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Character Spotlight: Superboy

By | August 15th, 2009
Posted in Columns | % Comments

You may have noticed a little book called Adventure Comics #1 on the stands this week. You may have even read our glowing review of it, urging you to pick it up. You may have even picked it up (to which I congratulate you). However, the rest of you might be slightly confused as to who exactly this book is about. Superboy? You mean that cheesy looking guy with the bad haircut and the leather jacket? Yes. That’s exactly who we mean. And he is absolutely awesome. So why don’t we take a few minutes and discuss why Connor Kent is the best Kent around?

(Sorry, Gil)

Alright, let’s get the basics of what you should be caught up on out of the way: Superboy is not some last son of Krypton. In fact, he’s never even been there. Superboy was created in the wake of Superman’s death in a test tube. He was cloned using part of Superman’s unstable Kryptonian DNA and Lex Luthor’s stabalizing human DNA. He makes his first appearances at the same time as Steel and Cyborg Superman, and it’s all kinds of confusing. When Superman returns, Superboy becomes, well, Superboy, and moves to Hawaii to live like a rock star. He would eventually move back to Metropolis before being adopted by the Kents, where he is given the full name Connor Kent and Krypto to play with. Superboy helps start the Young Justice team and then joins the Teen Titans. He begins to date Wonder Girl, gets sucked into the 31st Century for all kinds of adventures, and when he returns, Luthor reveals that he is his “other father” (so to say), and also reveals that Connor is a sleeper agent to be used against Superman. Superboy is “activated” and attacks the Teen Titans, defeating them utterly and brutally beating up Cassie before he is able to get rid of the brainwashing. He becomes depressed and existential and moves in with the Kents, quitting the Titans.

Now, here is some of the most important stuff (at least, in relevance to the new series): Superboy-Prime, from Crisis on Infinite Earths, returns after years in seclusion, and attacks Connor for not being the Superboy that he could be. He’s beaten badly before Superboy-Prime is pulled away, and Lex Luthor shows up to heal him. After spending one final night with Cassie, he battles Superboy-Prime once more, sacrificing his life to save and restore the Multiverse. Years later, in the 31st Century, Braniac sends Starman back in time to retreive his corpse and place it in a crysalis chamber, the same chamber used to heal Superman when he died. The healing process takes 1,000 years, allowing him to return to life just in time to help kick the crap out of Superboy-Prime as he is rampaging through the future (and fighting 3 Legions at once). Upon defeating Prime, Superboy is reunited with Cassie, moves back to Smallville, goes to school, re-joins the Teen Titans, and gets ready to star in his very own series, Adventure Comics.

So now you know who Connor Kent is in a nutshell. Why should you care? First off, he’s awesome. That should be enough. If that’s not enough, though, I have more for you. Think about it this way: when Spider-Man first appeared, he was a 16 year old kid with unimaginable power, and he chose to fight for good. In a way, Kon-El is similar to this premise. He’s still just a teenager, and he has almost all the powers of Superman. He goes through all the same issues that we as teens have to go through, minus the whole brainwashing by your evil dad into beating up your girlfriend and trying to kill your other good dad. Often times, it’s hard to connect to a superhero because you can’t relate. Who of us can honestly relate to Batman? I’d hope no one reading this article could say that they do. However, when he’s not out flying and fighting crime, Connor is a very relatable character because of his age and his struggles due to that. On top of that, mix a whole new bag of Identity Crisis into the mix (no pun intended) with his struggles to understand his own geneology. Obviously he takes a great deal after Superman, but he wouldn’t be here if not for Superman’s greatest enemy, Lex Luthor, and that’s a big part of him. I don’t feel it’s a huge spoiler now that the issue has been out for a couple days, but the last panel of Adventure Comics issue 1 reveals that Connor, in addition to making the list of “What Did Superman Do?” has a list of “What Does Lex Luthor Do?”, the first item of which he is checking off.

Continued below

Honestly, Connor is just one of those characters. After he got out of the leather jacket and put on a t-shirt, it was just impossible not to fall in love with the character. He is just such a likable guy, and his story is really intriguing. Plus, after he died, we had the “Cult of Connor” in 52. Granted, they weren’t exaclty a cult dedicated to him so much as they were dedicated to Kryptonian philosophy, but still. Connor is one of those characters who seemingly had a small impact and ended up having a huge one, as was revealed after his death when no one would admit to him really being gone and everyone trying to bring him back in one way or another.

So you should probably go out and pick up Adventure Comics #1 if you haven’t already. I’m serious. You’ll thank me later. In the mean time, stay tuned for tomorrow for an article about the man responsible for the fall and rise of Connor Kent.


//TAGS | Character Spotlight

Matthew Meylikhov

Once upon a time, Matthew Meylikhov became the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Multiversity Comics, where he was known for his beard and fondness for cats. Then he became only one of those things. Now, if you listen really carefully at night, you may still hear from whispers on the wind a faint voice saying, "X-Men Origins: Wolverine is not as bad as everyone says it issss."

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