I like to think I know a lot about comics, and this sure seems like something I should have been aware of before now.

"Superman Jr." (drawn by Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez and inked by Dick Giordano) is from the 1982 DC Comics Style Guide, where it is accompanied by the following description:

SUPER JRS. give licencees the opportunity to use pint-sized versions of DC's most popular heroes, including Superman, Wonder Woman, Batman, Robin, and Flash! All have been transformed into the most loveable and huggable mini-heroes you've ever seen!

I mean, yeah, like everyone else, I knew there were Lil' (Justice) Leaguers who have occupied their own corner of the DC Multiverse — Earth-42, 'natch — since 2008. For some reason I assumed that the Lil' Leaguers had been inspired mainly by the popularity of the late-1980s X-Babies comics, an adorably alternate-reality version of the best-selling X-Men from DC's chief competition, Marvel Comics. As it turns out, those 2008 characters were more likely descended from the only Super Jrs. comic appearance: The Best of DC Special #58 digest-sized comic in December 1984.

The really weird part is that 1984 story had actually been created seven years earlier for a format nearly twice the size! According to October 2014 issue of Back Issue magazine — which also includes a list of all known Super Jrs. licensed products — the Super Jrs. were originally developed (by Tom DeFalco, Vince Squeglia, and Kerry Grandenetti) to be used in a DC treasury-sized comic book in 1977 as the first in a whole series of Super Jrs. comics. But the treasury edition line was canceled, and DC instead decided to shop the Super Jrs. characters around for a cartoon series that never materialized, finally printing the comic in '84 to give the digest series a "new" Christmas story.

(I find the Super Jrs. an interesting contrast to DC's Captain Carrot and his Amazing Zoo Crew, also a kid-friendly take on DC's Justice League of America characters — the Zoo Crew began as "Just'a Lotta Animals" — created in the early 1980s as a cartoon pitch only to become a comic series in 1982 yet doesn't appear in that Style Guide. Did the Zoo Crew perhaps have a different licensing agreement?)

Anyway, that 1982 Style Guide entry up there is for a character created in 1977, licensable for a television cartoon that never happened, and who wouldn't see print until 1984. In hindsight, I've certainly seen the cover of that Style Guide before, and I must have confused the Super Jrs. with the likes of Superbaby (first appearing in 1948) or any of the many Superboys or even the several Sons of Superman (some more imaginary than others). But no, it turns out Super Jrs. are their own thing.

Aren't comic books great?

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Celebrate Christmas in June with Superboy!

What I heard: solve poverty by giving poor people money. That Superboy, he's a thinker.

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Tired of throwing away blue jeans when the seat ripped, I finally decided to learn to use a sewing machine. Unfortunately, my pants were so bad, they killed our machine. Rather than go without, Mom spent an ungodly amount of money on a new electronic machine that's smarter than our television. With my pants now fixed, it's time to turn my attention to my 20-year-old leather jacket.

My jacket is a copy of the costume worn by Superboy in the classic "Death of Superman" comic book storyline from 1992. That includes the mourning armband on the left sleeve. The armband I've been using for decades is the actual armband bundled in the polybagged edition of Superman #75. As you can see, it's in bad shape. (I have a hunch these things weren't really meant to be worn for 20 years.)

Rather than track down and unbag another copy of a-20th century comic book — I refuse to admit how many times I've already done this — I decided to make my own from superior materials and a 21st-century sewing machine. I got lucky that Jo-Ann's had Superman pajama fabric on sale. I was planning on having to cut my own "S" shield.

The finished product turned out pretty good, considering that the first time I'd ever used a sewing machine was two weeks ago. Now I'm ready for a bigger project: repairing the jacket pockets. I look forward to being able to carry pocket change again.

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Last night in bed, Victoria decided to get my attention by poking me in the left eye. It worked.

Boy, howdy, that was (and remains) painful! I'm sure there's a lesson in this somewhere, but I just can't see it right now. Tonight I'll be sleeping in safety glasses.

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Even Superboy hates Daylight Savings Time.

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Quick, name the three most important people that you can think of!

I'm going to bet that your list didn't include "Police Chief Parker of Smallville." Who would have guessed that Superboy's motto was "think globally, act locally"? What could the chief of police need Clark for so desperately, anyway?

Oh. Never mind. Pulling boners always leaves me in a fog, too.

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If you could travel through space and time at will, and you needed to dispose of something so no one could ever use it again, where would you put it?

Adventure Comics #290, November 1961

Never send boys and girls to do a Superboy's job! Not only does the Legion of Super-Heroes decide not to actually destroy the six dangerous containers, they choose to take them 500 years into the past, giving determined evildoers 500 extra years to find them! It doesn't take a Brainiac 5 to realize that's a bad idea.

For the record, lest you were worried, Superboy easily tracks down the containers and eventually destroys their contents -- components for a humanoid robot that can turn good things evil and evil things good -- with a quick blast of heat vision. And thus Superboy saves the future. Again.

This was hardly the only time that the Legion had a terrible solution to a pretty simple problem. But what can you expect from a bunch of teenagers raised in a future with role models like this guy:

Action Comics #287, April 1962

Sheesh.

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Let's learn cause and effect with Superboy in "The Cigar that Killed Superboy!"

Ever hear of carcinoma, Superboy? As Pa Kent learned the hard way, lung cancer is the most common cancer-related death in America. Remember kids, "super-convenience" may seem swell, but you'll feel far less guilty if you make your parents get their own matches! Better luck with your next set of parents, Kal-El!

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Headlines across the internet are screaming about a chimpanzee named Travis that went bananas and mauled a family friend. I first noticed the story when I flipped past MSNBC, which had apparently had enough of reporting the terrible news from Wall Street ("DOW in Bottomless Free Fall!" "Automakers Beg for $20 Billion More!" "New Investment Scammer Revealed!") today and turned to an in-depth investigation of the case of the crazy chimp.

Travis was apparently treated like a member of the family for over a decade, even joining the family at the dinner table. (Which makes the owner's reported screams of "Just shoot him!" make me wonder how she treats her real children.) Every incident report about the situation includes something similar to "he appeared in advertisements for Coca-Cola." I'm sure that the suits at Coke never considered their association with a sociopathic chimp when they were casting for the part of star Coke-swilling monkey: "Kill Humans! Drink Coke! Ahhhhhh!"

Now, I'm no fan of the primate. ("They're like little, furry people," supporters say, and that's exactly why I hate them.) But, I don't really think this is that big a story, people. It just seems to me like we're looking for something other than the now-commonplace bad economic news. So we've turned to "Monkey Mauls Man" as escapist fantasy.

I mean, who didn't see this coming? Animals snap all the time. (If it were a human, we'd say they "went postal" or whatever phrase is en vogue these days.) We've all seen Planet of the Apes, Monkey Shines, and The Wizard of Oz. We've all read The Monkey's Paw, The Jungle Book, and Curious George. We're all familiar with >shudder< Gleek.

They may seem friendly, start out as "helpers," but soon they're going through the garbage, cooking methamphetamine over your stove, and beating the hell out of your loved ones. Monkeys are bad news. Always have been, always will be. Stay away, people, stay away. Let global warming do it's job.

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Today I wore a Fantastic Four logo t-shirt with my Superboy leather jacket, and the sales staff at Best Buy, EB Games, and Kroger all gave me grief about wearing Marvel and DC trademarks together. I was impressed by the knowledge that these people had about comic book publishers and copyrights. Though they were admittedly all much, much younger than I am, each property had a movie in the past 2 years, so I shouldn't be too surprised, I suppose. In any event, long live comic books!

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