What's the deal with Superboy's tattoo? Well, I have the answers.
By steelhorseclub 32 Comments
There has been some confusion surrounding an early image of Superboy from the new teen titans. As you can see from the image below, Superboy appears to be sporting a tattoo!
How could a being that is indestructible possibly get a tattoo? Judging by the cover of the new Superboy #1, it has been deduced that the tat may in fact be a bar code. To get to the bottom of the quandary I decided to go to the source. I hit up the artist, Brett Booth, at his blog to get the low down. Here is our conversation;
me: " There is some debate to whether it is a tattoo or bar code?"
Brett: " Yes it IS a barcode. These are just some preliminary sketches."
Another person asked: " Hey brett did the idea for the barcode come from watching dark angel,cause they had barcodes on the back of their necks? I think the barcode is cool,I like that it symbolizes that he is a "super",but also that he was created,not born,like a product at the store."
Brett replied: " Not that I know of. I misread an email about a tattoo, everyone seemed to like it and then either Bobbie or Katie suggested the bar code.
I never watched Dark Angel (our cable provider stopped carrying it for a bit.)"
Well, there you have it folks, it's a bar code. The most interesting thing to me is that it came about as a sort of accident. I am really looking forward to the books. It will be fun to see how the tattoo is written in. be sure to swing by Brett's blog to check out some more of his sketches and character designs. http://demonpuppy.blogspot.com/2011/08/send-in-clone-superboy-designs.html