Superboy is an American television series based on the fictional DC Comics character Superman's early years as Superboy. Developed by the father-and-son duo Alexander and Ilya Salkind, the show ran for four seasons, from 1988 to 1992, in syndication. John Haymes Newton starred as Superboy for the first season; he was replaced by Gerard Christopher for the next three seasons. The series was renamed The Adventures of Superboy at the start of the third season.
Series overview Superboy was conceived as a way to utilize one of the licenses that father-son duo Alexander Salkind and Ilya Salkind had been in possession of for over a decade. In order to produce the first entry in the Superman series of films starring Christopher Reeve, the Salkinds had to pay Warner Bros. a fee to license the intellectual property. This license extended to various other properties in the franchise.
Although they sold the rights to use the Superman license to The Cannon Group, Alexander and Ilya still possessed a license to make other productions based on different characters. After failing with a film based on Supergirl in the mid-1980s, they decided to try again with Superboy and developed a series for syndication that launched in the fall of 1988.
Season 1 The first season of the series, which began airing in October 1988, focused on Clark Kent / Superboy (John Haymes Newton), his childhood friend and love interest Lana Lang (Stacy Haiduk) and his college roommate T.J. White (Jim Calvert), son of Daily Planet editor Perry White. Scott James Wells played Superboy's nemesis Lex Luthor. Clark's adoptive parents, Jonathan and Martha Kent, were portrayed by Stuart Whitman and Salome Jens, respectively.
Thirteen episodes were initially filmed for Season 1, beginning with "Countdown to Nowhere". This episode featured Superboy's first public appearance as he prevents a group of saboteurs from selling a powerful laser weapon developed by the U.S. government to an arms dealer. "Countdown to Nowhere" aired in two versions: an "uncut" version in which the story plays in the present day and a second version in which the main story is introduced as a flashback through two additional scenes with Lana, Clark and T.J. The second version contained some scenes cut from the main story in order to fit the flashback lead-ins into the episode. This episode is the first episode of the series chronologically, but was the fifth one that was aired in most markets. It also appears as the fifth episode on the first season DVD set. The first season's story editor was Fred Freiberger, who also scripted a few episodes.
The first thirteen episodes of Superboy were rather crude compared to later episodes. The producers, not sure whether any additional episodes would be ordered, did their best to save money on the first thirteen. As a result, the special effects are a bit rougher and the episodes have a grittier, real-world feel to them. This brought about more character-oriented stories and stories with more ordinary villains like drug dealers and crime bosses.
After thirteen additional episodes were ordered for the first season, special effects improved and the show took on a more professional look. More fantastic enemies were introduced, such as an unnamed gaseous alien, who could possess the bodies of others in "The Alien Solution", a life-force vampire in "Succubus" and long-time Superman villain Mister Mxyzptlk (guest star Michael J. Pollard) in "Meet Mr. Mxyzptlk".
Superboy's nemesis, Lex Luthor, was introduced in "The Jewel of Techechal" (the first episode broadcast) as Clark's classmate at Shuster University. This version of Luthor was more interested in fixing basketball games and humiliating Superboy than anything else. The season one finale, "Luthor Unleashed", completely changed his character. This episode adapted Lex Luthor's silver age comic book origin, in which Superboy rescues Lex from a lab accident that causes him to lose all of his hair, becoming the familiar bald villain Superman fans have come to recognize. Luthor blames Superboy for his hair loss and gains a new, more intense hatred for the Boy of Steel. From this point on in the series, Luthor is determined to destroy Superboy, rather than just humiliate him.
Season 2 In the second season, drastic changes took place. Newton was replaced by Gerard Christopher in the lead role. In an interview with The Superman Homepage, Newton revealed that it was his decision to leave the series, but the producers asked him several times to return to his role. He also added that he asked for a raise of salary (about 20%) that he had been promised earlier, but was denied when filming for the second season began. A new direction was made with the second season's stories guided by executive story consultants Mark Jones and Cary Bates.
Scott Wells was also replaced as Lex Luthor by Sherman Howard. The change in Luthor's appearance was explained in the second season opener "With This Ring, I Thee Kill". The two-part episode revealed Luthor had plastic surgery to assume the appearance of Warren Eckworth, the wealthy inventor of the "Superboy Gun", which Luthor believed could kill Superboy. The character of T.J. White was written out of the series (he went to work for the Daily Planet) and Andy McCalister, portrayed by Ilan Mitchell-Smith, became Clark's new roommate. Andy was different from T.J. and was constantly looking to make money with his get-rich-quick schemes. He also flirted with Lana frequently and his advances were always refused, though Lana did consider Andy a friend.
The villains were amped up in the second season, as additional comic book characters were introduced to the series, many of them appearing for the first time in live-action. Metallo (Michael Callan), Bizarro (Barry Meyers) as well as the Yellow Peri (Elizabeth Keifer) appeared in the second season and Mister Mxyzptlk (Pollard) made a return appearance. Gilbert Gottfried appeared in two episodes as a nasty, wisecracking criminal genius named "Nick Knack" who used toys to commit crimes (a reference to the Toyman). Another character was a dhampir who found a way through a serum to gain human abilities such as repelling his craving for blood and gaining a tolerance for sunlight. Thus, he became a friend of both Superboy and Lana but would become villainous if doing without the serum for too long. Philip Michael Thomas also made an appearance as a medieval alchemist who survived into modern times in order to battle a sorcerer spreading plague, and aided Superboy when he was infected by said disease. The episode "Superboy... Rest in Peace" featured guest star Betsy Russell, who was reunited with series star Gerard Christopher for the first time since the two had worked together previously in the 1985 film Tomboy. Also notable is the guest star appearance of former James Bond actor George Lazenby and Bond girl actress Britt Ekland as aliens disguised as Superboy's Kryptonian father and mother, Jor-El and Lara, in two episodes, "Abandon Earth" and "Escape to Earth".
Season 3 With the third season, the series saw more changes. The show's title officially became The Adventures of Superboy and the setting shifted from Shuster University to The Bureau for Extra-Normal Matters in Capitol City, Florida, where Clark and Lana were interns. The Bureau is depicted as a government agency which investigates paranormal activities and aliens, including Superboy (this format change pre-dates the concept of the television series The X-Files).
Andy McCalister was dropped from the series, though Ilan Mitchell-Smith would make a final guest appearance in the episode "Special Effects", which explained his disappearance by saying that Andy went to intern at a movie studio. The new supporting cast consisted of Clark and Lana's co-worker at the Bureau, Matt Ritter (Peter Jay Fernandez) and the Bureau chief C. Dennis Jackson (Robert Levine).
The tone of the series changed dramatically as darker stories were produced and the overall look of the series took on many characteristics of film noir. A few journalists at the time suggested that this darker look was largely due to the success of Tim Burton's Batman film from a year prior. Many stories dealt with more mature themes, a change new producer Julia Pistor implemented. In "Rebirth", Superboy is confronted with the possibility that he may have accidentally taken a human life and gives up his Superboy identity in guilt. "Carnival" shows a demonic individual named 'Deville' trying to acquire Superboy's eternal soul by tempting him to give in and kill a man who is implied to be a rapist. "Mindscape" deals with Superboy's deepest fears as an alien life-form brings those fears to life in Superboy's nightmares while simultaneously draining his life energy. "Roads Not Taken" shows the different paths Superboy's life may have taken, as Superboy travels to alternate earths where his life is very different. He meets a version of himself who killed Luthor in a fit of rage and another who has become a despotic ruler of earth. The alternate version of Superboy who took Luthor's life was shown wearing a black leather jacket and sunglasses which bears some resemblance to the Conner Kent version of Superboy as he first appeared in "The Death of Superman" storyline. The third season ended with the two-part episode "The Road to Hell", where Ron Ely makes a guest appearance as an adult, retired version of Superman from an alternate reality.
Season 4 The fourth season maintained the darker look and feel of the third one and was the first in which no major cast changes took place. Noel Neill and Jack Larson made guest appearances in the episode "Paranoia" as employees of the Bureau for Extra-Normal Matters. Neill had originated the role of Lois Lane in the 1948 Superman and 1950 Atom Man vs. Superman film serials and replaced Phyllis Coates in the role in the 1950s Adventures of Superman TV series before originating the role of Lois' mother, Ella/Ellen Lane, in 1978's Superman; Larson co-starred as Jimmy Olsen in Adventures of Superman with Neill and also had a cameo in Superman Returns. The trend of more mature stories also continued in episodes such as "To Be Human", in which Bizarro becomes human, only to be forced to give up his humanity to save Superboy's life and "Into the Mystery", in which a mystical, ghostly woman, apparently an angel of death, leads Superboy to his dying aunt's bedside. A memorable Luthor tale, "Know Thine Enemy", appeared in this season, featuring Superboy re-living Luthor's tortured memories of childhood via "psychodisk" while Luthor threatened to destroy all life on Earth.
Series end In 1991, higher-ups at DC had begun to conceive a new, more modern Superman series based on John Byrne's 1986 reset of the comic's canon, a move that resulted in Clark Kent never becoming Superboy. DC President Jenette Kahn began work with Warner Bros. executives Deborah Joy LeVine and Les Moonves on the series. Meanwhile, in the fall of that year, Superboy'''s fourth season premiered. It was intended as the final season of new episodes, with the finale, "Obituary for a Superhero", to result in Superboy's apparent death; a series of made-for-television movies was planned to continue the story.
Before production could begin on the intended finale, ABC agreed to take on the new series that had been in development at Warner Bros.; although Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman would not debut on television until the following season, Warner Bros. contacted the Salkinds and informed them that their Superman licenses would be cancelled at the end of the 1991–92 television season. This decision forced the writers of Superboy to come up with a definitive finale to close out the fourth season, since Warner Bros.' decision meant that the planned series of telefilms would have to be scrapped. "Obituary for a Superhero" was rewritten