Customer Reviews

Adventures of Superboy

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book reprints Superboy's earliest adventures in More Fun comics and Adventure comics, most of which have never before been reprinted.

The stories are a great look at the original concept of Superboy. The Superboy I grew up with, during the Silver Age, was a teenager, but he is no teen here - he celebrates his tenth birthday in one of the stories! The concept of Smallville has not yet emerged - Clark lives on the outskirts of Metropolis, and Ma and Pa Kent are pretty much cyphers.

Clark is a real kid, with friends that he actually plays with! Although he is still the timid Clark we know, he still has adventures with his friends, like the story in which they have a "pirate ship" on the river. Superboy is a kid who does kid things - check out the marble tournament! The stories are entertaining and well written, with most having an underlying moral without being "preachy".

If you've a Superboy fan and have never seen this concept of him, I urge you to pick this book up. You'll see him like you've never seen him before. (And if the book is successful enough, maybe DC will reprint some more of these great, early yarns!)

About 10 years ago, when the DC Archives program was really picking up steam, a future title was announced, Superboy Volume 1. But then DC became embroiled in a lawsuit with the heirs of the late Jerry Siegel about the rights to the Superboy title and publication was cancelled although restoration of the material was completed.

Now the lawsuit seems to have reached a point where DC can reprint Superboy stories and use the Superboy name so the material is finally seeing the light of day. Unfortunately, the DC Archives series seems to be all but dead and DC decided to reprint this in their generic non-branded line. This line consists of books with both dust jackets and laminated covers with newsprint like paper.

The book has 224 pages with a table of contents but no introduction. The restoration is first rate and the reproduction is fine but one does miss the archive quality paper. Frustratingly, there is a guttering problem that is consistent throughout the book. It isn't horrible but is annoying. It does seem worse than other books in this line. Perhaps Golden Age pages were slightly bigger?

The dust jacket cover captures the tone of the stories perfectly. Superboy acts as a typical kid and is involved in matters that kids are involved in. There is little sense of continuity here. Clark is the age that the plot requires him to be. Usually that is around ten or so; sometimes around 16 or maybe more. He has no supporting cast. Ma and Pa Kent are virtually invisible. Superboy has not yet settled into the comfortable environs of small town America represented by Smallville; that is still in the future.

The stories start out relatively unsophisticated but do get better as the book progresses. By the end the short 10 page stories are quite heavily plotted. The art also improves but is still well below what would be considered merely adequate today.

This can only be recommended to comics fans who are comfortable with late Golden Age standards. The stories are too dated for today's kids and too unsophisticated for today's adults. There is no "Volume 1" or any other hint that there will be a follow up to this volume; it seems to have been published because the material was available and had already been restored. This is a pity because Superboy had a long and successful run holding down two books at one point.

How many comic books today are published for young readers? Not many. This book contains the original "Superboy " stories by Jerry Seigel and Joe Shuster as they originaly appeared in "Adventure Comics." This book is not only great for adult comic book fans, it is also great for young readers. It would make a great gift.

The stories are simple. Many of the stories in this book average abou seven pages long. The stories, however, are not silly like some of the current attempts by comic book companies to produce comic books for young readersa.

Superboy was one of Siegel and Schuster's better creations and this volume collecting the early stories from More Fun Comics are reprinted here, mostly for the first time. While DC has done a great job with other collections of Golden-Age and Silver-Age comics, I find their recent collections to be lacking in one very important feature: quality paper! For the cost, they should be using slick, slightly glossy paper and not the newsprint they utilize here (and in the recent Atomic Knights book). For $39.95, you expect some quality. Otherwise why take the time and energy to do a hardcover and instead just slap it together and call it a Showcase Presents book!

But really, the stories here are gold! Seeing the young Clark Kent and his friends get into hi-jinks (like a pirate raft commandeered by escaped convicts) and getting Superboy to solve them. Basically - you will enjoy these but don't expect slick art as this was the Golden-Age and photo-realism was decades away!

GREAT BOOK and GREAT CREATORS!!!!

I had been hoping for a SHOWCASE PRESENTS: SUPERBOY volume reprinting the Silver Age adventures of the Boy of Steel but I was also pretty excited when I heard about this, a hardcover collection of the very earliest, Golden Age (mid-1940s) adventures of Superboy! As always, DC Comics puts together an excellent package for a collection. My only complaint is the cover. For some reason they decided to have a modern artist draw a retro looking cover rather than simply use one of the actual covers from the interior stories. I don't get it and I don't think anything was improved by this decision. In total there are about two dozen stories reprinted here, mostly in the eight to ten page range each. No supervillains. You'll be reading mostly about Superboy assisting other teenagers in radio quiz shows, hobby contests and getting mixed up with normal crooks and gangsters. I was interested to learn that these earliest Superboy stories have almost no semblance of a supporting cast. Young Clark Kent's parents are barely mentioned and I believe only show up in two panels throughout all the stories here.

Actually, Pa Kent appears in cameo on page 194.
Stories from 1945- 1945 to 1947 taken from "More Fun Comics" 101-107 and "Adventure Comics" 103-121.
This was a refreshing read to me, since the stories have not been reprinted and I do not own a vault full of Golden Age DCs.
The cover of each comic that the story appeared in is also reprinted, all in four colors, but not for a dime anymore.
The simple art and innocent stories can be enjoyed by all ages.
Clark/ Superboy, for the most part acts on his own.
A recommended addition to your comic reprint collection.

This book reprints the first 20+ Superboy stories, dating back to the mid 1940's. The stories are, like other comics from that era, quite simple and very short. I did however, enjoy reading the stories ... I had never seen any of them before. My only complaint with the book was with the quality of the paper and printing. The Marvel Masterwork and DC Archive reprint editions are printed in very high quality on very heavy, semi-glossy paper. I would have prefered to pay a little bit more and have a better quality book. That being said, if you read Superboy or Superman comics as a kid, you will most likely enjoy this book ... I did!

In all the DC Archive Superboy was missing. The magnitude of the material is amazing: 26 adventures, More Fon comics 101-107, and Adventure Comics 103-121. It would be impossible to buy all these comics in original. I hope, that they will continue to publish these old Superboy-Adventures, especially the issues of Adventure-comics, up to the first appearance of Krypto. The paper of this issue seems to be better suited for this kind of publication than the quality paper of the archive editions. It is more alike the paper of the original publication. The colours are great.

I honestly thought that I was thoroughly familiar with all eras of the Superman family--- but was delighted and shocked when I received this book! The Superboy I grew up with was a teenager who lived with his "foster" parents, ( "step" parents already had a very bad rep in kid's lit.) Ma and Pa Kent in Smallville with that pesky Lana Lang as the next door neighbor. The stories in this book were never reprinted in the endless Annuals of the early 60's and were forgotten until now, when a legal issue was settled with the estates of Superman's creators, Jerry Siegal and artist Joe Shuster--- the first half of the book are stories written and drawn by the original duo! These stories contain beautiful, simple, and totally delightful art and plotlines--- Shuster was not a sophisticated artist, but he was a thoroughly competent cartoonist who told a story in a charming, engaging way---these are WONDERFUL stories, enjoyable for any Superman fan and a great reading aid for your little ones!

These are the first appearances of Superboy from More Fun Comics and Adventure Comics. Story lines are kept very simple.No space aliens, time travel, or Lana Lang.No Ma and Pa Kent for that matter. Its a shame DC didn't keep the Archive format for this title. It comes off as a cheap reissue. Recommended for diehards only.