YMMV / The Adventures of Superboy

• Complete Monster:
  • "Bringing Down the House": Judd Faust is a famous musician studying for a masters degree at Schuster University. Although he seems nice at first, he has a lot of sinister hobbies in his spare time. Faust wants to force a amusement park owner to sell to him (simply because he wants something he know he can't have), and to do this he sends his henchman Charles to bomb a baseball game being played at the amusement park. After Superboy foils that scheme, Faust sends Charles to kidnap the park owner, cover him with alcohol and put him in a roller coaster track so that he gets run over. Meanwhile Faust has started to date Lana Lang, and one night takes her to see his special collection. Faust takes her to his basement which is filled with ghoulish torture devices; Faust plans to torture Lana on the rack and record the screams for his personal enjoyment, having done this to 3 other women already. Faust is so vile, Superboy briefly considers killing him.
  • "Carnival": Deville is an ageless demon all but explicitly stated to be Satan himself. He set up a traveling carnival to study human nature and tempt others into acts of sin on its grounds, taking the souls of all those who fall to his wiles and locking them in a box in howling agony for all eternity. Seeking to possess the soul of Clark Kent himself, Deville tries to tempt him into betraying his morals to claim his soul, eventually trying to force Clark to resort to murder on the threat of raping Lana right in front of him, in the form of a despicable Serial Rapist Clark had apprehended earlier.
  • "A Change of Heart" two-parter: Adam Verrell is a respected philanthropist who is beloved by the public of Capitol City for his charitable deeds. Verrell donates a series of TV screens to Capitol City that have uplifting messages on them. However, Verrell is secretly a nihilist who believes that humanity is collection of moral degenerates and plans to prove this by destroying Capitol City. The TV screens are actually mind-control devices designed to drive people insane. A priest looks at one of Verrell's screens and flies into a rage, pushing 2 strollers with babies in them into traffic (they are saved by Superboy). Later at a public event, a screen causes the mayor to go into a rage and take a gun from a cop and start firing on the crowd. After Superboy disarms the mayor, the screen causes the crowd to riot. Meanwhile, Verrell is dating Lana Lang and puts a drug in her wine that makes her appear dead, and frames Superboy for her death. Verrell takes Lana to his basement lair and puts her in a cage, threatening to electrocute her if she gets out of line. Verrell then kidnaps a Mad Scientist named Tommy Puck who was recently released from prison and forces him to increase the power of his mind-control machine so that he can affect the entire city at once. Later, Verrell wants Puck to further increase the machine's power, so that people will actively try to murder each other.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Ron Ely's alternate-universe Superman only appeared in one episode but is fondly viewed by fans as one of the more underrated portrayals of Superman, given his relative obscurity and never getting to wear the suit or even be called by name. This Superman has retired after helping make his Earth into a utopia and even reforming Lex Luthor permanently. He is totally believable as The Paragon with his wise and warm demeanor, and despite being visibly older than Superboy he can still kick ass when required.
  • Lex's Dark Mistress Darla was written to be a potentially one-shot villain in season 2. However, fans enjoyed her performance enough for her to recur for the rest of the show (and even appear in a few issues of the tie-in comic), get temporary superpowers in one episode, and have a Heel Realization in her final appearance.
  • Lena Luthor only appears in one two-part episode. Still, her role as a Morality Pet who is ashamed enough of what her brother has done to fake her own death is very powerful. It helps that she is one of the few non-Canon Foreigners besides Clark, his human and Kryptonian loved ones, and his Rogues Gallery A-list.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: The two alternate-universe Superboys in "Roads Not Taken" resemble versions of Superman/Superboy that would later appear in the comics. The Sovereign dresses similarly to the Soviet dictator Superman from Superman: Red Son, while the reclusive Superboy (who killed his world's Lex Luthor in a fit of rage) wears an outfit that looks a lot like the 90s Clone Superboy, complete with jacket and sunglasses. And of course, The Sovereign is an evil Superman who's taken over the world in a parallel Earth.
• Retroactive Recognition:
  • The dirty cop in "Terror from the Blue" is played by Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, best know as Shang Tsung in Mortal Kombat: The Movie and Mortal Kombat 11. This becomes Hilarious in Hindsight given that Mortal Kombat and the DC Universe have crossed over and both properties are now owned by Warner Bros.
  • Billy Hercules, the kid in the first season episode who wore a Superboy costume was played by a young Joaquin Phoenix, billed as Leaf Phoenix. Becomes Hilarious in Hindsight when Joaquin ends up being cast to play the titular character of Joker (2019), a Batman Villain. This is pretty much a case of "You either die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become the villain" kind of thing.
    • "Superboy" deals with bullies in the opening of the episode; the scene ends with his EvilLaugh echoing in the background.
  • Lana Lang's actress, Stacy Haiduk, would later be a prominent soap opera actress, as well as Katherine Hitchcock from Seaquest DSV, and, of all people, Akaavi Spar from Star Wars: The Old Republic!
  • Ma Kent (Salome Jens) became the Female Changeling.

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