- No, we can't have trash like you cluttering the streets-- or wouldn't you love to have someone trip over you and get hurt? Isn't that what you live for... menacing innocent people with your insane gimmicks? Face it, Lex Luthor... The future would be better off without you!
- — Superboy
Superboy (Volume 2) #38 is an issue of the series Superboy (Volume 2) with a cover date of February, 1983. It was published on November 24, 1982.
Synopsis for "The Day That Lasted Forever!"
It's Thursday, November 27th, and Superboy is flying towards Smallville Soames Reform School. Every year he spends Thanksgiving with the residents, in hopes of helping set them straight. And as every year, he offers a plate of roasted turkey to Lex Luthor as encouraging him to turn over a new leaf, only for getting his kindness thrown back in his face. After Lex has been taken back to his room, an upset Superboy wonders why he can't reach out to Lex. Mr. Soames, though, is certain Lex can be helped and nobody is beyond rehabilitation.
Superboy takes off, stating he will never give up on helping Lex, even though he has the feeling Lex will never want to reform. Superboy heads towards the Kent Farm for Thanksgiving dinner when he remembers he had planned a little trip into the future for the monthly meeting of the Legion of Super-Heroes, so he changes course and streaks into the time-barrier.
Unexpectedly, Superboy come across a massive tear disrupting the time-stream. Superboy can't avoid it, so he decides to plow right through it at top speed. Unbeknowst to him, his adult self has chosen that exact instant to travel to the past, and upon seeing the gap, also decides to streak through it. Both Clarks collide with each other. Unfortunately, because no physical entity can simultaneously co-exist with itself at the same time, both Clarks turn intangible, merge for a fraction of second and repel each other with such a brutal, owerwhelming recoil effect they're hurled backwards and out of the time-stream. Superman emerges on Metropolis and a barely conscious Superboy is thrown back into past Smallville.
Adult Clark Kent in his younger self's body hovers downwards unsteadily, wondering what knocked him back all the way to Smallville. Superboy heads towards a nearby lake to rest up for a bit by the lakeshore, and he gets shocked when he sees his own thirteen-years-younger reflection in the water. Trying to pull himself through, Superboy heads towards the Kent Farm in order to mull over his problem quietly.
On the Farm, Jonathan and Martha Kent are waiting for their son when they hear noises coming from the basement. Pa goes to check the basement trapdoor right when Superboy crawls out of his secret tunnel and gets the surprise of his life when he sees his parents still alive. Seeing their son seems exhausted and shaken, Pa and Ma help him to the couch.
Clark is utterly flabbergasted and he starts suspecting he was thrown back in time or his mind has swapped places with his sixteen-year's self.
The doorbell's ring interrupts his reflections. As his parents go to welcome their guests, Superboy changes clothes, thinking he can't tell his parents anything about him being their adult son or theirs deaths. The Kents have dinner with Lana Lang and Pete Ross as Clark does his best to not let anything on.
The next day, Lex Luthor takes a stroll around Smallville after breaking out of reform school, feeling confident that Superboy will never bother him again. He doesn't even get concerned when he is spotted by Chief Parker.
For his part, Superboy wakes up, and it's again Thanksgiving Day. Clark gets forced to relive the events of the last day, and realizes is trapped in some kind of time loop. He knows he can't escape by travelling into the future, so he comes up the idea of going back further into the past.
The next day, Luthor gets rid of Chief Parker with an electric force-field and is about to walk into a jewelry shop, sure that Superboy is trapped in the day before, when he sees the Teen of Steel rocketing towards him. Lex doesn't understand how his latest device can have failed, and Superboy reveals he escaped by flinging himself into the past. Since Albert Einstein postulated time is an unending circle, he travelled the whole circle backwards until reaching today.
Luthor isn't willing to give up yet and he pulls out a magnetic repellent device. Nevertheless, Clark Kent isn't in the mood to let Luthor believe he has a fighting chance. Knowing Lex will never change but he'll spend over one decade trying to kill him and ruining lives, Superboy gets mad and simply lays a beatdown on him, and actually considers to kill him to protect the future.
Superboy is stopped by Chief Parker. Superboy calms down, feeling guilty for want to kill someone and remembering his attempt would be futile anyway because he can't change the past. Superboy apologizes for losing his temper and flies away. Finally he has conceived a way to get his mind back into his adult body.
Appearing in "The Day That Lasted Forever!"
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
Antagonists:
Other Characters:
- Mr. Soames
- Soames Reform School Boys (Unnamed) (Single appearance)
- Two Soames Reform School Guards (Unnamed) (Single appearance)
- Legion of Super-Heroes (Mentioned only)
- Rao (Mentioned only)
- Albert Einstein (Mentioned only)
Locations:
- 1969
- Thanksgiving Day November 27th
- Earth
- Smallville
- Soames Reform School
- Mess Hall
- Smallville High School (Mentioned only)
- 321 Maple Street
- Soames Reform School
- Fortress of Solitude (Mentioned only)
- Smallville
- Earth
- Thanksgiving Day November 27th
- Krypton (Mentioned only)
- Wegthor (Mentioned only)
- 30th Century (Mentioned only)
- 1982 (Cameo)
- Metropolis (Cameo)
Items:
- Electric Force Field
- Magnetic Repellent Device
Vehicles:
Concepts:
Synopsis for "Gone with What Wind?"
Appearing in "Gone with What Wind?"
Featured Characters:
- Chris King
- Trail Blazer
- Vick Grant
- PSI-Clone
Supporting Characters:
- Greg King
- Elizabeth King
- Gary King
- Nick Stevens
Antagonists:
- Silhouette
- Windrider (Single appearance)
Other Characters:
- Firecracker (Mentioned only) (from Superboy (Volume 2) #37)
- Gabriel Quentin
- Citizens of Fairfax (Unnamed) (Single appearance)
- Don
- Fairfax Police Department
- Sarge (Unnamed) (Single appearance)
- Chief (Unnamed) (Mentioned only)
- Porter (Single appearance)
- Walt (Single appearance)
- Fairfax Fire Department (Mentioned only)
- Fairfax Harbor Patrol (Mentioned only)
- Wild Man of Borneo (Mentioned only)
- Doc Freedman (Mentioned only)
- Tarzan (Mentioned only)
- Mathew Brady (Mentioned only)
- Doug Henning (Mentioned only)
- David Copperfield (Mentioned only)
Locations:
Items:
- Hill Street Blues (Mentioned only)
- H-Dial
Vehicles:
Concepts:
- Flame Trails
- Telepathy
- Duplication of living things
- Levitation
- Telekinesis
- Clones
Notes
- History crosses over with Superman #380 and continues in Superman #381.
- In Superman #380 Superboy mentioned about erroneously travelling to the 25th Century instead of the 30th Century.
- "Chris and Vicki's clothes by Eugenio Ocasio Jr., of Mayaguez, Puerto Rico"
- "Trail Blazer was created by Cheno Streeter, of Lakewood, New Jersey"
- "Windraider was created by Kevin Lindenmuth, of Farmington Hills, Michigan"
- "PSI-Clone was created by Jim Jordan, of Long Beach, Missouri"