Subbania

Subbania

An underground city-state that Superboy encounters on two separate occasions in the chronicles.

The first of these incidents occurs in a 1954 chronicle when the Boy of Steel is contacted by Queen Vya, the young monarch of Subbania, who requests Superboy's assistance against her rival Duke Duvvil. The queen relates to Superboy that she has constructed a robot called Superlad to defend Subbania, but the Duke wishes to expose it as a robot. Superboy fills in for the robot eventually convincing even the Duke that Superlad is a real boy. When Duvvil is defeated, Superboy returns to the surface, leaving the robot Superlad in Vya's control (Adv No. 199/1, Apr 1954: “Superboy Meets Superlad”).

The second incident occurs in a 1962 chronicle when Superboy finds the underground civilization of Subbania. The people there migrated during a meteor shower on the surface centuries ago. The ruler of this version of Subbania is Queen Luela, a Lana Lang lookalike. She asks Superboy to help her protect Subbania against Duvvil, a troublemaker out to expose Subbania’s hero, Steelboy, as a robot.

Steelboy is a robot constructed to look like Superboy himself. Superboy fills in for the robot and prevents an invasion by the Crystal Men. Duvvil succeeds in destroying the robot, but Superboy replaces him, so no one knows Steelboy’s true nature. Finally, after defeating Duvvil, Superboy creates a non-metal android Steelboy to replace the destroyed protector of Subbania (Adv No. 302/1, Nov 1962: “Superboy Meets Steelboy”).

Note: It has never been revealed in any of the chronicles whether the two Subbania's are two different cities, or rather just the same city at different times. The fact that both cities each possess a version of Duvvil may in fact lead one to believe that they are indeed the same city, with Queen Vya being succeeded on the throne by Queen Luela. This theory can also be supported by the fact that since Superlad is not in fact destroyed by the end of the tale in the first chronicle, it is reasonable to assume that by the time of the second chronicle, Superlad has been renamed Steelboy upon Queen Luela's assuming of the throne.