| abstract
| - Superboy is the superhero name for Clark Kent in his younger years. The first, and arguably best-known, Superboy was simply Superman as an adolescent, acting as a superhero in his hometown of Smallville. The character was featured in several series from the 1940s until the 1980s and developed a mythos and supporting cast of his own, including parents Ma and Pa Kent, love interest Lana Lang and the time traveling allies the Legion of Super-Heroes. When DC rewrote much of its continuity in 1985, Superman’s history was changed so that he never took a costumed identity until adulthood, erasing Superboy, although not all aspects of the backstory created in Superboy comics, from the current canonical history of Superman. Still, the character was adapted into a Superboy television series (1988–1992) and a teenaged Clark Kent, secretly using his powers in heroic acts, appears in the highly successful Smallville TV series (2001–2012), drawing to a great extent on the present comicbook continuity in its depicting of young Clark's life. In 1993, DC introduced a new, modernized Superboy, a teenaged clone of both Superman and Lex Luthor, who was featured in an eponymous series from 1994 until 2002. Due to DC Comics’ complex “Multiverse”, several other Superboys have appeared, of which is the mentally unstable Superboy-Prime is most currently notable.
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