OVERLAND PARK, Kan. — With the new Superman movie out and drawing great crowds, there seems to be a super-battle going on to claim Smallville, Superman’s fictional boyhood home. The guy who played the young Clark Kent in the 1978 blockbuster movie lives in the Kansas City area, and on Fox 4 last week he said the fictional Smallville is in Kansas. Some say it’s in Illinois, others say in Pennsylvania, but it’s even written in the comic book that Smallville is in Kansas.
“He’s always crashed in Kansas, he’s always grew up in Kansas, so those other states can say what they want, but the comics which is what’s real, say Kansas,” said William Binderup, the owner of Elite Comics in Overland Park.
William Binderup says when comic books were just getting started all the headquarters were in New York City, and since Superman was considered the “all-American boy,” they may have assumed he’d be raised in Kansas.
“If someone would find a crashed alien ship, take that kid, raise him as their own, and fill him with all these great ideals, that would have to be someone from Kansas,” he explained.
On Friday the city of Hutchinson, Kan., changed its name to Smallville for the day. Clark Kent/Superman was also inducted into the Kansas Hall of Fame along with basketball inventor Dr. James Naismith and the classic rock band, Kansas.