At the same time that the New Adventures of Superman aired, Filmation
also produced episodes of The Adventures of Superboy in a similar
six-minute format. 33 segments including one double length 12 minute
segment were made and packaged to air along with Filmation's other
series including Superman, Aquaman, and the DC Comics Super Heroes.
Superboy ran from 1966-69 and focused on the adventures of The Man of
Steel when he was still young, hence Super "boy." Ma and Pa Kent, along
with Lana Lang would make up the supporting cast as opposed to
Superman's Daily Planet crew.
The series provided the animated debut of Superboy and his dog Krypto, and was pretty much the only time the Kal-El Superboy would be seen in animation other than a couple of cameos during the Super Friends. A young Superman would appear later including his prominent role in the Legion of Super Heroes, but would not be called "boy." In the 1990's a new Superboy was introduced in the comics, though the new Superboy Kon-El AKA Connor Kent was in fact a completely separate character from Superman. He also would later appear in animation beginning on Young Justice. The series did have a distinction of Superboy pretending to be the devil.
The Superdog character elevated the series a notch or two, but the
series really suffered from a lack of villains. Sure, there were
invading aliens a plenty, but hardly any characters I would classify as
supervillains, and no recurring baddies. I did notice that even though
Lana herself wasn't a great character, the episodes in which she
appeared tended to be the better ones. So even if we never got to see
the Insect Queen, at least LL worked out as a good luck charm.(My Top 5 Picks)
Check back next week for another chapter in The Super History of Superman.
I have this vague memory of an episode where Superboy is talking to aliens and removes a rubber face mask to reveal himself as an alien with green skin and antenna.
ReplyDeleteI've looked at a listing of episodes but nothing I've seen suggests which episode it was although there are many episodes involving aliens (as you note).
Also, since it was a long time ago, I could be misremembering and nothing like this ever took place in the series.
Do you (or anyone reading this page) remember anything like this that could help me narrow down which episode it was, if indeed I'm remembering correctly?
Thanks;
Ed
It doesn't ring a bell, but I will try and look through some of the old episodes to jog my memory.
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