Reign of the Supermen #132: Superboy!

Source: More Fun Comics #101 (1945) to Superman: The Secret Years #4 (1985)
Type: The real deal (since retconned)With March comes spring. And with spring comes birth, youth and renewal. And with all that comes... Superboy Month! Yes, for 31 consecutive days, Reign of the Supermen goes back in time to Clark Kent's younger days and to the youthful clone that came later!

Though we think of him as a Silver Age icon, Superboy really starts in the Golden Age. In those early stories, he looks to be about 12 and helps country boys who get into trouble a lot.
Tall tales from the tree house. But it's still in the Silver Age that Superboy finds his sweet spot, continuing - or actually, prefiguring - the crazy madcap adventures of Superman. Red Kryptonite, Bizarro, other Kryptonian survivors (most notably Krypto the super-dog), and science that makes no sense whatsoever all feature. Just as Superman has a couple spin-offs in Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen, Superboy spawns the Legion of Super-Heroes. These guys from the 30th century aren't inspired by the deeds of Superman, but those of SuperBOY. That, in itself, is a little insane, and speaks to the (at least perceived) popularity of that version of the character. Eventually, the Legion would gobble up Superboy's comic book slot, sometimes letting him share the byline, sometimes not.

My own first exposure to Superboy - aside from knowing he was something Superman did when he was young (possibly from an episode of Super-Friends) - was New Adventures of Superboy in the 80s, which I freely admit I bought for the Dial H for Hero back-up. Except I really liked Clark Kent's Archiesque adventures as well, with Lana as Betty and Lex as Reggie. Still have a soft spot for such characters as Sunburst and Dyna-Mind.

Sadly, Byrne would do away with the notion of Superboy in his version of the character, though he'd return in a variety of forms over the years. Superboy's had a couple of television series, both live action and animated, not the least of which is Smallville. Superboy is still with us and going strong, whether we're talking about Kon-El or Tom Welling.

So we'll honor the character's many iterations all month. Hope you'll stick around.