Inspired by discussion by HWW and xben elsewhere, it is generally agreed that Adv. #267 is one of the goofiest Legion stories ever.

So... any ideas on how to make it more plausible?

I think the "punishing Superboy for future crimes" aspect is the root of most of the problems in the tale. So why not start by getting rid of that? Let's suppose that instead of these being future crimes, the Legionnaires suspect Superboy of being a secret criminal while everyone thinks he is a hero. That might even make sense of the fact that they try to turn the public against him, thinking they are helping them to see the Boy of Steel as he truly is.

Thoughts?

One could retcon a bit of LSH lore into the tale, and say the founders were temporarily influenced after passing through the Nefar Nebula.

I like this idea. Historians are always finding out secret "truths" about historical figures.

Of course, I'm still left with the idea that everything Superboy did was history to the Legion, so if they exposed Superboy's crimes for his contemporaries, they would in effect be changing history.

The Legion needs a very strong reason to do this. Perhaps a criminal escapes through time and misleads the Legionnaires into thinking he's changed places with Superboy or has put Superboy under some kind of spell.

I was thinking that maybe they were afraid that somehow they'd already changed history by their previous interactions with Superboy. So maybe an element of the story could be the fear that they were somehow responsible for his going evil.

That might work . . . if a previous time traveler had inadvertently caused a historical figure to go bad, the Legion might fear the same. Perhaps John Wilkes Booth was supposed to *save* Lincoln from an assassination attempt. Perhaps Richard III was supposed to protect the two princes, instead of sending them away to the Tower, never to be seen again . . .

All sorts of possibilities here: Did the Legion do anything specifically that might have turned Superboy bad? Or did his interaction with people from the future drive him mad? (The latter sounds more Silver Age-ish.)

The punished for future crimes is not the deal breaker for me. What makes the story implausible for me is that the Legion is from the future and should know enough about Superboy/Superman to know that something is wrong with what they saw, not that Superboy became a criminal. Plus the "crimes" they do punish him for seem rather mundane to warrent the punishment they inflict upon him.

Also why didn't Saturn Girl just read his mind? Although, I believe as this is their second appearance Imra might still have only thought casting powers and not be able to read minds.

I think the only way to make this story work is to, as Lash says, make it be that the Legionnaires were under the influence of some nefarious force. That would explain why they turned the town against him. If it was just that they thought Superboy had gone bad, they could have arrested him without the need to turn the town against him.

I also like the idea of Superboy being convicted of crimes he has yet to commit. As I mentioned in my blog , the film "Minority Report" shows how this could work.


Well, Superboy hadn't "turned evil" yet. He wasn't supposed to do these things until five years in his future.

The only possible reason Imra would have to read his mind would be to uncover that the events she saw on the futurescope were part of Superboy's past, not his future. But she would need a reason to suspect those events were part of his past.

With all of Superboy's powers, I suspect the Legion wanted to lure him to Superboy Planet so they could thrust him into the kryptonite cage with minimal resistance or disturbance to bystanders, though this motive isn't given in the story.

I don't think the inconsistency with their history is that big a problem, depending on how time travel works. It may be that there's no guarantee that Superboy's future will sync up with their past, once they start interacting with him.

I wonder if you could trump up some reason that it would be necessary to force him to leave Earth in order to arrest him? Like some "no jurisdiction on Earth" excuse?

The Saturn Girl not reading his mind thing seems like a more serious problem, though.

One could retcon a bit of LSH lore into the tale, and say the founders were temporarily influenced by Universo, in his never-before-revealed first attempt to destroy the Legion before it became too powerful.

If you go with the mind control angle, you might as well use the Brain Globes of Rambat, since they try the exact same schtick not too long after.

Earth-3 Legion! (the evil one)

One thing I would keep from this story is the sense of rejection Superboy experiences from the Smallville community. That rejection taps into the real fears all children have at one time or another.

Granted, this rejection is presented in silly and unrealistic ways -- at one point, Superboy asks the mayor if he can "stay on", as if he's a salaried employee! And when everybody, even his dog, rejects Superboy, he never once questions if something fishy's going on. Instead, he runs away from home by leaving earth! Not a very heroic thing to do.

However, the most heart-wrenching moment in the story occurs when Pa Kent (under Imra's influence) tells Superboy, "Those three super-characters have made you look like a fool! I'm ashamed of you! I-I wish I could send you back to the orphanage!"

Sadly, too many kids have to hear real, hurtful remarks like that every day.

Adv 267 was one of the first LSH stories I ever read.

Cross posted form Facebook. I think in that story the Legion is never shown traveling in time to or from the 20th century. Is it possible that Mort used the Saturn Girl, Lightning Lad & Cosmic Boy as contemporary heroes in that story? If they're from the future why would they need a Futurescope? Destroying a USN Aircraft Carrier & a Pacific Island Airbase? The Imperial Japanese Navy could've given Superboy a medal.

Being rejected or judged as a failure by his family and or community seems to be a recurring theme for Superboy under Mort's editorial reign. I wouldn't have wanted to grow up in that household.

^^Wow! That's a fascinating theory. I must re-read the story in that light to see if it works.

The story clearly says on page 2 that the Legionnaires are "from the world of the future," and, as I mentioned in my blogpost, records from five years into Superboy's own future were "lost in a fire" (page 9), hence the need for the futurescope.

Who are this future archivists who keep having so many disasters that they can't keep ahold of the events from 1950 to 2020? Haven't they heard of offworld backups?

On the other hand, it sort of puts things in perspective to realize that the modern "information age" may one day be regarded as a latter-day dark age.

I say keep that title and scrap everything else. 'Prisoner of the Super-Heroes' alone makes me want to read further, but if Superboy's the prisoner I already know how it'll turn out.

Note: the title was actually re-used for one part of the first meeting between Kon-El and the reboot Legion!