In the year 1907, when the unusual individual that Philip Wylie called "Hugo Danner" and whom Jerry Siegel called "Clark Kent" was thirteen, he was walking through the town of Indian Springs (Wylie)/Smallville (Siegel and other writers)...

A new boy greeted him, calling him..."Superboy."

Now, the original Superman as written by Siegel and drawn by Shuster, was never Superboy, in the sense of having a costumed career righting wrongs. Siegel wrote many of the later Superboy stories, but they contradicted his earlier stories, and were the act of a writer who needed to make a living, and had lost control of what the world considered his own "creation". Still, Siegel couldn't resist adding little bits here and there which were real details imparted by the real "Clark Kent".

Yet this story was written by Otto Binder. Does that mean we must reject utterly any truth to the following story---the introductory story of "The Legion of Super-Heroes"? Even though Siegel followed in Binder's footsteps and created much of the Legion's membership (Ultra Boy, Brainiac Five, Chameleon Boy, Triplicate Girl, Phantom Girl, Colossal Boy, to name but a few?), and wrote the first stories solely about the Legion?

Sifting through to the truth about this is hard to do; but here's how I reconstruct it....despite all the reboots of continuity, etc.

Although I reject many of Binder's Superman stories, many other stories seem to be a springboard for Siegel's own stories. For instance, Binder wrote the first stories about Bizarro, even though Siegel wrote the Bizarro World stories.

Binder wrote the first stories about Supergirl, although Siegel contributed perhaps the most memorable stories to her canon---including where she joined the Legion, and later when she "revealed" herself to the world. (Actually, she revealed herself to the top-secret agencies that were also aware of Superman's existence.)

Binder wrote the first Legion of Super-Heroes story. Yet Siegel wrote the next three, then Binder wrote another one, Siegel wrote the next two, and after other authors did a story or two, Siegel wrote the next ten, including several of the first ones in its own series!

In the WB Network's Superman animated series, they narrated a story of a teenage Clark Kent meeting the Legion, long before he assumed his costumed identity. Ironically, that cartoon accidentally was closer to the truth than other portrayals....

The source of Binder's information? It seems to have been Supergirl herself.

Though most of the Kryptonian survivors are fictional, one larger section of Krypton did split off in the explosion, which had a city which Binder called Argo City, underneath a weatherproof dome and equipped with antishock devices built to withstand the ever-increasing Krypton-quakes. However, it was close enough to the explosion where much of the ground was turned into Kryptonite. (Later writers had to make it anti-kryptonite, to justify it affecting supposedly non-super Kryptonians. Of course, in real life, the Kryptonians of Argo City had the tremendous strength and leaping ability and toughness that Superman displayed, but were vulnerable to the radiations of the kryptonite, much more so than humans.)

When some of the debris that remained from planet Krypton smashed through the self-sealing dome, when Kara was fifteen, Zor-El, Jor-El's brother, devised a rocket to save her, anyway, and sent her to Earth, despite the increasing kryptonite radiation.

Superman placed Kara in an orphanage, under the name Linda Lee, where she could learn about Earth and learn to conceal her powers. Kara/Supergirl was fascinated how Superman was both a fictional character...she watched the reruns of THE ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN religiously---and a real person.

She couldn't resist, and wrote to the Superman comics, suggesting story ideas. It was she who suggested the appearance of a "Super-Girl" which was incorporated into a story about a magic totem granting Jimmy Olsen three wishes, always disastriously...and completely fictionally. She was much more literate than the average fan writing in, and Binder was impressed by the suggestion. Later she suggested a refining of the idea, which became the origin of the second Supergirl in the comics, which was much closer to her own origins. She also "suggested" to Binder stories about Brainiac and Bizarro, without hinting that it might have been based on anything real. (Which they were.)

Finally, she suggested the idea of the Legion to Binder. Binder took the initial suggestion and ran it through his own creative imagination, and the result was the first story, "The Legion of Super-Heroes".

Later Siegel took over, knowing more of the truth from Superman himself. Binder always thought it was just an extremely clever reader making suggestions, but didn't dream they were based on fact, feeling free to distort or change details to fit the needs of the story.

Kara/Linda Lee also wrote to Siegel, albeit much more openly, since Siegel knew the reality of Superman--- and much of her Kryptonian knowledge was used in stories by Siegel such as "Superman's Return to Krypton".

Supergirl, of course, was also an extra-temporal member of the Legion...and may have felt more at home in the Legion's far-future society of superbeings, so like Krypton, than the present-day Earth.

(It is regrettable to recall that Supergirl, who grew up to be a beautiful woman and a selfless heroine, died saving her cousin from the extra-continuum being known as the Anti-Monitor, the same being who killed Barry Allen, the second Flash. Her loss was one of the greatest blows Superman ever had, made all the more poignant in that she was the only other Kryptonian Superman ever met.)

Anyway, back to the Legion of Super-Heroes. The Legion was a group based in the 30th century according to that earliest of stories, although sometimes even Siegel slipped up and called it the 21st century. The bulk of the evidence indicates the 30th century, however. One had to be a teenager to join initially, and bring at least one unique power or ability to the group. Many of the members were born on other planets...some of which were undoubtedly colonies of Earth, others which might have been, like Krypton itself, descended from genetically-altered earthlings kidnapped by a race back in prehistoric times. A very few were totally nonhuman, like Chameleon Boy.

They started doing explorations in time, looking up the origin of the idea of "super-heroes" and were startled to find that there was some truth to the fiction of super-heroes that began in the 20th century. When they found the first of the super-heroes, Superman, was based on a real individual, they couldn't resist, and journeyed back in time when Clark Kent/Hugo Danner was a teenager-- and invited him to join their group.

Please note that in that first adventure, he journeyed in their "time bubble", not bursting the time barrier under his own power, something far beyond Superboy or Superman's power. (They left a duplicate time bubble hidden in the forests outside Indian Springs/Smallville, and with that he was able to journey to the 30th century whenever they summoned him.)

As a result of these extra-temporal trips, young Clark Kent/Hugo Danner became a very broad-minded and well-rounded individual, with a much broader perspective than one might suspect from such a smalltown upbringing. This was aided by a foster-father who was scientifically literate and inquisitive.

Is time travel impossible? Many present-day physicists would try to tell us so, but then mention such possibilities as Tiplerian time machines and other exceptions. Certainly the individual called the Time Traveller by H.G. Wells (whom Philip Jose Farmer revealed was Doc Savage's great-uncle) acheived it. Farmer also recorded the adventures of another such traveller, who came from the 21st century back into extreme prehistory, in TIME'S LAST GIFT---and it's rather obvious that it is Lord Greystoke, better known as Tarzan, and that he helped found the culture that later resulted in such cities as Opar or Kor.

There have been evidence of other extra-temporal travellers. Poul Anderson records the experiences of Manse Everard of the Time Patrol, committed to defending the present timeline---so that the Time Patrol's evolved masters in the far future might arise.

A relative of Anderson's gave him the information about a time-travelling mutant called Jack Halvig, in THERE WILL BE TIME.

Leaks in the British security force called UNIT resulted in news about Doctor Who, who routinely travels between centuries.

A combination scanning device/portable library/encyclopedia called a "tricorder" was left by a temporarily maddened 23rd-century doctor called Leonard McCoy when he was inadvertently sent into the 1930's by an alien time portal. That, and the record of his rescuers left by the journal of a Miss Keller (sadly deceased), were evidently the springboard to the original STAR TREK series. Other clues might have been left in two other excursions that starship crew made back to the 20th century.

H.G. Wells may have had a visit from another time traveller, called Jerhek Carnelian, if Michael Moorcock is correct.

A Harlan Andrews and a woman called Noys journeyed from outside time, the continuum they called Eternity, to meddle in history by travelling to 1932, in such a way that Eternity as a time-meddling organization would never arise. How and where they met with the young Isaac Asimov has yet to be determined, but it is the details of the Galactic Empire Noys was trying to create, and the steps that led to it, which inspired him to write the FOUNDATION stories and of the robotic "laws" that might arise.

Woodrow Wilson Smith, also known as Lazarus Long, a mutant with an unending lifespan, travelled back from the far future to the early years of the 20th century to revisit his origins and family. As "Ted Bronson" he unaccountably decided to join World War I, and was nearly killed. It would be unlike him to leave clues to the future, yet somehow Robert A. Heinlein found clues in some notebooks Long left behind to construct his "Future History", although he filled in many gaps with his own considerable imagination...as did all of the above.

It appears from the record that there are many possible futures, all of which could have travellers visiting us in the present. I say "appears" because doubtless all of the accounts have gaps and guesses filled in by their respective writers, so I cannot totally rule out that they represent hints of one united future. Only further research will be able to determine that.

It is notable that the Justice Society of America (sans Superman) was sent into the 30th century, in a memorable adventure. Could they have inspired the formation, in a decade or two, of the Legion of Super-Heroes?

At any rate, Superboy took part in the Legion's adventures. Spending much of his free time in the Legion's future, Clark first learned what it was like to be acclaimed for his powers. He wore no costume, but his 20th century clothing was so distinctive that it set him apart anyway, as someone from the Middle Ages would appear in a present-day crowd. Of course, many of his deeds were exagerrated. For instance, Ultra Boy journeyed to Indian Springs/Smallville as part of an initiation, to try to determine which of the seemingly-ordinary boys in town would someday be Superman. Ultra Boy only used his penetra-vision, but at this point, Clark didn't have any super-vision, which is a developement that only occurs in Kryptonian males later in life. (Females get it much earlier.)

It's worth noting that the female friend of young Clark Kent that Bill Finger and Otto Binder called Lana Lang was also the female that Philip Wylie called Anna Blake. Note the similarity in how the names sound. Her real name was closer to something inbetween, like Lana Lake...although I will not vouch for that particular name's veracity. Wylie calls her a "blonde" as a child, but she was a strawberry blonde who grew to become a redhead. She never was an "Insect Queen", that being one of Binder's totally fictional stories, nor did she ever join the Legion, even as an honorary member.

At least half of these early stories are exagerrations and ficitonalizations, but for many of them there is a hard nugget of reality within them. For instance, in the story, "The Legion of Super-Traitors", the Legion did betray Clark, under the control of the evil Brain-Globes. Saturn Girl, with her telepathy, commanded ordinary animals to fight their enemies--- and won. To spice up the story, Siegel invented the "Legion of Super-Pets" and made Superboy do such obvious impossibilities as "blowing" the Earth back into its proper orbit---in actuality, the Earth had not yet begun to "move", and Clark/Hugo was able to destroy the machine that would have done it long before it could accomplish its aim.

Many of the other stories were similarly exagerrated and "enhanced".

Interestingly, there was also a Pete Ross---a best friend of Hugo/Clark who observed him leaping off in a camping trip after Clark had thought him asleep. Pete didn't know who or what Clark was, but he trusted him, and unknown to Clark, often covered for Clark when he would have accidentally revealed his strength and invulnerability. (Pete Ross was cousin to T.E. Thunderbolt Ross, who would later hunt the Hulk, and his sister Betty Ross, a secret agent in World War II who appeared in the Captain America stories of the forties. "Thunderbolt" named his daughter for his beloved sister.

Mon-El is a special case, but also was suggested by Linda Lee, writing from Midvale orphanage. Mort Weisinger, the editor, read every letter, and assigned Robert Bernstein, another Superboy writer, to the story. Of course, neither dreamed there was any truth to the story. It is worth noting that Robert also was the author of the first Phantom Zone story. In point of fact, the Phantom Zone was not a Kryptonian means of incarcerating criminals, but a Daxxamite device for preserving life when all else failed.

Mon-El's spacecraft did land near Indian Springs/Smallville and Clark/Hugo did leap to the conclusion that Mon-El was of the same origin as himself. The similarity in their abilities and appearance reinforced that conclusion, although Clark never called him "Mon-El", and, as point of fact, was at that time unsure of his real parents' names.

Mon-El did follow the path Jor-El/Jor-L gave him in the chart to Earth, for he was an interstellar astronaut from the planet Daxxam. Daxxam seems very similar to Krypton in the abilities of their humanoid inhabitants and level of technology---to the point where one wonders, after the Great Revolt against their kidnappers, whether a splinter group of Kryptonians settled on Daxxam. Genetic drift could explain their extreme sensitivity to lead poisoning, and their immunity to kryptonite radiations.

In fact, he seems to have followed Kal-El's trail almost exactly,landing in the same part of Earth, near the very same city. One wonders if instead of leaving immediately, whether Mon-El's slower ship followed the hyperspatial trail left by Kal-El's ship.

When the lead in Earth's environment poisoned Mon-El, his memory returned to him, and he was able to direct Clark/Hugo to the Phantom Zone projector, which luckily survived the destruction of Mon-El's ship. He wasn't freed, though, until a thousand years had passed, in the 30th century---thanks at first to a serum developed by Saturn Girl, and perfected by Brianiac 5, Brainiac's descendent.

Young Clark/Hugo for the first time found comrades who prized him for his abilities...who had abilities of their own that almost matched his. The comraderie he found there later caused him to join the Justice Society of America, FDR's secretive federal agency of superhumans in the forties. However, he was ill at ease with the many mystically-oriented superhumans and rarely lended a hand. The Justice League of America, a United Nations-sponsored group, with several aliens, was much more like the Legion--- and much more to his liking.

He also gained some valuable insights into what humankind could be like. In a sense, he truly became the Man of Tomorrow---because he knew how glorious that tomorrow could be.

He also found, for the first time, criminals who were on a level with him---from the Legion of Super-Villains (who he would later encounter as Superman) to the Time Trapper to the Fatal Five. I do think Jim Shooter had some sort of source for his stories of the Legion---we know that later writers said that Karate Kid came back to the twentieth century. If that is true---and certainly Shooter's first story arc concerned Karate Kid/Val Armoor and many of his best story arcs included them too...it may be that the Kid was Shooter's source. Whether Shooter knew his source had inside knowledge, or as a young kid in a grown-up's business just accepted the "suggestions", a la Linda Lee and Otto Binder, is conjecture at this point.

Superman also gained a valuable aid in a small device.

Every member of the Legion is given a Legion flight-ring. Superman normally didn't use it, his own leaps being enough. Yet there were some times when even he needed a little help...

In Luthor's first appearance (as an adult, anyway) he had a huge dirigible-ship in the stratosphere. The stratosphere lies 6 to 20 miles above the Earth's surface. Supposedly, in that story, Superman leaped that entire distance...a leap about fifty times higher than his eighth-of-a-mile leaps. It would be similar to me leaping thirty stories straight up. Superman actually had his old Legion flight-ring in the pocket of his cape. He pulled it out, and did also leap, to make him move even faster---but it was the flight-ring that allowed him to reach so great a distance.

In Luthor's second appearance, he challenges Superman to a duel, where Superman leaps almost outside the atmosphere, and races planes around the world. Again, Superman was aided by the flight-ring in that case...and since lives were at stake, he had no scruples about the slight deception to a madman like Luthor.

There may have been other times when Superman resorted to the flight-rings. So if in some stories Superman seems to be really flying, not just leaping...it may not just be exagerration.

One reason to include Shooter's scripts is the characterization gained by including them...and note how much they accord with Wylie's charecterization of Hugo Danner. Danner had a deep streak of melancholia, and it especially manifested itself when he accidentally killed another student in a college football game, even though Danner was holding back on his strength. Similarly, look at these panels. Imagine "Superboy" in plain 20th century clothing, and you will get closer to the truth---but look at the sentiments, the guilt and melancholia of Clark Kent---or Hugo Danner. Can anyone doubt these two are the same?

We know there is over a decade between the ending of GLADIATOR and Superman first aiding mankind. I know he went back and finished college, and talked with Abraham Erskine and Dr. Hans Zharkov. He might have also used the hidden time bubble to explore the centuries for a while, and may have been the source for Nowlan's ideas about what happened to Anthony "Buck" Rogers. He might even have found out some other scenarios in the future, or futures...and given the ideas to several science fiction writers, such as E.E. "Doc" Smith and others. That is sheer speculation---but an intriguing idea. Could he have walked the red-sunned trails of Darkover? (Darkover had a group of native telepaths who could nevertheless intermarry with the humans who lived there...a good sign they were descended from the humans kidnapped during prehistoric times by those I call the Marvaders.)

One cannot doubt he would seek out the extraordinary, those with unusual powers over the centuries. Would he have battled, and perhaps been defeated, for once--- by the mutant called the Mule of Asimov's Foundation stories? Would he have crossed wits with the telepathic secret agent alien who fought Dominic Flandry, called Aycharaych? (Aycharaych was also the last of his kind.) Or the Boskone Empire?

Would he have sought out the prophetic superman/messiah called Paul Atriedes, sometimes called "Maud'dib"---the Mouse? Maybe taking him after Paul's last trek into the desert? Would he have met Kimball Kinnison, Lensmen---and in later years been struck by Kimball's similarity to his fellow Justice League member, Hal Jordan?

Would he have met the immortal Lazarus Long/Woodrow Wilson Smith? Would he have found the incredibly lucky Teela Brown? (Perhaps before she was turned into a Protector?) Would he have sought out the incredibly intuitive superman, Donal Graeme, of the Dorsai? Would he have had them team up together, a "League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" of the far future and alternative timelines? Clark Kent/Hugo Danner, Lazarus Long, Paul Atriedes, Teela Brown, Kimball Kinnison and Donal Graeme would have made quite a team...

Nobody can say. Yet it remains an attractive idea....

Supergirl, after she came to Earth and joined the Legion, would have been given her own time bubble also.

Yet Superman's favorite century, besides the one he was native to, would always be the 30th century---home of his old friends, the Legion of Super-Heroes.

Those interested with comments, suggestions, things I have forgotten, things I messed up, contact me at...
E-Mail:al.schroeder@nashville.com

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Speculations Copyright © Al Schroeder. "Superman", of course, is currently owned by DC Comics/Warner Communications. All other characters copyrighted by their respective owners.