With Smallville off the air, I feel that I should go back to another show about Superman before he was Superman. This show was created by The Salkinds who brought you the Christopher Reeve Superman movies and the flop Supergirl . It was 1988, a year after the flop Superman IV: Quest For Peace, The Salkinds saw that their franchise was sinking and decided to bring it to television in the form of Superboy. However at the time, Superman had been rebooted in the comics and did not have a career as Superboy. Despite the changes in the reboot, the show still premiered on October 8, 1988 starring John Haynes Newton (who would later be replaced by Gerard Christopher in Season 2-4) as the boy of steel and the beautiful Stacy Haiduk as the girl next door Lana Lang.
While the show had a rocky start in the ratings for its first season, the ratings started climbing in the remaining three seasons of the show. The show had completely captured the essence of the old Superboy and Superman comic series with episodes like “Luthor Unleashed”, “Metallo”, “Bizarro: Thing of Steel”, “Super Menace”, “Bride of Bizarro”, “Roads Not Taken”, and “Know Thine Enemy”. With Superboy, we actually got the chance to see Clark in the damn suit and not that CGI crap that we got in the Smallville series finale. If the Salkinds had presented the show 10 years ago, I can guarantee that it would have been better than Smallville.
Now time break down why Superboy was better than Smallville. For starters, Superboy was not Dawson’s Creek with superpowers and meteor freaks. It was actually a Superman show and felt like it. Next, Lana Lang on Superboy was not a weak and whiny bitch that held Clark back like in Smallville. She was a strong independent woman who was not always a damsel in distress. I mean I love Kristin Kreuk and think she is sexy as hell but Stacy got her beat when it comes to portraying Lana because Stacy’s portrayal stayed true to Lana Lang in the comics. Last and not least, Clark on Superboy knew that he had a destiny to fulfill and got right to it and put on the suit. While Smallville will be missed, Superboy will always be better than Smallville despite its flaws.
