Superman is one of the epicenters of DC right now, which makes sense since Superman’s movie is doing gangbuster business. The latest issue of the comic gives readers the beginning of the battle between Superman and the Darkseid Legion, a twisted version of the Legion of Superheroes that Superman grew up with. Superman gets trounced by Saturn Girl, Lightning Lad, and Cosmic Boy, but he gets help from the Time Trapper, now Doomsday, who brings Superman to a pocket universe where he’s kept someone who can help him against the Legion, someone who has experience battling the Legion — Superboy-Prime.
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That’s right: Superboy-Prime is back and fans are hyped. Superboy-Prime first appeared in DC Comics Presents #87, in a Crisis on Infinite Earths crossover. Superboy-Prime was meant to represent the classic Superboy in the Crisis, and helped save the universe from the Anti-Monitor. However, he would return twenty years later, and become one of DC’s most dangerous — and entertaining — villains. Superboy-Prime is a very meta character, and has starred in some brilliant stories over the last twenty years since his return. Superboy-Prime is an amazing character, and his various eras have showed him for what he is — the best DC character. These seven reasons prove that Superboy-Prime is the best of the best.
7) He Helped Save Reality from the Anti-Monitor
Superboy-Prime was the Clark Kent of an Earth where he was the only person with superpowers. This Earth-Prime was meant to be our Earth, so young Clark grew up reading Superman comics, and decided to go trick or treating with his girlfriend dressed as Superman as a joke. He discovered he had superpowers that night, and helped Earth-One Superman, who showed up in the Prime Universe to protect it from the Anti-Monitor. However, Earth-Prime was still destroyed and Superboy-Prime joined the last battle against the Anti-Monitor, helping Earth-Two Superman and Earth-Three’s Alexander Luthor in the final battle. After Earth-Two Superman destroyed the Anti-Monitor, Superboy-Prime went to the paradise dimension with Kal-L, Lois, and Luthor. Young Superboy-Prime had lost everything, and yet he didn’t give in to despair. He kept fighting showing that Clark Kent in any universe never gives up. While Superboy-Prime didn’t do nearly as much in the battle as Earth-Two Superman, the fact that he volunteered showed just how great he was.
6) Punching the Walls of Reality is Insane Yet Awesome
This is one of the more interesting choices made with the character, and it showed the meta leanings that would become a part of Superboy-Prime. It was revealed that while Earth-Two Superman and Lois, Earth-Three Alexander Luthor, and Prime were in the paradise dimension, Prime eventually started to get angry, both over being lonely and because of what he saw the universe he helped save transform into. He would punch at the walls of reality, and these punches were what caused all of the weirder retcons of the post-Crisis years. For example, he was responsible for the resurrection of Jason Todd. This was one of those ideas that a lot of fans mocked at the time, but perfectly fit the character that Prime was becoming. It was a such a bizarre choice, but as Prime would change over the years and become a caricature of the worst kind of comic fans, it made more and more sense that he would be responsible for some of the strangest ideas in DC Comics history. On top of that, we learned that he was moving planets in order to change the location of the center of the universe, and destroyed the JLA Watchtower. Prime was basically an evil deus ex machina; anytime you needed a reason for something bad happening, you could just blame Prime and it got fans ready for more of the wildness to come in Prime’s life.
5) He Made Infinite Crisis Even Better Than it Already Was
Infinite Crisis is an amazing event book, and a big reason for that is Superboy-Prime. Prime was played perfectly throughout the book. Luthor and Prime hated the dark direction that DC went in the post-Crisis years, but he would become the embodiment of it throughout the story. His battle against Superboy is one of the coolest fights in the entire book, a brutal battle that showed off just how powerful Prime really was. It was a shock when he started killing characters like Pantha and Wildebeest, and it went on from there. His return at the end of issue five was one of the most hyped moments of the entire story, and his second battle against Superboy was even better than the first. Him breaking and trying to destroy the entire universe in the last issue of the book made perfect sense for Prime as he was built up in the story, and the ending — him in one of the Oan Sciencells promising to return and cause even more chaos was as hype an ending as you could imagine. There’s something great about Superboy-Prime, representing the edgiest of fans, killing Earth-Two Superman. DC chasing that “mature” market is what killed the hope and happiness of the publisher. It was meta storytelling at its finest. Infinite Crisis was meticulously built as a story, but Prime was easily one of the most exciting parts of the story. The story cemented his status as the most unpredictable character in the DC Universe.
4) He Had the Best Fight in “The Sinestro Corps War”
One of the best parts of Prime as a character in those early years was that every fight he had was very exciting. His return at the end of Green Lantern: Sinestro Corps Special #1 was a huge moment in an issue full of them. Sinestro’s war against the Green Lantern Corps was already pretty exciting and adding Prime to that somehow intensified the hype that the story had. It wouldn’t be until Green Lantern Corps #18 before readers got to see a patented Superboy-Prime fight, but it was the best fight in a story full of excellent fights. Sodam Yat, given the power of the willpower entity Ion, took the battle to the Sinestro Corps’ most unpredictable member, and it was exactly the kind of fight that you’d expect from Prime. Yat and Prime went wild on each other, with the power of Ion helping him against the insane your villain but in the end, he couldn’t stand up to the power of Superboy-Prime. It was yet another example of why Prime is such an exciting character; every time he beat a more powerful character, it built his aura up even more.
3) Final Crisis: Legion of Three Worlds Proved That Prime Wasn’t a Fluke as a Villain
“The Sinestro Corps War” ended with Prime thrown into the multiverse, where he would become a part Countdown to Final Crisis, where his name would be changed to Superman-Prime thanks to legal issues with the Siegel family. Countdown to Final Crisis is legendarily bad, and it didn’t do any favors for Prime. However, the next Prime story brought him back to prominence — Final Crisis: Legion of 3 Worlds. Prime is thrown into the far future, where he learns about Superman’s place in Legion history and decides to burn it all down. Prime gathered the Legion of Supervillians and attacked the Legion of Superheroes, leading to some of the coolest battles in DC history. It was also revealed that Prime became the Time Trapper (multiple characters have taken up the mantle of the Time Trapper over the decades, each one changing because of time travel shenanigans), showing that one day, Prime would become the kind of villain who was more than just a bruiser. This story fell back on a lot of the tropes that had already been used with Prime, but it ended with the most interesting development in Prime’s existence.
2) Prime Became the Personification of the Worst Aspects of Comic Fans
Final Crisis: Legion of 3 Worlds ends with Prime transported back to Earth-Prime. All Prime’s ever wanted was to get home, but he forgets one important thing — Earth-Prime is where DC Comics are published and everyone he knows and loves knows exactly what he’s been up to. It’s a great little twist that plays off the way DC used Earth-Prime in the pre-Crisis years. Prime takes up residence in his parents’ basement, where he becomes an Internet troll. This was honestly the best endgame for Prime at this point. Throughout his existence, Prime had always seemed like an Internet troll; all of his complaints about the way DC had changed was heard in fan spaces all of the time. Some fans felt like Prime was being used to mock fans, but I never felt this was the case. This, to an extent, was always a part of Prime’s character. Prime as an obsessed DC fan was very cool, and it would be used in Adventure Comics #4 and #5, when he learned that DC was going to kill off his character.
Prime went to the offices of DC Comics to take revenge on the writers, involved in some Black Lantern related shenanigans, and menacing DC boss Dan DiDio. Prime showed regret over everything he had done at the end of the story, resigned to the fact that he would never get a happy ending because of what “they” (the writers and editors of DC) made him do. However, his girlfriend Laurie shows up, sent by “them” to finally give him the ending he deserved. There’s a heavy meta aspect to this obviously — that the fans need to accept sometimes that they won’t get what they want right away, and remember there are more important things in life — but it also shows that the good person readers met in DC Comics Presents #87 was still there. Prime would return several times over the years, notably in Shazam, but it would all lead to the greatest moment in Prime’s history.
1) Prime Sacrificed Himself to Help Save the Multiverse Again
Prime was brought into Death Metal to help battle against the Multiverse Who Laughs in Death Metal: The Secret Origin. This story was a perfect example of how much Prime had grown as a character over the years, as he proved that he was no longer the monster that he had once been. Prime and Krypto bond, and this bonding helps the Superman Family finally trust Prime. Prime throws himself into the battle with the Multiverse Who Laughs showing that as much as he’s changed over the years, he’s still the kid who wanted to be Superman and was ready to save the universe. Death Metal: The Secret Origin showed exactly why Superboy-Prime is the best DC character — he’s had an arc. Prime started out as a naive young comic fan, broken by loneliness and anger at what was happening to the universe. This led him to do terrible things, but eventually, he’d grow up and become a more rounded person, ending his life to save his heroes. Prime may have gotten pretty edgy over the years, but his ending shows that he could grow up and become something different. Big Two comic characters don’t always get to grow, but Prime did. Prime was always unpredictable, but the fact he became what he did is the most unpredictable part of the character. In a lot of ways, Prime is every fan out there and he’s grown alongside us.
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