This Superman Spin-Off Was Cancelled After 4 Seasons Because DC Changed Its Mind

Whenever the topic of live-action Superman shows comes about, programs like Smallville, Superman & Lois, and even the original The Adventures of Superman come instantly to mind. But right off the tail of Superman IV: The Quest for Peace, the Man of Steel pivoted from the big screen to television for the often forgotten Superboy television series.

'Superboy' (Sort of) Spawned From Christopher Reeve's Superman Movies

Before Superboy became a character in his own right (either as a half-Superman clone or the Man of Steel's flesh-and-blood son), the character was simply a younger version of Superman who was active as a superhero in Smallville during his teenage years. Long before Smallville explored the adolescence of Clark Kent, DC Comics had been doing so with its Superboy brand in issues of either Adventure Comics or Superboy proper. So, by the time the character had finally made his way to television in 1988, many long-time Super-fans were overjoyed to see this youthful incarnation brought to life — even if he looked different than they were used to.

Superboy began when father-and-son producing duo Alexander Salkind and Ilya Salkind decided to take Clark Kent to his roots. Well, sort of. After producing the first three Christopher Reeve Superman films, as well as Helen Slater's Supergirl, the Salkinds took the Last Son of Krypton to college with this syndicated series. Reeve continued the franchise with Superman IV: The Quest for Peace sans the Salkinds', and the producing pair instead took their efforts to television. The result was a half-hour syndicated television series that acted almost as an alternate take on the character's big screen adventures, where the young Clark Kent's adoptive father Jonathan Kent (played on the series by Stuart Whitman) was still alive, and he had begun his superheroic exploits sooner in life.

The series kicked off with John Haymes Newton as the Boy of Steel, leaving Smallville, Kansas for college at Shuster University (a sly reference to Superman co-creator Joe Shuster — the student union building was named the Siegel Center, per his other co-creator Jerry Siegel). Clark was joined in his adventures by his best friend and love interest Lana Lang (Stacy Haiduk) and roommate T.J. White (Jim Calvert), who, yes, was the son of Clark's future Daily Planet employer Perry White. Additionally, Scott Wells appeared as Superboy's future nemesis Lex Luthor, a troublemaker classmate of Clark's.

The Boy of Steel Was Recast Between 'Superboy's First Two Seasons

Things changed for Superboy drastically in between seasons. Although the first half of Season 1 wasn't much to write home about, the show began to find its voice in the second half. Still, that didn't stop Superboy from rebranding itself entirely come Season 2. Newton exited the series ahead of the second season, only to be replaced by Gerard Christopher for the remainder of the series. "It was my choice to leave," Newton told Superman Homepage years later. "The producers asked me back repeatedly." However, behind the scenes, it appears that Newton had asked for a raise due to the stuntwork he was doing for the show, only to be rejected by the producers. It didn't help that a traffic citation "made the character look bad," according to those same producers.

But with Christopher, Superboy soon took flight for real. After a tough break in Season 1, the series returned in the fall of 1989 with a vengeance. Christopher played Clark Kent a bit more like Christopher Reeve's portrayal, as a bumbling reporter who used his human disguise as a cover for his superheroic exploits. "Both were great at what they did and brought something different," Lana Lang actress Stacy Haiduk told Superman Homepage years later. "Gerard's Clark Kent was just so goofy. John kept it more straight, and I think Gerard just sort of went with it. I fell in love with the Superboy of John and the Clark Kent of Gerard."

T.J. White was also dropped in favor of Clark and Lana's new friend, Andy McCalister (Ilan Mitchell-Smith), and Lex Luthor was also recast with Sherman Howard. But as the show continued, the series leaned even further into all the Silver Age weirdness that inspired it. Season 3 (now retitled The Adventures of Superboy) sent Clark and Lana to The Bureau for Extra-Normal Matters in Capital City, Florida, where they investigated many of the same oddities that Superboy conveniently found himself in the midst of. Alongside Matt Ritter (Peter Jay Fernandez) and their boss C. Dennis Jackson (Robert Levine), the pair tackled all the usual X-Files fair with the visual and thematic style of Dark Skies (though it predated both).

'Superboy' Was Cancelled After Four Seasons

The final two seasons of Superboy were a bit darker than their predecessors, and by the time Season 4 aired, DC Comics had decided that Superboy would be no more. Off-screen, the comic book publisher had largely retired the Superboy iteration of Superman after the Crisis on Infinite Earths comic event. The fact that the Superboy series snuck through almost seems like a massive oversight, but by 1992, the folks at DC and Warner Bros. had aimed to adapt the Man of Steel's more contemporary adventures to television in what would become Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, with Dean Cain now cast as the Man of Steel.

As Ilya Salkind later revealed to Superman Super-Site, "We were set to do a fifth but Warner Bros. decided otherwise, and the show was canceled." Superboy ultimately faded into obscurity as the Man of Steel aged up and returned to network television, but it still remains a cult favorite for many fans of the character. It's a bit hard to find these days, but if you can, it's a time capsule worth remembering.