Superboy Prime - Villain or Victim?

[@COMICSAREAWESOME]

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[@TevyaSmolka]

Superboy prime I thought was a interesting character in crisis on infinite earths and his story had a great ending in my opinion, however in infinite crisis on the other hand yeah he turned straight into a villain and was a irredeemable monster in my opinion.

[@mephosto]

there is a story that is lost in the meta. the writers even forget, he was never really "superboy". he only had a few hours of super powers before his entire life was destroyed. he then spends timeless time locked away with an infant in an adults body, an old woman, and a superman with a suicidal leaning, while wearing a halloween costume. watching the FICTIONAL (to him) world grow darker and meaner under cuts his belief that he did the right thing, so he leans more into being superboy because he will become superman, and superman can save the world, his world. angry and getting frustrated (a flaw the silver age superman had to deal with from time to time), it's easy to see how alex coming to him could convince him that yes they can fix things, but they need to make hard decisions, and if you are reshaping reality is it even really bad if you can fix everything afterwards? then the time comes to start and he has to, HAS TO, confront this clone calling himself superboy, he's superboy and he has to be to save the worlds, don't they get it? and all of them just start to come at him and insult him and even put him in the phantom zone! and he's never really trained and they just so ...fragile. and everything is going wrong and then he's trapped again. we never find out what went on in the speed force but he comes out "changed" as alex says and worse. the truth is superboy prime spends most of his appearances in what can best be described as a psychotic break from reality which has lost nearly all meaning to him. by the titans story, it's mostly run it's course but he so deep in it, there no way out. in death metal, he's just completely given up, till the turn around. that's the story of superboy prime that happens while the writers are trying to "own the fans", a horror story of fiction and reality, losing everything, and being flawed.

[@COMICSAREAWESOME]

Loved the way you put it

[@mephosto]

@@COMICSAREAWESOME great video man. everybody sees prime but just goes for the whole whiny fans stand in, but there is the whole in universe story that is way more interesting to me. i'd have love to have seen a silence of the lambs like scene where someone talks to prime and he seriously freaks them out with the earth prime fiction and pre crisis stuff. really play with some existential horror.

[@COMICSAREAWESOME]

@@mephosto frankly considering how poorly he's been handled I'm ok with him getting a happy ending and never showing up again. Let his story come to a conclusion.

[@alexandrefrauches132]

Superboy's rants can be annoying but I feel people are misunderstanting the point of the character. He's not meant to a representation of reader in general, but rather the TOXIC fans, people who are so obsess over a character or story from a specific time, so blind by their nostalgia, that, when things don't go the way they want, their answer is to just lash out and use social media to bully creators as well fans of their works. Superboy Prime actions and complains aren't so different from what these toxic fans said about the SW prequels and sequels or the MCU post-Captain Marvel. Some of their complains may be understantable, but it doesn't justify their behavior towards the creators and the fans who didn't share their opinion.

[@COMICSAREAWESOME]

Death Metal did a decent job showing that Prime had undergone character growth from being that whiny character (which Johns said in a recent interview regarding his appearance in Shazam was what made Superboy Prime fun to write)...I'm not so sure if I like that he got everything he wanted in the end.