New Adventures of Superboy # 1 - The Most Important Year of Superboy's Life!

Smallville, starring Tom Welling as Clark Kent, has enterred its ninth season on the CW. The series started out pretty well, but the start of the current ninth season has been the lowest point in the series history. To get into the current season, I decide to make my way through a marathon of the previous eight seasons. I watched them off and on - mostly off after losing interest at times - but I decided that now was the time to catch up. I've read a ton of comments from other fans that have either given  up completely, or, just the opposite embraced wholly that which is Dawson's Creek meets the DCU. 
 
I decided at the same time it was high time I climbed into a time sphere to see if the "good old days" (yes, I really am making the quotation marks with my fingers) really were. 
 
The world was such a different place nearly 30 years ago. Cary Bates wrote a number of Superman family titles from Action, to Superman to Legion. Other than Curt Swan, the late, great Kurt Schaffenberger is probably best known as the Superman family or Superboy artist. They're teamed here with inker David Hunt, colorist Gene D'Angelo, letterer Ben Oda, and editor supreme Julius Schwartz. The Schaffenberger - Giordano cover shows a distaught Martha Kent rushing to add a candle to Superboy's 16th birthday cake. Lana, her father, General Lang, and Pete Ross are behind the teen of steel; an equally distraught Jonathan Kent is behind Martha. This is the story of the 17th candle, titled, "The Most Important Year of Superboy's Life!"  
 
This is a story from a simpler time. A time when it was noble and honorable to keep secrets, tell lies and spread half-truths. It was that idyllic paradise where everyone got along no matter how bad things were. Smallville was really Pleasantville. It's all smiles at Clark Kent's 16th birthday, until Jonathan and Martha are reminded of Clark's 8th birthday and his debut in Smallville as the boy of steel. At the Flying Aces Stunt - Pilot Show, Superboy is confronted and captured by aliens. He escapes from the hold of their ship; and - after The Flash/Barry Allen foils the Stony-Eyed Medusa with Hostess Fruit Pies - he makes his way back home. There, the Kent family are confronted by Byrn and Myla, immortals, the last of their race, looking for a way to age naturally. Their plan is to steal Superboy's aging ability, leaving him forever a boy of eight, and begin to age naturally to the end of their lives. Superboy shows off that super-brain that he is so famous for and sends the aliens happily on their merry way.  
 
The story is followed by a text piece chronicling the 35 Years of Superboy in comics, and The Daily Planet previews of other DCU titles. The page features a Hembeck cartoon for a Haunted Tank collection, "Tanks for the Memories". 
 
The final page teases two stories in the next issue, "The Demon Next Door" and a page from Superboy's Secret Diary, "The Day of the Exploding Element". Superboy seems almost Doogie Howser-ish. 
 
After the Crisis on infinite Earths, I got rid of a lot of comics. There just didn't seem to be any reason to keep them any more. Now that I really don't give a rat's @$$ about continuity, or critical acclaim, or the next big thing, I'm digging through the back issue bin to rediscover the wonder and magic of comics. Sometimes it's cheesy and silly like this first issue of Superboy. But, comics should be fun... And, filled with hot, scanitly clad chicks and zombies.