So this obscure fellow is actually an idea Siegel & Shuster came up with a few years later- some would say they based him off of Fawcett Comics’ success with Captain Marvel Jr., but instead of making a sidekick character, they just told the stories of “Superman When He Was a Boy”. He got a whole new supporting cast and became a HUGE deal, earning DC a ton more money (and since he was a non-Superman creation not formed under the same type of deal/contract, his legal issues were far more nasty than Superman’s as Connor Kent would discover decades later). Superboy would eventually meet up with three super-powered teenagers from the future, and get inducted into their Legion (which would soon take over his old book), coming to the future whenever he felt like it. This led to an interesting situation, as a CHILD version of their main hero was having these gigantic adventures in another time period, alongside published tales of him as an adult. Of course, people glossed over that Superboy could never be killed since his adult version was obviously still alive, and that Superman never referred to his time with the Legion ending, though he obviously didn’t hang with them as much now that he was fully-grown.

In the 1980s, John Byrne decided he wanted to introduce Superman as an adult (a man just learning about/unsure of his new powers- a valid story idea, sure- countless others have tried to tell it), which meant that there was never a Superboy. BUT, it turns out that since all of the DCU itself wasn’t revamping itself at the same time, this made a SWACK of continuity problems, the biggest of which being that the Legion was now based off of… nobody. In fact, all their old stories had to be glossed over, and Superboy, initially one of the top characters of the book, left its pages forever, leaving a blank that was never really filled. Confusing, unnecessary stories about “Pocket Universe Superboys” and the like inspiring them (really, just ignore it and move on, I’d say) just furthered the problems, and the Legion never really got over it. Some blame Byrne for this, but really- this is why comics have EDITORS, who can go “uh, hey- that would actually ruin one of our top-selling books, so let’s not”. In any case, Superboy became less and less important to the Legion over the years, in any case, hardly showing up at ALL in many stories. In The Great Darkness Saga he only makes a few cameos until the very end, and even THEN doesn’t really do any character-stuff- The Legion does all the work.

That said, Superboy ends up being quite influential overall, with various supporting characters of his making their way into the Legion book- Ultra Boy & Mon-El both debuted in Superboy stories and THEN met the Legion, and both share his powers (mostly). Supergirl ALSO joined the Legion, and soon later-continuity Legionnaires would be inspired by him, such as Andromeda and Kent Shakespeare.

SUPERGIRL (Linda Danvers, aka Kara Zor-El)

Pre-Crisis Kara Zor-El was a pretty successful character, but obviously a weak link in the Superman Family of titles, never doing quite as well as the main man or his childhood self (this is part of why it was so easy to kill her off in the Crisis- she had no solo book at the time). Still, she was one of the top female characters in comics history (pretty easily outracing Mary Marvel- who was created a decade earlier by the same writer), and went on to spend time with Superboy (the younger version of her cousin who she knew in HER present-time, which is certainly an odd way to go about doing stories) and the Legion of Super-Heroes, where she started dating Brainac-5. With lots of girl-themed stuff (multiple boyfriend/love interests, a kitty, a FLYING HORSE aka girl fangasm who also happened to turn into a cowboy she fell in love with, aka ANOTHER girl fantasy), her fall from continuity messed up the Legion too, but not as much as Superboy’s did. Instead, they had to just make Brainiac-5 an always-single douche, and replace Kara in “old” stories with Laurel Gand, their new Supergirl-class character.

Pre-Crisis Supergirl is pretty much where Superboy is in power- though the female Kryptonians are usually weaker than the males, which only really makes sense if you assume that the strength difference between males and females among humans is proportionate in Kryptonians. Never mind the fact that both are far stronger than people of their size ever possibly could be, so muscle mass clearly shouldn’t matter so much. She’s actually a bit more skilled than Teen Clark was, though- being a “Girl’s Book”, Supergirl featured many stories about her Barbie-like job switching between vet, doctor, etc. She’s at the same strength tier as Superboy, way more powerful than most heroes ever get.