Characters / Superboy Enemies

Superman Main Character Index
Title Character
Clark Kent/Kal/El/Superman
Supporting Cast
Lois Lane | Jimmy Olsen | Ambush Bug | Steel
Villains
Central Rogues Gallery (Alexander "Lex" Luthor, Bizarro, Vril Dox/Brainiac, Cyborg-Superman, Darkseid, Doomsday, Lobo, Mister Mxyzptlk, Mongul, Phantom Zone Criminals [General Zod]) | A-L | M-Z (Superboy-Prime)
Spin-Offs
Supergirl (Kara Zor-El/Linda Danvers/Supergirl, Supporting Cast, Rogues Gallery) | Power Girl | Superboy (Conner Kent/Kon-El, Jonathan "Jon" Samuel Kent, Supporting Cast, Rogues Gallery) | Legion Of Superheroes (The Founders, Silver Age, Bronze Age, Five Years Later, Postboot, Threeboot, Retroboot, Rebirth, Other Heroes, The Fatal Five, The Legion of Supervillains, Other Villains, Supporting Cast)

---

Project Cadmus

For more on the Project as a whole and more Cadmus personelle see Characters.DC Comics Miscellaneous.

Dubbilex

XX

A fellow Cadmus creation Dubbilex is a D.N.Alien who was sent by the project to keep an eye on Superboy when Superman made it clear he wouldn't allow the project to kidnap the Kid off the streets and keep him confined in Cadmus against his will.

created by: Jack Kirby

first appearance: 1971, Superman's Pal, Jimmy Olsen #136

species: D.N.Alien

---

• Clones Are People, Too: He is a Cadmus clone with a lot of subtle personality, lending credence to Superboy's insistence that clones are people too in the face of those who consider them disposable.
• Depending on the Artist: Are XX's horns polished and pointy or stubby craggy stumps.
• Heroes Love Dogs: Dub gets along really well with Krypto.
• Hide Your Otherness: When he goes places with Roxy she almost always insists that he make himself look human so they don't attract attention.
• Horned Humanoid: Relativly humanoid with a pair of asperous horns.
• Interspecies Romance: Starts dating a human woman while living in Hawaii, their romance was unfortunately cut short as he was planning out how to tell her he wasn't human when the US Army showed up on his doorstep to force him back to Cadmus.
• LEGO Genetics: D.N.Aliens are "clones" cobbled together from various sources.
• Master of Illusion: He can and does use his Telepathy to appear to be a normal human.
• Mind over Matter: He can telekinetically move lightweight objects.
• Mundane Fantastic: While he occasionally attracts attention when he goes out without a disguise he usually doesn't despite his grey skin, slightly odd build, creepy white eyes and horns since this is the DCU where people are well aware there are oddities living among them and for the most part are welcoming or ambivalent to them.
• Private Tutor: He is Superboy's.
• Pstandard Psychic Pstance: When trying to mentally reach someone far away or otherwise exerting his psychic abilities he sometimes puts two fingers to each temple.
• Psychic Block Defense: He helps train Superboy and the new Hawaiian Special Crimes Unit to defend against low level mental attacks as well as they can without any psychic powers.
• Psychic Link: Gene-Gnome creates a mental link between them to slowly turn Ex into his puppet.
• Psychic Radar: He notices invisible or otherwise hidden individuals due to their brain activity on several occasions.
• Talking in Your Dreams: If he mentally contacts someone in their sleep he usually appears as himself talking to them in their dream.
• Telepathy: He's a telepath.
• Universal Translator: If everyone involved agrees to allow him to join them in a mild mental link he can translate languages and meanings for those trying to talk even if he's never heard the languages involved before.
• You Are Number 6: His Cadmus designation is XX.

Guardian II

James Jacob "Jim" Harper (clone)

""

The Cadmus created clone of the golden age hero the Guardian. His first interaction with the Kid involved him secretly aiding him from the shadows after being sent by Cadmus to figure out how best to recapture their escaped experiment and he later makes it clear he would have kidnapped or killed Superboy himself if his Cadmus overseers had demanded it but never tries to hide the situation like the rest of Cadmus. His relationship with Kon-El becomes more caring after Kon returns to the project and he helps train him to fight without his powers.

For the original Jim Harper see Superman – Supporting Cast.

created by: Jack Kirby · Joe Simon

first appearance: 1971, Superman's Pal, Jimmy Olsen #135

species: human, modified clone

---

• Blatant Lies: Jim claims he killed all the other Jim Harper clones in their tubes before he fled Cadmus when asked by Jimmy Olsen. The ones he burned were actually already dead and mostly falling apart, and he took the only viable "clone" with him and adopted her.
• Clones Are People, Too: Despite being a clone and giving lip service to the idea he goes on a sort of journey of self discovery that cements the concept more firmly for him, especially after meeting Roy Harper and his adorable daughter Lian who are descendants of the man he was cloned from and consider him family.
• Clone Angst: He normally seems not to have an issue with his status as a clone but his request that he not be cloned himself makes it clear he has reservations.
• Cool Helmet: His gold helm.
• Legacy Character: To the man he was cloned from, the original Guardian.
• Put on a Bus: Following the events of War of the Supermen, Harper abandons his role as the Guardian and takes his grandniece Jamie (pregnant with Mon-El's child) off to an unknown destination.
• Shield Bash: Uses his shield for combat.
• Tangled Family Tree: Not as bad as most examples but he has some relations through the siblings of the man he was cloned from, including Roy Harper, Jamie Harper, "Famous Bobby", and Lian Harper. They all consider him family, and he ends up as Bobby's guardian, but what they call him tends to vary.
• Throwing Your Shield Always Works: Guardian usually prefers to keep hold of his shield, so he can use it like a shield, but he's pretty proficient at using it like a thrown projectile too.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Guardian started looking for Cadmus' dirty secrets on a tip, and after discovering the plot to kill and replace Superman being run by Sam Lane and a bunch of, mostly failed, clones of himself that were meant to be a clone army he takes the one viable clone in the bunch as his own kid and burns that Cadmus facility to the ground as he takes off to live on the run.
• Super-Soldier: While the original was a Badass Normal the clone possesses enhanced strength and reflexes, and an accelerated healing factor. He has demonstrated the ability to hurt Superboy (who he trained in hand-to-hand combat) and Kryptonians from Kandor.

Doctor Donovan

Dabney Donovan, PhD

"Hello Guardian—long time no see! Sorry to pull you out of dreamland—but you'll rest in peace soon enough! I'm just so excited about tonight's procedure—I couldn't wait! And since you're interested in genetic research yourself I though you might enjoy observing! Don't mind the sight of blood do you? Your own I mean?"

An amoral Cadmus scientist who co-founded the project with Westfield and later killed his partner. He created the D.N.Aliens and the "Hairies". Donovan eventually allied himself with Agenda instead, and Agenda in turn started to secretly work its way to controlling Cadmus.

created by: Karl Kesel · Ty Templeton

first appearance: 1990, Secret Origins Vol 2 #49

species: human

---

• Cardboard Prison: While it's par the course for no-one in the DCU to know how to keep a super-villain locked up deciding to incarcerate a Mad Scientist within the project he helped found, build and populate might be the worst attempt the DCU's American government has ever made at trying to imprison one. Maybe they'd just given up hope.
• Desecrating the Dead: His experiments on the bodies of dead aliens and meta-humans.
• Einstein Hair: Mad scientist Donovan has appropriately wild hair.
• Evilutionary Biologist: Feels cloning is the way of the future and humans besides himself are basically worthless. The "Hyper-Tension!" arc gives a horrifying look at what he would become if allowed to experiment to his satisfaction, and it involves "cloning" deceased super-heroes into an obedient army of disturbing mix-and-match people who only vaguely resemble those they were cloned from and taking over the earth.
• Faking the Dead: He does this a lot. It's gotten to the point that Guardian just always assumes he's hiding out making dangerous creations somewhere every time he "dies", regardless of whether a body was found or not.
• Mad Scientist: Amoral creator of several different strains of "clones" created through bizarre experimental processes that make them nearly new species unto themselves.
• Psychopathic Manchild: He has a fit when he doesn't get his way, kills people for getting in his way and creates both horrifying monsters and sweet companion creatures when he can do whatever he wants. He also makes such odd things as living "balloons", floating creatures with human DNA based brains visible inside with a tentacle for the "string".

Director Westfield

Paul Westfield

"Go ahead and try! Project Cadmus is bigger than you can imagine! You'll never close us down! Never!"

One of the two co-founders of Project Cadmus and the overseer of "Project 13". For the course of the comic everyone thought he was the DNA donor for the successful Superboy but it was later retconned to have been Lex Luthor, who he was known to collude with, and Superman's DNA that went into making Kon-El.

created by: Dan Jurgens · Brett Breeding · Glenn Whitmore

first appearance: 1991, Superman Vol 2 #58

species: human

---

• Hero Killer: A version of Westfield killed the AU Superboy that was leading the resistance against Black Zero by shooting him in the back with a high-powered energy weapon as he teleported to the main DCU to warn of Black Zero's planned invasion of their reality.
• Emperor Scientist: The version from the same earth as Black Zero giddily took over the earth with his and Donovan's cloned army. Since Black Zero is what Kon-El would have been had Westfield had his way it's really quite lucky the newsboys freed him before he was completed to Westfield's specifications.
• Mad Scientist: He may seem more mellow than his fellow Cadmus founder but he was still trying to clone Superman in secret, and while the main version got killed off early on the obviously mad versions trying to help take over multiple realities are not discernibly different from him.
• Posthumous Character: By the start of Superboy's ongoing the original Westfield had already been killed by Dabney Donovan. This does nothing to make Superboy like the corrupt man who was willing to have him killed in order to cover up a Cadmus mistake and he later faces a bunch of alternate reality versions of Westfield during the Hypertime arc.

Director Cannon

Mickey "Mic" Cannon

The new director brought in for Cadmus by the government just after Superboy was convinced to move back into the project's hidden facilities. They have a low level of animosity that never gets fully put behind them due to Superboy's belief that clones deserve human rights and the fact that the government basically tricked him into returning to a Cadmus they intended to completely alter as soon as he no longer had a place to go back to.

created by: Karl Kesel · Tom Grummett

first appearance: 1998, Adventures of Superman Vol 1 #562

species: human

---

• Cape Busters: While the capture, neutralization and study of created creatures had always been a part of Cadmus it becomes its raison d'etre under Cannon at the behest of the US Government when previously the Project focused on its own experiments. The fact that a number of the things being held at Cadmus are not malicious nor had been endangering anyone prior to being locked up makes S.B. uncomfortable working for the Project, especially since he himself is viewed in the same light.
• Dropped a Bridge on Him: When Cadmus was destroyed Cannon was still their director but unlike the original Newsboy Legion or XX whose murders were shown what happened to Cannon is never discovered.
• Handicapped Badass: Mickey has an old war injury that causes him to need a leg brace in order to walk, but he still takes down plenty of aliens and other foes.
• Machine Empathy: Mic has a reputation as a mechanic for being able to repair things others cannot, and things he just shouldn't know how to repair like alien technology. He also has a habit of talking about vehicles like they're alive while feeling his way to the problem.
• What Measure Is a Non-Human?: He's not much of a proponent of clone rights, and gears Cadmus to locking up all the clones and engineered lifeforms they can get their hands on which irritates S.B. to no end. The more human looking and acting clones like the Harries and S.B. he does allow to have freedom of movement, and he reluctantly lets the young Newsboy Legion to be taken from the project by their "fathers" but even in these instances he wants to keep track of their movements as much as he can.

Dr. Packard

Carl Packard, PhD

A Cadmus scientist who secretly colluded with Lex Luthor and was also the scientist who did the lions share of the work on Westfield's secret Superman cloning project. Luthor killed Packard when the scientist displeased him and it was later retconned that Packard had secretly substituted Luthor's DNA for Westfield's when creating S-13, Superboy, final result of the secret Project-S.

species: human

created by: Roger Stern · Jackson Guice

first appearance: 1993, Action Comics Vol 1 #686

---

• Greed: Packard wasn't working with Luthor for his sunny personality, he was doing so for his money.

Dr. Johnson

Walter Johnson, PhD

A Cadmus scientist who took part in the project to clone duplicates with "genetic memories" alongside the original Newsboy Legion. He also aided them in cloning their deceased legal guardian James Harper with a genetic memory of the original's entire life.

species: human

created by: Jack Kirby

first appearance: 1971, Superman's Pal, Jimmy Olsen Vol 1 #135

---

• Adaptation Relationship Overhaul: Pre-Crisis "Flip" was his biological son, not his biological clone.
• Labcoat of Science and Medicine: Inside Cadmus he usually wears the distinctive Cadmus labcoat with the project's simplified insignia across the back.
• Mad Scientist: While he took part in a project to clone himself a "son" alongside the original Newsboy Legion while under mind control he's the only one who seems to have altered his genetic clone as "Flip" does not resemble Johnson in temperament or interests.
• Sixth Ranger: To the Newsboy Legion (I). He only met them after they were all adults and is at least ten years younger than the others but he basically becomes a late addition to their inseparable group of friends after they start working together.

Newsboy Legion (I)

Dr. "Big Words" Anthony Rodriguez, "Gabby" Jonathan Gabrielli, "Scrapper" Patrick MacGuire, Dr. Thomas "Tommy" Thompkins

A group of Cadmus scientists who were trouble making Metropolis kids in their youth. All but Flip were orphaned youth that were taken in by the original Guardian who didn't want to send a bunch of underprivileged kids into the system when he could support them and keep their family group together. The boys uncovered his secret identity shortly after becoming his wards when they followed him to try and protect their cop.

species: human

created by: Jack Kirby · Joe Simon

first appearance: 1942, Star-Spangled Comics Vol 1 #7

---

• Ambiguously Christian: It's fairly unclear what religious leanings most of them have but Gabby and Scrapper are unquestionably some kind of Christian. Just what kind is left up in the air.
• Baker Street Regular: The original four were as much for the original Guardian when they were kids.
• The Big Guy: Scrapper, who is the quickest to fight and the best at it, and also amusingly the smallest of the five.
• Conveniently an Orphan: Officer Harper took a shine to a bunch of hooligans and then found out they needed a guardian, so he was able to become their Parental Substitute.
• Extra! Extra! Read All About It!: They didn't pick their team name out of a hat, they really did work as Newsboys when Guardian met them and as such needed to get the attention of potential customers just like any other.
• Fiery Redhead: The redheaded Scrapper has a tendency to get into and pick fights.
• Geek Physiques: Big Words was tall and gangly as a kid, towering over the rest of the Newsboys.
• Gender-Blender Name: Jonathan's nickname "Gabby", a diminutive of his last name Gabrielli.
• The Heart: Gabby.
• Iconic Item: Scrapper's green hat. He no longer wears it as an adult.
• Labcoat of Science and Medicine: As adults Tom and Tony are often seen in their Cadmus labcoats.
• The Leader: Tommy
• Little Professor Dialog: "Big Words"' nickname comes from his constantly using large and obscure words in conversation since childhood.
• Lovable Nerd: They're far more endearing than the other Cadmus scientists, by far the most morally upright of its directors and the only Cadmus scientists who are not outright lying and hiding things from Superboy and Superman and want to help Kon out as they can. They're just severely limited by Dr. Packard's lies and efforts to hide Superboy's true nature from them.
• Mad Scientist: When you clone your deceased adoptive father through a technique you yourself invented in order to give the new version superpowers you definitely fall into this category.
• Nerd Glasses: Tony has worn large glasses since he was a kid.
• In-Series Nickname: They don't go by their nicknames as much as adults but went almost exclusively by them as kids. Anthony sometimes uses Tony as an adult, Jonathan answers to Jon, and Thomas to Tom.
• Secret-Keeper: They figured out Harper's secret pretty quickly after he became their legal guardian but he only admitted he was Guardian on his deathbed when he gave them permission to use his cells in a cloning experiment.
• Shoo Out the Clowns: They were among the personnel cleared out at Cadmus when the government decided to restructure the project and were among the only adults at Cadmus S.B. sort of liked. The only personnel kept on were clones like Superboy the government considered property or dangerous criminals like Donovan who was kept imprisoned as an advisor to new scientists.
• The Smart Guy: "Big Words", which is a feat since none of them are slouches in the brains department.
• Will They or Won't They?: Dr. Rodriguez and fellow Cadmus scientist Shino.

Dr. Shino Kurosawa

Shino Kurosawa, PhD

A Cadmus geneticist whose studies focus on superpowers and how they interact with the bodies of those who posses them. She's honestly a very nice person, but she has a tendency to say things which sound calous or cruel when she's involved with experiments such as those intended to help a depowered Superman regain his powers.

species: human

created by: Karl Kesel

first appearance: 1991, Superman Vol 2 #54

---

• Smart People Wear Glasses: A genuis level geneticist who wears glasses.
• Will They or Won't They?: Kurosawa and fellow Cadmus scientist Dr. Rodriguez have a very slow building romance that looks like it may go nowhere due to both of their rather odd approaches to social interaction, however they do go on at least a few dates which seem to go fairly well. The state of their relationship at the time of his murder is unknown.

Dr. Roquette/Retro Rocket

Serling Roquette

A young Cadmus geneticist brought in by the government when they cleared house at the project.

species: human

created by: Karl Kesel

first appearance: 1998, Superboy Vol 4 #56

---

• Ditzy Genius: She's incredibly smart but she sometimes has trouble sorting out social clues and can make others feel uncomfortable with some of her lines of questioning and bubbly loud personality.
• Fan of the Past: Hence her punny nickname.
• Horny Scientist: She's got a crush on Guardian and Superboy, neither of whom return the sentiment.
• Iconic Item: Her pink-rimmed cats eye glasses and smiley face earrings.
• Iconic Outfit: Black leggings with oversized striped socks, tennis shoes, an oversized offwhite shirt, a long open leopard print vest, her signature glasses, the smiley face earrings, and a black hairband.
• Lovable Nerd: She's a sweetheart who treats Superboy like his own person and respects his wishes and the concept of consent unlike the previous Cadmus scientists. Though the retcon to his origin means that she was lying and hiding things from both him and Superman this angle and her intentions and reasoning is never addressed save for the fact that her lying to him about the results of testing on him is made quite clear in Convergence.
• Mad Scientist: Though it's only evident after she's part of Superboy's past and it becomes clear that she was lying to him while experimenting on him instead of being more open and truthful than previous scientists like he had thought.
• Teen Genius: One of the world's leading experts on genetics before she's even in her twenties.
• Will They or Won't They?: With Kon-El. They won’t, while he thinks she's cute he's still recovering from Tana's tragic death when he realizes she has a crush on him and never develops romantic feelings for her.

Colonel Winterbourne

Adam Winterbourne

An army colonel Kon-El first met when they were both drugged and enslaved in Roam by the Project Moreau creation Sacker. After being freed alongside the rest of the slaves in Roam after Superboy helped prove to Prince Tuftan that humans were intelligent creatures in their own right he volunteered to help the government clean up Cadmus.

species: human

created by: Karl Kesel · Tom Grummett

first appearance: 1998, Superboy Vol 4 #52

---

• Colonel Badass: He fights King Shark and lives to tell the tale.
• Sergeant Rock: Winterbourne is a gruff individual who eventually ends up in charge of the new army contingent at Cadmus.
• Slave Liberation: He was one of the first to have a chance to fight off the effects of Sacker's drugs and helped convince the Roam royalty of human intelligence and just how wrong it is to enslave them.

"Bizarre-O"

Me must show am worthy of name Superboy!

S-01

"At first... but... no more. Me glad... me... more like... Superboy... now..."

Cadmus's first attempt to clone Superman. While S-01 had all of Superman's powers his mental state was not up to his body's artificial age, and he was unfortunately created using a version of Lex-corp's failed cloning process that leads to molecular degeneration. Dr. Packard had to put him in a stasis rather than awaken him in hopes of discovering a way to offset his molecular instability.

species: bizarro

created by: Karl Kesel · Barbara Kesel · David Brewer

first appearance: 1995, Superboy Annual Vol 4 #2

---

• Alas, Poor Villain: He's not really even a villain even though he serves as the closest thing to one in his debut, and his condition means he died in the same issue he's introduced in despite Superboy's attempt to save him. (Though it's possible he survived as he was last seen surrounded by Mad Scientists who had been trying to save him and some of "Match's" later appearances don't resemble Match at all and instead seem to be a Bizarro style Superboy clone like S-01).
• Brought to You by the Letter "S": He's got an S-Shield on his outfit's chest, and he burns a reversed S on the back of the leather jacket he steals.
• Chest Insignia: He was stored wearing an earlier model of the same suit Superboy wears with an S-shield on the chest.
• Clone Degeneration: When the Newsboys Legion accidentally frees him from his stasis pod his physical condition starts to deteriorate rapidly. Since "the process [he was created with] only imitates DNA! That makes it inherently incompatible with any living tissue! He started dying the moment you created him!". His mind was also implanted with a bunch of useless knowledge and command triggers in order to make him easy to control rather than practical things useful for him to interact with others without endangering them.
• Dumb Muscle: He's not terribly bright but he's got all of Superman's powers, even if they start to fade out as he starts to die in earnest within an hour or two of being awakened from his stasis.
• Flawed Prototype: For S-13 Superboy because of his instability and the fact that he starts to deteriorate outside of stasis. It seems Wesfield had a very different focus for the implanted knowledge for S-01 as he doesn't understand incredibly basic things like what might hurt people, has trouble putting together coherent sentences and thinks Westfield was a "great man".
• Friendly Enemy: He doesn't want to be Superboy's enemy (though he does want to be Superboy) and wants to be a hero but his difficulty understanding the situation around him and the dangers of using his powers recklessly makes Kon have to fight him.
• Hulk Speak: S-01 uses a mild version of "Bizarro speak".
• Neural Implanting: Director Westfield personally oversaw the implanting process for the S-Clone project, and poor S-01 got the short end of the stick and very little useful knowledge out of the deal.
• People Jars: His stasis pod is essentially a giant glass jar with a control panel.
• Psycho Prototype: He's not evil and he really wants to be a good guy but he attacks first asks questions maybe, and has near Superman level powers without a real understanding of right and wrong and without the mental capacity to understand how easily humans and others can be hurt.
• Superpower Lottery: He seems to have Superman's whole set, even if it the powers start fading as he dies.
  • Flying Brick: Flyer with invulnerability and other powers.
  • Nigh-Invulnerable: He's initially tougher than Kon, even able to brush off strong electric shocks that would destabilize or kill Superboy at the time of their meeting but his invulnerability was the first thing (besides his quickly bleached skin) to start going as his degeneration reached dangerous levels.
  • Super-Senses: He has Superman's "X-Ray vision" and can see through solid rock, though this isn't always helpful as he still may not realize people are in peril even if they specifically told him they are and he can see them dangling from their fingertips from an unstable ledge, he just doesn't have the background to understand they're in danger.
  • Super-Speed: He's faster than Superboy.
  • Super-Strength: Capable of bending iron beams or lifting several people and the chunk of floor their clinging to.

failed Suprman clones

S-02, S-03, S-04, S-05, S-06, S-07, S-08, S-09, S-10, S-11, S-12

Westfield and Packard's other failed attempts to clone Superman who came after S-01 and before Kon-El.

species: mixed modified human, kryptonian and bizarro clones (D.N.Aliens)

created by: Karl Kesel · Barbara Kesel · David Brewer

first appearance: 1995, Superboy Annual Vol 4 #2

---

• Artificial Human: All of them are clones created to replace Superman in the event of his death, though none were considered successful.
• Body Horror: For several of them it's rather obvious that the reason they "failed" was that their bodies would not have survived, like the shriveled S-03 or the one with patches of hair and skin missing.
• Flawed Prototype: They're all "failed" Superman clones that came before Kon-El. Considering how Westfield reacted to Kon and considered him a mistake that needed to be erased or at least locked up somewhere in Cadmus it is unknown just how they each "failed", it could be as simple not wanting to follow the immoral Westfield without question.
• Heroic Build: The one closest to completion, either S-11 or S-07, has a well muscled bodybuilder's build.
• My Brain Is Big: S-02's cranium is bulbous and tall, the skin on his head also looks like it was starting to bubble when he was placed in stasis.
• Neural Implanting: Westfield had designed the neural implanting through which Kon learned everything he knew upon escaping his Uterine Replicator in time for use on S-01 so the rest of them presumably also had knowledge implanted.
• People Jars: They're all in glass stasis tubes, though at least one of them who seems to be iether the S-07 or S-12 is missing and another (S-11 or S-07) was killed when his pod/tube was impaled by debris in the assault on Cadmus by the underworlders who thought Cadmus had intentionally released the clone plague on them.
• Posthumous Character: While most of them are being held in stasis S-07's pod was crushed and he himself impaled during the Underworlder's attacks on Cadmus during the Clone Plague. By the time anyone other than Westfield and Packard learns of the twelve even existing he's already died, though it looks like he did make a failed attempt to escape his pod before expiring.
• Token Minority: One of them, either S-10 or S-08, is black. He's also the one grown closest to completion out of those fully shown, looking like a young adult rather than a teen around 14-16.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: They never appear again after their introduction despite Kon-El's interest in them and their right to live and the fact that he eventually moves back to Cadmus where they're all presumably stored in stasis pods.

Black Zero

Superman II/S-13

A version of Westfeild's Superman clone from another reality that was properly completed to Westfield's standards. After the Guardian was killed in their reality supposedly due to anti-clone sentiments Black Zero helped Westfield and Donovan kill and create Cadmus loyal replacements of his world's super-heroes and took over the earth. After learning of the existence of other realities and gaining access to Hypertime he started taking over other earths in what he considered a revolution for clone rights

species: human clone with spliced kryptonian DNA

created by: Karl Kesel · Tom Grummett

first appearance: 1999, Superboy Vol 4 #62

---

• Beard of Evil: He's got a boxy soul patch.
• Evil Counterpart: To Kon-El, who seems to attract a lot of these.
• Eye Beams: While he maintains most of Kon's human derived powers his eyes have definitely got an at least partially Kryptonian structure as he has Kryptonian heat vision.
• Multiversal Conqueror: An interesting example. He's focused on conquering various earths and the more he talks the more evident it becomes that he really thinks he's fighting for clone rights and is being played by Donovan and Westfield who have used him to spearhead their projects to clone loyal slaves out of the earth's superheroes.
• Superpower Lottery: He's got all of Kon-El's powers improved by being grown to maturity plus heat vision which Kon will only develop with age.
• Unreliable Narrator: His description of the supposed battle for clone rights does not match the images shown in the panels depicting it which make it clear that those fighting him and Cadmus were fighting for their lives and sanity against a group that intended to rule over them as they pleased and kill and replace any who opposed them.

Newsboy Legion (II)

"Big Words" Anthony Rodriguez, "Gabby" Jonathan Gabrielli II, Walter "Flip" Johnson Jr, "Scrapper" Patrick MacGuire II, Tommy Thompkins Jr., Roberta "Famous Bobby" Harper

You boys snuck out of the project, past a platoon of the country's best trained soldiers, eluding the most advanced security systems in the world, with the whiz wagon and the Loch Trevor Monster... again!

—Guardian II

The second iteration of the Newsboy Legion these cloned kids freed Superboy from the laboratory and helped him secretly escape Cadmus. They're also the ones who gave him his original leather jacket.

species: D.N.Alien type human clones/human

created by: Jack Kirby · Al Plastino · Karl Kesel · Kieron Dwyer

first appearance: 1988, Adventures of Superman Vol 1 #449

---

• Artifact Title: Unlike their predecessors the members of this group didn't (initially) actually work as newsboys, instead they spent most of their childhoods locked up at Cadmus. After Jon was able to get them citizenship and set things up for them to live slightly more normal lives based out of a brownstone in Metropolis instead of hidden in Cadmus a nice journalist named Clark Kent stopped by and told them about some paper routes nearby that needed covering.
• Bratty Half-Pint: Their antics can even wear out Superman, which is what happens when you've got a group of kids capable of escaping from one of the most secure facilities in the world while stealing classified experimental aircraft and bringing along giant monsters at least twice a day. They've also picked fights with Apokolips agents all on their own before their minders had a chance to realize they'd escaped again.
• Child Prodigy: Big Words and Tommy. Helped along by being raised in Cadmus where they're surrounded by new cutting edge science, and that their gifted scientist predecessors are helping to raise them.
• Clones Are People, Too: All of them but Bobby are clones and they're all mischievous kids that while similar to their genetic progenitors have their own personalities, dreams and desires. They are also given the rights of US citizens due to John's work, being among the first clones to be acknowledged as such. This comes in handy later when it means the new director of Cadmus can't treat the boys as government property.
• Color-Coded Characters: Scrapper is mustard yellow & green, Flip is purple, Big Words is grey, Tommy is red, Gabby is blue, and Bobby is indigo. Indicated by them all having their shirts usually these colors, and their jackets always these colors, except for Big Words who always wears a white shirt with a grey suit or a blue suit with a grey tie.
• Fish out of Water: The boys have memories of growing up during WWII, except Flip who has memories of growing up in the late '50s. They are not actually from this time and this gives them a huge disconnect from other kids their apparent ages.
• Generation Xerox: Well the boys are all clones of their "fathers", who were given genetic approximations of their predecessor's memories up to their artificial age of "birth" and they also formed an adventure group that is looked after by the current Guardian like their genetic donors. They do start showing differences from their predecessors rather quickly as noted above.
• Iconic Outfit: Scrapper's oversized turtleneck sweater paired with a green newsboy hat, Tommy's red breasted letterman's jacket with jeans, and Big Word's suit and tie with large round glasses.
• In-Series Nickname: All of them go by nicknames, and the boys are all using the same nicknames that the men they were cloned from used as kids.
• Legacy Character: They're the second iteration of the Newsboy Legion and most of them were cloned from members of the first.
• Neural Implanting: While being artificially aged past infancy the boys were given implanted memories from their genetic donors that approximated the memories they'd have had at the age the boys were "born" at. This resulted in them having similar vocabularies and interests to those the men they were cloned from had in childhood and means they tend to use outdated lingo.
• Raised in a Lab: Grown in Cadmus to a point past toddlerhood and then raised by the men they were cloned from in Cadmus.
• Secret Project Refugee Family: The boys were all secretly cloned by Cadmus and see each other as family.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: Sadly addressed in universe when Jimmy Olsen tracks down Guardian after the fall of Cadmus and the murders of the original Newsboy Legion. When Jimmy asks where the kids are Guardian, whose even spent time trying to unravel everyting he could about the secrets at Cadmus can only say, "They could be alive and well and somewhere not here. They could be pieces in test tubes the military study every Christmas. I don't know." Given that James is lying about other clones and Cadmus projects in the same speech to protect them and he was the missing Bobby's legal guardian it's possible he's lying about the newsboys too, but this plot thread was left hanging.

"Big Words" Anthony Rodriguez II

"That certainly was a pyrotechnical paradigm of Newton's axiom Scrapper."

The clone of Cadmus scientist and former Newsboy Legion member Dr. Anthony Rodriguez.

species: D.N.Alien type human clone

created by: Jack Kirby · Al Plastino · Karl Kesel · Kieron Dwyer

first appearance: 1988, Adventures of Superman Vol 1 #449

---

• Little Professor Dialog: "Big Words"' nickname comes from him constantly using large and obscure words in conversation.
• Mad Scientist: He's showing definite early signs, such as his utter glee at getting to steal and modify some guns from Apokolips.
• Number Two: When someone needs to step up in place of Tommy it's Big Words, and he and Tommy usually come up with the group's plans together while the others give their input.
• Smart People Wear Glasses: He's the only one of the Newsboys to wear glasses and is the most book smart of the Newsboys, and usually one of the more practical of their number as well.

"Flip" Walter Johnson Jr.

"He's not bad, as sea monsters go. I even taught him to sit up..."

The clone of Cadmus scientist Dr. Walter Johnson. Out of the D.N.Alien "children" created by the scientists while they were under mind control Flip shows the biggest signs of being altered as he has little outside gender, hair color and skin tone in common with Dr. Johnson.

species: D.N.Alien type human clone

created by: Jack Kirby · Al Plastino · Karl Kesel · Kieron Dwyer

first appearance: 1988, Adventures of Superman Vol 1 #449

---

• Ambiguously Human: Depsite being a "clone" of Dr. Johnson he seems very different from his "father", in ways the other clones created by the same project are not different from their genetic donors. He's capable of swiming in incredible depths without any side effects from the pressure and seems to be able to communicate to some degree with the sea monster Trevor, which he has managed to tame. Both of these qualities imply Atlantean DNA was thrown into the mix when creating him but he is never claimed to be anything other than a quickly aged clone like the rest of his group.
• Dressed in Layers: He's usually got on a wetsuit under his clothes.
• Fluffy Tamer: Flip has tamed and trained the giant sea monster Trevor.
• The Lancer: Especially before they were retconned into clones the excitable Flip was lancer to the more mellow Tommy, and often in situations where Tommy's judgment is compromised Flip tones it down just enough to be of help in situations where he normally wouldn't bother. He's also the one to work the most on his own while Tommy pretty much does nothing without the group backing him up.
• Rummage Sale Reject: Flip is almost always wearing full scuba gear along with his normal clothes. No one really comments on it as those who know him know it's a big part of how the Newsboys keep escaping Cadmus.
• Super Swimming Skills: Flip can keep up with sea monsters and is an unnaturally good swimmer. It's never outright stated but he's implied to be fully human and not posses any Atlantean DNA to explain his abilities.
• Token Minority: Flip is the only black kid in the group.

"Gabby" Jonathan Gabrielli II

"We'd be helpin' the Guardian—How could our number ones get mad at us?"

The clone of Cadmus lawyer and former Newsboy Legion member Jonathan Gabrielli.

species: D.N.Alien type human clone

created by: Jack Kirby · Al Plastino · Karl Kesel · Kieron Dwyer

first appearance: 1988, Adventures of Superman Vol 1 #449

---

• Ambiguously Christian: Inherited the trait from his Christian original. What denomination or even if they're Protestant or Catholic or Orthodox is left ambiguous.
• The Heart: His motivation leans more toward helping people than adventure like most of the others. Tommy, usually, has similar motivation but is too grounded and logical when he's not riled up to fit. Tommy is also a bit of an adrenaline junkie like the others, even if he hides it better.
• Motor Mouth: Gabby got that name for reasons beyond it being a diminutive of his last name. He easily drives villains and heroes nuts with his yammering and is the group's main source of gossip since he's actually quite capable of being quiet if he wants to overhear something.
• Not-So-Imaginary Friend: Gabby was friends with a huge furniture-eating pink monster named Angry Charlie, but the other kids didn't believe Charlie (who helped Guardian and the boys, but always out of sight) was real. Charlie revealed himself when he had to help against Boss Moxie and the forces of Apokolips.

"Scrapper" Patrick MacGuire II

" "

The clone of Cadmus teacher and former Newsboy Legion member Patrick MacGuire.

species: D.N.Alien type human clone

created by: Jack Kirby · Al Plastino · Karl Kesel · Kieron Dwyer

first appearance: 1988, Adventures of Superman Vol 1 #449

---

• The Big Guy: Despite being on the small side he's definitely this. He splits the role with Bobby after she joins.
• Fighting Irish: It's unclear if Scrapper Sr. was born to Irish immigrants or Scottish ones, and it's entirely possible he didn't even learn as much before they died, but he fits the stereotype perfectly.
• Fiery Redhead: Redhead with a quick temper, and a loud opinionated personality.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: It really doesn't take much to set him off.
• Lilliputians: Not Scrapper himself but the project made an entire army of mouse sized Patrick MacGuire clones with far more disciplined behavior and one of them takes it upon himself to keep an eye on the kid, sticking with him through many adventures.

"Tommy" Thomas Thompkins Jr.

"Then what are we waiting for Newsboy Legion? Let's go!"

The clone of Cadmus scientist and former Newsboy Legion member Dr. Thomas Thompkins. He shows distinct differences in personality to his "father" at the same age, possibly because despite their shared memories to a certain point Tommy II has far less responsibility and has had access to better teaching at a younger age. He's much more likely to get distracted by something "cool" or an interesting scientific quandary than the original Tommy has ever been.

species: D.N.Alien type human clone

created by: Jack Kirby · Al Plastino · Karl Kesel · Kieron Dwyer

first appearance: 1988, Adventures of Superman Vol 1 #449

---

• The Leader: Inasmuch as the group has a leader Tommy is it. Mostly because he's usually better than the group as a whole at seeing when they're going too far and need to rein it in.
• Morality Pet: Tommy becomes such for the Fury Gilotina just by talking to her about simple things like food and games, despite her idea of games always including a lot more death than he's comfortable with. When he gets badly injured by the other Furies and she realizes she doesn't want him to die despite his being a "lowlie" she switches sides to protect him and declares all the kids under her protection. She's still incredibly dangerous though, with a poor understanding of right and wrong.

"Famous Bobby" Roberta Harper

"So what happens now? We free to go? Am I, like, under arrest or what?"

The orphaned granddaughter of Jim's sister Mary. When Mary fell ill the state took Bobby to an orphanage, that was secretly being run by Granny Goodness to funnel children to the killing fields of Apocolipse. Despite the death of the original Jim being public knowledge Jonathan Sr. is able to get Jim II legal recognition as Bobby's family so that he can become her legal guardian.

species: human

created by: Karl Kesel · Kieron Dwyer

first appearance: 1994, Guardians Of Metropolis #1

---

• Action Girl: Prior to meeting the rest of the group she made multiple attempts to escape the Orphanage of Fear she'd been stuck at and caught the attention of Granny Goodness who thought she might make a decent future Fury after she'd been broken. Later she and Scrapper fight for the title of which member of the group is the best fighter. As in a literal physical fight. They get interrupted by the science police.
• Boisterous Bruiser: Bobby's fairly chipper in spite of her skeptical nature and she's always up for a fight.
• Gender-Blender Name: When overhearing about her being at the B.O. Goodley Orphanage and decided the Newsboys needed to save her and bring her to meet her uncle Scrapper thought she was Jim's nephew instead of his niece and was severely disappointed when they met in the cages beneath the orphanage. He got over it.
• I Just Want to Be Special: She wants to be famous in order to get out of Suicide Slum, it's why Scrapper dubbed her "Famous" Bobby.
  Jim: You want to be a comedian when you grow up?
  Bobby: Or a rock star. Or an actress. Or a lawyer. Anything famous, anything so I don't spend my whole life in Suicide Slum.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: "Famous Bobby". Her real name is only said once when Jon tells her and Jim that Jim is officially her legal guardian.
• Raised by Grandparents: She was raised by her grandmother Mary before until Mary's death at which point she was taken in by her great-uncle's clone.
• Tangled Family Tree: Her legal guardian is her great-uncle's clone, her best friends are the clones of the kids adopted by her original great-uncle and her adopted sister is the Opposite-Sex Clone of her great-uncle.
• Tomboy: You won't catch Bobby with her hair down or in a skirt or dress, and she's very much One of the Boys.
• Tomboyish Name: "Bobby".
• Valley Girl: She's far too prickly and tomboyish to actually count but she, like, uses like a lot more than is proper.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: Bobby's legal guardian and closest living relative is Jim Harper (II) who cares for her deeply and is grateful for the chance to become her parental figure, so her disappearance alongside the other Newsboys is very odd. She's not seen when Jim goes to meet Roy and Lian, despite it being a family meeting, and he acts like they're the first members of his family he's really talked to. What happens to her when he travels off with Jamie is unknown.

Angry Charlie

Charlie

Pre-Crisis a DNAlien created by Cadmus' evil duplicate the Evil Factory with material stolen from Project Cadmus who came back to Cadmus with the second iteration of the Newsboy Legion. Post-Crisis an escaped Cadmus DNAlien who allies himself with Gabby and tries to keep an eye on the Newsboy Legion while avoiding capture by the scientists.
In all realities Charlie is a lot less angry than his name implies when he's not being locked up and treated like an animal and he has a soft spot for kids and a strange diet. He normally lives in the walls at Project Cadmus and does his best to stay out of sight.

species: D.N.Alien

created by: Jack Kirby

first appearance: 1972, Superman's Pal, Jimmy Olsen Vol 1 #145

---

• Artificial Human: He may not look it but as a DNAlien Charlie's got at least some human DNA in his make up. What else may have gone into making the odd pink creature is unknown.
• Escaped from the Lab: In a strange twist Charlie didn't really leave. He escaped from his creators and refuses to put of with being caged or collared but he generally just hangs out in the walls at Cadmus. He does occasionally wander into Metropolis which can cause a bit of an uproar because he's large, scary looking and likes to hang out with children, but he always ends up back at Cadmus.
• Extreme Omnivore: Charlie appreciates all kinds of food. His favorite is varnished wood, but he'll eat stone and weaker metals too. The boys and Bobby sometimes steal wooden furniture to sneak to him.
• Four-Fingered Hands: Charlie's only got four digits on each hand.
• Friend to All Children: Charlie will gladly risk his life and freedom to protect the Newsboy Legion, and even when he's in Metropolis has risked his freedom to protect random kids.
• Glowing Eyes: Charlie's eyes are glowing yellow disks.
• It Can Think: Most adults view Charlie as a dumb animal, but he has demonstrated a thorough grasp of complex English even if he can't vocalize the language. He's also memorized secret passages, hidden tunnels, and duct systems all throughout Project Cadmus and into Metropolis. He still ends up called a "pet" of the Newsboy Legion by most adults.
• Nonindicative Name: The "Angry" part of his name doesn't fit with his usual attitude, nor does it help to convince adults of his non-malicious nature.
• Non-Malicious Monster: (Pre-Crisis) Charlie was just a rather destructive monster who decided to protect the Newsboy Legion. (Post-Crisis) At first even the Newsboy Legion thought Charlie was just a really cool monster, that liked to hand out with them. They quickly started realizing he's much smarter than he first appears.
• Not-So-Imaginary Friend: The other boys originally thought Charlie was something Gabby had made up, and were quite surprised when Charlie revealed himself to save the boys from Granny Goodness.
• Recognizable by Sound: Guardian can generally tell if the Newsboy Legion are about by listening for their "pet" Angry Charlie's signature GROIK vocalization. The Newsboy Legion also listens for Charlie's signature sound in case he wants to show them something, which is handy since Charlie prefers not to put himself out in the open if he can avoid it.
• Signature Sound Effect: GROIK is the only vocalization outside of growls available to Angry Charlie.
• Super-Strength: Charlie can, and has, picked up and thrown cars.
• What Measureis A Non Cute: Few adults seem to be able to see past Charlie's creepy exterior, and irritating habit of eating furniture, which means he gets treated as a dumb dangerous animal. He gets stuck in shock collars and locked in cages even though he's demonstrated a clear understanding of complex spoken English, there have been hints he can read and he's clever enough to avoid Cadmus security personnel for years while protecting the kids in the project.
• What Measure Is a Non-Human?: Clone rights are a thing in the DCU and clones, including DNAliens, created on American soil are supposed to be considered American citizens. The government does not extend this right to Charlie as it does not consider him intelligent or human because of the way he looks and his inability to talk. It doesn't help that most DNAliens incapable of speech really are little more than animals.

Lodge

Mr. Lodge

A Cadmus security officer. Lodge has a fondness for leather jackets, but unfortunately for him so do both results of Project-S that end up trying to escape from the facility and he's gotten back to his locker to find it looted on multiple occasions.

species: human

created by: Karl Kesel · Barbara Kesel · David Brewer

first (full) appearance: 1995, Superboy Annual Vol 4 #2

---

• Hero Stole My Bike: Well, hero stole my jacket. The first time his jacket was stolen by the young Newsboy Legion who gave it to S-13 when they helped him escape from the facility. The second time it was stolen by the significantly less heroic S-01 who took it to mimic Superboy's look.
• Unlucky Extra: He exists as a character solely to be stolen from.

Agenda

" We're selling the future. Our clients will pay any price for what we offer."

A secret criminal organization run by those who think controlled clones are the key to fighting off earth's frequent alien invasions rather than superheroes. They also see their clone army as a source of power, and are big fans of the might makes right school of thought.

created by: Ron Marz · Ramon Bernado

first appearance: 1996, Superboy Vol 4 #32

---

• Clone Army: When they're first introduced they create an "improved" Superboy (mostly improved by his complete obedience) and intend to create a lot more and sell most of them to the highest bidder.
• Evil Counterpart: To Cadmus, which already had a number of its own moral failings.
• Expendable Clone: They see clones as a commodity to be sold, or destroyed if "outdated", rather than as individuals.
• Kill and Replace: Their mode of operation for the most part;
  "The old is sacrificed in order to make way for the new. That is the situation. Match is the new and his first labor is the destruction of the old."
• They Would Cut You Up: Agenda most certainly would kidnap, experiment on and dissect any clones they wanted to replicate or any people they felt it would be beneficial to clone.

Director Beta

Erica Alexandra del Portenza

Former wife of Lex Luthor, the mother of his daughter and a former Lex Corp CEO.

created by: Roger Stern · Tom Grummett

first appearance: 1995, Superman: Man of Tomorrow #1

---

• Older Than They Look: Her family lineage can live unnaturally long lives due to a meta-gene and in the twenty years she knew Lex prior to her faking her death she never physically aged.

Agent Spence

Amanda Spence

"He is you in any way that matters. Only better. [...] Let's face it Superboy, you're last year's model. Look at how easily I captured you. Match is more advanced than you in everything from his telekinetic powers to his implanted knowledge. You just don't measure up anymore kid."

Paul Westfield's vindictive daughter Amanda Spence feels Superboy is unworthy of carrying her father's genes or legacy and decides to make his life miserable and kill him in return for being made.

created by: Ron Marz · Ramon Bernado

first appearance: 1996, Superboy Vol 4 #32

---

• Big Bad: Ultimately
• Disproportionate Retribution: Evidently Tana annoyed her after they kidnapped her and experimented on her so she not only went out of her way to kill Tana after giving her a Hope Spot, she also had her cloned just so she could have the pleasure of killing her twice.
• Evil Is Petty: See above.

• Bulletproof Vest: She is usually wearing bullet resistant armor as part of her uniform.
• Family Honor: Why she takes Superboy's perceived deficiencies so seriously and decides to not only go out of her way to try to kill him but also to torture him both mentally and physically.
• Villainous Lineage: Both she and her father have a skewed sense of morality that they use to justify hurting others.

Match

Kent Conner

Agenda's modified prideful Superboy clone. Agenda cut some corners in their process of creating a quick obedient clone and in the process failed to address the issues with Kryptonian cloning that tends to cause degeneration, even if this flaw in their process was not immediately evident.

created by: Ron Marz · Ramon Bernado

first appearance: 1997, Superboy Vol 4 #35

---

• Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Better: He was designed to be Superboy but "better", and certainly thinks of himself as such. He sees Kon as beneath him but Kon always beats him, sometimes even by cutting off his boasting with a well timed punch, even if early on it always took the situation making Match need to leave in a hurry rather than finish the fight since he really was stronger than Kon.
• Became Their Own Antithesis: He was incredibly proud of his intelligence, the clever plans he could put together, his ability to be subtle and his more refined manner of speech and everything "evil" or villainous he did was on his master's orders. Then he started degrading and became a dumb brute who'd attack others loudly and for little reason and Kon-El surpasses him in terms of actual strength and power when he reappears in Teen Titans.
• Clone Degeneration: Unfortunately for Match Agenda's cloning process has the same flaw as Dr. Teng's Bizarro creating cloning process of not including any living DNA in the clone even if the degeneration process is delayed and slower. He maintains the intelligence and cleverness he's so proud of throughout Superboy Vol 4 but when he appears again later he's started to become more Bizarro like until he's near indistinguishable from S-01 "Bizarre-O", Cadmus' first attempt at making a Superboy, and continues to degrade until his death at Superboy-Prime's hands.
• Broad Strokes: When Match was brought back by later writers he had more in common with S-01 than his prior self though he retained his history with Kon-El and the former members of Young Justice.
• Evil Counterpart: Match is an evil counterpart of Kon-El that Kon has to face.
• Evil Doppelgänger: Match, though when he's not changing his appearance with his additional powers he looks like a pallet swapped Kon-El instead of properly passing as him, is still an evil character that looks like Kon.
• Evil Knockoff: After Amanda Spence helped Agenda knock out and kidnap Superboy they used him to fashion a modified clone with more powers that would actually obey orders called Match and the first order given to him is to kill Superboy.
• Evil Twin: Match is an evil clone of Kon-El, though the odd manner of his creation means he was created by replicating the effects observed by Agenda scientists "unzipping" Kon-El's DNA leaving room for interpretation on how and out of what he was grown but Kon considers him a brother.
• I Am What I Am: Match says he is what he was created to be and there's no cause for him to stop trying to kill Superboy after his creators ordered him to, he also claims not to have any desire to do more than serve but after spending time pretending to be Kon-El among Young Justice he started to realize that he actually does, though it was already made evident by the end of his first appearance that there was more to him than he seemed to know.
  "In order for my existence to be considered slavery, it would be necessary for me to possess free will. That is not one of my personality facets. I was created to serve. I have no other purpose, nor the desire for one."
• Innocent Fanservice Guy: After his Naked on Arrival, he doesn't have much of a problem having a conversation in the nude, and when given an outfit to wear while doing so puts on the shirt first.
• Palette Swap: He's an entirely pale white version of Kon-El visually, with pale blonde hair and even white eyes.
• Pride: It's his greatest weakness initially, and eventually he loses all the things he was so proud of.
• Superpower Lottery: He seems to have Superman's whole set, even if it the powers start fading as he dies.
  • Flying Brick: Flyer with invulnerability and other powers.
  • Invisibility: One of Match's upgrades from Kon is his ability to turn invisible, though it might actually be Chameleon Camouflage or an extension of his psychic abilities as this particular ability is only shown twice and never thoroughly explained.
  • Master of Disguise: Match can use his low level psychic abilities to change the way his hair, eye and skin color look and make it look like he's wearing a different outfit. He is also capable of adopting other people's mannerisms and speech patterns. This mostly allows him to pretend to be Kon-El, even though he despises the way Kon talks and acts, since he's a Palette Swap of him.
  • Mind over Matter: He's got tactile telekinesis like Kon-El, but greater control over it as soon as he's awoken/activated.
  • Nigh-Invulnerable: He's got the same TTK field as Kon, and better control of it. He was later retconned to have the same weakened Kryptonian invulnerability as other "Bizarro" clones.
  • Super-Speed: He's as fast as Superboy.
  • Super-Strength: He has the same TTK that allows Kon-El to mimic super-strength and much better control of it, and later was given Kryptonian strength.

Tropes relating to Match in the Infinte Frontier era

Although he (along with Kon) was erased from continuity during The New 52, Match eventually returned in the pages of Suicide Squad. Amanda Waller, seeking a Superman-level powerhouse, kidnapped Superboy to fill the role. It was eventually revealed that Conner Kent would have been too difficult to capture and contain, and so Waller turned to the now-defunct Agenda, brainwashing Match to serve in his stead.

---

• Becoming the Mask: Even after his true identity is restored, the other members of the Suicide Squad note that he's still acting like The Cape. Waller's dialogue (and her confession to "Superman" in Future State) implies that this was All According to Plan.
• The Bus Came Back: He was absent for a decade after Flashpoint, since Conner didn't exist for most of that time. He returned as the Suicide Squad's resident "Superboy" in 2021.
• The Cape: Match's behaviour while brainwashed was consistent with the real Kon-El, refusing to kill and going off-mission to try and rescue those in need.
• Expendable Clone: A variation, in that Waller doesn't necessarily consider him especially expendable, but the rest of the world more or less forgot about him after the Agenda shut down, meaning nobody noticed when she grabbed him to mold into her own personal Superman.
• The Friend Nobody Likes: Naturally, being upstanding and heroic doesn't endear him to his supervillain teammates, who initially consider him an annoying killjoy.
• Heel–Face Brainwashing: Waller has his true memories supressed to use him as a stand-in for Conner on the Suicide Squad.
• Shapeshifting Failure: Without regular injections of special medicine, his body and speech patterns begin to revert to the Bizarro-like state he had in the 2003 run of Teen Titans. After The Reveal, Waller's scientists are able to stabilize his mind, but his appearance remains that of a Bizarro, and he even begins wearing a shirt with a backwards "S" shield.
• Thou Shalt Not Kill: His brainwashing causes him to adopt the actual Conner's aversion to lethal force. Waller even reminds him of it to snap him out of his Unstoppable Rage when fighting Ultraman.
• Tomato in the Mirror: Thanks to a combination of recurring Clone Degeneration, a confrontation with the real Conner, and coming face to face with dozens of Superboy clones in tanks.
• Unstoppable Rage: Ultraman gets under his skin so bad that he stops trying to escape Earth-3 in favor of continuing to fight.
• What Measure Is a Non-Human?: Waller justifies kidnapping and inducting "Superboy" by nonchalantly opining that, as a clone, his mere existence is a crime.

Gene-Gnome

One of Donovan's D.N.Aliens

created by: Karl Kesel · Tom Grummett

first appearance: 1995, Superboy Vol 4 #65

---

• Adaptational Backstory Change: There are "G-Gnomes" in Young Justice (2010) but while they have Gene-Gnome's mind control abilities, propensity for riding around on shoulders and ties to Cadmus they're otherwise very different from Gene-Gnome. For one thing none of them seem to have anything resembling a personality and theyre now "genomorphs" instead of D.N.Aliens, though of course all other characters that were originally D.N.Aliens are now "genomorphs" in the show.
• Adaptation Personality Change: The G-Gnomes don't really seem to have any personality at all beyond that of maybe a cat or dog and are certainly not malicious even if their actions are often horrifying while Gene-Gnome was unquestionably a cruel vindictive villain.
• Adaptation Name Change: The G-Gnomes of Young Justice (2010) are obviously that earth's version of Gene-Gnome.
• Adaptation Origin Connection: In Young Justice (2010) the G-Gnomes were how Superboy had information implanted in his head while the method behind his implanted knowledge was not really explored in the original comics.
• Mind Manipulation: He secretly twists the thoughts Dub is reading off of his colleagues to make Dubbilex feel unwanted long before he actually reveals himself. He even twists the reader's perception of the others working at Cadmus and in the end it's left ambiguous just how any of them really felt about Dubbilex and the other less human looking and acting Cadmus creations, especially since Director Cannon's thoughts, which mostly fit Fantastic Racism, are implied not to have been tampered with.
• Parrot Pet Position: He's not a pet, but he's a tiny D.N.Alien that takes to sitting on Dubbilex's shoulder as an invisible mind controller after he strengthens their Psychic Link.
• Psychic Link: He creates one in between himself and Dubbilex in order to poison Dubbilex against Cadmus, he slowly uses the link to turn Dubb into a mind-controlled puppet.

Point Men

Grey Lady, Blank Slate, Blockade, Groundswell, Serpenteen, Short Cut

A group of super-powered Agenda soldiers created through the same destructive cloning process that resulted in Match. The whole group eventually defected after learning that they were clones and that their superiors considered them replaceable and humans in general idiotic and in need of "evolution".

---

• See Young Justice under Enemies

Other Villains

King Shark

Nanaue

"No." ~*crunch*~ "Now I'm free."

A serial killing man-eating monstrous bulletproof shark/human mashup who is native to Hawaii. He is rather unconcerned with human ideas about morality and cares for very few. After becoming a supporting character in Aquaman: Sword of Atlantis where he helped train the new Aquaman he sort of disappears from Atlantis and reappears as a straight villain again. He eventually joined Bane's Secret Six, though the only motive kind of given for his move to straight villainy makes little sense as Nanaue has never cared about human money.

created by: Karl Kesel

first appearance: 1994, Superboy Vol 4 #0

---

• Antihero: Nanaue has a ~weird~ position in Atlantian society where his behavior is more understood even if no one cares for his eating people thing even there. He helps train the new Aquaman when the first goes missing. It helps that he's more chatty underwater.
• Arch-Enemy: He and Sam Makoa have a longstanding animosity. He starts going out of his way to save Makoa by about the time Superboy meets him but the detective never gets over his hatred of Nanaue since he had to watch him kill and eat his some of his fellow officers the first time he managed to arrest him, and King Shark always remains a threat to Makoa even with his respect for him.
• Bad Guys Do the Dirty Work: He kills Sidearm by tearing a huge hole in him with his claws when the other Suicide Squad member looks like he's going to shoot Makoa in the back, he doesn't even try to eat him which, as noted below, is the biggest sign of disrespect a shark in the DCU can give a body. Makoa had no clue about Sidearm's intentions, and Nanaue makes only a token attempt to enlighten him while Makoa yells at him for taking out one of their allies.
• Blue-and-Orange Morality: He is incredibly detached from humanity. There are things even early on, like his warning some swimmers not to go in the water due to shark danger, and then sighing and eating them when they ignore him, that hint he just views the world through a very different lens.
• Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas: He seems to care for his mother. This does not prevent him from eating her arm, though it does keep him from killing and eating her.
• Half-Human Hybrid: His mother Kaikea is a Hawaiian woman and his father is Lord Chondrakha, King-god of all Sharks.
• Not Enough to Bury: Makoa notes that his victims' bodies are never recovered because Nanaue eats them. This might be due to his relationship to sharks in the DCU as those with higher intelligence like Cron One-Eye make it clear it's the height of disrespect to the dead for a shark to leave a body uneaten.
• Parental Abandonment: By his father when he was young. He gets drunk every time he has to deal with or work for his father, and disobeyed him when he ordered Nanaue to kill Aquaman.
• The Quiet One: He very rarely speaks, though he's capable of it. The only thing preventing him from fitting under Beware the Quiet Ones is that he's (almost) never met anyone who failed to notice his general bloodthirsty nature.
• Rogues' Gallery Transplant: After Superboy was coaxed into moving back into Project Cadmus Nanaue became an Aquaman villain/anti-villain/anti-hero.
• Shark Man: He's a shark-human mix.
• Super-Toughness: He's bullet proof, and while a high powered extended application of a replication of Superman's heat vision knocks him for a loop and allows him to be captured it does so without doing any visible or lasting damage.
• Villainous Valor: He grows to respect Makoa to an extent, and brutally murders Sidearm when the other villain looks like he's going to shoot Makoa in the back.
• Walking Shirtless Scene: His fin usually (Depending on the Artist) would make it pretty difficult for him to wear a shirt. Also he usually does more swimming than walking.
• Would Hurt a Child: He attacked Tana's little niece Iolani unprovoked while she was playing in the ocean at a busy beach. Strangely, although he did hurt her he didn't kill her or anyone else even though he'd have been able to do so easily. It's possible he just enjoyed scaring everyone out of the water and decided to just let Iolani go when Superboy grabbed her out of the water. He does have a weird sense of humor as demonstrated when he chucked Jimmy Olsen out a window in Villains United, dressed as Black Canary of all things.

Lady Dragon

???

"Our powers are wonderfully equal child! The skill of the warrior will decide the day, as ever it shou[ld]"

"Lady Dragon" is the leader of the strange criminal organization known as the Silicon Dragons. With Superboy's arrival in Hawaii Sam Makoa worries the Dragon's will start to ramp up their firepower to remain on the same power level as their opponents, and he's right.

created by: Karl Kesel · Humberto Ramos

first appearance: 1994, Superboy Vol 4 #10

---

• Dragon Lady: As her name makes clearly evident.
• Laser Blade: She uses a plasma sword to fight Superboy.
• Eyepatch of Power: A Cybernetic eyepatch which allows her to see the interface for remote controlling the Dragon's fancy underwater hideout.
• The Leader: Of the Silicon Dragons.
• Leotard of Power: She wears a green one-sleeved leotard.
• Villainous Valor: To a bizarre extent. She'd chop off her own arm in order to stay on the same power level as an opponent.

Silver Sword

Arnold Kaua

A Hawaiian museum curator who was fused with some metal when he tried to pick up what he thought was trash after a canister of it was lost by the military and washed up on the beach.

created by: Karl Kesel · Tom Grummett

first appearance: 1994, Superboy Vol 4 #2

---

• Chrome Champion: He was accidentally merged with a silvery experimental substance that responds to his mental commands and which he coats himself with to fly. He even thinks he's a hero, fighting for the preservation of native Hawaiian culture but he's actually an anti-villain in practice as he doesn't put much stock in existing Hawaiian culture and tends to forget about the people currently living there.
• Color Character: Silver Sword.
• Cool Helmet: His shiny silvery mahiole.
• Recurring Character: Recurring villain through the early part of the series.

Queen Nosferata

Nosferata is a Wild Lander with big plans for her own advancement and her own army separate from that of the Royals.

created by: Karl Kesel · Tom Grummett

first appearance: 1998, Superboy Vol 4 #50

---

• Beast Folk: She's got a lot of bat traits, but her only noticeable hair is the long stuff on top of her head.
• Black Eyes of Evil: Her eyes are portrayed as either solid black or solid blue.
• Slouch of Villainy: She's first introduced leaning back in her carved stone throne as she listens to a minion's report.

Kossak the Slaver

An extraterrestrial slave trader with a ship nearly as big as the earth.

created by: Karl Kesel · Tom Grummett

first appearance: 2000, Superboy Vol 4 #75

---

• Irony: He was once a slave on the very slave ship he now runs as a particularly cruel slave trader before he managed to overthrow the previous master.
• Self-Disposing Villain: He, maybe, atomizes himself rather than be caught. Superboy wonders if he actually teleported instead, either way he's never seen again.

Sidearm

????

Superboy's first villain. A bank robber who possesses a "technovest" with modular robot arms (one at a time).

created by: Karl Kesel · Tom Grummett

first appearance: 1994, Superboy Vol 4 #1

• Alas, Poor Villain: Gets eaten by King Shark in the Suicide Squad storyline.
• Berserk Button: Does not like Superboy getting his name wrong.
• Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain: His increasing frustration with Superboy is easy to understand, especially since someone whose superpower is mechanical and (usually) lacks a range attack is the worst person to be fighting Superboy — in their first battle (told in flashback in the zero issue) Kon destroyed his arm with tactile telekinesis before he even knew he had tactile telekinesis.
• Multi-Armed and Dangerous: Well, not that dangerous.
• Plug 'n' Play Technology: Presumably his own arms are designed to plug in and out of the vest, but he also steals Professor Hamilton's prosthetic and it connects without any difficulty.

Luis Rojas

first appearance: 1994, Superman L Son of Kal-El Vol 1 #18

Jon Kent's own Expy of Lex Luthor, he is a young teenager who launches a campaign against Kryptonians with the help of Luthor.

Dominator X

A Mad Scientist who sells genetically engineered Super Soldiers on the intergalactic black market.

First appearance: Superboy: The Man Of Tomorrow #1

Creators: Kenny Porter, Jahnoy Lindsay

Species: Dominator

• Colour-Coded for Your Convenience: X is colored purple to distinguish him from the rest of his species, who are usually yellow.

Cyborg Superboy

Travv

Genetically engineered freedom fighter turned terrorist.

First appearance: Superboy: The Man Of Tomorrow #1, #5 (as Cyborg Superboy)

Creators: Kenny Porter, Jahnoy Lindsay

Species: Daxamite (formerly), Human/Kryptonian hybrid (cyborg)

• Blessed with Suck: This is what Travv thinks of his technopathy, since the augmentation cost whatever powers he would have developed as a Daxamite.
• Brain Uploading: When Travv's initial fight with Superboy destroys his original body, Travv's cybernetic spine transfers his consciousness into a cybernetically augmented clone body of Conner, becoming Cyborg Superboy.
• Child Soldier: Travv was genetically engineered by Dominator X as a weapon to be sold to the highest bidder.
• Lack of Empathy: Travv is more than willing to use his fellow genetic experiments as weapons against Dominator X.

---