Bizarro Back Issues: Superboy And The Alien Death Wish! (1980)
We've seen an awful lot of reboots over the past few years, and when it comes to giving a long-running character a new #1, there are a lot of choices you can make. The obvious one, of course, is to give readers a back-to-basics approach that makes things a little more accessible and lets new fans get in on the ground floor. Or, if you're aiming for the hardcore fans, you could pick something from past continuity and bring it back, casting it in a new light to reward and intrigue long-time readers.
Or, if you're Cary Bates and Kurt Schaffenberger kicking off The New Adventures of Superboy in 1980, you decide to open your first issue with some complete and total weirdness that references the obscurest pieces of old continuity and ends up with a story about an extra birthday candle, an eight year-old with a big decision to make, and a couple of aliens who long only for the sweet, sweet embrace of death.