TURNING POINTS - Major “What if” possibilities in Legion History - 07/11/03 11:10 PM
This topic is for examining major events in Legion history and speculating what if they had never happened or had reversed outcomes. I’m going to examine some of the Adventure Era’s main events (in chronological order,) but I invite other posters to offer their speculations on reversed or eliminated events of their favorite Eras as well.
What if the Legion never got a series in Adventure 300?
Which is really two issues: 1) what other features instead might have debuted in Adv 300, and 2) what would have happened to the Legion without a series. I’ll deal with the second issue later.
The prior Bizarro World series itself might have continued past Adv 300, but I doubt it would have lasted much longer as superhero comedy has a short life expectancy. Looking at the early 1960s Superman mythos, I can see three possible series that might debuted instead than Legion in Adv 300.
The Amazing World of Krypton - This series did debut a decade later in Action, and yet Krypton was already a very popular theme in 1962, throughout the Superman titles, so this series could indeed have debuted much earlier. The series would have probably focused on the El family, likely rotating between stories on Jor-el and his science and Little Kal-el & Krypto’s misadventures, with occasional Krypton historical pieces or travelogs. A lot of potential was there, a whole world to be explored and developed.
The Bottle City Of Kandor - Like Krypton, Kandor was a very popular element of the Superman mythos, and later became the locale for the Nightwing & Flamebird series in Superman Family. Nightwing & Flamebird themselves debuted only a half year after Adv 300 in Superman 158, so if there had been a new Kandor series in Adventure, they could easily have become the new main characters.
Typical Kandor plots would have been about Earth visitors, especially Superman’s friends, and also ultra-scientific detective stories playing up the ersatz Dynamic Duo angle of Nightwing & Flamebird. They probably would have exploited the typical lrypton themes like new forms of Kryptonite and Phantom Zone stories, which leads into the next possible Adventure feature.
The Adventures of Mon-el - We immediately associate Mon-el with the Legion, but at the time of Adv 300, there was no connection at all. They had appeared in one story together (Adv 293) and would again a month after Adv 300 (Superman 154, a must read for Legion fans, BTW) but Mon-el had long been established in his own right as an individual character, being using throughout the Superman titles as a deus ex machina.
And he was very popular. It’s very possible that a solo Mon-el feature might have been Weisinger’s second choice to debut in Adv 300, and, perhaps, he combined the two ideas by including Mon-el in the Legion debut.
What would a Mon-el series in 1962 have been like? Well, first we have to observe that he would never have stayed in the Phantom Zone for a 1000 years, so his series would have been set instead in Superboy or Superman’s time-period (or both?!) If it was Superboy period, he would have had to stay in the Zone, because of the prior stories of him in the Zone during Superman’s time. Ongoing stories of Mon-el in the Phantom Zone would have short-lived appeal; a series couldn’t be sustained (certainly in the early 60s) with that single setting. So it would have been in Superman’s time.
Most likely the big-cover-proclaiming-event of a Mon-el series debut in Adv 300 would have been his liberation from the Phantom Zone, probably by Superman. But what would happen to Mon after that? Seigal could have revived his Bob Cobb identity and utilized the traveling salesman job for keeping a variety of settings and characters. He probably would interact with other Superman characters and the few villains of the time. Most likely he would have become Superman’s other emergency backup after Supegirl.
My big speculation is that he would have become a boyfriend of Supergirl! Really! A rival with Brainiac 5 for her affections! I think it would have been a natural development given the typical plot devices and attitudes of the time.
His series could have lasted a while if they kept him in costume a lot, and yet gave Bob Cobb a fearless personality as opposed to Clark's milksop disquise. I think the series could have run 3-5 years.
But what about the Legion? If they didn’t get their series in Adv 300, what likely happens to them.
Initially they would have continued in the same type of plot gimmicks. Like Star Boy, (the phony) Sun Boy, and Ultra Boy, Legionnaires would have kept showing up in Smallville to share adventures. That mean three things.
1) All existing Legionnaires probably would have had their turn at Smallville visits (Triplicate Girl, Bouncing Boy, Invisible Kid, etc.)
2) New Legionnaires that were developed by Seigal & Hamilton would have been utilized to visit Superboy: certainly Element Lad, Polar Boy, Duplicate Boy, and Beast Boy; maybe Chlorophyll Kid and Evolvo Lad; Lightning Lass and Matter-Eater Lad probably wouldn’t have ever been created (based on their actual first appearances.)
3) At least some of those frequent one-shot super-pals that Superboy always met would now have become Legionnaires visiting Superboy. Since these one-shots were usually similar powered to Superboy, then the Legion really would have become the Legion of SUPER-heroes, a collection of real powerhouses. A lot of one-shot heroes that few of us can recall would have become major players of the Legion (like Mon-el and Ultra Boy.)
Supergirl & Brainiac 5 would have developed their off and on romance in her series, and probably would have had a different tone to it. Brainiac 5 might have been eventually used in some of Superman’s Brainiac battles.
Moving into the mid & later 60s, the Legion might have been used for recurring adventures with the JLA and/or the Teen Titans, like the famed JLA/JSA matchups.
Most interesting, Legion deaths might have become even more frequent as writers and editors would have seen so many heroes as a ready source of fan attention-grabbing cover martyrs. Seriously, I think it would have averaged one Legionnaire death a year. Those one-shot heroes might instead have become only three-or-four shot heroes. Legionnaire deaths probably would have become a standing fandom joke much like Legion applicants did become.
Yet in this scenario, the most famous of Superboy’s super-pals, Mon-el, never joins the Legion because the Legion Adv 300 debut in which he did join never occurred. Which leads to the next and similar major What If scenario.
What if Mon-el was not added to the Legion debut in Adv 300, and thus never joined the Legion
This is different from the above discussed Mon-el series in Adventure because in this scenario, the Legion still has its series debut, but Mon-el is left out and remains in the 20th century as a supporting character residing in the Phantom Zone. In this scenario, Mon can remain in the Phantom Zone, without the gimmick’s potential being quickly exhausted because he’d be only appearing irregularly and in different books.
As a enduring supporting character, Mon would have been brought into the greater DCU by the mid-60s. Of the Superman titles, the only one he didn’t appear in was World’s Finest (except as statue in the Composite Superman stories.) He probably would have appeared there next in this scenario, thus connecting him into the Batman mythos. He would have shown up in a few Batman stories helping the different Batman characters with mysteries as a secret observer in the Zone.
But I see Mon's character gravitating more to the science oriented Fox & Broome titles of GL, Flash, and the Atom. (I don’t know why, but I see the Atom and a Phantom Zone Mon-el becoming crimesolving buddies!)
At some point though, in the late 60s he would have been liberated from the Phantom Zone, and since he would have been around 7-9 years by then, it would have been a major event in the DCU, perhaps being done as a two-issue story in JLA. He might have even become a member of JLA, perhaps replacing Superman ot J'onn, but if his youth had been played up against Superman’s maturity (and additionally in a romance with Supergirl) then I see another possibility for a non-phantom Mon-el in the later 60s DCU.
First, he could have partnered with Robin, becoming a junior World’s Finest team (especially since the silver age Superboy was in a different time and unavailable.) This might have become a back-up or alternating feature in WF. And my big speculation here is that this association with Robin might have made Mon a likely candidate for joining the Teen Titans, as another example of a proxy Superboy (who could never join until post-Crisis!)
Being roughly power equals, he might have even had a romance with Wonder Girl. And wonder Girl and Supergirl could have a catfight over Mon! Me-ow! And Woof!
Another possibility of a Zone liberated Mon, is that he could moved to Kandor and become the Nightwing in the later series Superman’s Family. Many possibilities for a footloose and fancy free young Daxamite from the Phantom Zone.
Well, it’s a lotta fun speculating about what would have happened if the landmark issue of Adventure 300 had been changed either a little or a lot
My next What If scenario will concern: 1) what if Lightning Lad had not been revived, and 2) what if it was Saturn Girl, not Proty, who sacrificed herself to revive Garth.
What if the Legion never got a series in Adventure 300?
Which is really two issues: 1) what other features instead might have debuted in Adv 300, and 2) what would have happened to the Legion without a series. I’ll deal with the second issue later.
The prior Bizarro World series itself might have continued past Adv 300, but I doubt it would have lasted much longer as superhero comedy has a short life expectancy. Looking at the early 1960s Superman mythos, I can see three possible series that might debuted instead than Legion in Adv 300.
The Amazing World of Krypton - This series did debut a decade later in Action, and yet Krypton was already a very popular theme in 1962, throughout the Superman titles, so this series could indeed have debuted much earlier. The series would have probably focused on the El family, likely rotating between stories on Jor-el and his science and Little Kal-el & Krypto’s misadventures, with occasional Krypton historical pieces or travelogs. A lot of potential was there, a whole world to be explored and developed.
The Bottle City Of Kandor - Like Krypton, Kandor was a very popular element of the Superman mythos, and later became the locale for the Nightwing & Flamebird series in Superman Family. Nightwing & Flamebird themselves debuted only a half year after Adv 300 in Superman 158, so if there had been a new Kandor series in Adventure, they could easily have become the new main characters.
Typical Kandor plots would have been about Earth visitors, especially Superman’s friends, and also ultra-scientific detective stories playing up the ersatz Dynamic Duo angle of Nightwing & Flamebird. They probably would have exploited the typical lrypton themes like new forms of Kryptonite and Phantom Zone stories, which leads into the next possible Adventure feature.
The Adventures of Mon-el - We immediately associate Mon-el with the Legion, but at the time of Adv 300, there was no connection at all. They had appeared in one story together (Adv 293) and would again a month after Adv 300 (Superman 154, a must read for Legion fans, BTW) but Mon-el had long been established in his own right as an individual character, being using throughout the Superman titles as a deus ex machina.
And he was very popular. It’s very possible that a solo Mon-el feature might have been Weisinger’s second choice to debut in Adv 300, and, perhaps, he combined the two ideas by including Mon-el in the Legion debut.
What would a Mon-el series in 1962 have been like? Well, first we have to observe that he would never have stayed in the Phantom Zone for a 1000 years, so his series would have been set instead in Superboy or Superman’s time-period (or both?!) If it was Superboy period, he would have had to stay in the Zone, because of the prior stories of him in the Zone during Superman’s time. Ongoing stories of Mon-el in the Phantom Zone would have short-lived appeal; a series couldn’t be sustained (certainly in the early 60s) with that single setting. So it would have been in Superman’s time.
Most likely the big-cover-proclaiming-event of a Mon-el series debut in Adv 300 would have been his liberation from the Phantom Zone, probably by Superman. But what would happen to Mon after that? Seigal could have revived his Bob Cobb identity and utilized the traveling salesman job for keeping a variety of settings and characters. He probably would interact with other Superman characters and the few villains of the time. Most likely he would have become Superman’s other emergency backup after Supegirl.
My big speculation is that he would have become a boyfriend of Supergirl! Really! A rival with Brainiac 5 for her affections! I think it would have been a natural development given the typical plot devices and attitudes of the time.
His series could have lasted a while if they kept him in costume a lot, and yet gave Bob Cobb a fearless personality as opposed to Clark's milksop disquise. I think the series could have run 3-5 years.
But what about the Legion? If they didn’t get their series in Adv 300, what likely happens to them.
Initially they would have continued in the same type of plot gimmicks. Like Star Boy, (the phony) Sun Boy, and Ultra Boy, Legionnaires would have kept showing up in Smallville to share adventures. That mean three things.
1) All existing Legionnaires probably would have had their turn at Smallville visits (Triplicate Girl, Bouncing Boy, Invisible Kid, etc.)
2) New Legionnaires that were developed by Seigal & Hamilton would have been utilized to visit Superboy: certainly Element Lad, Polar Boy, Duplicate Boy, and Beast Boy; maybe Chlorophyll Kid and Evolvo Lad; Lightning Lass and Matter-Eater Lad probably wouldn’t have ever been created (based on their actual first appearances.)
3) At least some of those frequent one-shot super-pals that Superboy always met would now have become Legionnaires visiting Superboy. Since these one-shots were usually similar powered to Superboy, then the Legion really would have become the Legion of SUPER-heroes, a collection of real powerhouses. A lot of one-shot heroes that few of us can recall would have become major players of the Legion (like Mon-el and Ultra Boy.)
Supergirl & Brainiac 5 would have developed their off and on romance in her series, and probably would have had a different tone to it. Brainiac 5 might have been eventually used in some of Superman’s Brainiac battles.
Moving into the mid & later 60s, the Legion might have been used for recurring adventures with the JLA and/or the Teen Titans, like the famed JLA/JSA matchups.
Most interesting, Legion deaths might have become even more frequent as writers and editors would have seen so many heroes as a ready source of fan attention-grabbing cover martyrs. Seriously, I think it would have averaged one Legionnaire death a year. Those one-shot heroes might instead have become only three-or-four shot heroes. Legionnaire deaths probably would have become a standing fandom joke much like Legion applicants did become.
Yet in this scenario, the most famous of Superboy’s super-pals, Mon-el, never joins the Legion because the Legion Adv 300 debut in which he did join never occurred. Which leads to the next and similar major What If scenario.
What if Mon-el was not added to the Legion debut in Adv 300, and thus never joined the Legion
This is different from the above discussed Mon-el series in Adventure because in this scenario, the Legion still has its series debut, but Mon-el is left out and remains in the 20th century as a supporting character residing in the Phantom Zone. In this scenario, Mon can remain in the Phantom Zone, without the gimmick’s potential being quickly exhausted because he’d be only appearing irregularly and in different books.
As a enduring supporting character, Mon would have been brought into the greater DCU by the mid-60s. Of the Superman titles, the only one he didn’t appear in was World’s Finest (except as statue in the Composite Superman stories.) He probably would have appeared there next in this scenario, thus connecting him into the Batman mythos. He would have shown up in a few Batman stories helping the different Batman characters with mysteries as a secret observer in the Zone.
But I see Mon's character gravitating more to the science oriented Fox & Broome titles of GL, Flash, and the Atom. (I don’t know why, but I see the Atom and a Phantom Zone Mon-el becoming crimesolving buddies!)
At some point though, in the late 60s he would have been liberated from the Phantom Zone, and since he would have been around 7-9 years by then, it would have been a major event in the DCU, perhaps being done as a two-issue story in JLA. He might have even become a member of JLA, perhaps replacing Superman ot J'onn, but if his youth had been played up against Superman’s maturity (and additionally in a romance with Supergirl) then I see another possibility for a non-phantom Mon-el in the later 60s DCU.
First, he could have partnered with Robin, becoming a junior World’s Finest team (especially since the silver age Superboy was in a different time and unavailable.) This might have become a back-up or alternating feature in WF. And my big speculation here is that this association with Robin might have made Mon a likely candidate for joining the Teen Titans, as another example of a proxy Superboy (who could never join until post-Crisis!)
Being roughly power equals, he might have even had a romance with Wonder Girl. And wonder Girl and Supergirl could have a catfight over Mon! Me-ow! And Woof!
Another possibility of a Zone liberated Mon, is that he could moved to Kandor and become the Nightwing in the later series Superman’s Family. Many possibilities for a footloose and fancy free young Daxamite from the Phantom Zone.
Well, it’s a lotta fun speculating about what would have happened if the landmark issue of Adventure 300 had been changed either a little or a lot
My next What If scenario will concern: 1) what if Lightning Lad had not been revived, and 2) what if it was Saturn Girl, not Proty, who sacrificed herself to revive Garth.