoying the Johns-era Teen Titans gathered around a campfire, it's offering older touchtones like Superboy and Krypto or Lex Luthor in a prison jumpsuit or even the Normal Rockwell-esque Kansas sunsets provided by artist Francis Manapul.

Indeed Boy of Steel is reductive from start to finish, but I give it at least some credit for being intentionally so. The brunt of Boy of Steel is Superboy's chapters with Wonder Girl and Red Robin; each want to tell him about their brief affair, and each time Superboy's answer is that he doesn't care about "last year." Forget evolving past the 1990s -- Superboy wants to suggest a sea change at DC Comics that overcomes the rather tepid year-long lead-in to Final Crisis, including a mishandled Teen Titans and the gratuitous death of Kid Flash Bart Allen among other events. (Johns included a similar note in his Final Crisis: Rogues Revenge story, which some see as a rare moment of rebellion from a writer/executive who usually toes DC's party line.) Of course, with one hand DC suggests a renewal in Superboy while with the other hand the gratuitous deaths just keep coming in Justice League and elsewhere, but there's an undertone to this story, at least, that everything will be better now.

Frankly, it's even a little startling just how sedate this book is. Whereas the old Superboy moved to Hawaii lest boredom set in, he's now content to live in Smallville on the farm with Ma Kent. Whereas the previous Superboy series had Roxy Leech in a bikini on a good number of pages, here Superboy goes on chaste picnics with Wonder Girl. There's an amazing establishment tone to this book, when before the Superboy character was all about being anti-establishment, that again speaks to the book's nostalgia ethos -- writer Johns would've been about 19 when Superboy emerged, ready for the counter-culture himself, and is now 37; the calm Superboy and the hip un-hipness of Barry Allen, likely also indicates the growth (or rapid aging, depening on your perspective) of the audience for whom this Superboy story was written, for better or worse.

You'd get from Boy of Steel's back cover copy and such that Superboy's central concern is negotating his dual heritage as a clone of both Superman and Lex Luthor. The story starts with Superboy hunting Luthor, but even that dotters off a bit; ultimately Superboy's chatting up a new friend when Luthor finds him. What follows are some Luthor scenes that hearken more to the John Byrne businessman version than the Johns "crazed supercriminal" version, which I like; but end of the book puts unexpected closure on Superboy's conflict with him confidently denouncing his Luthor heritage. No doubt Superboy will end up facing Luthor again, but I was surprised to see such a tidy resolution to what I thought would be Superboy's ongoing conflict; perhaps this offers more of a clean slate for when writer Jeff Lemire takes up a new Superboy series not too long from now.

We're far beyond the era where comic book deaths have meaning (probably something we'll talk more about when the Blackest Night collections come around) but I actually believed Superboy was gone and wouldn't be back, even as he's resurrected not much more than a couple years later. Silly me for falling for the oldest trick in the (comics) book when I should've known better? Maybe. Has what began after Infinite Crisis with a kinder, gentler twenty-first century DC Comics now made our heroes a little toothless? Also maybe. But gosh -- the clone Superboy is back in the DC Universe. Undoubtedly there will be time to worry about the implications of DC endlessly chewing over its own history later, but for right now, I don't care. Superboy's back, and I'm going to bask in the cotton candy nostalgia of it all a little while longer.

[Contains full and variant covers, Secret Files and recap pages.]

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