Since the agreement with Warner was still in effect, and since they still had some of the properties within the Superman canon to work with, Alexander and Ilya decided to develop a television series with Superboy as the focus. This was done despite the previously mentioned 1986 retconning of the origins of Superman by John Byrne, which deleted Superboy from his existence. Nevertheless, "Superboy" was launched in 1988 with DC Comics serving as a production entity, giving Warner Bros. a stake in the production. The Salkinds agreed with Viacom to distribute the series.