I'm writing up a short text piece about the town Ham-Boy is from: Piney Oaks, Iowa. Using Smallville, Kansas as my partial inspiration for the town. Another inspiration for Piney Oaks is the town in Iowa my Brother-in-Law is from: Seymour, Iowa.

So, I'm online looking up info about Smallville (the one from the comic, not the TV show) so I come across the interesting bit of information: The first time in any media that Smallvile or a Kent Farm were actually linked to a specific location was in The Adventures of Superman radio show. In the storyline "The Secret Rocket", it was mentioned several times that young Clark Kent grew up on Eben Kent's farm in Iowa. The farmtown was unnamed in the story (as the name "Smallville" appeared for the first time two years later in Superboy (volume 1) #2); the nearest town actually named in the broadcast was Centerville, Iowa. What makes this interesting is Centerville is the county seat of Wayne County, the very same county that Seymour, Iowa is in. Spooky, huh?

Also, when I said that Ham-Boy was from Iowa this was a few years before my Sister meet her future husband. Why did I choose Iowa as HB's home state? I wanted a state from the mid-west & Iowa was one of the first states to come to my mind.

As I understand it, the estate of Superman creators Seigel and Schuster have been trying to get back rights to the character now that the 70-year mark has been passed since his creation.

Curiously, a seperate lawsuit is underway around Superboy, who legally counts as a different character with a seperate trademark. There's been much legal argument about which bits of the Superman mythos "belong" to which characters. Which concept gets custody of Kryptonite, Lois Lana, Lana Lang etc?

And who gets Ma and Pa Kent and Smallville? The fact that some key bits of Superman mythos come from the radio play or other non-comics sources that work under different bits of copyright law makes for some fine fat paycheques for the attorneys involved.