Or how he killed all of his classmates by accident the first time he played Dodge ball?
Or when Pa Kent broke his hand on his ass the first time he spanked him?
Or that 14 issue storyline when he got obsessed with Dungeons and Dragons and Ma Kent believed he had become a Satanist and had the Smallville priest come out to exorcise him but he molested Superboy in the basement instead?
I wonder if DC would let ME write for them?
Well, those days are over even if those days are mostly made up by me. Nowadays, Superboy is a clone!
Um, hey, um, I think your clone is drowning!
Superboy was actually a clone for quite some time in the old universe as well. I didn't mean to make it look like this was the first time this ever happened by posting the clone picture from the New Universe Superboy first issue. In the heady Image filled days of the early nineties, Superboy clone appeared. He was the genetic son of Lex Luthor and Superman (gay!). Since this clone is starting his life bald, I'm going to assume he's Lex Luthor's son as well! I'm also going to assume that this comic is awesome!
Maybe I should read it now.
Superboy has only been alive in his tank for a few months. And his narration boxes seem to be him thinking in real time from his tank. Here's some of what he's thinking.
His testicles think therefore they am!
He's pretty smart and self-aware for a 3 month old. I guess he's pretty smart and self-aware for an older year old as well! I couldn't figure out what should be a good age for a person to be self-aware. They all seemed too young and arrogant and then they suddenly all seemed to old and senile! I probably should have just picked 42!
In the panel I took those captions from, it shows Superboy in tank number 02. Uh oh! The 2nd clone! What do you think happened to tank 01? Was it deformed and evil and entirely jealous of tank #2's success? Dun dun DUNNNNNN!
The scientists seem to think something is wrong with Superboy because they can't read any brainwaves. That's what made him think about his consciousness being in all of his body parts. That's probably what they thought happened to Clone #1 as well! It was actually alive like this Superboy but they threw it in the dumpster out back of the lab because they thought it was dead. And then it grabbed a dirty blanket and a box and ran off to plot Superboy's destruction in an up-coming issue.
One thing that Superboy has in common with the masses he was genetically engineered from is that he can't tell the difference between intuition and analyzing the evidence before him.
This is Superboy having a gut feeling.
This is what happened just before Superboy had his 'intuition'.
Not to mention when the scientist Superboy knew cared more about him walked off sad. And that they said, "Initiate the termination protocols," right in front of him.
Oh, oh, but Superboy has such a great intuition! You know what? So does Sherlock Holmes!
They start the termination protocol and Superboy dies.
Oh no, wait a second. I should have kept reading. He escapes and makes everything explode which causes these two panels of comic that I'm seriously thinking about voting my favorite two panel scene in 52 so far! And remember, kids, I don't necessarily vote for the best!
See? She's outside of the lab! She's also outside of the panel!
Has 'splat' ever been used more effectively and unemotionally than right here?
Writer Lobdell: "Okay, in this panel, the doctor realizes everything is falling to shit and everyone is probably going to die so what should he do? Hmm. I know! He needs to confess something inconsequential to the female scientist just outside the door that will probably die in the giant explosion as well! And then I'll just make a splat noise to show he was crushed against the explosion proof glass."
Artist Silva: "So you want lots of guts and bones and blood and junk, right?"
Writer Lobdell: "No! Just the word 'splat'! And some scribbles to imply gore! E-FUCKING-FFECTIVE!"
The third panel after these two which I couldn't scan is just as good! Big catastrophe in the lab and Dr. Redhead immediately commands the computer to open it up. The horrific and dangerous fire and gore filled scene could probably use with a good studying.
ONE MONTH LATER:
Superboy is enrolled in high school and answering stupid questions in class with made up answers. Seems an appropriate way to answer stupid questions!
Teacher: "If we're three hundred thousand light-years from Mars and traveling at the speed of light and we're trying to reach New York City, Earth by breakfast, what time would we have to leave the red hallow?"
Wait wait wait. Before I get to Superboy's answer, can I just say, "WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT?!" Who calls Mars 'the red hallow'?! Or is he referencing something else since he starts the problem off saying that WE are 300,000 light years from Mars! But we're supposed to use that information to know how soon to get to Earth? Did he mean to start the problem with 'The Earth' is currently 300,000 light years from Mars and we're on Mars? And what time is breakfast served in New York City? Can we be a little more specific here? And, once again, RED HALLOW?! Has anyone ever heard Mars referred to this ever? Did I miss this reference in my love of space over the 40 years I've been on the Blue Hallow?
Okay, enough of the stupid question. Here's Superboy's fake answer:
Superboy: "2300 A.M. Mars Standard Time according to the universal chronal chart established by Salvator Grotto in 1856."
Since the question was so stupid, I really like this fake answer. Except that the teacher tells Superboy he is correct.
*head explodes*
What the hell is 2300 A.M.? I'm assuming (once again!) that means 23 hours before we even get to noon! But Mars has a day just about identical to an Earth day! So is the 2300 AM supposed to make sense if you understood Mr. Salvator Grotto's Universal Chronal Chart! How do you make a universal chronal chart?! What do you reference? And why would one be needed in 1856?! So you knew when to catch your train to San Franciscky!?
Hey, Lobdell. Why make up such a ridiculous question? To show that Superboy knows a lot of stuff he shouldn't know because he has somehow retained all of Luthor's knowledge in every cell because his consciousness is in each of Superboy's own cells? But if that's so, wouldn't it have been better to use a real complex problem with a real complex answer?
I hope Grant Morrison is reading Superboy and does a future storyline that introduces us to Salvator Grotto and his reasons for needing a Universal Chronal Chart!
After class, Superboy gets to walk the hot white haired chick named Rose Wilson home. And don't just skip past that whole name is Rose Wilson thing! That's Deathstroke's daughter, buddy! That means she's going to be trouble!
She says to Superboy, "If you haven't figured it out yet...life is a string of random occurrences void of any meaning or substance. We're born, through no fault of our own, and exposed to an endless series of humilations designed to enforce our impotence in the face of a universe that never wanted us in the first place." Which is exactly the type of thing you'd think a high school girl would think. Except it's exactly said in a way that no high school girl would ever say it unless she had a middle-aged writer doing her dialogue for her. (Edit: Since this turns out to be a VR simulation, it looks like she does have someone writing her dialogue!)
Anyway, I find it cute. And she is Slade's daughter (Slade is Deathstroke! Keep up!), so that's a pretty big turn on! If you like the crazy chick with crazy daddy issues (both the dad and the issues are crazy!).
While Superboy and Rose walk home, a woman burns to death in a fire in her house as she's screaming for help.
They ignore her. For some reason. Maybe Rose puts some kind of whammy on Superboy. Or it's just hormones. Or it's the Luthor half of him caring only about his own selfish interests like banging Rose Wilson. Superboy does some more great intuiting on the way home as well.
Oh! But guess what!
It's all a virtual reality simulation put on by Doctor Redhead to find out more about his genetic donors and Superboy knows it! And she can't figure out why he's putting himself in small town America and feeling like an outsider and also ignoring a woman burning to death! "Whose memories are these?!" she says. Well, they're either Superman's memories or the human DNA's half (hint: Lex Luthor)!
But if it's Virtual Reality, how come he's thinking about Rose Wilson? Is he remembering things from the old DC Universe as well?! OH MY!
Here is Doctor Redhead bitching out a subordinate about Superboy not helping the woman in the fire: "We have no idea who the human donor was--but we know for sure the alien part at his core. Say what you want about the man's politics, but it's clear Superman is obsessed with helping people. So unless Superboy's human cells originated in a deeply pathological, megalomaniacal narcissist, the likes of which the world has never known...it means we did something wrong." Ding ding ding!
Oh darn. Superboy isn't remembering the old DCU. Rose Wilson apparently works with Doctor Redhead and they made a version of her in the Virtual Reality world. Oh, no, wait. Rose doesn't actually work there. She's there to kill Superboy if things go wrong. Which is probably why they've put her in the program to gain Superboy's trust.
The good old Wilson family! The family that slays together...yeah.
I just hope Ambush Bug returns to the New DCU so he can react to other heroes as if they were still the old heroes from the old universe! Come on back, Ambush Bug!
And since this was all a VR simulation, I guess I should forgive Lobdell for the stupid teacher question! Since it was Doctor Redhead and her team that came up with it. Or should I? Superboy still answers the question as if he knows the answer. Or is that some kind of dream state answer? No, he's not dreaming. So I think Lobdell really has created some guy for the DC Universe from 1856 who came up with the Universal Chronal Chart! Maybe Mr. Grotto will appear in All-Star Western!
Back to the story, this organization named N.O.W.H.E.R.E. have a whistle blower named Umber who is providing data about this secret project to Lois Lane! She's as big a troublemaker as Rose Wilson.
And some lead guy named Templar comes to the lab to release Superboy so Superboy can take care of a problem for him. The problem seems to be The Teen Titans. I first typed Teen Titians but I think that's a different group that doesn't do a whole lot of fighting.
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