Superboy

The Boy of Steel…

But, Superboy is just Superman as a kid right?  Well, yes, but his career is long and storied enough to note it on a separate page.  Infant Kal-El was rocketed from doomed Krypton and landed in the Smallville, Kansas cornfield of Jonathan and Martha Kent.  The couple adopted the child and raised him as their own, giving him the name Clark Joseph Kent and instilling him with the values of truth, justice, and the American way.

Stories vary, but eventually Kal-El began to recognize that he had abilities far beyond those of his classmates, which resulted in a heart to heart from the Kents to young Clark about his otherworldly origins.  Clark then donned the familiar costume and began doing secret hero work, until he was discovered and dubbed a Superboy.

As a result of his strength, Clark could no longer afford to play with his classmates as he did not know his own strength and might inadvertently kill someone.  So, with the help of his parents Clark developed the persona of a mousy bookworm.  He soon became ostracized by most of his peers with two notable exceptions.

Pete Ross had accidentally discovered that Clark was Superboy during a camping trip and had vowed to keep that fact a secret and he covered for Clark a ton when he had to run off and save others.  Meanwhile, Clark’s first love was Lana Lang, a girl who was absolutely convinced that Clark was Superboy, but frequently thwarted from her investigations by happenstance and Pete.

Superboy was relatively happy, but something was missing from his life and that was his true peers.  One day, he was confronted by three time traveling youths from the Legion of Super-Heroes, Cosmic Boy, Saturn Girl, and Lightning Lad.  They had come to invite Superboy to join the Legion as Superboy was their inspiration for forming the Legion, meanwhile the Legion in a weird way taught Superboy how to be a hero.

Superboy’s career ended when Clark left Smallville and went into a rather unchronicled period of his life when he earned a journalism degree and then joined the staff of the Daily Planet in Metropolis.

First Appearance

Created By Jerry Siegel & Joe Schuster

Powers

Superboy has a litany of abilities which have been expanded and shrunk over the times so below are the most commonly used and established in the DC canon.

Flight – Superboy can break free of gravity and travel unimpeded through the air.

Immunity to Adverse Temperature – Superboy has no problem operating in areas where the temperature would cause a normal person considerable problems.

Immunity to Disease – Superboy’s super immune system fights off most, if not all, Earth based viruses and bacteria.

Immunity to Toxins – Superboy can withstand poison and toxic attacks with ease.

Invulnerability – Superboy is extremely durable and hard to damage physically.

Safe in Space – Superboy can travel through the vacuum of outer space with no ill effects.

Super Breath – Superboy can exude a powerful blast of air from his lungs.

Super Hearing – Superboy has the ability to hear sounds from a great distance and pinpoint where those sounds are located.

Super Intelligence – Superboy is keenly smart and due to Kryptonian science has a basic knowledge of most Earth sciences and some sciences not on Earth yet.

Super Speed – Superboy is insanely fast.

Super Strength – Superboy is almost incalculably strong.

Super Ventriloquism – Superboy can throw his voice over distances.  Presumably he learned to do this to help with the cultivation of his secret identity.

Vision Powers – Superboy possesses four distinct vision powers.

• Heat Vision – Superboy can send heat beams out of his eyes gentle enough to warm someone or cook food or laser like as a particularly brutal attack or to melt objects.
• Microscopic Vision – Superboy can use his vision to see things at a microscopic level.
• Telescopic Vision – Superboy can see far into the distance for detecting incoming objects or to witness trouble.
• X-Ray Vision – Superboy can use his vision to see through objects providing those objects are not shielded by lead.

Vulnerabilities

For all of his powers, Superboy is not completely vulnerable.  Superboy has a few major vulnerabilities.

Fellow Kryptonians – Of course, when faced with other survivors of Krypton, Superboy is battling basically a doppelganger and that doppelganger has the same abilities.

Kryptonite – Superboy suffers various effects depending upon his range to and the color of a chunk of his home planet.  There are many types but the most common are below.

• Gold Kryptonite – Takes away the powers of a Kryptonian.
• Green Kryptonite – Takes away his powers and begins to kill him fairly immediately.  This is the most common form of Kryptonite.
• Red Kryptonite – Causes a mutation in Superboy’s physiology, mental state, or combination of both for a certain length of time.  Typically 24 or 48 hours, but this has changed over time.

Magic – Superboy is inordinately not so super when confronted with magical beings.

Mental Control – Superboy can be controlled via strong telepathic powers.

Equipment

Basement Headquarters – Clark had a tunnel he had dug under the Kent house to enable him to get away from the house for when Lana got too close to discovering the secret.  This tunnel led out to a tree in the back yard.

Legion Flight Ring – Being a Legionnaire when he was Superboy, Clark still possesses a Legion Flight Ring.