Chief Parker

Douglas Parker first encountered the future Superboy as a rookie officer on the Smallville Police Department (although Parker remained unaware of this fact). Parker apprehended the Pumpkin Gang while being secretly assisted by Clark Kent, who was still a toddler at the time. The capture earned the officer a promotion to police captain.[1] He would steadily advance in the ranks, eventually becoming Smalllville's chief of police.

Chief Parker was a staunch ally of the Boy of Steel. In fact, Superboy entrusted him with a signal device linked to a lamp in the Kent home. The lamp would flicker whenever Superboy was being summoned. Lana Lang's father Professor Lewis Lang and the President of the United States were given similar devices.[2]

As the chief law enforcement official in Superboy's hometown, Parker often encountered the Boy of Steel's allies and enemies. He helped restore Superboy's reputation after a rash of incidents engineered by the Kryptonian teenager Dev-Em.[3] Chief Parker and his wife Leah briefly welcomed teenager "Marie Elkins" into their home, unaware that she was actually Duo Damsel, a member of the futuristic Legion of Super-Heroes who was hiding from the sorcerer Mordru.[4] Most notably, Parker was frequently forced to contend with Superboy's most persistent enemy, the teenage scientific genius Lex Luthor.

After the deaths of Jonathan and Martha Kent, an eighteen-year-old Superboy left Smallville for Metropolis and eventually changed his name to Superman. Parker retired from law enforcement, occasionally visiting the vacant Kent home to ensure that it did not fall into disrepair.[5]

Following the Crisis on Infinite Earths limited series, Superman's history was revised, such that Clark Kent did not begin his public superhero career until adulthood, and thus never operated as Superboy.[6] While most of the Boy of Steel's supporting characters (Lana Lang, Pete Ross, the Kents) were reinterpreted for the revised continuity, Chief Parker was not. He has made almost no comic book appearances since the conclusion of Crisis on Infinite Earths in 1986. However, it has been established that — in post-Infinite Crisis continuity — Parker was indeed the Smallville Police Chief during Clark's childhood. He was the one who told a younger Lex Luthor that his father had died.[7]