SUPERBOY

JLA (HASBRO)

“Created to replace Superman, Superboy was genetically engineered by scientists at Project Cadmus to have a close approximation of Kryptonian DNA. His power of tactile-telekenesis gives him super-strength, flight, and grants him a number of unique abilities, such as disassembling an object through touch alone.”

One of the tenets of the change-over from the Superman of the Golden Age to the Superman of the Silver Age was the creation of Superboy, who was Earth-1 Clark Kent’s alter-ego as a teenager.  After Crisis on Infinite Earths, Superman’s origin was once more re-established, and he was no longer a superhero as a teenager, eliminating Superboy from the timeline.  But, if you don’t want to lose your trademark to such a fancy name, you have to use it, so in the ‘90s they brought the name back, now attached to a separate character, Kon-El, a clone of Superman.  He operated solo for a while, before eventually joining “Young Justice,” a sort of re-imagining of the Teen Titans.  It was during the period that he got his second action figure, which I’m looking at today.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Superboy was added to Hasbro’s JLA line in its third series in 1999.  He was also available in the line’s fourth boxed set, alongside Impulse and Robin from the third series, and a pair of exclusive “Hologram” figures of Aquaman and Martian Manhunter.  Like his earlier Man of Steel figure, he’s based on Conner’s original look, though this time around he’s without his usual leather jacket.  The figure stands just over 5 inches tall and he has 5 points of articulation.  Since JLA was all about getting as much mileage as possible out of re-used parts, Superboy is a lot of re-use.  His torso is the modified Superman torso that a lot of the line used as a starting point, and he’s got the legs from Black Lighting (albeit with some serious mold degradation, which removes a lot of the sharpness of the details) and the arms from the Legends of Batman Riddler.  It was rare to see them reach outside of the Total Justice molds, but it happened.  The Riddler arms are designed with a narrower gait to the legs in mind, though, so his hands can’t clear his legs when posing.  He gets a new head sculpt, which is decent enough, though it’s a bit on the large side, in order to off-set the sizing on the body.  The face is a little bit goony, but it fits the later ‘90s take on the character alright.  His paint work carries a lot of the work on selling the character design.  Mostly, it’s not bad, but it’s a little odd to see the straps and belts all just as painted elements, rather than with any sort of dimension to them.  The hair is also quite odd; in the comics, he had the back and sides buzzed, which the original figure more or less just ignored.  This one didn’t sculpt them in, but then they were painted black, and then painted back over with a sort of a grey shade, and then there’s sort of stubble effect.  It’s weird looking.  Superboy was packed with a JLA display stand, in bright red.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I had the Man of Steel Superboy, which I really loved, but I was always bummed that you couldn’t take off his jacket, since he did that so often in the comics.  I remember this guy getting shown off, and I remember really wanting him, to the point of printing out a prototype shot and turning it into a paper figure.  I don’t recall exactly when I got him.  More than likely it was from the KB Toys near where my family vacationed, but it was also probably during one of our fall trips, rather than summer.  I remember being excited to find him, but perhaps not quite as enthralled by the final product once I’d opened it.  Superboy without the jacket certainly has novelty, but this figure’s more on the goofy side of things for this line, and the Man of Steel figure’s definitely the stronger offering.