(See the previous threads on Archives #8, Archives #7, Archives #6, Archives #5, Archives #4, Archives #3, Archives #2 and Archives #1 and feel free to add in your two cents on those stories. It's NEVER too late! )


For the next month or two, we'll be reading and discussing the stories re-printed in Legion of Super-Heroes Archives Volume 9. Archives 9 looks a li'l somethin' like this:



It was kind of the worst of times, as the Legion ended its long run as the lead feature of Adventure Comics and got relegated to backup status in Action Comics. The only lower point in Legion history, imo, is the one we're in right now, as the LSH has had no feature of any kind to call its own for going on a year and a half with no end in sight--just some scattered guest appearances of varying significance. I mean, right now a backup feature sounds pretty good, right?

Anyhow, the goal here is to read and review approximately at least one story a week. If it's a 2-parter, then it counts as one story. But seeing as how these are mostly short backups, we may fudge with that a little if the mood hits. Cool?

For those of you who own the floppies or are following in Showcase, the stories reprinted within are, in order:

Adventure 377-380 and the Legion backups in Action 378-387 & 389-392

(Action 377 & 388 reprinted earlier Legion stories.)

Got it? Good!

So....let's go Legionnaires!

Oh, and here's a review of 377 from some buttface ( ) who jumped the gun and posted it in the Archives 8 thread:

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As much as I've complained in the past about Win Mortimer's art, I have to say that having Jack Abel as inker makes the art look 10 times better. Abel is sort of like the infamous Vinny Colletta in that their inks are so strong that they can make a weak pencils artist look good or ruin the work of a great pencils artist. Here Abel cancels out Mortimer's sketchy lines and produces a more appealing end product. And Shooter gets really creative on his layouts - especially the full page panel of Brainy doing too much LDS as Spock would say. It almost has a Nick Cardy feel to it.

One other thing, with Abel inking the Legionnaires really look their age (17-19) more than ever. I love Swan's work but one downside is he tended to make the Legionnaires look way older than their actual age. My first Legion was SLSH #208. After reading the lead story and being blown away by the Grell art, I read the Luck Lords reprint and was very confused. This was supposed to be a story from the Legion's past when they were younger yet they all looked like 10 years older than the same characters from the Grell story.

As Paladin pointed out, it's very interesting to see the protesting from the civilians caught up in the Legionnaires scheme to catch the bad guys. Of course what we don't see is the after effects once the bad guys are behind bars - how easy or hard will it be for the Legion to explain things away and restore their reputations?

As always with his last several stories, Shooter has way too much going on plot wise to fit into one issue. One head scratcher for me is that I still don't understand exactly what Modulus was. at first read it sounded like an evil sentient planet descendant of Mojo from Green Lantern. But then the Legionnaires at the end of the story refer to Modulus as a "he" that can be removed from the planet. So who knows.

the "meet the press" segment was a hoot with it's 20th century TV studio. I could almost picture Leland McCauley as a commentator for FoxNews. Plus once again we get evidence that printed newspapers are alive and well in the 30th century.

The ending involving all of the different currencies was very convoluted, but at least Chemical King got to save the day without having to die to it. Go CK! It kind of reminded me of a season one episode of Super Friends where they had to rush in Plastic Man out of the blue at the last minute for the big save.

I've been pleasantly surprised at how often CK appears in Adventure and Action stories once he joined. He actually was used pretty regularly up until about a year before Levitz bumped him off.

So the Adventure Legion was selling around 402,000 at this time. Does anyone know how that stacked up to other DC titles at the time? And then did sales go up or down once Supergirl took over Adventure? I wonder how many of Mort's titles were in DC's top ten at the time. Did Mort hand off the Superman title directly to Julie Schwartz or was there an interegnum editor? Could the Legion's (temporary) demise be as simple as Schwartz didn't care for the Legion (not his idea of science-fiction superheroes? too juvenile?) and no other editor wanted them, so they faded away.

One other thing about Adventure #377. Shooter managed to write this issue without using "Fool!" or "Fools!' in the dialogue at all. if you go back to archives 7 and 8 and count how many times Shooter has someone say "Fool", you could make a drinking game out of it. And every time I come across that bit of dialogue, I read it in my mind Mr. T style.

I thought 377 showed considerable improvement in Mortimer's art. I immediately noticed a more unconventional panel layout, not unlike what Swan had been doing on the book. And, of course, the psychedelic sequence was entertaining and a welcome diversion.

However, with Shooter continually being credited with "layouts", I don't know how much credit (or sometimes blame) to give Mortimer. I would very much like to see an example of Shooter's layouts at some point, so I can make a better judgement of where the ideas and designs come from. I wonder if anyone, here or elsewhere, has a typical script with layouts from Shooter during this era for us to see what he did. If one were available, it would certainly be an invaluable resource for us Legion fans!

But as it stands, this was probably the most entertaining and imaginatively illustrated of Mortimer's tenure to date. Aside from the stand-out psychedelic sequence, I thought he did good work on the characters' facial features and hairstyles. He wasn't far off from Swan in that regard, imo.

Speaking of the drug exposure, I toyed with the idea that maybe it was the cause of the Legionnaires' misbehavior. Certainly, another well-trodden LSH trope, aside from the one Cobie mentions that is more apt to this tale, is that of Legionnaires behaving badly due to some outside influence (such as the recent Thora tale). But as I read on and took in the clues, everything slowly pointed to the other trope. That said, the sequence where Superboy apparently endangers the child by withholding aid seemed like the ruse was being taken too far. I know Kal wouldn't have let the baby perish, but this seemed a fair bit over the line.

I wouldn't classify this as a particularly strong Shooter story, but I do like how he kind of touches on youth culture. On one hand, he acknowledges drug culture with the "mind-expanding" chemicals. On the other hand he exposes what every generation's adults (especially after "the greatest generation") seem to fear from the youth--that they are too materialistic and only out for themselves. It's not the most deft handling of the idea, but again there's that subtext that I really have noticed a lot in Shooter's Legion stories. It's always appreciated by this reader.

I do agree with CK and CB that this could have been extended into a really nice 2-parter like others that Shooter wrote. You're absolutely right that Modo and Modulus were potentially great concepts that could have been developed and explored. Honestly, lots of writers, past or present, rarely show as much imagination as even those displayed in Shooter's throwaway concepts!

Otherwise, I really wish that Condo got more than a cameo in the story. He's notorious for being under-utilized in his comparatively brief tenure as a Legionnaire and then getting killed off. But I do appreciate that his appearance is set up by several allusions to Duo Damsel's mysterious mission, rather than his just being a maguffin. It also shows the complexity of all the elements of Brainy's plan, something we don't see enough with his usage.

Overall, warts and all, this might be the best of the 5 post-Swan Legion stories so far.

While it's true that I posted the above review, it was merely a re-post of Cobalt Kid's review in case anyone missed it. His words, so credit where it's due.

Its seems like everyone's immediate reaction at the end of the story is going to be "...uh, so what the hell was Modulus?" I also pictured him as a Mogo type sentient, which could have ended up being an awesome Legion villain to return to. It's a shame this was never picked up on in later decades, especially by Paul "mine the past for gold" Levitz.

PS - glad to see the Archives 9 thread . I'll probably end up posting a review of the first Archives 10 story at the tail end of it. Ain't got no time to keep track of all that.

Yeah, the picture near the end clearly depicts a dude being overwhelmed by the paralyzing rays, so Modulus was a person. Even then, it would be interesting to see whether it was some power of his or some symbiotic relationship with the planet or some sophisticated technology he was controlling. In any case it would have been interesting to learn more.



Nice to see ya here, pal. Hopefully, more will pop in than just you, myself and CB. Now, if I can just get you to write that essay I was expecting on that "It's a Wonderful Life!" thread on Anywhere....

I'll chime in towards the weekend, if not actually in it.

I'm wanting to chime in, but need to get the Archives purchased on eBay.

Sorry I won't be participating in the Archives 9 re-read, Lardy. But if I can get myself to do it, I might post something about the story that deals with Matter-Eater Lad's family life.

Please do when the time time comes, as that was a hidden gem of a story. But then many of the Action stories are suprisingly good and feature some nice moments of characterization.

Yeah, Fickles....I wish you'd read along a story at a time and share your thoughts, positive or negative. Some of them might even surprise you in a good way. Plus, the time commitment is minimal with so many of these being shorties.

Lardy, Colossal Boy, you guys have convinced me.

I may lag behind a week or two while I finish reading A Distant Soil, plus I've got the Hulk re-read still going. But I'll chime in as much as I can.

Awww...thanks, Lardy. And I return the love.

I'm glad Fanfie is on board.

This story is another of those in which a series of complicated, bizarre, out-of-character actions is used for the sake of plot/drama, when a much simpler solution would have worked. I mean, couldn't the Legion have just borrowed or exchanged for the various currencies they needed, rather than disrupting people's lives and livelihoods while earning a mercenary reputation for themselves in the process? Couldn't they have found another way to bait the thieves and get their spaceship onto Modulus? Couldn't a few Legionnaires have disguised themselves and landed the ship? That 2960s Brainy sure came up with some kooky ideas...perhaps they all really were affected by the mind-expanding gas.

Quip of the ish:
Karate Kid: "Zowie! This has driving the old, dull computerized air-car way beat all hollow!"

Thanks, LT. I've already dug out the fourth LSH Showcase volume and everything.

I re-read 377 earlier today. Some random thoughts:

--The opening psychedelic scene is well designed, but it has absolutely nothing to do with the rest of the story. Like Lardy (I think), I was primed to expect it to be a contributor to the Legion's aberrant behavior, but this doesn't happen. It's not the first Legion story to begin with a non sequitur, and it's well done for what it is, but I found it distracting.

--It does, however, introduce psychedelic themes and imagery into the book, which a lot of comics were doing in those days. I imagine this was an attempt to reconnect with youthful readers.

--A more successful attempt, I think, was one Cobie pointed out, which is the generation gap and the alleged materialism of youth. There is something disconcerting about Superboy saying things like, "... we can't stop the crimewave ... so why knock ourselves out trying?" A bit of laziness as well as materialism? The fact that the public turns against the Legion probably connected with how a lot of teenagers felt at the time.

--As others have pointed out, though, Shooter does a masterful job of planting clues to keep us caring about the Legionnaires: their pained reactions to the public outcry and allusions to DD's mission. There's an ambiguity in these scenes, particularly the former, which leave you wondering what, in KK's words, truly is at stake.

--Duo Damsel has absolutely nothing to do except serve as Chem's chaperone. She could have been replaced by a server droid or a deep-space message sent to recall Chem.

--The Legion's scheme certainly is wonky. They're lucky that the only criminals who took advantage of their absence chose to rob banks and mug pedestrians. Where were all the murderers, rapists, and saboteurs? The team took a huge gamble with the lives of millions of people in order to shut down Modo.

--I got it that Modulus was simply a guy in an "imperial palace" who possessed some kind of technology which gave the appearance that he had control over the entire planet. I'm fine with that. I really don't need to know anything more about him or how his scheme worked. This guys is an afterthought, really. The focus of the story is kept on the Legionnaires.

--Overall, not one of my favorite stories but a fairly competent and imaginative one for its time.

Good point. It didn't even dawn on me until reading your post, but couldn't they have simply went behind the scenes and borrowed whatever they needed through Brande? Also something else I just realized - Brainy's plan is very much a Rube Goldberg device.

That scene does lead the reader (as noted by HWW and Paladin) to falsely assume the drugs were the reason for the Legionnaires' change of behavior. It was intended as a red herring, and it works.

The Legion needed a plausible reason for criminals to attack their cruiser and take their loot back to Modo. If they had simply borrowed the money, they wouldn't have had enough reason to "turn greedy" and abandon earth. Their scheme rested on the loot sitting out there in space and waiting for thieves to snatch it.

(Of course, the whole scheme would have collapsed if the thieves had decided to take it somewhere else. There must be other safe havens for criminals out there in space besides Modo. Previous stories had even introduced a few.)

I suppose they could have borrowed some of the high-end currency, but the contradiction in their actions might have leaked and undermined their scheme. (Why borrow money if you're going to extort it?)

What I would like to have seen, however, is some indication that Mon-El, Ultra Boy, and other Legionnaires were there in the background, "invisibly" making sure criminals did not go too far as I suggested above.

There would be any number of ways to get the word into the criminal community that there was a ship loaded with treasure. And the ship would have been an easier target if no one knew the Legion had planted it. But then, that just wouldn't make a very interesting story.

There probably could have been more logical ways to get the money into space. However, the scheme works precisely because the Legion got a lot of publicity by charging for their services and hoarding their profits aboard their ship. In this respect, I think the story works quite well.

And I could set my neighborhood ablaze in order to get the fire department to come inspect my fire alarm. Newsworthy story but immensely poor judgment.

Well, if the goal is to shut down a major terrorist organization and you have the means to reimburse your neighbors (while making sure none of them actually get hurt) . . .

As I mentioned in my initial post, the Legionnaires do gamble a lot with people's lives (not to mention property, emotional well-being and feelings of security), so, in that respect, the story doesn't hold up so well.

To sum up, I think the scheme is quite brilliant if one doesn't consider the broader ramifications (which Shooter apparently didn't).

That moment with Brainy could provide an in-story explanation of the starting point for his erratic behavior throughout the next decade of stories.

Who knows what acid flashbacks would do to a Coluan? Probably explains the Supergirl robot.

Adventure #377
Luke Cage & Danny Rand journey to the 30th...ah, wrong Heroes for Hire. The splash page adds nothing that couldn't have been on the cover.

I've always liked the first sighting of Modulus. Seemingly something that controlled the entire planet. I wonder if Moore styled Mogo the planetary Green Lantern after this and Ego.
No one bats an eyelid that the UP conducts experiments in mind control drugs. Whatever could they want them fo...oh, where was I?

Was Brainy's exposure, where he was "losing my mind" the real start of his mental breakdown? What happens when you expand a mind like that? Superboy's invulnerability makes him forever square.

The Science Police's Interrogator is chilling. The thought police have truly arrived. The panel where it's just Imra standing behind the device has been dropped from my copy.

The captured crook leads the Legion directly to Modo. But how can they get there? It has Kryptonite (like everywhere else in what must have been some explosion). It has hostages so Bomb Boy is not called up for membership once again.

With the Legion seemingly taking a back seat to fighting the crooks from Modulus, it's interesting to note that Karate Kid is considered the least likely to do nothing, along side Superboy. Pretty much shows where KK was in the writer's estimation. Although KK forgot to use a flight ring to get away from a mob a few pages later.

Ah, Leland McCauley. Seemingly forced out of his money before Superboy would save him. A long held grudge against the Legion starts here. Still the panel of Superboy saving the cruiser just above the ocean is a very nice one.

No pressure on the Legion. Just uphold law, order, freedom and justice to the death for no reward. Meanwhile McCauley rakes in cash. Even in the future all crime needs is the thought that the perpetrator can get away with it,. In this case to Modo. It would seem that every civilisation still needs a monetary system in the future too. It looks as though the Legion were the only ones ever working for nothing. With all that money around for everyone else, why should the youngsters risk so much for nothing?

Interesting to see how far Superboy would take Brainy's plan. Clark really revelled in his role pretending to be a selfish villain. Reminds me of another Superboy. Fortunately, Jeckie and Val show a more regretful edge to the Legion's fall from grace. Brainy even calls it an operation, just in case there's any doubt that the Legion have something in store for Modo.

I've no idea how the crooks from Modo knew where the Legion stashed their earnings, but fnd it they do...and attack. A small shuttle is scanned departing the ship for Tatooine Modo.

Chemical King is wheeled on for a few panels to implement Brainy's plan and it's all over for Modo and Modulus. I guess Jan wasn't around to go with Condo, and they had to instead make all those intricate money plans. The leader of Modo looks menacing, and possibly plugged into the planet.

In the last panel, Karate Kid realises he'll have to marry Jeckie if he wants to keep living the good life. A twist to their relationship?

I like the theory you guys have of Brainy's mental problems in the 70's being partially caused by super-acid flashbacks!

The Infinite Man even looks like he's an acid trip, which is surely why Brainy used him in Levitz run even later!

I'm reminded of a Legion v Universo story (Baxter I guess) where Brainy freaks out because his mind has been tampered with. So, with something truly mind changing as per this issue...

Adventure #378

Adv. #378 has been one of my favorite Legion stories since I first actively began exploring LSH history; I can remember being mesmerized when I read it at age 13 or whatever--so much so that on the original read I actually finished and reread it again! Those feelings still stand front and center in my brain, so there's a good chance I'll overlook any bad qualities and focus on just how awesome this issue is.

First, even though he's barely in the issue, I love the idea of Alek Korlo, the poisoner. Someone the Legion doesn't see coming, who is out there plotting their demise, and is clever enough and patient enough, to do it. Now THAT is scary! Especially since any one of us can hold that very same fear for ourselves. When you get in your car tonight or walk home from work, just remember that your Alek Korlo is probably watching.

But to get to the heart of why I love it, it comes down to two things: an incredibly emotional and personal issue for the five Legionnaires (complete with extreme Silver Age melodrama) and a fantastic pacing / structure to the issue. On the latter, it is very much a straight forward approach, with an opening and then each of the five getting a scene which repeats over and over, and then an end. But it's effective and it builds suspense. The ending itself is fantastic, with the Legionnaires actually dying (!) and Brainy having a last minute idea, then running to find it, and then unable to do it. Korlo then emerges from the shadows, still a mystery, very much in the vein of Hitchcock or Wait Until Dark or so many other shadowy, scary scenes from 60's cinema. AND THEN (!) -- time stops, and things go in a totally different direction! I've read the next part many times and I'm still chomping at the bit to follow up on this ending! All in all, this is a job well done.

Meanwhile, the other element that I like is the personal side of things, which is a great treat to see. I love how we see Superboy casually walk down the street of Smallville and shake people's hands...people who probably have been admiring him for years now. I love Luornu and her parents, making her even more of the girl next door. I love Brainy's endless determination to find a solution.

I also love the Myron Marks scene, and the character has always stuck out to me as unforgettable. When Lash, Eryk, Teeds and others starting really delving into LSH history for threads and in-jokes, and Myron Marks was a part of that, I thought it was great. I'd have loved to see him again, one more time--after Val had died and Sensor Girl was revealed. Perhaps Jeckie was finally getting over Val's death but couldn't escape the guilt that comes with that; perhaps Myron had a few more words for her again. (Or perhaps the reverse, and this time she helps him?).

And of course, the Karate Kid sequence here is what made the young me say "dammit, Karate Kid is my favorite!" It's clear to me now how Shooter has played favorites with Val, and how this just puts it over the top. But as a young boy, Val was the epitome of a warrior and a hero, and the idea of not waiting for death but dying in battle was like the ultimate masculine ideal. And then he goes and beats them but doesn't actually die, and he's even more of the man. I still feel that way now, even when I can see all the holes in that logic. That rugged bravado is just appealing.

I've always loved this issue, and this reread only reconfirmed it.

When I saw you'd read this one, I went ahead and read it, too, and just finished it. It was definitely another hidden gem among Shooter's run and easily tops my previous crowning of 377 in its short-lived run as the best of the post-Swan era.

This is in spite of this issue being pretty much the most damning evidence yet in the Mary Sue trial of Karate Kid. If there was any doubt to this point, it's pretty apparent that val was Shooter's Mary Sue character. But you know what? Who can blame him? If I were a teenager writing super-hero comics, I'm pretty sure I would have Mary Sue'd myself into the adventures I wrote! And the scene is pretty damned clever as the Five help to defeat themselves by assuming KK was merely the bait in a larger Legion trap. I think if all Mary Sues were as cleverly and excitedly done as Shooter did Val, then we'd all be wearing Terry Long shirts and getting perms!

Thanks for the spoiler, btw, as to the poisoner's identity! Guess I should have read 379 as well when I realized it was a 2-parter before reading your review! I'm glad, though, that it wasn't Myron Marks, as the story seems to set up with his apparent random naming and late-issue appearance. I'm delighted that he's what he appears to be. It'll be interesting to learn more about the poisoner next issue, though.

The simple coolness of this issue is yet another reminder of how poorly I remember these stories from when I originally read them in the '90s when I purchased the Archives. I think I approached them with the wrong mindset and tended to pay more attention to the "bigger", more "significant" and "milestone" type stories.

Shooter particularly really wrote a ton of terrific Legion stories, far beyond the ones that always get mentioned on the "best of" lists. I think the work he did deepening the Legionnaires' characters really helped make the eventual revival possible as much or more than any other factor.

I loved all the personal touches with the "doomed" Legionnaires that Cobie mentions. Also, I liked the moments with Luornu and her self-doubt. Though some may criticize this as weakening and cheapening her as a "girl" character, it just strikes me as being incredibly real. Having doubts about her worth to a team spilling over with power is something that everyone can relate to in some way in their own real life contexts. A moment like this and her big scene during the Mordu story may feel like cheap shots, but I just adore them--especially knowing that she's NOT weak at all where in counts. It just helps make me adore the character, truly.

It strikes me again, however, that the story would have worked better without Superboy being among the poisoned. (I like that the ramifications to the time stream/history are finally mentioned by Brainy, though, for once. I've criticized other stories for ignoring this.) You know he grows up to be Superman, so the suspense is lessened...well, you know, unless he's actually from a pocket dimension.... I also think Superboy would not have returned to the 30th century and would have spent all of his last moments in Smallville. This is especially so because none of them knew brainy was working on a cure. But I liked his choice to perform heroic acts 'til the end. That's definitely something he'd do, though I think more likely in his own time.

I was actually surprised to turn the third-to-last page and see the story was continued! When Brainy said "Miracle Machine", I totally expected the eye-rolling deus ex machina to save the day, Myron Marks revealed as the poisoner and some kind of one-panel laugh a la Star Trek. I was very pleasantly surprised!

Sorry for the spoiler, Lardy. I sometimes forget that it's not common knowledge how every story ends. I wish I could say you'll love what we learn about the poisoner, but...well, we'll all see soon enough.

I have to say, I never once considered Myron Marks as the poisoner. Now that you say it, it actually makes a lot of sense from a narrative perspective that he would be revealed as such. I still love his walk on role, as I pointed out above. But I'm kind of kicking myself for not considering that!

I've also spent many periods trapped in the mode of overlooking the small, well-told stories in my rush to look at the ones that were milestones or had more far reaching effects. In fact, I'd say the last 5-10 years of all of my comic book reading has been an attempt to rectify that, and really give credit to stories like this one. Especially in light of the industry that now tries so hard to make every story matter more than anything else, and therefore almost always dooms it to actually not matter much at all anymore. This is all a typically long winded way of coming to my point: I really love when we do these rereads, on both LSH and other things.

And great comments on Luornu, which really explain her appeal. Agree totally.

Ps - I will definitely checking out your comments in the ASM thread when I can dedicate some real time to them, as that is the single period in all of comics history I love most. And I also finally discovered your Its a Wonderful Life thread after honestly just missing its existence for weeks! I will eventually respond there too. Today I'm snowed in with the kids...

I know watcha mean. I read 379 shortly after making the above post because I really wanted to see how it turned out--plus I wanted to avoid more spoilers because i realized that spoilers in reviews of part 1 for events to come in part 2 aren't really all that uncommon in these re-read threads. No big deal....especially considering the lack of any real pay-off on him in part 2....



Honestly, with the poisoner's features shrouded as they were, I still can't help but wonder if Shooter had intended Myron to be the culprit but then changed his mind or something. Like you, I'm glad he wasn't!



Absolutely! I'm really kind of pissed at myself for overlooking these stories in the past but grateful to have LW and this project to rectify that!



Look forward to your comments on both! I'll just bet we'll have a huge back-and-forth over Spidey! The funny thing about the IaWL thread is I saw where you'd clicked on it via the LW "Who's Online" feature the very day I created it, so I guess you forgot about it. (Too much G&T? ) I mean, it's one of those topics that practically had "Cobie bait" written all over it!

Adventure Comics #378

It's the Quintet of Super-Heroes! The main heroes of the previous story return as the focus of this one as well. Here the high sympathy level for our dying heroes serves to wash away any lingering memories of them as mercenaries.

Overall, a good story as Cobie and Lardy have explicated so well.

In the Legion Outpost for this issue, a reader suggests that, now that readers have elected the Legion's leader (Ultra Boy) for the first time, it should become an annual tradition. The editors agree and open the polls for the next election.

Sidetracking for a moment, so Ultra Boy was the first leader elected by the Legion? I always figured that Invisible Kid was the first. If Lyle was not, then how did he end up being leader. Was that totally Shooter's doing? Maybe Lyle was originally the character Shooter really wanted to focus on and so made him leader. But then eventually Lyle got dropped like a rock when Shooter decided to go all-Val all the time.

But seriously anybody know how Lyle of all Legionnaires ended up as leader? Just curious since he was one of my favorites from the Adventure era.

Sorry. I've fallen behind on this again. Adv. 376 through 380 were a low point in Legion history imho, with the exception of #379 which I thought was pretty good. Adv. 377's letters:

378

RE Invisible Kid as leader, this is from Adv. 346:

Adventure 378

The cover shows that even nearing death, Superboy is still a super show off. Use some future-paper if your finger is hurt!

A robed figure claims the Legionnaires fate on the splash page. The Time Trapper must be livid it's not him. "Oh, anyone can have a green robe and a scythe. >sob<" No doubt the Trapper gets his revenge by replacing this version of death with a hip Gaiman version for the reprints.

Jeckie and Val hold hands on the splash, while Lu is once again on the wrong side of Kal. She just can't get a break.
It's Brainy's birthday, and they celebrate by getting him to do things for them, like play the Lumna-organ. Sure, Brainy palys it down by pretending to like it as a gift. But it's another step in his decline.

Mockers of the lumna-organ may not be aware of Jean Michel Jarre being inspired to create his laser organs, following a Saturn Girl trip to the 1980s.

Ah, Kono juice! Who would have thought the straight laced Coluans were actually just focused looking to avoid falling down drunk. A toast to Coluan elephant hunting! Ivory cups? Could Colu be a cautionary tale of a civilisation killing every other creature, turning their world into a cold selfish place?

It's a little disturbing that in this futuristic society, Brainy knows to check for poison. It's little things like this, Interrogating thought reading machines and mind altering research institutes that gives the Legion a much darker edge in Adventure.

How to spend your last hours? Why, drawing diagrams to explain simple concepts to your colleagues!

Shooter tipped his hand by having Brainy make such a big deal of poisoning. This resulted in having a bloated explanation of why Superboy didn't spot it. The simpler, unexpected poisoning would have been a better option. Besides Superboy's vision should have been alerted to the presence of things in the drink he couldn't see through.
The team accept that there's no cure for Rakurga poison. Bear in mind it's the deadliest poison in the universe, and our antagonist managed to lace it with lead lined, kryptonite filled capsules (get yours from your local candy store today!)

"I'd like us to face death together, as we have so many times in the past!" says Brainy. Of the five, later interpretations would make him the least likely character to say these touching words.

Perhaps it's an good example of the true depth of his feelings (see also Lyle, Kara and Laurel) and how he views his colleagues. Perhaps it's simply because we know he won't give up, and needs the others to return later. Either way, it reinforces a lot of Brainy's character. Brainy accepts his own fate. But it's the fate of countless others (through time travelling Super-implications) that gets him fighting. A touch of great heroism from Brainy.

Superboy takes time to notice the detail of Smallville. He does this by walking. A few poignant panels here unfortunately led to a pathetic, long winded Superman storyline decades later.

Overcome with feelings towards his friends and family in Smallville, Superboy throws himself into super deeds in the future. A hero to the last.

Meanwhile Luornu spends her time remote leching on Superboy. Feeling that writer-pushed self pity that would eventually take her out of the team with Bouncing Boy, she spends some time with her family, without telling them why. Apart from (and possibly because of) that, it's a lovely scene and you can see why people care so much about Lu. From one of the coolest looking future cars, to the little family moments to the reminder that the Legion are on duty, not just turning up for super heroics.

Karate Kid tries to be moody and mope, but knows that he has people who care for him. Like Superboy, his last hours are to be spent doing heroic deeds. But unlike his Kryptonian pal, Val goes up against huge odds, essentially committing martial suicide.

Like Lu's car, we see some more cool vehicles in the experimental Legion warp ships called a blast buggy.

Following some Adams (?) ads for Superman comics that no sane reader could ever leave on a rack unread...

This has to be one of Karate Kid's finest moments. He takes on the Fatal Five single handed. As much as Shooter likes the character, he doesn't get carried away. Practically generations of later writers would insist of having their pet favourite characters dominate any scene to the detriment of every character around them.

Kid is out of his depth and fighting them to a draw, and wrecking their base, is an amazing achievement. As so often in the years to come, Mano is taken out first. But the other villains come out looking as menacing as always, and are forced to retreat by the environment rather than Karate Kid.

Val's wish to die in battle in the Adventure run would come back to haunt him once Giffen got anywhere close to him.
Jeckie creates illusions in her depression, but is cheered up by park stalker park philosopher (and Legion fan fav) Myron Marks.

They return to the base as Brainy asked. But disturbingly, there's no cure. This is a story that's going somewhere different. The dedication to duty that the legionnaires have, extends to them bequeathing their belongings to the organisation (and a personal force belt gift to Lyle from Querl, keeping their bromance alive - unlike Lyle later when he could have really used the belt.)

As the heroes begin to succumb, Brainy remembers the miracle machine. A gift from the controllers that could change anything. A deus ex machina for new readers, but a nice follow through from earlier issues.

But Shooter's not through with us at all. The next twist is that it's encased in Inertron and Superboy has just collapsed! It's all over as Brainy too falls unconscious.

The mysterious villain (who reminds me of Chemical King from his first couple of panels) responsible ignores the HQ alarms. No one is capable of stopping him (apart from the usual host of members who are off elsewhere. This is a story written perfectly for Swan).

Shooter tips his hand that all five are still breathing when time stops. Was that robed figure from the first page actually the Trapper after all? Of course not.

But what is going on? It's a left field cliffhanger just panels after the villainous reveal that wasn't cliff-hanger. All the more impressive as Shooter has already raised a few solutions only to have them fail.

There's a good mix of action, suspense and personal scenes in this issue, all executed with purpose and at a clipping pace. A pace that allows for several twists along the way.

I enjoyed re-reading 378, too. If one accepts the premise of the five heroes being poisoned and deciding how to spend their final 12 hours, the story holds up very well.

The premise itself is a very good one, and is something that everyone in law enforcement or national security would be concerned about. In the modern era of anthrax poisoning, it should resonate with everyone.

The logical side of my brain, however, wonders why the Legionnaires accepted their fate so quickly. Why didn't they call in the other Legionnaires to assist Brainy in finding a cure? Why didn't they reach out and contact scientists from every world they knew of for a cure? Why didn't Brainy or one of the others think of the Miracle Machine sooner?

The emotional side of my brain feels a connection with the Legionnaires, however. Who wouldn't wonder how to spend their final hours if told they were told they were dying? At first, I find it hard to believe that both Kal and Lu would not tell their parents--instead, the former just disappears from their 20th century lives while the latter waits for someone else to inform her parents after it's too late. A bit cowardly, perhaps, but understandable given their young ages and the limited time they have to do anything about the situation.

Conveniently, the other three Legionnaires are either orphans or their parents are too distant to be informed. Brainy and Val keep busy in the only way they can: by searching for a cure and fighting, respectively. Jeckie tries to distract herself with illusions and movies; finally, a kind word from a stranger convinces her to accept what she cannot change. I think her quiet scene is my favorite, and one of the most mature bits of writing I've seen from Shooter.

Of course, Val gets to be the action guy who ultimately fails in his quest to die in battle. But he does give the entire Fatal Five a run for their money. That's something.

And, finally, the end comes with the five Legionnaires succumbing together. Both the logical and emotional sides of my brain would have liked to see this scene go a little further. Perhaps Lu confesses her feelings for Kal. Perhaps Val and Jeckie spend a quiet moment affirming their love for each other. Alas, the end comes too quickly, too suddenly, and without resolution--just as it often does in real life.

But this isn't the end. Our mysterious bad guy enters and gloats over his handiwork, and then . . . time stops!

Well, you know it would have to be a cliffhanger. The Legionnaires can't go out like this, though I almost wish they had. It would have been a much more interesting sequel if the rest of the Legionnaires had discovered their murdered comrades and then scoured the galaxy for their killer than 379 would turn out to be. However, what is delivered up to this point is a very poignant, thoughtful, and mature tale of people facing their final hours.

Win Mortmer's art has its ups and downs, but I think his style fits the mood of this story well. His art has a Ditko-esque feel to it--shadowy and somber, even noirish. He also draws a very lovely Lu, as in the panel in which she raises her chalice to Brainy.

Rakurga: sometimes I wonder where writers get these things.


Usually I can find it with google. Shooter might have made it up. I found a writer who used it after, in 1989 but it was two words, referring to a place.

I wonder if that writer was a Legion fan.

Adventure 379

A shocking Superboy burial at space cover with the upset Lyle and Salu. Lyle's particularly upset as he's probably just launched out Brainy before Superboy, but that wouldn't sell so many copies. Nice to see that cultist representatives keep up with future fashions too.

The splash page and the actual story don't quite go in tandem. Our mysterious poisoned form last issue was himself frozen in time. Here, we see that the being responsible is an alien. Our heroes are frozen on the point of death.
The alien is one of the Seerons. Of course their universe is much more advanced. Yet, it takes it's time explaining that it wasn't responsible for the poisoning; shows how advanced it is by making a casual threat to annihilate the world and blackmails the Legion into helping it. Not exactly benevolent.

We get a brief history of the intellectual Seerons. Oddly the Seeron who's stopped time for the poisoned Legionnairres goes home for a rest. I wonder how his power keeps going.

Anyway, we get enough to just about separate the Seerons from Doctor Who's Sensorites. Then the story takes a bit of a dip. It's a bit of an obvious Brains versus Brawn scenario as the Seerons are threatened by their overly physical invaders.

Ultra Boy is very much the leader as he marshals the Legion into plotting against the invaders using nifty 3D holo maps. Rather than combat the entity responsible for sending the invaders, a being that would have to have intelligence to do so, the Legion focus on the invasion itself.

Another option would be to get the oh so smart Seerons to design and build some super weapons. But that's strangely off the agenda too. Perhaps their mighty intellects no longer have a creative spark to them.

The burden of leadership weighs heavily with Ultra Boy. He shares a moment with Tinya, where he wonders what he'd do without her. Just the little nugget the 5YG guys would pick up and run with.

Nothing starts off a campaign more than a good sleep and being cleansed with radiation first thing in the morning. Just ignore the unsightly tumours after prolonged use.

Starboy indulges in some casual racism as he can't tell the Seerons apart, and then it's off to the battle! It doesn't go well for the Legion. One of the invaders is shown as intelligent, which is more than can be said for Tinya as she's knocked out having forgotten to use her powers.

Meanwhile, back at the Legion ranch, we get the link to the cover and splash page. Lyle and Salu discover the five dying Legionnaires. Since no one thought to leave a note (on future paper let alone etched into a giant steel block) they just assume that they are all dead.

No ceremony on Shanghalla for these guys. Still, it could have been worse. They could have been launched into a sun which would have made for a bit of embarrassed feet shuffling later on.

Worried about protecting Tinya, Jo opts for a defensive fortress, ignores his scouting to have a chat and is useless in battle while worrying about her. All the whiny Jo moments in the 5YG run have some origins here. He snaps out of it and helps out his friends, including the for once utilised Chemical King.

In the end the Legion's best plan is just to have hordes of the Seerons engage in the war themselves. While this may have involved some strategy form the Legion, on the page it just looks like a massive brawl.

While the story's message is supposed to be that both mental and physical aspects are just as important. I take from it that the best way to counter violence is with more violence, preferably with greater numbers or better weapons.

The Seerons cure all within the Legion HQ of every infirmity. But again, the Seerons aren't as benevolent as they seem. Perhaps it was all the "Egg Head" comments. Their cure only applies to Lyle and Salu, as the others have already been launched into space. They really are dead. Uh oh. Embarrassed feet shuffling.

Fortunately there's a miracle machine in the basement that cures the Legion and helps the writer out of a tight spot. I had been expecting the legion to have been returned to moments after the burial and save their friends as they breathed the last of the air in their coffins. Even that has Seeron related issues, but anything's better than the Miracle Machine.

Alek Korla is revealed to be the mystery villain who poisoned the others. Who he? He's apparently a minor crook, yet managed to get the most deadly poison in the galaxy. But why investigate? If anything else happens there's that machine in the basement.

The second part had a very clunky central message, and neither the Seerons or their invaders got my sympathy. Jo was whiny over Tinya. Although it was part of his development here, it's stuck with him. Chemical King came out best and there are a few nice personal moments such as Brin's apparent snoring.

Lyle's great health lasted up until his sudden death. Validus didn't seem to be impressed at the resilience of the vertebrae he was crushing though. Salu's mental health lasted until her spell in a sens-tank. Perhaps the Seerons helped give her the force of will to come through it as well as she did. Physically she would go onto lose an eye and a leg.

Nice summary, Thoth. Just a couple of points from me. 1. The Miracle Machine didn't cure the 5 Legionnaires. It only brought them back to the clubhouse in time to be cured by the Seerons' thought spell thingy. Jo says it couldn't have saved them if they had really been dead.

2. I had Adv. 379 for several years before I got 378 and it always bothered me that at the opening of 379, the 5 heroes are found together, whereas at the end of Adv. 378, Brainy is off in the basement in another part of the new sizeable hq, collapsed over the rather obvious clue of the Miracle Machine. So how did he get regrouped with the others? Alek Korlo wouldn't have had the time or even known where to look for him. And if Vi and Lyle had found Brainy over the MM, Shirley they would've used it to revive them. I suppose the lead Seeron could've tidied the 5 back together into a neat little bundle, but why would he bother? It seems to me, the story would've been better served if Brainy's mad dash for the MM had been deleted.

Well my 13 volume set of Legion Archives arrived so now I can join the rest of you in these re-reads. Yet, I don't need the Archives to chime in on this issue, it's one of the original Adventure Comics that i obtained from my older brother's comic collection years ago....

The cover of Adventure #379 has always been one of my favorites from this era. Of interest on the cover is the use of the Bible for the funeral ceremony. I like the idea that religion, and especially Christianity, still plays a role in life 1,000 years in the future. Back in 1969 the Bible still played a more prominent role in contemporary culture. If the cover were redesigned for a comic in 2015 I wonder what religious heritage would be utilized if any.

I am amazed that Ultra Boy didn't video chat with other remaining Legionnaires out on missions not to enter Legion headquarters and remove the bodies of their comrades before they were healed lest they should die. I guess the concept of an iPad or iPhone let alone holographic messaging were beyond the scope of Jim Shooter's imagination back then. But alas, if they had gotten ahold of Invisible Kid and Shrinking Violet we wouldn't have gotten this memorable cover.

Seeron culture has always intrigued me from this issue. The Seerens remind me of Dr. Morphea from Atari Force. She also came from a mentally advanced culture. Since the mental capabilities of the Seerens and the physical abilities of the Legion were unable to stop the onslaught of the invaders, then it seems implausible that the brute force of the Seeren populace could take them down as Ultra Boy plans it out. The plan feels more like Shooter was running out of space and had to resolve things fast...(a similar complaint leveled against Levitz in many of his vol. 7 stories).

Another gimmick is the use of the Miracle Machine to save the day. I'm glad later writers got rid of it. It's a too easy fix for too many problems.

I enjoyed seeing Ultra Boy as Legion Leader, and regret that none of the Legion writers in the Origional/Retroboot eras ever got his dream of marrying Phantom Girl to come true.

This was a classic Legion story and fun to reread.

Adventure #379

Adv #379, the follow up to the awesome #378, starts out with a lot of promise, but as so often is the case, can't quite stick the landing. Yet, in a weird way it tells one good story while screwing up another.

The major problem is that the promise of the prior issue is never fulfilled, and we never really get any satisfactory follow up to the 5 dying Legionnaires and Alek Korlo. Even worse, the awful Miracle Machine provides the worst cop-out yet for a convenient ending. It's a frustrating end to the last two issues.

Yet, the main part of this issue isn't bad. On the surface, the story of the Seerons and their invaders is a pretty interesting sci-fi story that features a nice array of Legionnaires. It is a little cliche, but it features a very nice ending / message about standing up for yourself and recognizing power of a large group of people who at first feel powerless.

In practice, there are more than a few misfires though, such as Jo feeling he need to protect Tinya (though at least he overcomes it), Condo's temporary power usage to gain super strength and the overly snide nicknames for the nameless Seerons that the Legionnaires give. Alone, all these things could be tolerable. Combined, they get pretty annoying.

I did enjoy the usage of Ultra Boy though, as we see him struggle with being leader and then showcase how great a leader he actually can be in the end. I also enjoyed seeing he and Tinya's romantic side, which we've hardly seen yet. A make out sesh in the dark hallway? Finally! These Legionnaires are hooking up and dammit, we want to see it!

So this one is a mixed bag with an ending that really falls flat. As we grow closer to the back-up era, you have to wonder how Shooter, who obviously struggled immensely with the full length format, must have been stressing out about an 8 page format.

Thanks for the info and that is very interesting. I don't see Mort making the call himself on who should have been the next leader. So I wonder if ENB or Shooter made the pick, or maybe they made the selection together. Either way right out of the gate Shooter writes for Lyle and writes strongly, so he must of at the least been supportive of Lyle being picked to be leader.

There's a trail of unfathomable "failure to communicate" in this story. The five poisoned Legionnaires don't bother to tell any other Legionnaires about their dilemma...other than writing their will on a steel tablet which no one finds. And as Leather Wolf points out, the second batch of Legionnaires don't bother to leave a message either. But one of the stupidest actions in Legion history is when Lyle and Salu discover the "dead" Legionnaires. Salu calls for an investigation (of course!) but Lyle (of all people) says, "Later! Hurry, let's bury their unexamined bodies in the void of space!" (slight paraphrase). In what universe does that make any sense?

But yes, it does create an opportunity for story tension and cool cover art.

That aside, one of my favorite moments in Legion stories is the "good-night" scene on Seeris. Cobie mentioned the Jo/Tinya interlude, but I liked even better Cham's line: "Hey...if you two want to neck, do it quietly, huh...it's tough enough to sleep with Timber Wolf's snoring, let alone that foghorn voice of yours, U Boy!" Such a good, succinct portrayal of the group's casual intimacy and friendly humor.

Yes, at the very least somebody could've left a note "Don't touch the bodies".

Even more unfathomable than the speed in which Invisible Kid wanted to bury them in deep space, is the breach of protocol in not allowing the other Legionnaires to come home from their missions so they all could mourn the dead and give them a proper Legion funeral. This is almost the only Legion funeral throughout the entire run where most Legionnaires are not there to pay their last respects.

Guys, who do you think hired Alek Korlo?

Tired of only ever being the second smartest to Querl; the second sneakiest to Reep and even distant to the Legion's almost non powered martial artist let alone the likes of Superboy.

A man with access to the most sensitive areas of UP research (see various Orwellian UP devices in Adventure) through his science and Legion connections. A man who could procure the galaxy's deadliest poison from those areas, literally, invisibly.

Yes, Lyle would use the tragic deaths of his fellows to reshape the Legion...

^ Yeah, that possibility did cross my mind.

This pretty much sums of my own thoughts on the issue. It's not as bad as I remembered and, in fact, is quite enjoyable. Of particular note is that the Legionnaires come across as real teens, with witty banter, insecurities, and showing off. Even the "Egghead" nickname, tactless though it was, seems to fit their youthful personalities.

(And the Seerons may not have understood the reference enough to be offended.)



It's interesting that Tinya is the only girl in the story to have a significant role. This setup magnifies Jo's protective feelings toward her, which are compounded by his insecurities as leader and ultimately coming through in the end. If anything, this issue provides a good showcase for Jo.

I'm not sure how Chem's boosting his own metabolism was a misfire. I thought it was a very good use of his power, and one with a dramatic limitation as he tells us: He can burn himself out very quickly.

In fact, the use of Chem in this issue touches on something I miss from Silver Age comics: working in scientific concepts to educate the reader. Chem's presence afforded the writer a great opportunity to do this; it's a shame subsequent writers weren't literate enough in chemistry, apparently, to follow through.



Yes! More Legionnaire hookups!



I think in some ways Shooter did better with the eight-page format, as he had less space to fill and could really focus on the messages he wanted to convey, and which he struggles to bring across here. The brains-are-as-important-as-brawn theme of 379 is very heavy handed and obvious (and wouldn't the Legionnaires have violated their code indirectly if the Seerons they encouraged to fight got killed while attacking the brutes?). On the other hand, one of the saving graces of the Action run is that he was able to bring such themes as drug addiction and alcoholism to the fore without having to keep track of so many characters and subplots in each issue. But we'll see if these stories hold up as well as I remember them.

Good point about the use of the Bible on the cover. It would probably be considered politically incorrect now, but it establishes immediately who the bald guy in the robe is.

What has always bothered me about the cover, though, is how Lyle's left arm just disappears behind the frame of the spaceship and matches up with what the suspended doohickey. I first saw this cover as a small, black and white version in "The Legion Handbook," and my initial impression was that Lyle had been drinking Elastic Lad's serum and for some reason had decided to stretch his arm outside the ship! Maybe he felt the need to give himself new powers, including invulnerability in space, to make up of the loss of Superboy.

Hah! I never noticed that about Lyle's arm before, HWW!

Who's first on the scene? Why, it's Lyle.
Who examines the "bodies"? Why, it's that man Lyle
Who takes along an introverted, seemingly uncertain person to accompany him and ask no questions? That Lyle's been busy.
Who suggests making quick arrangements for his teammates? Undertaker Lyle! That's who!
Who gives his colleagues a cheery wave when the return to find that the space funeral has already taken place. No-Remorse Norg, of course!

Behind the scenes:-
Lyle saw Condo spend some time with Brainy, setting off a jealousy fueled plan.
Alek Korlo spent his brief time in custody, babbling about being led by voices. Invisible voices of course. Korlo would commit suicide in his cell, which is why he's never heard form again. Was there someone there with him, covering up his tracks?


Yup, it all points to L...hey did you hear something...?

I really liked Chemical King's use of his powers for instant super boost. Interesting that Shooter revisited the concept in the creation of Gazelle during the 3boot (if we're allowed to talk about that in the same post).

I've been scanning the Legion's Action run and am looking forward to rereading that series, which I haven't done in decades. Trivia question: who is the only Legionnaire who doesn't appear in the Action run?

I dunno. Supergirl?

Would that be Lyle? He's referred to and there may be an image, but he doesn't appear.

I hope nobody minds if I get a jump on the next one.

Adventure 380: "The Legion's Space Odyssey"
I always have to separate in my mind the fact that this is the Legion's final Adventure issue from the actual story itself. It certainly doesn't read like a last issue. In fact, there is nothing extraordinary about it, except for the beginnings of the Chuck and Lu romance. As a story itself, it's fairly average outing with good qualities built upon a shaky premise.

Jim Shooter liked to work in a lot of things he was studying in school, and sometimes these subjects were integrated into Legion stories to great effect (such as the creation of Mano, whose name, of course, is Spanish for "hand"). Here, one imagines that Shooter had just studied Homer's epic The Odyssey, as there are obvious references to the literary work, and the story takes pains to provide the Legionnaires with a space journey of their own.

This setup is also reminiscent of 318's "The Mutiny of the Legionnaires," in which the Legionnaires are also stranded on alien worlds, encounter fantastic phenomena, and use their powers to survive.

But whereas the earlier story was built from a very realistic and serious premise (Sun Boy suffering from space fatigue), "Odyssey" is launched from the flimsiest of excuses. Superboy gets a dire warning from Dream Girl and spirits the Legionnaires away to a distant world. He then fakes his own death and makes his buddies go through a tortuous and dangerous trip so he could spare their lives from a pair of villains with a death ray.

Why Superboy had to go through this elaborate hoax isn't explained. Even if he couldn't tell the Legionnaires up front why he had to spirit them away from the HQ, there seems to be no reason why he couldn't have told them once they arrived on the distant world. And why go to the trouble of faking his own death? Fortunately, the Legionnaires don't seem to be too concerned about his passing--except for Lu, of course. They express their grief in the usual way: by taking time out to build an elaborate monument to their fallen hero and comrade. Then it's business as usual: Find a way to survive and get back home.

If I were a Legionnaire, I'd be pissed at Superboy once I learned the truth. But the Legionnaires were so used to playing hoaxes on one another, it probably didn't matter to them that he ran their emotions through the ringer without good cause.

In between Superboy's faked death and the reveal at the end, the odyssey itself is fairly well done, as the Legionnaires rely on each other, their powers, and scientific knowledge to build a spaceship and escape from the world on which they are marooned. Ultra Boy, like last issue, comes to the fore and is well utilized. He uses his ultra strength to hurl the Legion's ship into space and then later through a dimensional barrier. Since the Legion didn't have time to pack spacesuits, Jo is the only one who can leave the ship to fend off a meteor and then, later, to tag along on a rope while the ship passes through the dimensional barrier. (Of course, why he didn't think to do this the first time instead of sending the ship into space also remains unexplained.)

Jo's single-handed heroics eclipse the other members, but each has something to contribute to the story. Even Lu gets to hunt for food. (But isn't killing against the Legion's code? Oops!)

So, the Legion's struggle for survival and journey through space are fairly well done. I just wish they had been built upon a more solid foundation. When even the Super-Pets have to get involved to maintain the hoax, it undercuts the purpose of it all.

I keep putting off commenting on 379, so I better chime in now before the 380 talk heats up!

The main point I wanted to make was that even though 379 is a fairly disappointing as a resolution to 378, it does work pretty well as it's own, almost-but-not-completely-separate story in much the same way as Cham's adventure on Elwinda's world in 376 for me a few issues.

In fact, I almost think that Shooter set up the previous issue the way that he did so that he could follow up with another almost Superboy-free issue, just as he did with Cham's adventure. Both second-parters still feature Superboy prominently on the cover, but he is far-from prominent in the story within. So he is largely absent from both stories inside, leaving room for a Cham essentially solo story in the earlier issue and for a spotlight on a handful of Legionnaires in the story at hand.

It's painfully clear that Superboy (or at least a super-cousin as it was Kara in 374) was mandated to be a (or mostly THE) prominent star on the cover as he was technically the co-star and was logically expected to be the sales draw. But Shooter cleverly had him written out of this story and the other. And what we got was a spotlight on the Jo/Tinya relationship and nice moments for the others, particularly Condo. (Heck, Shooter, even did the right thing and left his darling Val out as well with the device!)

So if this was somehow part of young Shooter's intent in making an otherwise unsatisfying conclusion to the previous story, then it really works for me. Even if it wasn't a conscious decision, I'm glad it happened because of the little bit of character development that we may not have otherwise gotten.

It's not by any means a perfect story, even discounting its failure as a satisfying conclusion of a 2-parter, but it's a bit of a gem in its own way. After all, practically every little bit of character development we get over the adventure run is grist for the mill that later writers would use and develop further.

And one more thing...about Condo's big scene. I like it in a way because he seems very much like a teenager when he risks his life speeding up his metabolism. Teenagers are complex and often contradictory in their actions. But the selfless, reckless heroism he shows taking the risk he does feels exactly like something a teen with heroic inclinations might do. Kind of like how many feel about Ferro Lad and his sacrifice on a subliminal level, I think. I've yet to ever read Condo's death issue (though I got that Archive last year and will probably save it for when the re-read project gets there), but I'll be curious to see if his death scene in any way reflects Andrew Nolan's or if it's at all reminiscent of the spirit he shows here.

You are correct, Sir. I was surprised that so many lesser used characters got some pretty good exposure in this short run of short stories: Dream Girl, Duo Damsel, Matter Eater Lad, Chemical King, Bouncing Boy, Shrinking Violet, etc. etc.

I wonder if the others found out about his plot to kill them, and Lyle's absence was really him off getting "treatment" So many gaps behind the scenes in those Action days.

Perhaps he was off setting up another plot, only to... well, that's coming.

Adv. 380 has never been a favorite of mine. It's too reminiscent of Dream Girl's first appearance where she again predicts the death of several Legionnaires who turn out to be androids. Also, any story that includes the super pets gets an automatic demerit from me (don't ask me why I had to make figurines of them). But the most preposterous thing of all is the dinosaur with kryptonite teeth who supposedly devoured Superboy while the rest of the Legion stands around and watches. What utter hooey! First of all, how was this alien dinosaur supposed to have gotten green k teeth pray tell? And the rest of the team basically does nothing while their hero and inspiration gets chomped and swallowed before their eyes. Ridiculous! And the villains were completely forgettable. A very low note for the Legion's swansong issue.

That bothered me, too. Bouncing Boy even says, "Help him, somebody!" I wanted to scream at the page, "You're a Legionnaire! YOU HELP him!"

I hope I'm not spoiling it for you, Lardy, but, sadly, it does not.

I hate to say it, but I really didn't enjoy the premise of Adventure #380. Superboy putting his teammates through the elaborate hoax to save their skins was simply a bogus plot device. The fact that Superboy had to use the super pets to help pull it off was even more silly. While Dream Girl may have had a vision that the other Legionnaires could be killed, Superboy should have revealed the situation to Ultra Boy to devise a strategy to deal with the issue rather than devise the elaborate hoax.

I did enjoy the teamwork utilized by Ultra Boy and company to try to get home, but the rest of the story seemed rather unessasary when it could have been plotted in a more logical way. The ending, with the real villains committing suicide, left the conclusion just as unsatisfiying as the main plot. This was just a real disappointing issue all around.

Interesting Legion Outpost Letter column this issue, especially the one from Robert Reiner, asking for descendants of the Justice League turning up in the 31st century. I see Keith Giffen's current Justice League 3000 finally fulfilled that request.

Actually the letter by Clifton Waltkins predicting a new second Legion made up of the original Legionnaires children isn't really a bad idea. It's a better reboot idea than some that DC has thought up for the Legion. This would be one way of having some original Legionnaires sticking around as supporting cast, having a few of their kids grow up to be Legionnaires, and adding a lot of new characters into the mix as other Legionnaies. One of the complaints of the Retroboot Legion is that it doesn't advance the Legion's story. This kind of reboot sure would. In fact, it could have been an interesting follw-up to the end of Levitz's last run.

[quote=Leather Wolf]Interesting Legion Outpost Letter column this issue, especially the one from Robert Reiner, asking for descendants of the Justice League turning up in the 31st century. I see Keith Giffen's current Justice League 3000 finally fulfilled that request./quote]




Reader Robert Reiner is now better known as actor/director/acitivist Rob Reiner, son of Carl Reiner!

OMG, Rob Reiner was a Legion fan? That's great.

He Who Wanders and Leather Wolf pretty much covered everything I wanted to say about Adventure #380. I've been trying for 3 days to think of something else to add...but no.

Adventure 380

There's a little sigh when I know I'm going to read a re-imaginging older work. They don't often live up to the original, events shoe horned in against what you would expect from characters who are dragged around by the nose.

There's plenty of warning of what's coming. It gets plenty of mentions between cover and splash page. A warning from the Gods to stay clear?

The disappointing slide in art certainly isn't a good sign. Superboy seems to have wires coming out of his eyes, linking him to the Legion computers. I was excited by the prospect of rampaging Computo controlled Superboy robots, before I realised it was his X-Ray vision.

Fittingly, our own Cassandra starts things off by giving Superboy a warning. She doesn't give him much time before energy builds up in the HQ. Still he and Lyle gather everyone together at the same pace, so it wasn't dangerous enough to warrant super-speed.

You'd think in a building containing Brainy's lab, they would have sorted out a simple evacuation procedure. No fire warden points for the Legion as they are caught in a pretty effective panel of bursting energy.

But it's just a way of transporting them far away so that we get an Odyssey started. Nose rings all round. Years later (in the TMK run) Jo Nah would find himself stranded at the other end of the galaxy once again trying to get home. Possibly/ probably a nod to this issue.

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Sorry, I took a break to avoid the clunky effort to remove Superboy from his friends, who now believe him dead. Without Superboy, the others have to build a ship themselves from what's available on the planet. While there's plenty of hand wavium, it shows them all working together in a group.

Fortunately that dinosaur and all of it's species never reappear despite the team going off all the time to mine for resources.

Well eventually. Duo Damsel goes through some despair (which you could find in the original after all) about being useless. Bouncing Boy cheers her up. Unfortunately, he thinks his only role is comic relief which is poor.

It looks as though the Legion are in for a long ride home, after they have to stop for repairs. As Bouncing Boy rescues Do Damsel, there's a Super rescue. Luornu looks pretty intense on the rocks.

While Ultra Boy piercing a dimensional vortex looks nice, it makes little sense, and it unravels further from there. While we saw the Legionnaire bond through hardship, it turns out the Super Pets were always on hand to save them from their Homer inspired perils. It's quite a dampener on the opening chapters (perhaps the Pets are supposed to represent the Gods). The reasons for Superboy's massive ruse (including Legion robots) strains credulity. He used a stun bomb against his own friends.

In the end we even get the sudden appearance of Legion teleporters to confront the pair behind Dream Girl's prediction. They commit suicide rather than face an appearance in any sequel .

The solar ship sailing the edges of the sun was nice though...

Interestingly, Dream Girl's prediction comes true once again. But here, Superboy deliberately creates those circumstances so that the real Legionnaires can survive. Had it not been for Dream Girl's message, they would have perished.

Luronu and Chuck have some good moments, but only by having to go through repetative cycle of self doubt first. Jo comes out as the hero, his more limited (than Superboy anyway) powers adding some suspense to each peril the team faced.

It's an issue that I don't re-read often. I'm sure Shooter was pleased with the references he managed to get in there. But it didn't really stand up as a story in it's own right.

Now I want some White Triangle Toothpaste!

After Adventure Comics #380, the Legion was moved to Action Comics and first appeared there in issue #377. However, it was a reprinted story from Adventure Comics #300, so it doesn't appear in the Archives, Vol 9.

I just wanted to mention that in Action #377 the editors printed an official looking letter (on National Periodical Publications, Inc. letterhead) thanking DC fans for "having bought this DC Magazine, even though it cost you three cents more than usual." The new price was 15 cents.

Wasn't Jo tossed through time not space in TMK?

I recall him being stuck on a fringe world between the Khundian and Dominion Empires, as well as back in time. So he had an Odyssey to get back into familiar territory for help.

I don't know where Cobie's disappeared to--probably busy with RL again--but I hope nobody minds if I jump into the next one. I'm kind of anxious to revisit this little discussed era.

Action Comics # 378 "The Forbidden Fruit"

Fans look upon this era of the Legion as a low point, and with good reason--the shorter page count and backup status meant fewer Legionnaires per story and no real ground-breaking stories or major events. Win Mortimer's art continues to be a rather drab replacement for Swan, but it has its charms.

Still, there are some gems in this run, and I think "The Forbidden Fruit" is one of them. Shooter introduced psychedelic themes in earlier Legion stories, but here he does a full-blown anti-drug story. Of course, it got past the Comics Code censors because it's not about a real drug. Rather, it's about the "lotus fruit," a fictitious hallucinogen that recalls the lotus eaters in Homer's "Odyssey". (Shooter couldn't get enough of "Odyssey," apparently.) Perhaps the literary cred made the story acceptable to the CC.

What Shooter and Mortimer depict is a very believable excursion into the realm of drug addiction, with trippy panels, lapse in judgement, and insatiable cravings for more of the drug--all experienced by Timber Wolf. The story meticulously depicts what Brin goes through, including snapping at Ayla and trying to get her hooked on the drug in order to feed his own addiction.

All of this is very well written, including the manner in which Brin becomes addicted to the lotus fruit--a staged bank robbery that results in his wounding and "treatment" by a mysterious doctor, who appears from the crowd, gives Brin a serum, and then disappears. The doctor, of course, turns out to be a villain who attempts to turn Brin into a junkie--and, through him, the rest of the Legion--for an unrevealed purpose.

The story provides an exceptional spotlight for Brin, whose acrobatic ability drives the plot--and for Ayla, who, in a rare preboot appearance, displays resourcefulness and even recklessness--traits that would come to the fore in the reboot.

Yes, her willingness to blow a hole in herself in order to cure Brin of his addiction was a bit extreme and not well thought out. Good thing she and Brin both believed in the power of True Love.

In fact, the story's major failing is that it treats overcoming drug addiction as a simple matter of getting the addict to choose between his loved ones and his addiction. Too many people who have faced similar situations in real life can testify that this isn't so. Drugs alter a person's brain chemistry and lead to horrendous lapses in judgment: stealing from loved ones, wrecking cars, and even murder.

Young people often learn from the stories they read--whether the stories are intended as mere entertainment or not--so it was irresponsible to convey a message that addiction is so easily overcome: Strap a bomb to your midriff and trust the addict to make the right choice.

A more realistic treatment would also have shown Brin coping with withdrawals for days or weeks to come instead of shrugging it all off after slugging his pusher.

Of course, realism went only so far in 1960s comics stories, particularly at DC. Although "The Forbidden Fruit" is not wholly successful as an anti-drug story, it is very successful as a short story which highlights two underused Legionnaires.

Eh, I've seen love for another motivate people to break addictions, smoking, drinking, even drugs of various nature. Not too infrequently either. Just not usually at the end of a gun, lol.

A few, not many I even seen without obvious withdrawal effects, which makes me wonder if what they were doing was more habit than addiction, there being a line somewhere between the two. In Brin's case it was obviously addiction. I suppose I can take the years of overacting that followed as his recovery period heh.

I thought the story heavy handed but otherwise character building. That I recall it probably says something about its effectiveness for me as several of the recent stories reviewed I'm like, "did that really happen?" A couple I went back to the boxes and even after reading don't recall ever having read them in the first place.

This one I recalled with hitting the boxes so I suppose that says something.

Just read The Forbidden Fruit for the first time in ages. Not one of my favorite Legion tales, but the first of several in the Action run with a focus on only one or 2 members, which I think was a nice change of pace from the crowded action fests that dominated the Adventure run (not that I don't love a good crowded action fest). But the Action run focused more on character development and as I said previously, it gave a spotlight to several Legionnaires who didn't get much attention in Adventure.

How do we feel about Ayla being able to move that basket of fruit horizontally with the help of a convenient breeze? Seems like super strong guy should've been able to overpower a mere breeze and keep his grip on it but it was nice to see Ayla using her power in a slightly different way than usual. I suppose she could've just as easily flown overhead and made the basket fly up toward her though.

Here is the letter column which only has a couple of Legion related letters I'm afraid.

Tell us what you REALLY think about the Comics Code Authority!

Wholesome advertising, eh? What about "X-ray specs"? ;-)

Sees through clothes!
Sees through walls!
Sees through clothes!
Sees through doors!
SEES THROUGH CLOTHES, MAN!*


*paraphrased from an Ambush Bug issue.

Since Timber Wolf is one of my favorite Legionnaires, it was fun reading this spotlight issue. Still a couple of things bothered me...

First, that Ayla would strap a bomb to her waist to force Brinn to stop his addiction. While intervention was necessary to help break Brinn's addiction, portraying her as willing to commit suicide, is just as physiologically problematic as Timber Wolf's drug addiction. Secondly, with the way suicide bombers have become the fad of terrorists, having a bomb strapped to a character's waist in such a casual way is very disturbing.

Also, while Alyla's actions may have prevented him from taking the next hit of drugs, I find it unsettling that this ended his addiction. Too often addicts promise to loved ones that they'll stop, but keep on using. The storyline would have been much more believable if Shooter had made Brinn's recovery from addiction a subplot in upcoming issues instead of instantly calling him cured. I know that's not how they wrote comics back then, but this was one story that simply could not possibly be wrapped up in a single issue. A better resolution would have been to have Ayla say that she's stay by him for the long haul until he'd conquered his demons. That way readers would know that recovery takes time.

Of course, the way this issue portrays Ayla's love for Brinn, willing to even die to save him from himself, it makes her dumping him under Levitz's plotting seem all the more bizarre. That was just one break-up that just never made sense.

Leather Wolf,
We're on the same wavelength with regards to Ayla's actions in this story. I agree that it is very unrealistic for her to offer to sacrifice herself and for Brin to overcome his addiction so easily.

I hadn't thought about Ayla's actions foreshadowing suicide bombers. Interesting connection.

Regardless of her willingness to sacrifice herself for Brin in this story, I've always thought their eventual breakup did make sense for several reasons. For one, none of the Legion couples had ever broken up before, so it seemed a tad unrealistic for a group full of young people to be so firmly committed to their first loves. Second, Ayla and Brin were both underdeveloped as characters; the door was open for the writer to do anything with them. Third, the breakup led to positive character growth for both of them in the long run. Brin became a much more interesting character as he struggled to make sense of the turns his life had taken. Ayla started to come into her own as an assertive and powerhouse Legionnaire.

Action Comics 378

Cripes! Ayla has been going out with Ultra the Multi Alien all this time. No wonder there's all those sullen mood swings!

Brin gets some solo action, showing off his agility and strength to foil a robbery. But it's all an over elaborate plan from a doctor to get him to swallow a hot beverage. I would have went with Plan B, the coffee stall just a little further up the street.

An emotionally unstable Brin visits Ayla later on and takes out his sulk on her. As Victim Lass she unfortunately continues to puts up with it.

Repressed Brin spends the night staring at the moon from a window ledge. This isn't actually the drug kicking in. This is a result of the Zuunium radiation he was given by his father. The ledge thing is something he does every month*.

Shooter hasn't finished with the Odyssey just yet. He's held a certain fruit sized amount over to feed Brin's addiction. The addictive Lotus Fruit caused those who eat it to forget about everything else except enjoying the fruit. Ulysses made his crewmen go cold turkey. As a victim, Brin instead tries to addict Ayla to the fruit as well, under instruction from the evil doctor. Nice guy.

Ayla follows Brin's travels to secure more fruit, and intercepts the Fruit Peddler doctor. Who knew that the Legionnaires had blast grenades attached to their belts?

Of all the ways some one with gravity powers could have removed the fruit, becoming a human bomb must have been low on the list. Brin must choose: The drug or Ayla. He chooses the fruit...but pulls back just in time to punch out the Peddler instead.

It's a bit more dramatic than the months of rehabilitation, and I wouldn't recommend it as a therapeutic approach but Brin's shaken the drug off completely in only a few panels. The wonder of comics!

Brin's "thanks doll!" to Ayla is presumably to show a change from being a sullen loner to more of a team player in touch with his feelings! Presumably.

So, the message is that putting up with lots of emotional abuse can help to save your relationship! Umm... Ok, what about making threats to self harm could make the person in your life realise where they've gone wrong! Ah.....

Anyway.. . over in the Superman main strip...



Supes swears his allegiance to Satan and Mordru makes a guest appearance as the Marauder, but he's not fooling anyone in that hat.


* In the Five Year gap Brin sits under a full moon as the Zuunium shifts him through a transformation cycle.

Alas, there is no coffee in the 30th century. Some doctor discovered it was too addictive and harmful. Maybe a relative of the doctor-peddler in this story.



It's standard issue, along with having a self-destruct mechanism for their headquarters. (Why it is that Brin gets all the stories with the spy-suicide devices. Is he a closet James Bond fan?)

I generally haven't read the Superman stories in this Action run, but I did read this one and enjoyed it. "Satan's" true identity turned out to be an interesting twist.

What?! But as Caffeine Kid, I've been sitting here for years waiting for my Legion time bubble! I wonder what the LSV are up to these days... Oh Lex! Lex!...



Back when he thought he was an android he stuffed all sorts of gadgets into various orifices thinking it was all just storage space. It's bit embarrassing now, but does come in handy for last minute rescues.



Mommy: I don't know Timmy. I heard bad things about comics.
Timmy: But Mom, It's Superman....
Mommy: Well OK, let me look at the cover... GAAAAAAHHHHH!

Ah, I see. Mort used Satan to distract the Comics Code from the drug references. Very sneaky.

Action 379 "One of Us is an Impostor"

When I first re-read this story two days ago, I didn't like it. There's just not much here in terms of story, and Shooter does not play fair with the reader in terms of solving the mystery.

On re-reading it about an hour ago, I think it's a rather pleasant diversion if one doesn't expect much from it.

It's based on a simple and time-worn premise. Of the five Legionnaires present--Mon-El, Lighting Lad, Dream Girl, Element Lad, and Shadow Lass--one is revealed by the Legion's computer to be an impostor. Conveniently, the computer is destroyed before the poser's identity is revealed. Before the Legionnaires can pursue the matter, they have to deal with a super-villain called Sunburst.

In the battle which follows, the reader is treated to a series of "clues" that all turn out to be red herrings (Lightning Lad's hair stands up when his power backfires, Dream Girl's prediction does not come true, and so forth). But it turns out the only Legionnaire whose power did function correctly--Shadow Lass--is the impostor because she should have been weakened by Sunburst's solar burst.

Sure, it's kind of a fun twist that the one Legionnaire who is above suspicion proves to be fake--which shows, I guess, that Mon is the only observant Legionnaire present. But it would have been nicer if Shooter had played fair with the reader by setting up the big reveal.

One of the hallmarks of detective/mystery fiction is that the writer provides the reader with enough actual clues to be able to solve the mystery before the detective does. However, if Shadow Lass's weakness to light had been mentioned prior to this story, I must have missed it. It certainly is not part of this story prior to the big reveal.

Of course, it's also convenient that Mon just happened to forget to take his anti-lead serum that morning, which made him susceptible to Sunburst's red-sun blast (or that Sunburst even had a red-sun blast, but then a good super-villain is always prepared).

However, there are some nice moments of the Legionnaires sparring with each other like teenagers. Element Lad's nickname for Lightning Lad--"Bolt Boy"--is cute.

It's also nice to take a break from the heavy-handed relevance of the previous issue and have an adventure where the Legionnaires are just being Legionnaires.

Still, I could have done without Mon's cringeworthy comment to the real Shadow Lass: "That phoney didn't have a shadow of your charm!" Ugh.

Shady's weakness to light is mentioned in her very first appearance, Adv. 365.

This story has always been one of my favorites of the Legion's Action run. Mostly because the artwork is better than most of the others as it was done by Swan and Anderson I believe. Also because it featured several of my favorite Legionnaires. It does seem a bit silly that Mon-El has to resort to deduction to expose the impostor though. As if he couldn't tell his own girlfriend apart from a spy by her body language, voice, mannerisms, etc. Then there's the fact that he could've simply done it by using his x-ray vision to see which of his companions was wearing a mask, wig, and blue makeup! But of course that all has to be put aside in the many impostor stories of the silver age. Mission_Impossible_Masks.com must've been making a fortune back then before holograms came along and upstaged them.

Action 379's letters:

Thanks, Jim.

It would have been nice to have a reminder of it in the "Impostor" for readers who didn't remember or hadn't read the earlier appearance.

The Legion Handbook lists the art credit as Mortimer/Abel. But I agree that it does look better than the art in most of the recent stories.

jimgallagher, the size of your last few attachments is messing with the way this page displays on my monitor, cutting off part of each post. It's not a problem with your earlier attachments.

Okay I made them smaller.

Thanks!

I disagree. I think that would've been too Pedantic Lad. The silver age was so rife with extraneous exposition as it was. Having to explain in every issue that LIGHTNING Lad has super-LIGHTNING powers and Superboy's one weakness is kryptonite, etc. etc. IMHO Lad.

Jim,
It seems to me that there's a difference between explaining that Lightning Lad has lightning powers (as his name suggests) or that Superboy's weakness is kryptonite (which likely every comics reader in the late '60s already knew) and the relatively obscure weakness of a character which may have been mentioned once or twice before (in a different book, at that).

One thing comics creators did very well in earlier times was assume that every issue would be a reader's first issue. They took pains to make sure new readers would not be confused. There are ways to do this without being exposition-heavy. For example, Mon could have asked "Shady" if the bright lights of the meeting room were uncomfortable for her. When she expressed confusion at the question, it could have been an early tip off to him and to the readers that something wasn't quite right.

There would still have been plenty of red herrings to keep the reader guessing before the big reveal.

The Illustrated Legion Index lists it as Mortimer/Anderson. It does look like Anderson inks to me.

The Legion handbook could be wrong. It's always difficult to identify artists on these early stories since the creators were usually not credited.

Well, if my Artdar is any good at all . . .

Well, your Artdar thought it was Swan.

"Repeating" details to clarify plot: must have be one of the toughest editorial decisions in comics or any serial writing.

Reading as an adult and long time fan it's really nice when the old comics DON'T repeat, repeat, repeat, which I suppose would have been my feeling at the time the issue first came out since I wouldn't have been a first time reader of five years old.

One person's judgment becomes another's plot-hole. A darwian adaption of cold being a weakness to intense heat? A dark-caster's weakness to intense light? A bit cliché but probably wouldn't have seemed like such a leap of reader being able to "figure out" to me, I'd have probably made the same editorial decision.

Action 380 "Half a Legionnaire"

This story, like 378's "The Forbidden Fruit" is one of the hidden gems of the Action run. It develops Lu's relationship with Chuck and reveals new information about her power. For instance, we learn that neither Lu is the "real" Lu since they are exactly alike and share whatever experiences either has had when they merge. This is also a rare Lu spotlight in which she comes to the fore as the central character. In fact, the role call on Page 1 lists her as "starring" and Chuck and Mon (the only other Legionaires present) in support "featuring" roles.

After single-handedly (double-handedly?) stopping a high-rise sniper, Lu is sent on a distant mission. Exhausted, she splits into her two bodies so one can stay in Metropolis and relax with Chuck while the other carries out the mission. When the second Lu returns days later, she brings two surprises: a new name, Lelith, and a fiance, a hero named Nam'Lor.

It soon transpires that "Lelith" has developed a very different personality than the Lu who stayed behind, and the two personalities struggle with each other in their dreams after they merge. Upon awaking, "Lelith" splits from Lu again and runs off.

The dream sequence here serves a wonderful dual role. It gives us exposition by showing us what happened to Luornu II during her mission to the planet Ikros. But it also furthers the plot by revealing how the two Lu's share information when they merge. What normally should be a smooth process goes inexplicably wrong, and Due Damsel awakens with a literal split personality.

I think it was brilliant of Shooter to explore this possibility of Lu's power. In a comparatively few stories which have spotlighted her, Shooter has turned her into a rich character with a complex power--something beyond the scope of previous Legion scribes Jerry Siegel and Edmond Hamilton (who once admitted that he didn't know what to do with the character).

The story also builds well off of Lu's fears and uncertainty. A telling moment is when Lu can only watch as "Lelith" runs off and thinks she should know where her other half is going but does not. Suddenly, everything Lu has been certain about regarding her power--and perhaps even taken for granted--has been denied her.

And it gets worse when "Lelith" and her fiance are exposed as the criminals behind recent robberies.

"Half a Legionnaire" is not a perfect gem. It should be obvious to even young readers that the shadowy culprits are none other than "Lelith" and Nam'Lor--they even refer to each other by their initials while committing crimes! And the victory for Lu is unearned. Nam'Lor simply comes to his senses and refuses to kill Chuck when prompted by "Lelith." (Also, Nam has committed several thefts yet is allowed to walk away with no other consequence than a broken heart. Lu and Chuck were in no position to stop him, of course, but neither raises any objection to his leaving either.)

However, this story illustrates why the eight-page backup format occasionally works well for the Legion. These stories often expanded the personalities, powers, and world of the Legionnaires in ways that had never been attempted before.

Action Comics 379

All those years training to be a Talokian champion, and it's straight to hair pulling for Shady. Mind you, out of place hair is a serious issue for Dreamy, so perhaps she knows what she's doing. All part of the fracas in finding out which one of five Legionnaires ...is an impostor!

Also note Jan pointing out that Lightning Lad is suspicious looking. Garth must try harder to hide his true Proty nature in future.

Even before the computer warns them of the nefarious threat, I'm suspicious of Jan. "itching for some action" doesn't really suit him.

The computer is about to tell them who it is (how would it know?) when it's destroyed leaving us to figure things out with the team. Who could sabotage the computer easily? Everyone but Dream Girl probably.

The encounter with Sunburst is a good one, with all five showing some odd things. Mon's weakness, Shady withstanding bright lights, Dreamy making a prediction - but will it be true? Garth's hair being affected by his powers and Jan being useless in a fight. Actually, that last one isn't unknown for Jan. He may be the real one.

Shady takes down Sunburst in a way that we would see later when she attacks the Persuader in Tales of the Legion on Talok.

It's just as well that the impostor gives themselves up as the rest of the story is fully involved in explaining why the powers of the others were affected. So the reveal is the last bit of action in the story.

It looks as though a factoid was the basis around which to hang the story. Which is fine. The premise is decent enough, but space means things have to be a bit forced, and there's no climactic encounter. We see the team turn on each other and blame each other, because they have to in so few pages. The explaining is done in a way reminiscent of dull detective novels where the last chapter isn't whodunit but lookhowsmartiam.

It's a quick read, and I quite like the guts shown by the impostor.

But the real mystery is why the computer let the impostor in in the first place.

Elsewhere in the issue...don't expect Superman to protect you from alien death.

Action Comics 380

The "lets...suppose" premise is something I don't like seeing in the opening caption. I'd prefer to be involved in the story without it being quite so obvious it's the writer's whim.

It's good to see Lu and Chuck as the stars. Let's hope they have a tale where they avoid feeling that their powers are useless. Not a good start as Lu seems to have forgotten she has a flight ring. Why is she climbing a ladder against an armed crook? Ah, all part of her plan.

The short amount of space means that there’s no real mystery regarding who’s committing the crimes. On the plus side, the focus on Lu’s reactions to having a second personality is all the more powerful for that.

Lu lets the reader in on her future as a security consultant, and it’s off on assignment with the very nice touch of going armed. We see the Legion arsenal every now and again, and it’s nice to see it used.

Lu may be having some mental issues, but Chuck wants to lick worlds! That’s a little creepy, although with a Legion cruiser and a transuit…

Jillikers! Bad Lu, or Lelith, really has turned out to be bad. It goes beyond theft, and falling into bad company with Nam’Lor very quickly, speeding along to trying to have Chuck killed and Lu framed for other crimes.

Bah! Another issue where Lu is “half a Legionnaire” and where Chuck’s body shapes are brought up.

Then there’s the nice twist, with Nam’Lor actually being a good guy who had fallen for Lelith. Despite their destructive relationship, he just couldn’t give her up.

As he trudges away, back to being the hero of Ikros, we see a silhouetted Lelith struggling against her captors, not wanting to return to normal.

And I guess she didn’t as the guys in the TMK run suggested that there were a number of relationships going on with the various Lu counterparts. It’s a shame we didn’t see more to them than that.

It was a good decision not to cram too many characters into this new format. It shows that the writer doesn’t have to hide behind huge battles every issue, but is capable of having thoughtful stories about the cast.

There haven’t been enough stories including addiction and mental illness, and the tale has a lot more plus points than minus ones.


Elsewhere this issue... beyond kissing cousins...bondage cousins...


in a really entertaining Superman story - continued next issue >gasp<

Yes, and she also forgot to take it with her to Ikros. Luckily, Nam happened by at just the right moment. Yet perhaps he didn't catch her quickly enough. Her pose on the bed on page 6 suggests a spinal fracture of some sort.

Action 380 gives us another spotlight on a lesser developed Legionnaire and some rare insight into how her 2 selves are linked mentally. The dream sequence was especially interesting. It seems strange for only one of the damsels to go on a mission by herself but I suppose the writer had to come up with some feasible way to separate them for an extended period, long enough for Lelith to absorb enough energy from Nam'lor to turn evil and start a crime spree. It's kind of laughable in light of today's technology to think of someone having to travel light years through space just to deliver "important papers". This story also shows a rare instance of the Legionnaires resorting to carrying sidearms, something I've long lobbied for the members with less aggressive powers to do. It's also pretty laughable that the almighty Bouncing Boy fails to break through Nam'lor's force field with a single punch and thus declares it impenetrable. Nice to see Luornu taking initiative to go around the field and getting a shot off. A little disappointing that she later stands around acting helpless while BB is in danger of being killed by the much more powerful Nam'lor. He was an interesting tragic character. Too bad we never saw him again, though I didn't care much for his costume. I'm guessing the art team is Mortimer and Abel. Not my favorite combination but they do a serviceable job.

Action 380 letter column:

The Legion's internet must have been down. Probably something to do with the move from Adventure to Action.



Chuck always did have an inflated opinion of himself.

And this is proof that girls are smarter than boys.



Girls may be smarter, but that doesn't mean they actually have to do anything.

I suspect that Nam never got over the fact that he had become a criminal for the love of a woman. When he returned to Ikros, he gave up being a hero and entered a monastery. Perhaps he could encounter Sister Laurel Gand in a merged reality.

When I was typing away, I thought that there might only be the one ring to go between the two of them. Unlike her clothes and probably in the face of umpteen previous appearances.

I recall reading somewhere (the Legion Handbook?) that the flight ring duplicates when she does, just like her clothes.

No doubt, but for that moment I went down a different path.:)

How do the Legion create new flight rings? Give Luornu one and she just duplicates them.

Oh yeah. I meant to mention how Luornu took off one set of belt, boots, gloves, and cape to take her nap but the 2 of her put on 2 sets when she woke up. Did her clothes split even though she wasn't wearing them?

One more tangent on DD's costume. Considering that Triplicate Girl and Shrinking VIOLET were introduced in the same issue, why didn't they put Vi in well, VIOLET and TG in green? Granted, Vi was introduced as a failed applicant and they may have never planned to use her again, but it still seems odd. In those early days, they may have never planned to use TG again either.

Jim,
Your post got me to thinking about the origin of the phrase "shrinking violet." An article can be found here.

Your theory sounds plausible. Whatever the reason, I've always liked it that Vi did not sport a violet costume for much of her career. Her drab green attire focused the reader's attention on her power and personality instead of the color part of her name. It was a way of saying there was more to this woman than a surface connection.

Perhaps Vi was too shy and timid to wear violet (which is a rather bold color).

On the other hand, this reminds me of the character The Blue Raja in the film "Mystery Men." The Blue Raja did not wear blue--he had some sort of arcane mythological or literary reason for using the name--and got tired of people constantly pointing out that he didn't wear blue. Vi at least had an easy out. She could literally shrink away when anyone asked about her name.

Interesting article. Thanks.

One more thought on this issue: it's nice to see Luornu described as beautiful. She was usually overlooked in favor of the glamorous Dream Girl, the imperious Saturn Girl, the regal Projectra, etc.

Action 381 "The Hapless Hero"

"The Hapless Hero" begins with a terrific premise and once again explores the lesser known sides of two underused Legionnaires. However, the story barely gets off to a good start when it ends in a perfunctory and not very satisfying manner.

The story centers on Matter-Eater Lad, who hitches a ride with other Legionnaires in Chemical King's new car. But Tenz insists that Chem drop him off several blocks from home because he is ashamed for his Legion buddies to see where he actually lives: in a slum.

Tenz's living arrangements turn out to be the least of his concerns. His out-of-work father spends his time and pension gambling while Tenz's mother, too "nervous" to find work, waits for her son to come home so she can hit him up for his Legion living allowance in order to pay bills. Yep, Tenz comes from the archetypal dysfunctional home.

After a blowup with his father, Tenz stalks out and returns to Legion HQ, where he encounters Shrinking Violet, who has problems of her own. Vi is upset because her long-distance boyfriend, Duplicate Boy, has stood her up on a date. Tenz decides to take his living allowance--the one his mother begged him for--and spend it on a night on the town with Vi. They eat at a swanky restaurant and go dancing. And then when Tenz drops her off at Legion HQ, she rewards him with a kiss.

Just then, Dupe, who has been watching them (!), teleports in and challenges Tenz for his woman!

Never mind the stereotypical plot. What works here are some underlying themes that most kids can identify with: being ashamed of one's home life, being stood up, making the best of a bad situation and, perhaps best of all, the "little guy" standing up to the big bully. Duplicate Boy (who can duplicate any power) is many times more powerful than Matter-Eater Lad, so their showdown ought to be something to watch.

Except that it isn't.

With some few well-chosen words, Tenz reminds Dupe that anything he does that involves violence will cost him the love of Violet (who, like most of the girls in this run, remains passive and does not stand up for herself). Dupe backs down and he and Violet snuggle. The next day, Tenz receives a letter that his parents want him to move back home and his father has given up gambling. The end.

If this story had been given about three more pages, we might have seen a more realistic confrontation between Dupe and Tenz. One of the things that struck me upon re-reading this story is how none of the Legionnaires use their powers. Only Dupe gets to fly, teleport, use telescopic vision, and display his strength by bending what looks like a girder.

While it can be a nice change of pace to have a story that focuses solely on the Legionnaires' personalities and relationships, a great opportunity was wasted for Tenz, the little guy, to show what he can do, to use his power in some ingenious way and prove he's not such a little guy, after all. It's great that he disarms Dupe with words (teenagers, take note: this is how you're supposed to resolve conflict). But this resolution comes too soon and is not wholly convincing.

I would also have liked to see the Tenz subplot play out for a few more issues--perhaps we could have learned that his father, like most addicts, did not make good on his promise to quit gambling. As with Brin's drug addiction in 378, this story creates a false impression that addictions are easy to overcome.

But the dating scenes are well done. It's a shame that Tenz and Vi didn't hit it off for real. They seem to have more in common than most Legion couples.

I agree, there was a problem with the quick wrap-up, the idea that serious problems can be resolved so quickly but I think the one-shot story was all they had to work with? Given the limited space available to Legion, I think fans would have rioted if too much on one marginal character were to take up that space.

It was a story about what was an all too common theme in this neighborhood, even then, moreso now. Lots of bars. Lots of people feeling they'd gotten the shaft in life, taking it out on the family. Spending money they didn't have on feel-good. Lot's of looking the other way. Stereotypical? Yeah, this part perhaps. But the writer has to grab the readers' attention somehow. Writing something they can identify with seems like a good approach?



As for the other sub-plot, "Cinderfella" might have been the stereotypical approach. They didn't take that. ME Lad had a great night out, made a friend a closer friend, but even the big athletic good looking guy can be a true love. I think they did a good job of avoiding the stereotype in this part of the story.

It might be good they didn't "fight." It was a serious attempt at a serious story and ME's powers don't lend themselves well to that. A more powerful member would have allowed the writer to feed the teenboy the daily slop of action. ME Lad was the hard choice and in my opinion, a good choice. The resolution had no choice but to be diplomatic, which lent itself well as it turned out, towards his political future.

If was a nice story for what it was, an attempt at a nice story in a one-shot period of comics writing. It was certainly a diversion into the real world and characterisation, which was typical of this run.

^^Yeah my take on the resolution was that it was meant to foreshadow his career in politics. The Legion has done plenty of lesser powered character steps up and beats the odds type stories, so as cool as it would be to see Tenzil take down Dupe, I find this resolution kind of satisfying in its uniqueness.

I'd be afraid of where he'd have had to bite DB in order to defeat him.

In Superboy 212, Tenz defeats Calorie Queen by taking a bite out of the Legion flagpole, causing the flag to fall on top of her. While she is stunned, he then ties her up in the flag. Corny, but effective.

I would like to have seen Tenz attempt something similar with Dupe; he didn't even have to beat him, just forestall him long enough for Dupe to listen to his "If Violet really loves you" speech.

(I confess, I'm reading some of my own experiences into this. When I was a teenager, my attempts to "reason" with bullies--based largely on what I learned from stories such as this -- did not go over so well. Dupe, of course, isn't a standard bully, but he did not appear ready to listen to reason when he bent the girder.)

Still, your points are well taken; Shooter did make some less-than-obvious choices, and he did have a difficult Legionnaire to work with, power-wise.

And, yes, subplots were frowned upon in those days and happy endings were a must. Still, a fan can dream.

If one is going to plunge headlong into the realm of relevancy, one has a responsibility, I think, to get it right, or at least to make a statement about the issue that goes beyond the "look how relevant we are" bandwagon. Seven years later, DC would be justly criticized for getting it wrong when they introduced a black Legionnaire without putting much thought into what black people are actually like. I think the same criticism holds true for stories that halfheartedly tackle addiction.

Just a few thoughts to add. In the opening scene, Tenz could've simply flown home on his own if he was ashamed of his teammates seeing where he lived, but I suppose the ride in CK's car gave us a chance to see a few more Legionnaires and his insistence on walking home alone played up his shame and loneliness. Love Violet's dress and Tenz's formal wear. Also Duplicate Boy's new costume. His old one was kinda clunky and circusy. Nice to see all 3 of them wearing different colors than usual. I liked that Vi stood up for Tenz when Projectra called him a stick in the mud and when Tenz called her "Flower Girl", a reference to her Violet codename? I also liked that Tenz talked Duplicating Dude down without resorting to fisticuffs. It was a refreshing change from all the fighting we usually see, often even among friends, in comics. I didn't like that Tenz's mother was portrayed as too weak and nervous to get a job. With all the 30th century advances and the fact that they don't need to eat traditional food, it's hard to believe that housework could keep her all that busy. Shirley the Kems can afford a Rosie the Robot housekeeper. They probably come as standard equipment in Metropolis apts.

Act. 381's letters:

It's a familiar conversation here: how to balance 1000 years in the future relationships (the home and day to day life particularly) and keep it recognizable and relatable to today's readers.

1000 years in the future has to be like 5000 years in the past. I can't imagine what relationships will be like without going all dystopian and impersonal. I'd love to have a peak at the tech but I don't think I'd like to live then at all.

Nice to see Duplicate Boy's jealous side with regards to Violet. That impulsive, I'm gonna beat up anybody who kisses my girl attitude comes back in Levitz's run, and this time Colossial Boy gets gets his butt kicked by Dupes. At least M-E Lad was able to talk his way out of the situation.

I do feel sorry for Vi though, Dupes had the time to stomp in at a moment's notice to kick butt when another guy kisses her, but doesn't make the time to actually take her on a date. You'd have thought she might have reconsidered the nature of their relationship after this incident.

Also, the wrap up with Tenz's parents was way too abrupt. When I read the conclusion of the story, my first thought wasn't that they were reforming their ways and wanting to mend the relationship with their son, but like any addicted dysfunctional family, they actually wanted him to come home, with empty promises, because they realized the financial support for their addictions had dried up. If this story were allowed to play out further, I think we'd see Tenz regretting going back home because the addictions and verbal abuse continue.

Happy St. Pat's Day of Space, Everybody!

DC's real Green Team!

That's great!

I'm green with envy. (unoriginal BB, unoriginal).

Action 381

Salu insists that neither boy fight over her in the splash page. That would make her feel as though she had to favour one of those involved, when she doesn’t really want a relationship with either. It’s Ayla she really wants to get close to.

Yup it’s tough being a Legionnaire. In the opening pages we see Chemical King get a car as a personality replacement,; Jo feeling travel sick completely undermining his street tough image, and Tinya’s parents have only just discovered that 4D cooking just means keeping it in the over for some time. Don’t just take the dish straight out again guys. From the race that mumbled the name of their home world, it’s not a surprise.

What does surprise me is when I see the parents of the Legionnaires. It’s even more odd to see them on Earth. I read so many issues with not a hint of them outside of a wedding on Orando or a Metropolis firebombing. My first thought was that they glommed onto their kids for the UP handouts. This was the issue I eventually read that showed that this is exactly what had happened to Tenzil.

Practically the first caption set the tone. Mile high buildings casting shadows. It turns out that most of the team live on the fancy upper levels, while Tenz is on the lower ones. So, the future still has upper and lower distinctions, glamour for some – Imra and Garth are going out to a 3D movie – and not others – Tenz’s mom watches 3D on her TV.

Tenzil’s dad losing his job to robots casts a whole new…well shadow… over the 30th century. I’m reminded of Rokk Krinn going to earth looking for work at 14. Perhaps some of that melodramatic seriousness in the Early Legion is due to the economic necessity of having to excel.

It’s tough at home. Tenzil’s dad has trouble tucking shirts in while his mom is really nervous about everything, except for the moments where she can get cash out of her son.

Exactly why the family from Bismoll have to worry about food bills is left unexplained.

Walking to clear his head, Tenzil meets Salu at the Legion HQ. She’s lonely and misses someone. “Anyone in particular?” asks Tenzil. There’s a handy panel break giving time for Salu not to say “Ayla” and compose herself.

As Salu talks about her relationship, the panels seem to show that Duplicate Boy is even more reluctant about the relationship than Vi is. He’s either got a girl in every spaceport, or….

Vi seems to get really dressed up. It’s just as well Tenz pushed the robotically chauffeured boat, or car, out. That could have been yet another awkward teenage moment in this issue that reminds us of so many.

No wonder Vi got her best frock on. She feels terribly for Tenz because he can’t indulge in consumerism which must make him really miserable. According to Vi, the money trouble makes things seem so much worse. I half expected her to say “Gee! I thought they were just beating you. This is much worse.” in the next panel.

Still, they have a lovely evening together. One ruined after the kiss by the Super Voyeur…of Space!

So, Duplicate Boy can visit Vi if he wants to all of a sudden. I think he felt he had to arrive to keep up appearances. I think the relationship they have suits both of them just nicely, while they both look towards the genders they are actually attracted to.

Tenzil stands up to Duplicate Boy. Apparently DC asked Shooter to rewrite the cannibalism battle to a slightly less exciting battle of words instead. Having seen so many ‘80s movies I’m outraged that we didn’t get a montage showing Tenz training to take on Dupe.

The end is a bit sudden. We don’t get to see Tenz facing a long battle to turn his parents around. Heck, we don’t even get Tenz telling them they’ll have no money this month as he blew it all on a date that dumped him at the first opportunity.

“Pop’s even given up gambling! How about that” “Oh wait, he said that he bets that he’s given up gambling. Grrr.”

Like the previous Action issues, we get a closer look at some less used characters, we get some relevant issues discussed, and we’ll always remember that Tenz and Vi have a friend and a confidante in each other when we see them in futures issues.

I didn't notice that. Nice catch!



Why get a job when you've got a famous Legionnaire son to take care of you?

I like Leather Wolf's suggestion that the Kems' promise to change was an empty promise just to get their son and his money back. That would be a more realistic outcome.

However, the next time we see the Kems, it is not the deadbeat parents who are the focus; it is Tenz's traitorous brother. This family has some serious issues.

Yeah. In this issue, we learn that the parents of Jo, Tinya, and Tenz all reside on earth, and in the past we've learned that Luornu's do, too. Probably others.

Perhaps one of the perks of being a Legionnaire is that your family gets frequent flier miles and accommodations in Metropolis. A time share, maybe?

Next time we seen the Kems they're living on Bismoll as well.

Their frequent flier miles must have run out.

Maybe they were forced to eat their coupons when Tenzil got it into his head to spend their money...again.

Nope. Tinya says that her parents are visiting from Bgztl. Tenz's parents were last seen in Adv. 338. I believe they were visiting from Bismoll then. Apparently they came to Earth, worked for 20 years, all while Tenz didn't age at all, then moved back to Bismoll by SUP 184, and became affluent again when they realized they didn't have to spend money on food after all.

Thanks for the correction about Tinya's parents.

Maybe Bismoll deports its unemployed to earth. It's illegal to be fat on Bismoll, isn't it? Maybe they have other draconian laws.

Action 382 "Kill a Friend to Save a World"

Jim Shooter takes the Legionnaires into James Bond territory as the team infiltrates the lair of a shady businessman who manufactures androids designed to put them out business.

This is a wonderful premise, and I wish it had been given much more room to develop. Once again, the eight-page format restricts what could have been an Adventure-length tale of intrigue, betrayal, and difficult choices, as the title implies. Instead we get choppy scenes and not a very convincing ending.

But there is still much to enjoy about "Kill a Friend," such as Karate Kid's first outing as Legion leader, an average of six panels per page (meaning more story), and some solid action between Ultra Boy and the first Protector and, later, between KK and a disguised Timber Wolf.

The story begins much like 378, with a Legionnaire--UB, this time--being lured into a trap in public. I've read so many stories in which Jo switches back and forth between his ultra powers on a whim that it's a refreshing change to see him not have time to switch to invulnerability. As a result, he is left badly injured by the Protector.

Enter the true villain, Mr. Cosvarr--a slick and sleazy businessman who boasts in a holographic image to the UP security council and then to the Legion that his android Protectors will make the Legionnaires obsolete by offering more advanced protection to UP worlds--for a price. KK and Violet immediately realize that worlds with Protector, er, protection will pose a threat to those who choose not to do business with Cosvarr, so he must be stopped.

In a nice nod to previous stories, KK wonders how they will stop Cosvarr since Chameleon Boy, leader of the Espionage Squad, is nowhere to be found. But never mind: KK conducts his own espionage mission with the Legionnaires on hand.

Another nice touch is that Shooter doesn't reveal who "Carina Walter" is from the get-go, but leads the reader to think she actually is a customer of Cosvarr's--one who makes his female partner, Zorla (who dresses like she's been watching too many Flash Gordon serials) bitterly jealous.

Everything goes fine as Violet and Timber Wolf do their parts to sneak into Cosvarr's lair on Jupiter, but then a complication arises. Zorla discovers Brin--disguised as a maintenance worker--prowling around and confronts him. Brin, perhaps still suffering from the effects of lotus fruit withdrawal, goes into premature panic mode and summons the still hiding KK. This leads to Brin having to fight KK to avoid blowing his own cover (hence, the "Kill a Friend" title).

But Cosvarr's plans come undone when Zorla learns he intends to replace her with "Carina Walter" (actually Light Lass in disguise), on whom he is trying to force himself. Zorla graciously allows the Legionnaires to escape before hitting the headquarter's self-destruct button, blowing up herself, Cosvarr, the Protectors, and who knows how many human employees.

So, it all comes down to "The fury of a woman scorned." Shooter even uses this trite phrase to close out the tale.

It is a shame that the story's imaginative setup is undone by the need to end the story so quickly. Cosvarr and Zorla devolve from clever and ruthless capitalists into cardboard villains who do what the plot dictates.

The Legionnaires don't come off much better. Nothing comes of Brin and KK's fight, the dilemma posed by the title. Although KK is momentarily overcome by flying Protector components, when next we see him--three panels later--he is no worse for wear.

In the end, the Legionnaires don't really accomplish much. It is Zorla who does everything--and, for awhile, this seemed to be more her story and Cosvarr's than the Legion's. For example, it is intriguing that they built a base on Jupiter and were perfectly legitimate--which means it was the Legionnaires who committed crimes by trespassing!

So much wasted potential in this one.

Interesting side note: Neither Ayla nor Brin appear in costume in this story. In fact, with her blonde wig, Ayla remains unrecognizable.

Another interesting tidbit: It was a fun twist how Mon-El and Superboy were worked into the story as the secret source of the Protectors' powers. Their names are not listed in the opening credits, making their cameo a nice surprise.

This issue had potential for an interesting storyline, but literally blew up in the end. The conclusion of Zorla letting the Legionnaires escape just so she could blow up the place and kill her unfaithful partner was very disappointing. The Legion did nothing to stop the suicide/mass murder of all of the factory workers. Instead of them being herores and trying to save victims lives, they just fly away in their spaceship commenting on the disaster. Talk about a total letdown of Legion standards and heroics.

The other dangling plot thread was the kidnapping of Superboy and Mon-el. How two Legionnaires could be off radar while on a mission and nobody noticed back at Legion headquarters baffles me. To create androids that mimic their super powers would have taken weeks to perfect. The fact that the Legion hadn't thought to check up on them in all that time is simply irresponsible.

This issue had some interesting plot elements, but there were simply too many weak points in the storyline to make this a great story.

Action Comics 282

Kill a Friend to Save a World starring Karate Kid. Or, had Giffen been writing it, Kill a friend to...oh, someone's killed Karate Kid!

Ultra Boy is challenged and defeated by a new advancement in protection. In a nice parallel to defence contractors and departments escalating their own budgets by creating an arms race, we meet Cosvarr and Zorla. They have Protectors and are willing to sell them to anyone willing to meet the price. Who would be without such a thing when all around had bought theirs?

The Legion’s self-doubt continues this issue, but it’s a bit odd coming from Karate Kid. The guy who can fight Superboy to a draw. His available team of Brin, Ayla and Salu are no slouches either.

Zorla’s a strong character. While putting their plant next to Earth is good for business, it may well attract undue attention. She’s also not keen that her partner leches over every woman he meets.

But Cosvarr isn’t just a salesman. He’s captured two of the Legion’s powerhouses and has experimented on them. His Protectors are humanoid versions of the two, making them formidable, and creepy, opponents.

The Legion infiltrates the plant. Without Superboy, it’s much more effective than the Adventure issue where they sneak onto Talok.

They’re all in position, Ayla has the information she needed about the humanoids, and then Timberwolf blows it for the team. He signals an alarm in a situation he’s able to then bluff his way out of. But it’s good that everyone’s not a top spy. Having everything not go to plan is also a sign of a decent writer.

Zorla’s a bit smarter when Karate Kid turns up and guess that he’s not alone. But the story is over all too soon when Zorla catches her partner about to betray her. If you must cheat on someone, ensure she doesn’t have access to a nuclear arsenal is the message of this story. Zorla detonates the whole plant over her betrayal.

Interesting villains, minions and a plot that would affect the whole UP and beyond. The UP gave the Legion the authority to destroy the plant. This raises lots of questions about the missions the team will happily go on because the UP tells them of a threat. It’s easy to picture the usual arms dealers pressurising their UP lackeys into contacting the Legion.

Zorla is someone who would have been good to see again. Their death reminds me of the Odyssey themed issue where the two villains also killed themselves.

Elsewhere, the Superman story is a gimmick dragged out of the Golden age with Lane suspicious of Supes identity and Perry White firing Kent and Olsen to get the plot moving.

Agreed, more space might have avoided the spurned lover cliche but that turn does seem so Shooterlike, it might have been inevitable.

This was never one of my favorite stories. Haven't read it in ages.

What I found interesting about that letter's page is Mort's revelation that Mon-El is pronounced "Moan-El." I still prefer "Mahn-El."

I've always went with "Mohn-El"... quick leap to Who's Who later...

It has it as "Mahn-El" so I'll just keep my "Mohn-El" along with my "Dark Seed"

I say "Mun-El", as in Monday.

Mahn-El for me.

I call him Glen

depends upon the day. I'm very inconsistent.

Inconsistent Lad.

I've always heard it in my head as "Mahn-El" which, come to think of it, sounds like some sort of elevated transportation system.

I'm thrilled you guys are keeping this going. I've been quiet because I just don't have access to my Action Comics collection right now.

If I can get a little time, I may try to catch up with the online copies of the stories. Or I may just skip ahead to where you currently are.

I'll certainly be able to rejoin full time by Archives #10, since I actually own the Archives version of those stories.

I fell behind myself but recently caught up to where you guys are on the backups. I'll need to catch up shortly with your commentaries on them and see if there's any thoughts I can add!

I'm sorry I haven't contributed to this thread so far. It's a combination of a rollercoaster life in recent weeks and...well...as I said before, I just don't like most of the pre-Cockrum backups that much.

I am still enjoying reading the reviews, though, and I especially appreciated the ones on the Banyo Fruit story (which I don't like -- I think it's a bit too obvious) and the Matter Eater Lad story (which I like -- for all its faults, the autobiographical elements that Shooter mixed in made Tenzil very sympathetic.)

Cobie, I have all the Action stories scanned and combined into pdf files. If you like I can email or dropbox them to you.

Cobie, Fanfie, and Lardy,
I'm glad you're checking in. I've missed your inputs (though I understood Fanfie was not a fan of this era and wouldn't be around much).

I look forward to you catching up, if you choose to do so.

Thanks, He Who.

Archive #9 is the only Archive I own.

This may seem a bit strange, but the simple fact is that I long ago gave up on finding all the Action issues that the Legion appeared in. There were just none to be found.

There is a reason for this that younger readers may not be aware of. With the exception of the Legion's run in Adventure, nobody wanted to collect any Mort Weisinger books back when they first came out. Seriously, they were considered about as collectable as Archie comics, probably because they were just as ubiquitous.

These were the books you passed down to your destructive little brother to keep him from getting his grubby mitts on your prized favorites. When your mom said you had to get rid of some comics, the Weisinger books were the first to go. Even the campiest Batman books were more collectable than Action, Superman, Lois Lane, Jimmy Olsen and Superboy. Thus, even though the average Weisinger title outsold just about every other book on the stands, there are very few copies of those books still in existence.

So, when they started coming out with the Archive series, I just bided my time until they got to the Action run and picked up just that one book.

Hmmm. I didn't have any trouble finding the Action run, but then that was 30+ years ago.

I bought most of my Action issues in the early '80s at Clint's Comics in Kansas City, MO. (Clint's is still in business.) The Action issues seemed quite plentiful at the time, though each issue cost an exorbitant $3.50 or so. (Those were the days . . .)

Action 383 "Chameleon Boy's Secret Identity"

Shooter taps into universal teenage angst once again to explore another side of the Legionnaires we don't often see. The angst this time concerns the question, what if you are attracted to a girl who doesn't like "your kind" (whatever "your kind" is)? What if you could do something about it?

Continuing the plot thread from the Adventure run, Chameleon Boy is still pining away over Princess Elwinda when he is roped into escorting Princess Projectra to a weekend party hosted by heiress Janice Warren. Janice turns out to be the spitting image of Elwinda, and Cham gets to save her from blindness when she mishandles a light crystal she owns.

Unfortunately, Janice is turned off by Cham's orange skin, bald head, antennae, and pointed ears, so it looks like Cham is smitten for nothing. Undaunted, he transforms into a handsome, dark-haired earthman named "Dane Roberts" -- just the kind of earthman Janice likes. They hit it off, but Cham secretly feels low for deceiving her.

Enter the usual plot complication. Janice's valuable light cyrstal is stolen, and she and "Dane" deduce that a robot repairman must have taken it. When they confront the repairman, he threatens Janice with a "senili-ray" which will "age [her] 10,000 years in 30 seconds," turning her to dust. (Where do ordinary crooks get super-villain hardware such as this?)

To save his love, Cham must reveal who he is and defeat the bad guy. Fortunately, Janice realizes that having a boyfriend who can be "anything or anybody" isn't so bad, after all.

This story accomplishes what it set out to do. Unfortunately, it didn't have very high goals to begin with. The plot is bare bones and cliched, with the hero pretending he's something he's not, only to come clean when he has to, and, in doing so, he wins the love of the girl, anyway. It's the sort of plot that would have been trite even by Prime Time '60s TV standards.

And I'm troubled by the fact that Janice falls in love with Cham only because he can be "anything and anybody." How shallow can you get? Cham deserved better--and maybe he soon realized this. I don't think Janice ever appeared again, though she is mentioned as still dating Cham in the "Lore of the Legion" text piece in Superboy 202.

On the plus side, I like it that Jeckie helps Cham out twice, first by agreeing to go along with his Dane Roberts identity and then by helping him and Janice sneak past the police. In spite of her reservations, she wants to help her friend and teammate.

It's also nice to see Jeckie attending a party and hobnobbing with the young and wealthy, as a princess should. This gives a sense of her life outside the Legion. (The notion that she "must have" an escort rings true and reminds me of some of the rigid social expectations for the upper class on "Downton Abbey".)

Sorry I'm dragging in late on Adventure #381, featuring Tenz and Vi's date.



It's ironic that in a later version of the Legion, Tenz was the cool funny guy while Projectra was the serious mysterious one.

Another variation: In this story Jo and his parents live in the wealthy upper levels; in a later version, Jo grows up in a Rimbor slum.

Haven't had a chance to reread 383 yet but here's the letter column.

It looks like Mon-El is getting some lovin'. Last issue, a fan asked how to pronounce his name. This issue, a fan praises 379 (not 179!) because Mon was featured. And next issue . . . more Mon!

A few thoughts on Act. 383. Dane always reminded me of Aqualad in this story, especially in the underwater dancing scene, where it appears to me that the 2 girls to the left of him are Jan and Jeckie with their hair miscolored. Carnivores obviously still ruled the world when this story was written as the guests order "cambeef" and "breast of flamebird". A couple of boots later, when some of the reboot Legion was trapped in this century they were shown to be disgusted by our carnivorous proclivities. It's fun to see Mortimer's rendition of several alien bird species. It would be fun to compare his alien animals to Forte's and Swan's from previous stories to see which ones seem the most anatomically plausible. It seems strange and silly that the Warrens have to have a separate teleporter for each guest room. That alone must cost a pretty penny. Why didn't Al the robot repairman just have the robot steal the jewel for him? It's too bad that Jeckie's power was compromised when they started showing her do the "strike a pose and point" thing to create an illusion. In her initial appearance all she had to do was concentrate to make one appear. When I first read this story as a kid, I balked at her making Jan and Cham "invisible" but then I realized she could just create an illusion of everything as it was, minus those 2 people. Cham mistakenly calls Janice Janet on page 10. It must be a strange feeling for Cham to change gender. Later iterations speculated on Durlans being bisexual, but back in the 60s of course, Cham's heterosexuality never wavers, even when he's in female form. Recall the scene in Adv. 303 when he threatens to clobber Cosmic Boy if he acts too lovey dovey when they posed as honeymooners. Does that mean he's a lesbian when he's in female form? Or transgender? Nice of Jan to proclaim that Cham cares for her "deeply" at the end. I guess that's that entitlement that rich people come to expect. The Octoid man remindes me of Marvel's Impossible Man.

I'm mostly troubled by the "anyTHING" part of that.

Jim,
I enjoyed Mortimer's winged creatures, too. They were quite imaginative.

I've never had a problem with Jeckie posing as she creates illusions. Doing so gives her something physical to do, particularly in crowd scenes of Legionnaires. It would be boring if she simply closed her eyes or stroked her temple to indicate she was concentrating.

Cham's ability to switch genders creates all sorts of interesting possibilities, particularly for a horny teenager.

Mr. Featherbottom,
I suspect that the reason Cham broke up with her was because he got tired of being a hovercar one day, a disco ball the next, a rare and exotic bird the next, and so forth.

It works for Imra and Nura! I take your point, but I think it tips off the bad guy that it's just an illusion she's projecting when she points at thin air and monsters/cops/whatever instantly appear. I just think there's so much untapped potential for Jeckie that's never been explored. For instance, she could use her power to disguise herself as Sun Boy blasting flames at the bad guy and bluff him into surrendering. Or disguise herself as a huge monster crawling out of a crevice in the ground and send the invading aliens into panic-stricken flight, instead of standing there with her arms in the air and making a monster appear out of nowhere. Or making them think they were somewhere else entirely, like on the moon or in outer space or trapped in a box, etc. etc.

You raise an interesting point, not just related to Jeckie but to the Legionnaires in general. Since the public knows their powers, crooks should be able to easily anticipate what they can do.

Still, if a ring of fire appeared around me, and I could feel the heat, I would have to be very brave to test the theory that it is an illusion.

I never thought Jeckie needed her Sensor Girl power boost. She just needed more imaginitive writers to use her effectively.

That was pretty much why I hated her in pre-Sensor Girl days...she had such an awesome power and all she ever used it for was "ridiculous monster appears out of thin air"

Exactly. She was much more impressive in her earliest appearances, but later on they just stopped trying with her.

That I agree with.

I didn't like Jeckie until she avenged Karate Kid in an extreme manner and subsequently became Sensor Girl.

To each their own.

To me, Jeckie was always sort of there--neither a favorite nor someone a disliked. I agree with Jim that there wasn't much imagination used by writers in depicting her powers, but I think that's true with most of the Legionnaires from the '70s on.

To me, the few standout Jeckie moments include the following:
-- creating an illusion of Validus to startle the Emerald Empress and Persuader (Superboy 198);
-- creating an illusion that informs Superboy of the altered history in the wedding of LL & SG tabloid; and
-- her power being adversely affected by one of the many illnesses she had to endure (Superboy # 206, which shows how dangerous her power can be).

I liked it when she became queen of Orando, as that event provided a believable and natural way of moving her and KK off stage for awhile. KK's death was wholly unnecessary and so, therefore, was her execution of Nemesis Kid. Still, it was totally in character for someone who had been trained to be a monarch to exercise this prerogative, and it showed her allegiance to a code of honor that, for her, predated and the Legion's code against killing. In a way, it was her way of exercising her independence from the Legion and closing that chapter on her life.

I recall being disappointed when Sensor Girl was revealed to be Projectra. The story had been set up so that Supergirl would be the big reveal; the last minute substitute felt like exactly that--a last minute substitute. While I came to enjoy Sensor Girl as a character, and particularly as leader of the Legion in the stories which followed, I would have preferred it if she had remained part of the Legion's past. Few characters ever say goodbye for good; yet that would have been a realistic and, in some ways, positive outcome for the series.

Good point well taken, He Who.

I, too, wish Sensor Girl had been Kara, but I love the design so much, I'm willing to settle for Jeckie.

I liked Sensor Girl's look also and it was fun re-reading with the foresight that it was Jeckie, to see how well what Sensor Girl did could be rationalized to Jeckie's powers.


To me, Jeckie was still best when with her original partners, KK and Ferro Lad. I vaguely recall a "flashback" type story with those three that I enjoyed a lot but I can't recall what boot.

Baxter Legion, issue 31. I liked that story, too.

I didn't like Jeckie at all when she first appeared. She reminded me of that girl in the cello section of my junior high school orchestra who wouldn't give me the time of day, despite the fact that I was first chair violinist. (Issues? What issues?)

On retrospect, I think it was the hair.

Action Comics 383

My main memories of Chameleon Boy from older Legion books relate to him feeling uncomfortable about his appearance and unable to hook up with human girls. I see that this story is a sort of follow up to the Elwinda tale. If only no one mentions it to Cham, he won’t recall that he was dragged back from the love of his life. Oops, that took just over a page. Poor Cham.

Interesting that Val is too busy to take time off at weekends, as he’s Legion leader. The Legion: The book that created a generation of workaholics stretching all the way into the 30th century.

He’s also not very keen on mingling with others. Since his duties as royal consort are basically looking nice at public engagements, I’m wondering if his later death was more suicide than it first appeared (and it appeared very suicidey at the time).

Perhaps Cham struggles with opposite genders of other species because he’s very creepy when he introduces himself? He’s obsessing after only a couple of panels. Sure, she looks like Elwinda. But he’s spying on her using his Super Creepy powers. I wonder if the Legion Espionage training manual has a chapter on perving.

This issue’s moral message: Use information you’ve obtained deceitfully to manipulate others!

Jeckie even joins in helping Cham. I guess she doesn’t like Janice that much then. Jealous over the Light Jewel?

Starro the Conqueror makes a guest appearance; His minions take a cue from Cham and masquerade as innocent Gill- Masks! When the Legionnaires leave, everyone else becomes his mindless slaves.

The great waiter strike of 2961 meant that they were all replaced by Marvin the Depressed Android clones. No one in Janice Warren’s class much liked the original waiters anyway.

Note that Flamebird’s cosmetic surgery became famous enough to last a millennium and inspire a dish.

Right Janice. You have a secret code to your family’s vault. A code that you then show to a complete stranger because you fancy him. This is why family fortunes are difficult to sustain down the generations. You can’t help but spoil your kids and they end up as dim as a light jewel in a Batcave.

Wow! You never see Hercule Poirot post armed guards on hover platforms! Who needs storms to keep the suspects in the big, old house?

Jeckie gets a power tweak, rendering Invisible Kids redundant. But it’s a nice look to how her powers affect the minds of others.

A Splurped Glorith must have survived the Time Trapper. She ends up working at the Metro Science Centre on her Senili Ray. A device that can age people 10000 years in 30 seconds. Maybe it was Rond Vidar on his lunch break? More terrifying technology from the future.

Cham crosses over to Marvel, becoming the Impossible Man to save Janice. He’s rewarded by a pity post kiss. Janice seems to now be quite taken with Reep, now that she’s in the clear for allowing her jewel to be pinched.

We get another Legion moral. Being heroic isn’t worth doing, unless there’s something in it for you at the end!

Elsewhere in Action: Clothes Do Not Make the Man. Except when they’re mind controlling you. Superman faces two uniforms. Both cooler than his own, and driven by forces that have survived death!

Dane's bare legged outfit do add to that Aqua-vibe. Yay! I'm glad I wasn't the only one to think Impossible Man

I liked Sensor Girl's costume, too. The character's convoluted raison d'etre? Meh.





Jeckie's original appearance did make her appear hoity-toity and better-than-thou. In hindsight, it was a very bland and boring appearance, something no real princess would likely wear: a bathing suit with a cape. And that hair! Swept back and all white. Was she trying to look like somebody's grandmother?

The curly haired upgrade was much improved. The costume--though it afforded the Legionnaires, villains, and pervs ample view of her cleavage and belly button--was stylish without being overly obvious that she was a real princess. (I didn't realize until some years later that the crowns on her boots were there for a reason). Of course, depending on the artist, her hair either looked immaculately coiffed or as if she couldn't find a good stylist in Metropolis. And the cape, tied around her neck, left her vulnerable to an Isadora Duncan demise.

I guess Val's death taught her to be more practical in her appearance (or illusion of appearance, as it were).

I liked her original costume and hated her Cockrum one. It was too busy and the colors clashed, imho. I didn't like Sensor Girl's either.

I think it's fascinating how we each have different views about what liked and didn't like about Projectra. She appears to have had an impact on us, whether we "liked" her or not.

To me, the Cockrum costume worked because it was striking, and it stood out among the other Legion outfits. The first time I saw it was the first time it was used, in Superboy 198. It provided a contrast from Brainy's, Jan's and Val's outfits.

In the next issue, Jeckie teams up with Brainy again, along with Cham (who also appears, but in a lesser role, in 198), Thom, and Nura (and Kal, of course). The dominant red in her costume and Cham's didn't make her costume quite so striking, and the color schemes of those Legionnaires' costumes seemed somehow off. I'm not an expert on design, and I don't think characters should be chosen just because of the complementary nature of their costumes; still, I imagine this is a consideration for most artists. The look of the comic as readers flips through the pages can make a difference in whether the reader picks up the issue or not. I imagine that's why Jeckie's color scheme was chosen to be what it was in 198.

In hindsight, Jim, you're right that the colors clash. Most of the costume is red and yellow, except for her cape, which is pink. I've always wondered why it wasn't red to match the rest of the outfit.

I always thought if they changed the red and yellow to the blue and white of her original costume, it would be a lot more appealing.

Some often refer to the Moys' work as the "Archie Legion," but I think the story in Adventure #383 and others before and after it are certainly Archie-like. Just replace the adults in Archie stories with space-villains, take out most of the laughs, and you have a late 1960s Legion story.

It just occurred to me how "Jeckie," while an obvious nickname for Projectra, is also very close to "Jackie" as in Kennedy, the closest contemporary thing to American royalty. I wonder if DC was nurturing that connection. I don't recall if I saw the similarity when I was reading the books back in that day.

"Chameleon Boy's Secret Identity" is certainly not a strong story. When I first read it, I half expected that Projectra would follow the stereotypical path of distancing herself from the odd Cham around her society friends. It was good to see her show no hint of that.

And I thought the smitten Cham's final words were charming: "I feel so good I just might turn into a cloud...and float away!"

But she didn't come to his defense when Janice said he gave her the creeps either. I was disappointed at that.

^ Since the focus immediately switched from Janice's comment to Cham's response, we didn't see how Projectra responded. I gave her the benefit of the doubt.

It was surprising to see Cham so insecure about what a girl thinks about his looks. I guess this was an ok story for a teenager finding himself, but not an exciting Legion stort.

It is interesting that Janice's dislike of Cham's non-human looks foreshadows Geoff John's xenophobia storyline with Earth-Man. Prejudice seems to remain a social cancer no matter what century we are in.

Lost moments in Legion history #247

"...and then he dumped me because I didn't kiss like Elwinda! He's only going out with me because I remind him of someone! Me Dumped! I've had it with aliens Kirt! Had it with the lot of them!

"Don't worry Janice, I'll make sure that no nasty alien will bother you again."

"You're so kind, Kirt. And you don't have antennae..."

^

I was thinking he dumped her because every time they went out in public, she insisted he appear as "Dane" of some other fantasy human male. It never occurred to me that Reep had his own brand of shallow.

Action 384 "Lament for a Legionnaire"

I'm predisposed to favoring any story which features my main man and namesake, Mon-El. A story which spotlights one's favorite Legionnaire is a lot like watching an episode of a TV series in which your favorite actor pops in or hearing a song that features a guest vocal by a musician of whom you're a fan. There's a charge of electricity in just knowing that your favorite someone gets special treatment, rather like getting special treatment yourself.

That's how I felt every time Mon (and, to a lesser extent Garth, Lyle, and Dirk) were featured in the Superboy/Legion stories of my childhood.

Even though I'm older and delusionally wiser now, that feeling remains, or remnants of it. So, with that caveat in mind, let's look at "Lament," in which Mon learns he is dying.

The story begins with Dream Girl experiencing a vision of Mon dying alone on a rocky surface somewhere in space. The Legionnaires are reminded once again that Nura's dreams always come true, so Mon looks like a goner. Overhearing his friends discuss his fate, Mon takes it stoically by going to bed after a long and tiring mission. Waking the next day, he enjoys the sunrise, a shower, and breakfast. He then decides to carry with him some extra anti-lead serum to try to prevent his death from happening.

Realizing that lead is, in fact, the only thing that can hurt him, Mon refuses to take his death lying down. He insists that Karate Kid send him on a mission. The only mission available lasts three days in space. This does not please Shady, who barely misses Mon when she returns from a mission herself. She goes so far as to call KK a BEAST! (in large, red letters).

Curiously, Mon never thinks of Shady at all in this story, and this, for me, is its biggest letdown. Yes, I know this is a super-hero story written for young teenagers who might find it unmanly that their hero pines away for his girlfriend, but we've seen Jo, Chuck, and even Cham express tenderness toward their significant others. It's really not asking too much for Mon to try to spend his final days with Shady or at least say goodbye.

But off Mon goes on his mission and, when he returns, he acts distant and aloof toward Shady. But, never fear, this isn't Mon at all. It's Eltro Gand, a descendant of Mon's brother. Eltro reveals that he overpowered Mon in space and impersonated him in order to keep the prophecy from coming true.

Here we have some tropes that we just have to accept as a given in Silver Age Legion stories or Silver Age DC comics in general. Trope 1: Your descendant will look just like you (re: Whizzy, Lex Luthor, Mxyzptlk), even if he is not a direct descendant. Trope 2: Your descendant will be heroic, just like you, and abandon his own life, whatever it may have consisted of, to save you. Trope 3: Your buddies will not catch on to the impersonation because the only clue is that your impersonator acts distant and aloof toward your girlfriend. So, in other words, your future descendants will look, act, and talk just like you. Must be nice to know you're immortal.

Tropes aside, Eltro's scheme comes undone in an ironic way. By trying to save Mon, he inadvertently kills him, a twist reminiscent of Greek tragedy. So, again demonstrating that heroism runs in the family, Eltro flies Mon's body to earth where he uses an "exchanger" machine to transfer his life essence into Mon. Eltro dies and Mon awakens, oblivious to what has happened.

Overall, the conclusion works even though it becomes Eltro's story, not Mon's. (Having a passive protagonist is a problem in several of these Action stories.) At least the solution builds on previously established Legion lore--the resurrection of Lightning Lad--so it does not come wholly out of left field. Readers unfamiliar with the earlier story might have seen the ending as a deus ex machina, though.

However, this Action story, like most of the others so far, would have benefited from being given more room to develop. It would have been nice to learn more about Eltro and why he was willing to go to such lengths, and even sacrifice himself, for a distant relative he's never met. Alas, we're never given a hint of his motivation.

So, does that "electrified" feeling remain for me after reading this spotlight on Mon? Yes and no. I liked the early parts of the story, when he appreciates the sunrise and other things he thinks he'll never experience again, and I appreciate the fact that he tries to find his way around the prophecy by stocking up on anti-lead serum. But I feel I haven't learned anything new or interesting about him. As I said, it is Eltro, a throwaway character, who makes the decisive choices, not Mon.

Sidenote department:

Nura's bed is much smaller here than it will be in Superboy 201. I guess she hadn't yet made room for Thom (or Proty II!).

Page 5 apparently contains an error. It's been established that Mon takes his anti-lead serum ever 24-48 hours (and he even alludes to this when he says Brainy's equipment automatically produces one dose very 48 hours). However, in Panel 3, he says he'll be safe if he takes a dose every eight hours. Perhaps he wanted to hedge his bets.

This is the first Action story in which Superboy plays a role (other than his and Mon's cameo as unconscious sources of the Protectors' power in "Kill a Friend ..."). Superboy doesn't do much here, but it is nice to see him try to overpower and kidnap is "big brother."

Good thing R.J. Brande (or the UP, perhaps) doesn't mind footing the bill for casual destruction in Legion HQ. Why Mon thought that creating a hole in the floor (which anyone could easily go down to reach his vault) was a good idea is anybody's guess.

Don't forget the new trope that anytime someone exchanged their life force to save you, a teeny bit of them remains inside you for future writers to use to turn you into a decades old lie.

As a one-off, the story is okay, something to read, something to do. Pleasant. In light of its use in future events, it was more of a chore for me to read.

You raise an interesting point, BB. When people re-read these stories, do they read them in the context of later developments, or do they read them as stand-alones?

I've been trying to do the latter, because 1) Shooter is not responsible for what later writers did with his creations, and 2) every story should stand or fall on its own merits.

As for Eltro inhabiting Mon's mind, I don't really have a problem with it. I think it was brilliant how TMK used this idea to foreshadow the eventual Proty/Garth revelation, and I don't think it alters Mon's character much--although maybe his personality was altered in positive ways.

Some have suggested that the lack of self-confidence Mon displays in Superboy # 190 can be attributable to Eltro. However, I think it's just as likely that Mon picked up some of Eltro's boldness and selflessness. After all, Mon didn't become Legion leader until after the transference. Prior to the transference, he was a more laid-back and subdued kind of guy; afterwards, he became more prominent and assertive.

But then if you were to assign Mon-el's behavior to Eltro's personality you'd be violating the "stand alone" preference. Oh what a tangled web we weave.


I think from a "review" approach, it is only fair to critique from the POV of what came before and what the writer had control over, which normally wasn't a decade after but I generally prefer to read and discuss in the context I have, the what comes after. Makes the stories new for me and I think that is what the later writers would have intended.

As pointed out, this was a minor one-off of little consequence that only became big in the long scheme.


Something else else I'm maybe not remembering correctly, when Mon-el was revived by the Trapper after Magic Wars, and both personalities were evident, wasn't Eltro the whiney voice?

My stand-alone preference does not have to be absolute. It's impossible (for me, at least) to read these stories without some context of what has gone before. As I mentioned in my review, Action 384 builds off of Adv. 312, and it enriches the story if the reader knows this.

I agree with you that it's fair to critique only what the writer had control over, which includes, to a degree, what had gone before in previous stories. But I prefer not to read too far ahead in drawing connections. Doing so makes sense, I think, only if the same writer is involved and there is a reasonable expectation that the later development was intended all along. Since the TMK era was written by different writers twenty years later, those developments do not impact this story (though the reverse is obviously not true).




I'd have to re-read the TMK issue to see if Eltro comes across this way, but there's no reason he couldn't be whiney and have the positive traits he displays in 384. A character with more than one personality trait? Who'da thunk it?

I was just trying to recall. TMK were using some kind of color system to identify who was talking and I never could keep it straight. And then there was Roxxas with all the voices in his head. I remember a whiney voice but can't exactly place who it is.


Was looking to clean out a room in the house and bring the comics in from the garage so I can do a bit of re-reading this summer. I think I'll pick up at the Baxters.

Action Comics #384 has one of my favorite Legion panels. Dream Girl's tear makes the image.

It is a good panel, LT; in addition to the tear, the design is eye-catching. Nura frames the panel and directs our attention to Mon and KK. Mon's finger keeps the eye moving in a circular direction.

Mortimer may not have been the ideal Legion artist, but he knew what he was doing.

I loved when Mon called Nura Dreamboat in this story. He did the same in Adv. 317.

Hm. Maybe that's why he wasn't thinking of Shady.

Just a few thoughts. It was sad and sweet of Mon to call Nura Dreamboat, an affectionate nickname, even though she's just revealed he's about to die.

The Daxamites whipped up an entire fortress overnight? With no super powers? That's some feat.

I have a problem with Dream Girl's vision being a self-fulfilling prophecy. If she hadn't made the prediction it wouldn't have come true. Dreamy is one of my faves and I don't like seeing her portrayed in this way. With predictions like this she's more hindrance than help.

Mon is revealed to be dead partially because he's not breathing . . . in space? Hasn't it long been established that he and Supes don't have to breathe in space? Or underwater for that matter? As there's no air to breathe that hardly seems conclusive.

Mon mentions visiting the descendants of his brothers and sisters in Adv. 356 yet he doesn't recognize Eltro at the end of the story (even though they look exactly alike!). Was Eltro estranged from his family perhaps due to some transgression?Was he trying to win his way back into favor by rescuing Mon-El, the family's homegrown hero? Could be interesting to know the backstory there.

Action 384's letter column:

Eltro being a distant relative on Mon-El's who sacrificed himself to save his life seems too convenient. After 1,000 years it's hard to believe that they would look so much alike. Actually having to deal with the death of a major character would have produced a more compelling story than the all to common last minute switcharoo. Still, despite the ending, this was a fairly decent story.

China scoffs their slowness.

I have the original issues but I have to imagine those with the volumes really appreciate your posting those letter columns. There is so much fandom history in those, I now realize how much better the volumes' stories if those had been included.

My cousin has a letter in that Metropolis Mailbag. Those who know my secret identity may recognize it.

Got it!

I just realized that today is the anniversary of my cousin's death in 1976. He was a journalism student; he drowned on a newspaper staff retreat.

Throughout our teen years we used to write Legion fanfic and draw Legion pics. We'd mail them to each other on almost a weekly basis. Man, he would have loved Legion World.

That's an interesting perspective on Dream Girl's power. If she had kept quiet, perhaps the story would not have unfolded. However . . .

This story, as I mentioned above, reminds me of Greek tragedy, particularly Oedipus Rex. Shooter, we know, had studied The Odyssey, and incorporated some of its themes into earlier stories. Here he appears to have done the same thing.

In Oedipus Rex, the title character, the king of Thebes, received a prophecy as a young man that he was fated to kill his own father and marry his mother. Oedipus goes to great lengths to avoid this prophecy, even moving to a different kingdom. But, in taking all of these actions, he unwittingly brings about the prophecy. The story illustrates the Greeks' belief that one cannot escape one's own destiny.

It's interesting to view Mon's story in this light because he does escape his own destiny. It's a pity Oedipus didn't have a lookalike cousin.

Prophecies can be valuable as story-telling devices. Babylon 5 used them to great effect. After Londo learned what his tragic prophecy was to be, he eventually embraced it for the greater good.

So, I don't have a problem with the self-fulfilling nature of Dream Girl's prophecy. Knowing what the future may hold can reveal a person's character in terms of how they face the inevitable (as Londo did) or how they try to run from it (as Oedipus did). In Mon's case, he was cheated out of reaching that point when Eltro intervened.

So sad that he passed away so young.

Action #384

I like the introduction to this story. We get the splash panel of gloom. It’s followed by a quick look at the Legion HQ at night, an eerie reintroduction to Nura’s powers (look at those eyes seeing the future) and Mon El’s arrival as his teammates discuss where to tell him. Five days till Death! Feel that tension!

After Mon calls Nura “dreamboat” I’m wondering if this came up in the TMK run. Nura was supposed to have had some extra-Thom romances within the team.

As Mon begins counting down the days, we see him go about his daily routine. It’s reminiscent of the issue where the team had just been poisoned by the Villain Who Would Never Get Credit. But it soon sifts into a very concise breakdown on Mon El's past, how his serum works and how it’s stored.

Note that the UP get a peek into all Legion information, those rascally overlords. Mon-El intends to fight the prediction, although Daxam has built a super fortress for him to hide in. “Spoken like a hero,” says the High Commissioner just before he’s lynched by the populace for bankrupting them needlessly. His murder would be the key that made them slaves of Darkseid years later.

Wow, Shady is really super -peeved that Karate Kid sent Mon-El off on a mission without her. Notice that the brave Karate Kid completely fibs. It might have been Mon-El’s idea to go on a mission, but it was Val who sent him off on a three day one. He could have sent Mon off on any shorter mission. Off to get the Legion's milk for example, if Mon would have fallen for it.

While it certainly jumps the plot forward time wise, it would have meant that it took too long for any help to have reached Mon had he needed it.

Superboy’s attempt to kidnap Mon to replace him shows the sacrifice that we’ve seen in earlier Adventure issues. But look! That plot jump was a cunning plot twist! Now a distraught Eltro Gand determines to make the sacrifice. Twice actually since replacing Mon didn’t quite work out.

There’s not only a nod to previous issues in how this is done, but a nice bit of confused dialogue from Mon-El when he woke.
I first knew about Eltro Gand from the early issue of the TMK run. That was where the writers supposed that the device would actually project Eltro’s personality into Mon El.

As if that wasn’t enough of a reveal, they then told us that Mon hadn’t actually died. The resultant personality clashes were responsible for Mon El’s later breakdowns.

I still hadn’t read this issue by the time the Garth/Proty relationship was revealed. At the time, I thought it was TMK making the connection between the two events. Actually, I thought the Garth/Proty reveal was a bit derivative. But anyone who had read this issue could have seen it coming, as it’s very clearly connected to the Proty/Garth event here.

I liked this one. The pacing is very good and there’s some effective twists in the short number of pages. The characters are noble, Legion-melodrama-serious and the threat is an ominous one.

That's interesting. I don't really have that sort of connection to any character.



Since Shady's attracted by Mon's stoic heroism, Mon thinks that any switch from that would be seen as weakness in Shady's warrior eyes. I've not doubt Mon wept like a child as soon as he was out of Superboy's super hearing range. And we saw Shady's reaction. True love





I put this issue's version of this as being down to Daxam's eugenics programme that stems form their bio-engineering obsessions. Another step towards Darkseid guys...




There's a lost Action Comics plot called "Peril on Posvar." There Eltro Gand battles the very different descendants Bizarro-El, Monxyxptlk and Tue-El from the Mirror Dimension battle over Mon El's unconscious form.




To be fair, they did look for an Adam's Apple this time.




It brings a certain maturity to the storytelling. Shooter picked up a lot from having to go through those classics.



Despite the obvious heroism here, Eltro was perceived as the weak link in the TMK un. Ever aware to such details, they explained that as Eltro simply being unable to cope with the sudden memories of a 1000 year isolation in the Phantom Zone.




Yeah, I thought he was using Super-Guzzling to keep himself safe. Without knowing the endings, it first looked as though something may happen to Mon's supply with the others unable to reach his lab to produce more. Well apart from through that great big hole as you pointed out

EDIT: Gah! Well, I'm not triple posting...

In the Action part of the book, we get the continuation of the great Super-Uniforms story.

There's a really nice panel with Supergirl lifting a ship with one hand, while melting icebergs with her heat vision.

Those who follow Perry White's underwear through the decades won't want to miss out on this one either!

If anybody's interested, reviewing this issue inspired me to write my latest blog post.

Interesting interpretation of Mon and Shady. I wish Shooter had thought to go there.




I would like to have read that.




I enjoyed the Supergirl and Batman cameos in this story.

I wonder if Superman flew Perry through Metropolis this way. ("Look, up in the sky! It's a bird! It's a plane! It's . . . don't look, Ethel!")

Interesting analysis in your blog article on Mon-El's character flaws. The most poignant was his lack of trust of his fellow Legionnaires with his anti-lead serum. I too thought that was an odd bit of storytelling. It makes me wonder who else in the Legion doesn't trust their friends to have their backs.

As I was reading it, I thought that the anti lead serum on his belt (nice to see it being functional) was going to be damaged.

I thought that making the lab inaccessible would mean that the others couldn't get to it in time.(Superboy would, of course, be taken out by a Kryptonite laced banana or something as usual). A dying Mon El wouldn't have the strength either. Sure there are lots of others with powers such as Ultra Boy and Element Lad, but for that moment I thought it was a deliberate set up.

Then another way of looking at it was to make the lab inaccessible to the really nasty villains the Legion goes up against. That would allow only Mon or Supes or Jo to get to it.

A threat that is going to kill Mon El must be a huge one. But protecting the lab rules out most of the Legion's foes except Mordru and Validus from getting at it. So it's more a case of covering his bases, than a failure of trust in his friends.

That's how I was reading it.

One aspect of the story reminds me of Caesar and the soothsayer's warning to beware the Ides of March. He tells the soothsayer that the Ides have come and nothing untoward has happened to him. The soothsayer replies that the Ides have come but not passed.

As soon as Eltro drives off the invaders (a neat feat since he's had super powers for all of ten minutes yet instantly knows how to use them to full effect) he and everyone else assumes the danger is over and they all go together joyfully to retrieve Mon-El. It seems like Dream Girl at least should've been wary that the deadline (no pun intended) for her prediction had not yet passed.

Jan: Yes! It's Mon! and he's alive!
Jo: I knew you'd survive Mon! I knew you'd live!
>gunshot from HQ<
Jo: A sniper! Mon's been shot!
Nura: He must die. He must. The prophecy must come true...
>shoots Mon with another Naltorian lead bullet<

Thanks for checking it out, Leather Wolf!

With all the regular security devices to make sure none of his fellow Legionnaires can even access the vault, one wonders what would happen if Mon were incapacitated and someone else would have to fetch his anti-lead serum.

Trope # 5: If you are suddenly given super-powers, you will instantly know how to use them.

(For all we know, though, Eltro had been practicing in secret for years.)



Good point. It would have been nice to see DG experience a moment of doubt since her dreams are never wrong. In the next issue, however, we learn that Naltorians can't foresee all the details. Hmm . . .

We pretty much learn that in every Dream Girl appearance!

Action 385 "The Fallen Star Boy"

In terms of plot development and pacing, this is the best of the Action offerings so far. It's a straightforward heroes-versus-villain yarn with a nice connection to a previous Adventure story and a spotlight on Star Boy, whose reputation as a less-than-bright bulb is wholly obliterated here.

The story does what it set out to do, and does it well. My only complaint is that the opportunity for Thom to learn something about himself, or for the reader to learn something about him, is missed.

Writer E. Nelson Bridwell wastes no time getting us into the story. Star Boy overhears a plea from his homeworld, Xanthu, requesting the Legion's help with a criminal gang. He volunteers for the mission, even breaking his date with Dream Girl. (Hm. Maybe this is where the Proty liaison began.) Saturn Girl and Colossal Boy accompany him to Xanthu, where the criminals easily anticipate their moves and even escape a giant-sized Gim by flying through a maze of elevated walks and monorails (good move!).

Thom figures out that the thieves must be Naltorians and can foresee the Legionnaires' moves. However, the Legionnaires soldier on, aware that not even Dream Girl can anticipate every detail of the future.

It is not the valuable treasures they've been stealing that the thieves are after, however, but Star Boy himself. He is captured and taken before the the thieves' boss, Yark Althu, who turns out to be the brother of Kenz Nuhor, the criminal Thom killed back in Adv. 342. Yark has devised a nasty form of revenge by trapping Thom aboard a weightless ship in which Thom's power won't work. But Thom outwits the criminal by increasing the mass in Yark's gun, making it impossible to pull the trigger.

Imra and Gim arrive to save the day. While Yark and his underlings wore helmets which blocked Imra's telepathy, Thom did not, so Imra simply followed his brainwaves.

This story makes me yearn for the days when comic book writers knew something beyond comic book continuity and could bring in all sorts of ideas to make the super-hero world seem more plausible. For example, Thom does not simply make things super-heavy here; he increases mass, and this enables him to outwit his enemy. Likewise, Imra uses her brain (in more ways than one) to find Thom, creating a very plausible ending that, for once, makes the Legionnaires appear smarter than the villain.

The story is also well paced and affords two three-panel pages (Pages 4 and 5, the latter of which is dominated by giant Gim) which increase the intensity of the action. Although the entire story is only 10 and three-quarters pages long, it does not feel rushed.

As I said, though, I would have preferred an ending in which Thom learns something about himself or reflects on how his actions back in Adv. 342 led to this revenge scheme. In a later story, Superboy 211, Thom expresses regret over his decision to kill Nuhor and suggests that the decision still haunts him. It would have been too much, perhaps, to expect such insight to occur in this era (a hero who regrets his actions? Perish forbid!); still Thom takes Yark's hatred of him too much in stride. Yark could easily be replaced with any random foe who wants to take out a Legionnaire, and the outcome of the story would not be much different. (Though the Kenz connection provides an excuse for the villain to be Naltorian.)

Curiously, a footnote tells us that Yark's last name is not the same as Kenz's because the tradition of family names is not followed on Naltor. There seems to be no reason for this revelation, as nothing comes from it in the story. By the time Mysa Nal would be given a name some dozen years later, the idea would be forgotten.

Overall, "The Fallen Star Boy" is a competent but not terribly memorable story.

I always assumed the main point of the name stuff was really to explain the "Xola Aq" name for the White Witch/Hag.

Could be, EDE. You know, it's almost a shame that they didn't keep Xola Aq as the White Witch's real name. It would have been interesting to challenge popular conceptions of what a "pretty" name should look and sound like.

I think this footnote was to explain why White Witch, whose name was given as Xola Aq in Adv. 351, has a different surname from her sister, Nura Nal. Mysa Nal was a retcon and a sloppy one. If Levitz had done his homework he would've known about the Naltorian surname thing. This just came up in a Legion Facebook group I'm in today. Note this entry on WW from Wikipedia, which I happen to agree with:

"The White Witch is a fictional comic book character who exists in the DC Universe, a member of the Legion of Super-Heroes in the 30th century. Her real name is Mysa Nal, although her name was given as Xola Aq in Silver Age Legion stories in Adventure Comics; the revelation that her name was actually Mysa Nal was a later retcon."

Madame X

I kind of doubt it. Adventure 346 came out over two years after the Kennedy assasination. For someone in the book's target audience (pre-adolescents), that was ages ago.

Special thanks to Jim Gallagher, a true Legionnaire who was able to get me easy access to the Action back-ups! I’ve been trying to cram a few of them in to catch up, which is easy enough considering they’re only about 8-10 pages. It’s a little jarring to go from whole issues, and in many cases 2-parters (where Shooter excelled the most) to back-ups but I’m probably well served by this long break I’ve had since I read & reviewed my last story.

Action #378
Firstly, I actually think the Lotus Fruit issue with Timberwolf is quite good. It’s not Shakespeare by any means, but most drug-related stories during the late 1960’s weren’t either, whether they were films, novels or what have you. This was a hot topic and one people were struggling with, and still struggle with to this day. I think it took a lot of guts for Shooter to make an actual Legionnaire the junkie here, instead of a supporting character. Even more, he choose one that was up until now an alpha male, go-get’em type. The fact that Brin has a loner past made this a great choice as well. In the final Adventure issues Shooter was dabbling with socially relevant stories and this feels like the full extension of that.

The story is very much on the nose but with 10 pages to tell it, it has to be. The same goes for the resolution, which at first appears far too easy. Though, naturally, this is only the end of the first part of Brin’s addiction. If there were subsequent stories over the years showing with him struggling with it, it would have made for some potential good drama IMO. As someone once said on this board 10 years ago or something, I think that in the GDS, Brin’s greatest fear should have been his addiction to lotus fruit, not his belief he was a robot.

Action #379
A few things about this story stand out:
- Like most of us, I bet, I have files and files of Legion story ideas I’ve created over the years. And a character I always return to is Uli Algor. I have no idea what makes her so compelling to me, but I like the idea of her and Sunburst as a low level Bonnie & Clyde, and the fact that she probably held a grudge against Shady and Mon after this story.
- I’ve always thought Sunburst should have been a villain who reappears more. And I always am surprised by how bad his costume is, given his awesome codename.
- I’m curious about whether Mon-El as deputy leader is something Shooter decided or if Mon actually came in 2nd place during the last leadership election? Does anyone know?
- There isn’t anything too elaborate about this story, including characterization, but for the most part it’s a nice little action story with a twist—which is basically what the Superman books were known for throughout the entire 1950’s and Silver Age. As a back-up, it’s certainly way more than I would normally expect to get then and especially now.

Action #380
Action #380 is full of things to like and dislike, and leaves the reader feeling a bunch of different things. First, I like that Duo Damsel gets the spotlight here. It’s the first time ever, and there won’t be too many more until the postboot; in fact, it feels like it could only have happened in the back-up era, as there wouldn’t be enough there for Shooter to fill out a full issue. I also like that finally we get into the concept of Luornu’s multiple selves not being quite so straight-forward as we’ve been lead to believe. Unfortunately after this story that is put on the back-burner all the way until TMK; I think that complexity to her as presented in TMK and the postboot is what makes her so great; without it, not so much.

This story also is really the story which cements Bouncing Boy and Duo Damsel as an item, and I like that. I don’t like how it ends though, especially considering the knowledge I have of the next 40 years worth of Legion stories. It feels creepy and tragic, as if the “other Luornu” was forced to marry Chuck against her will. That isn’t there in the story itself, but I can’t help but feel that way given all I know and will read one day.

I dislike Nam’Lor immensely, even if there isn’t much about him in the story itself. I much prefer the Peebz LMB version that appeared in “Lord of the Oval” where he is a dim-witted Hulk / Superman mash-up. Instead we get a bunch of rigmarole about Nam’lor’s aura causing Luornu to go evil but he loves her and wanted her to change and yadda yadda. That is very much a Superboy type reasoning from 1958 that Jerry Siegel or Leo Dorfman would use, and by 1970, the charm of such explanations has been lost. I’d much rather Luornu Purple struck out on her own and started dating a bad boy who just happened to like being bad but had no clue what the hell he was getting into with the Legion.

Action #381
I really like how this one opens up with the Legionnaires preparing to relax and have a good time, letting us see them as late teenagers / early 20 somethings. It’s made even better by the inclusion of Tenzil and Condo, both of whom we pretty much never see.

Seeing Tenzil’s family is jarring even though I’ve read this story years earlier. When I was a kid, my family did not have much and I guess you could say for a long time we were basically poor. I always harbored some resentment about that, even if I had great parents and a great family life. I remained highly sensitive about it throughout middle school and high school. So I immediately relate to Tenzil’s feelings in the story. At first it feels uncomfortable and hard to read, and I think that is what makes it great. Shooter does a fantastic job showing that not everyone’s home life is aces, and he provides a very realistic reason for why Tenzil needs to get away from his parents. Tenzil’s parents certainly feel like they’re more out of 1970 (or even 2015) than 2070 but I honestly don’t think situations like they’ve found themselves in will ever stop, be it 10, 100 or 1,000 years in the future.

Meanwhile, Vi’s predicament is a bit more ‘classic’ but also very personal and relatable. Once she explains her own loneliness, I’m pretty much geared up to watch a two hour movie about how Vi and Tenzil have a great night out, fall in love and live happily ever after. I love seeing the glamorous Projetra help her get read, and Mortimor does a fantastic job in showing how beautiful she looks. In fact, he does a terrific job all issue and seems to really be excelling in the Action back-ups more than before. Hell, by the time they’re dancing in a gravity free ballroom, I’m seeing Tony Curtis and Natalie Wood and am starting to feel like I’m 18 myself!

And then…the issue ends! Stupid Duplicate Boy shows up and ruins it all! Stupid, all of them, stupid!

I don’t like the resolution at all. This was probably the most romantic LSH story ever up until this point, and I feel like Tenzil and Vi deserve to be together more than pretty much all the other LSH couples besides perhaps Garth & Imra. We actually see and feel the romance here rather than be told about it…and then it all falls apart on the second to last page?!!

I never liked Duplicate Boy much before, and this story serves to remind me why. I also don’t like the resolution to Tenz’s parents, which arrives in the final two panels. Ah well, at least the Kem family has lived on to awesome effect by the always brilliant Mill’Ester team in my beloved Matter-Eater Lad: The Series.

Action #382
#382 has another ‘small’ story featuring Cosvar and his robot protectors, but Shooter does a great job at really showing us how a protection racket could work…and how it could be done on a global political level where things gain legitimacy and aren’t called “rackets”…even though they clearly are. Cosvorr and Zorla come across as a realistic couple of confidence men too: Shooter makes them normal people right away, which is a nice touch.

The four Legionnaires featured are used to great effect espionage-style, and naturally the KK / TW fight stands out as a great plot twist (made even better by being brief). As usual, the ending kind of sends things off the rails, as I can’t quite figure out if the Legionnaires just let Zorla kill herself and Cosvorr too.

Also, Zorla looks like she’s a member of the X-Men!

Action #383
This was mentioned an issue or two earlier, but its amazing how Shooter’s boy Val went from newbie to Legion leader in such a short time. Well, not that amazing actually when you star in a third of the stories!

As to the issue at hand, it’s chalk-full of romance tropes that I usually find creepy and distasteful: Cham likes Janice because she looks like his past love—perhaps the single creepiest of all romance tropes; Cham spies on them; Janice doesn’t like Cham because she’s basically a racist; Cham disguises himself as Janice’s dream man, taking the creepiness to a whole new level; Jeckie is in on it thereby putting her friend in danger of having her emotions played with; Cham threatens to spoil a SP investigation for his own selfish reasons. Yikes. This one has a lot to dislike. The ending puts it over the top: Janice likes him because “he can become anybody” (re: not himself) and he likes it because he gets to be the hero.

After reading all that lovely romance in the Tenzil / Vi story, this is like the opposite. I’m left wishing Al, the service repair man, got away with the jewel.

Action #384
The Eltro Gand story holds a big place in my heart because I first discovered its existence after I had read the TMK issue, so when I got the chance to read this, it finally put so much into perspective about TMK. Also, I just happened upon this story one day by opening up my Dad’s copy of Action Comics #384 when I realized it said “Superman and the Legion of Super-Heroes” at the top, and was shocked to discover an LSH story inside. In those pre-internet days, especially for a fan who didn’t even discover the LSH until the 1990’s, I had absolutely no clue that the Legion ever had stories in Action before! It would be the equivalent of today finding out there was a whole run of Spider-Man stories in Strange Tales as back-ups that I never knew about. It was like striking gold.

The story itself is interesting for a few reasons. It presents a classic narrative dilemma of declaring a character will die and then the rest of the issue either bringing you there or showing how that won’t come to pass. Those stories are always tricky to do—and anyone who has read a lot of Superboy stories from the 50’s and 60’s know that it was an often used, or misused, plot device. Then, weirdly enough, the issue spends a whole slew of pages that basically amount to “anything you ever wanted to know about Mon-El and his lead serum and more!”. And almost all of that has nothing to do with how Mon-El gets out of the dilemma! Still, it’s a great way to take a reader curious about the Legion and make him a Mon-El fan for life.

I do like how the Legionnaires react to the news, particularly Superboy predictably plotting to take Mon’s place. Once again, the limits of a back-up prevent things from being long and drawn out, which I can appreciate.

The ending works for me because I read TMK first. If it had been published after TMK, it would actually be a nice little story. But without knowledge of TMK, readers of this story must have been like “WTF? Eltro Gand? WTF?!!!”

Nice summary and review, HWW. I especially agree with your yearning “for the days when comic book writers knew something beyond comic book continuity and could bring in all sorts of ideas to make the super-hero world seem more plausible”. The usage of both Thom and Imra using their powers and ingenuity are really well done, giving this story the sense that the win was truly earned.

I also think the pacing of the story is excellent. The writer here is E. Nelson Bridwell, who was very used to writing 8-12 page stories, and he clearly has a handle on how to evenly distribute the plot and action in that limited space.

Lastly, I agree (lots of agreement here! ) that I wish there was a little extra element of Star Boy gaining something from this mission, or at least being set down a road where we could see him continually address his actions of taking another sentient’s life early in his Legion career. Yark Athlu himself would actually have been a fantastic villain to have recur: he’s a clever thug, somewhat intimidating in appearance, who also possesses the same powers as Dream Girl. A thug-type Dream Boy with the need for revenge? Definitely deserving of repeat appearances.

Lastly, on a personal note, I’m pretty thrilled to be caught up on the LSH back-ups in Action. I had missed doing these with you guys and look forward to continuing. One thing that strikes me is that I was pretty much prepared to dislike a lot of these stories, or at least dismiss them as not being that good. I was very wrong in that; instead, most of them have had a lot of good things going on, and the limited space seems to make Shooter, and of course Bridwell, step up their A-Games. Win Mortimor appears to be excelling as well in these back-ups. So I’ll finish with: thanks again Jim Gallagher!

Great reviews, Cobie! I especially like this one:



Like you, I find it hard to separate the Luornu of this story from the Luornu who makes jaw-droppingly foolish choices several years down the road, even though those choices were foisted on her by other writers. Chuck is one of my favorite male Legionnaires, and I think future Luornu is an idiot for the things she ends up putting him through. Then again, upon reflection, maybe it's a case of the saying, "one sees oneself in the people one hates". I do have some things in common with her, let's put it that way and just leave it at that.

Also, like you, I despise Nam'Lor, just one of many of Shooter's mouth-breathing, sexually maladjusted creeps whose "intentions are good." See also Quanto, Korvac, the Beyonder...

Thanks for sharing how you see your own personal experiences in Tenzil. As I said earlier in this thread, for all of that story's flaws I find it very affecting, and I give Shooter a lot of credit for semi-autobiographically sharing what were undoubtedly some very painful memories.

Thanks Fanfie! I'm still reading through this thread to catch up on everyone's comments, so I'll keep an eye out for your earlier post. I didn't think of the semi-autobiographical nature of the story for Shooter, but now that you mention it, I can easily see it. You can tell he really pours a lot into this story.

At this time in DC Comics history, it was still odd for couples to break up. Once you were "locked in" as a couple in the DCU, you basically stayed a couple in perpetuity. I'm glad that finally all fell apart. Because after reading the Tenz / Vi story, it is clear to me that Vi should have broke up with Duplicate Boy right there on the spot.

As to the other topic, I also like Chuck immensely, and feel that not only is he a great husband to Luornu "Nuetral", but he would have made a terrific brother-in-law to "Luornu Purple", and would have been able to help her deal with her issues and find a place in the world once she and her sister accepted they were not the same person. That story is still waiting to be told one day.

Thanks for the correction! I've edited the review accordingly.

It does explain why this story is much more tightly paced and plotted than the previous ones.

Good to have you back, Cobie.

Mon-El came in second place in the latest fan election, making him deputy leader. the results were posted in Act. 379's letter column.

Not much to say about The Fallen Star Boy. Nice to get a brief cameo of Star Boy's parents. Wish we'd seen more of them. I like that they refer to Xan City, the Desert of Death and the Gwanth Ocean. A nice little geography lesson on Xanthu. I disliked it when later writers got lazy and painted entire planets with a single brush, i.e. Winath is one big farming plantation, Talok is one big desert, everyone on Tharr is short, etc. etc. I laughed out loud at "the piratic puzzlers" and "the wizard of weight"!

And you're very welcome, Cobie! Glad to have you chiming in again. SWAK

Action Comics #385:
I pretty much agree with the comments by HWW and others. This is one of the better Action series stories so far. A few more observations:

(1) At the beginning of the story Karate Kid says, "But remember the Legion rules...no one-man missions!" Is this a new rule made after Mon-El's 3-day one-man mission in the previous story? Or was Mon an exception to the rule?

(2) In the crooks' space vessel with "no artificial gravity", people were still standing and running on the floor...not floating around. (Star Boy was bouncing off the walls a little.) And even weightless Yark was oddly immovable when Star Boy plowed into him. Am I missing something or was this poor depiction of the physics of an anti-grav environment?

(3) I know it was part of the charm and tension of the plot, but with all Star Boy's experience in space, why did it take so long for him to know how his mass-inducing powers could work effectively in this situation? I guess that from the writer's viewpoint, this was a lesson for the reader to learn about Star Boy's power.

Good catch!

Mon-El is always the exception, isn't he? The Legion "admired him so greatly" that they went to enormous lengths to free him from the Phantom Zone and then construct a special vault for his anti-lead serum. None of the other Legionnaires--who can be killed by such things as bullets, knives, ray guns, and being crushed--were afforded such protections.

One of Mon's flaws I forgotten to mention in my blog post was his possible sense of entitlement.

Maybe it's because of Mon's one man mission, which led to his being ambushed and dying that they instated a new rule of no one-man missions . . . ?

Action Comics 385

I’m quite enjoying the brevity in the Action stories as the plot has to move on quickly due to the page constraints. We learn about the geography of Xanthus as we go. We learn that the Legion operates in shifts and that Thom and Nura are dating as part of the mission team been assembled.

The trip to Xanthu takes a panel. Giffen involved era stories looked to deliberately prolong such activity by removing much of the UP’s technology (both in 5YG and in the last Levitz run).

But vastly advanced technology works both ways, with Anti-Telepathy helmets (tin foil hats with better marketing) always seeming to be clunky. Ways of reducing Saturn Girl’s effectiveness. But something’s required as Imra is shown to be scanning the city for bad thoughts using her powers. All of the small group get panel time, and it’s good to see Gim getting in on the action. The team also figure out what’s going on in good time, keeping up with the reader.

Althu’s premonition mid way through the story is a good touch, setting things up for the final scenes. There’s lots of flash facts in the final confrontation as both Thom and Imra use their smarts to win the day. Outwitting people who can see the future is no mean feat.

It’s a tidy (and that’s a big compliment), briskly paced story with intelligence combining with solid plotting ability.

It also shares the issue with the start of a Superman story that left me very impressed when I first read it. We see a few forced plot points to position Superman where the writer needs him to be, but it’s excellent after that. You can almost picture Moore and Morrison scribbling down notes when they read this one.

Legion fans should note that a Time Bubble and the Time Trapper are also involved in the set up.

I really enjoyed Action Comics #385. For a back-up story, it had a lot of story in it.

I was a bit confused by the editor's comment on Naltorian surnames given that Nura Nal and Mysa Nal are famous Legion sisters with the same surname in later editions. Thanks for the clarification on this.

I was impressed with the logical use of Saturn Girl's powers to lock on to Thom's brainwaves in order to catch the crooks. It's nice when the storytelling actually makes sense!

Oh, sure, it's possible that they changed and re-changed the policy depending on what the leader preferred.

It wouldn't be the last time Legionnaires went on solo missions, either. IIRC, Bouncing Boy was returning from a solo mission when he was ambushed by Orion Jr. in Superboy 199.

In truth, though, it was just an excuse for the writer to send Imra and Gim on the mission.

Action 386 "Zap Goes the Legion!"

This issue features my favorite story title of the Action run. While most of the titles so far have been intriguing ("The Forbidden Fruit") or simply descriptive of the story's contents ("One of Us is an Impostor"), this one is whimsical and fits in with teen culture of the times. It would be more at home in a hip Marvel comic than in a staid DC title.

But there is nothing whimsical about the story. "Zap Goes the Legion!" continues the story of Uli Algor, who was introduced (unnamed) as Sunburst's henchwoman back in 379, but who gets to shine on her own (pun not intended) here. It's good to see the Legion have a new recurring enemy, even if Uli never appears again after this story. However, she demonstrates that she is a formidable adversary and was probably the brains behind her alliance with Sunburst.

Six months after 379, Uli is due to be released from prison after she undergoes "prism therapy" which is intended to "deaden the evil part" of her brain. However, Uli had immunized herself against all forms of light powers. This proves she is intelligent.

After being freed, she schemes to get revenge on the Legion by besting them in battle. This proves she is psychotic.

She accosts Saturn Girl, Lightning Lad, Cosmic Boy and Night Girl, while the quartet are out on a date, and challenges them to battle. Showing they hold no grudges and believing her to be reformed, the Legionnaires invite Uli out for a burger. Instead, Uli uses a power belt to turn each person's power against him- or herself. In a nicely realistic touch, the consequences of this fight are serious, as Cos, for example, is left with several broken bones and Lydda is temporarily blinded.

(In another nice touch and nod to her homeworld, Lydda recovers her sight by spending some time in a dark room.)

Uli then challenges the remaining Legionnaires at HQ--Brainiac 5, Karate Kid, Phantom Girl, and Ultra Boy--and they devise a scheme to trap Uli. The scheme backfires, but it allows Phantom Girl to stow away on Uli's ship. Tinya thus follows Uli to her hideout in the atomic-ravaged Midway City (a nice and non-intrusive connection to the present DCU--Midway City was Hawkman's home turf). Tinya alerts the other Legionnaires before her power, too, is turned against her.

While Brainy looks after the injured Tinya, Jo goes after Uli. (What happened to Val?) He defeats her in the only logical manner--by not using his powers at all but instead delivering an old fashioned uppercut. (In another nice move, Jo learned to do this by watching an old boxing flick earlier in the story.)

It's a bit silly to think that Jo--or any Legionnaire--doesn't know how to handle himself in an ordinary fistfight without watching a thousand-year-old film of an outlawed sport, but that's a minor problem. The buildup to the solution is suspenseful perhaps because, even in 1970, it was shocking for a hero to hit a woman. ("You're not exactly a lady," Jo tells Uli as he slugs her.) It was daring for Bridwell to do this--another writer might have had Tinya deliver the blow--but the solution is logical and surprisingly simple.

"Zap" wins additional props for the number of Legionnaires featured--seven plus one Sub--and for making good use of each of them (except for the vanishing KK). There are no wasted characters or scenes, showing once again that Bridwell was a master at telling a complete and satisfying story in only a few pages.

I'm a bit behind. Mea culpa. Here are the letter columns for Action 385 and 386.

Action #386 was a decent issue with a Legionnaires getting to see some action.

I find it interesting that the Science Police resort to hypnotism to reform criminals. Apparently the SP faced the same recidivism rates among inmates that we have in our prisons today. The prism has no effect on criminals, like Uli Algor, who have their own plans after leaving Takron- Galtos. It makes one wonder how many other "reformed" criminals have returned to a life of crime.

Uli's zap belt renders Lightning Lad, Cosmic Boy, Saturn Girl and Night Girl's powers against them in a handledly way, so much so that Brainac 5 is afraid to have the other Legionnaires use their powers against her. While Ultra Boy takes her down, without using his super powers in hand-to-hand combat, I wondered why Karate Kid wasn't utilized here since he doesn't have any real super powers.

Good point about K Kid, Wolf. I hadn't thought of that.

E. Nelson Bridwell continues to take over as Jim Shooter goes off to college and leaves comic books behind (or so he thought—there’s an awesome Legion fandom story on his return) and he keeps the continuity of recent stories tight by having my girl Uli Algor get her second and final appearance—and looking damn fine too, if you don’t mind me saying. Bridwell’s knack for tight pacing in the back-up structure is again apparent, as is Mortimor’s fantastic art. This story especially seemed to showcase Mortimor’s skills for cosmic settings and interesting background composition.

The story is again straight-forward, which it needs to be since its 10 pages, but does a very good job at showing the Legionnaires having to match wits with a foe who is willing to do the same. In a sense its cyclical: Uli couldn’t beat the Legionnaires before on power alone so she had to resort to more cunning methods; thus, the Legion are having trouble beating her as they did before and have to do the same. Brainiac 5 gets to shine in this regard, naturally, though I was surprised he wasn’t the one to beat her. Instead it’s Ultra Boy—and in a pretty simple and aggressive way. The ending is pretty quick, but it’s nicely understated: they can’t use their powers, and even Brainy’s tech didn’t work, so Jo had to bring her down the old fashioned way like the non-powered people in the 20th century did it. I love that Bridwell was smart enough to foreshadow this earlier in the story with the Johnson / Jeffries fight. Considering how much this story obviously influenced TMK (with Talus and other things), I wonder how much Jo’s quick thinking at the end influenced their depiction of him two decades later.

I wish Uli had returned again. A few days ago I wondered why Uli felt so compelling to me as a character. After this story, I remember why. She’s great here! She’s cunning, tough and isn’t afraid of taking on multiple Legionnaires at once!

I agree with HWW on the props given for using so many Legionnaires in a short story. All of it pretty masterful too, with no one Legionnaire standing around and taking up space.

All in all, I thought this was a terrific little story.

A few random thoughts:
Hawker Phuy looks like the evil hippy king, as scores of other “villains” during the transition from the 60’s to the 70’s did. With the Manson Family and other awful things happening at the tail end of the decade, the hippy culture had morphed into the freak culture and psychedelic culture, and then into that really oddball devil-worshipping / cult culture of the early 70’s that no one ever wants to talk about. Good thing ol’ Dick Nixon was there to keep everyone in line. But I digress.

So much of the culture during these years included futuristic scenarios in which the Government used technology or pharmaceuticals to “remove” the evil out of people. A Clockwork Orange, in movie form, was only a year away in the cinemas, showing one extreme of this. Even when presented “innocently” here, I find such things to be horrifying and offensive to the extreme.

Pretty awesome to see three sets of Legion couples off on a triple date, having run and catching a movie. It’s even more awesome to see Night Girl being a part of the story throughout—by now she and Cos have settled into a full blown relationship, but even better is she is still a kickass heroine.

The Jack Johnson / Jim Jeffries fight was a huge moment for boxing history but I’m sure most people today don’t know that. But I wonder how many did in 1970? Since it was the era of Muhammad Ali, I’m guessing more than today but it could’nt have been that much, since it happened in 1910? All of this is a way to wonder out loud of Bridwell or Mortimor was a big boxing fan?

The asteroid Talus, to be utilized in full effect in TMK, gets its first appearance!

Bridwell includes a reference to the destroyed Midway City—once Hawkman’s home base—and what I believe is a subtle reference to the atomic war that inspired the Atomic Knights stories. The kid is good!

Cobie,
Interesting point about Hawker Phuy resembling a hippy king. I was thinking he looks like Ray Dorset, the lead singer of Mungo Jerry:



Now that I think about it, I wonder if the name "Hawker" was another nod to Hawkman. I wonder if DC was planning to relaunch Hawkman's title, which had been recently canceled after being combined with the Atom's title.

I appreciate the broader cultural perspective on Hawker and the idea of removing people's "evil" tendencies. I agree: In retrospect, it is very creepy.

Good question. I can only assume that KK would have been too obvious. With UB, Bridwell was able to build up suspense on that second-to-lastl page.

Hurray! Just salvaged this from archive.org! Thank you, Michael Grabois! This was created by my good friends, Jo and Terri-Anne Sanning of Edmonton, Alberta. Here's their page as of Feb 2010: https://web.archive.org/web/20100201143618/http://www.studiosanning.shawbiz.ca/legion_of_super-heroes/mainpage.htm

For the completists among you, these were taken from:
Top row: Adv. 353, 345, 343, 357, 359, 359, 359
2nd row: Adv. 343, 359, 347, 313, 342, 313, 349
3rd row: Adv. 343, 371, 351, 342, 343, 326, 351
4th row: Adv. 352, 352, 347, 366, 372, 372

Action Comics 386
Crime and Punishment in the 30th century. You serve your time and then your brain is modified to prevent you wanting to reoffend. It’s another example of how science is perceived as a cure for all society’s ills in the Legion and I enjoy the moral dilemmas presented as a reader (if not actually considered in the story).

Once released, there seems to be little stigma attached to ex-convicts. The Legion invite former enemy Uli Algor along for a burger (Galacto Burger)when they meet her after seeing a boxing film (Time Cinema).

Even when challenged, the Legion don’t want to fight her as she’s committed no crimes. So Algor commits a few more to get them interested. She has a belt that turns the powers of the Legion against them. As well as her light based abilities that enabled her to avoid the brain therapy.

There’s lots of super science this issue as we get a peek into the recovery process for each defeated legionnaire.

Algor is determined to defeat the Legion, and challenges the others to combat. The Legion meet her on Talus, the asteroid that would later become the team’s headquarters in the TMK run.

Brainy’s plans to animate the ships there don’t capture Algor who retreats to Midway City, the former home of Hawkman. The city has been preserved as an artefact of an earlier Atomic war. The criminal that was rehabilitated before Algor was called Hawkor, looking more than a little like the Hawk King Vultan from Flash Gordon, so there are a couple of Hawk-themes this issue.

It’s Ultra Boy who approaches Algor and punches her out, without using a power that she would defend against. Ultra Boy cites the boxing film they had seen as inspiration giving us a nice pay off form the start of the story.

Algor had been countering the powers of the Legion when they activated and that leads to her downfall. However, she had also blasted Night Girl’s passive activation of a power and controlled Robot control centres on spaceships. So she didn’t have to wait until she was punched. How was she planning to defeat Karate Kid for example?

The writing change gives us a switch from the personal ‘relevant’ stories of Shooter’s work. It provides us with space to see more of the team at work. Brainy and Vi get nice moments. There’s lots of ominous future science in a society where teens date as they would in our time.

The Superman story is Action 286 is really good. Ancient Superman learns about the fate of his daily Planet colleagues, tries to fit into a future society and helps other elderly Superheroes regain their place in the world. There's more from the Time Trapper (with a hood closer to Batman than the one we're used to) and another Time Bubble appearance.

The Superman story was good, but we learn how pathetic his friends truly are. I can buy Jimmy writing a tell-all book about his friendship with Superman, but Perry whiles away his retirement as curator of the Superman Museum, and--worst of all--Lois marries an actor who plays Superman!

These guys need to get a life!

Action 387 "One Hero Too Many"

"One Hero Too Many," probably the best known story from the Legion's Action run, marks Superboy's departure from the team. Although his resignation turns out to be temporary, it represents a significant break in the Legion's identity since their first appearance 12 years earlier. The Legion had always been associated with Superboy, and during much of the Adventure run, he was front and center in the team's stories. But here he leaves, not for the sake of one story, but allegedly for good.

There's another reason why his leaving appears to be significant. During the Adult Legion stories, it was established that Superman was no longer an active member of the team but an occasional visitor. This story appears to set in motion the chain of events that would lead to the Adult Legion's existence. If Mort had delayed his retirement by a year or two, perhaps we would have seen the Legion move in that direction. After all, their value as a headlining teen series appeared to have been spent in 1970.

The story itself is very well done. No villains appear, but the Legion is presented with a dilemma: They must drop a member within 24 hours or be forced to pay all the back taxes they have skirted. (Geez! And people complain about churches getting tax-exempt status.) This is a rare and welcome intrusion of real-world politics into the Legion's setting. For once, we get to see how the Legion relates to the UP government and the laws and restrictions that a state-sanctioned super-hero team must abide by.

I enjoy these sorts of stories--such as the Avengers' membership being restricted during the late '70s--because they inject a sobering dose of reality into super-hero fantasy. Hero groups such as the Avengers and the Legion appear to have things handed to them too easily, and the government just seems to go along with whatever they do. I'm not saying it's always good that the government intrudes--it rarely ever is good--but it is real, and it's reasonable that a government would want to monitor the actions of teams it sanctions. But I digress.

We're given no reason why the law now requires private teams of more than 25 members to pay taxes, but it doesn't matter. To preserve the Legion's tax-exempt status, one member must go. With characteristic selflessness, most of the members present tender their resignations until Karate Kid restores order.

KK attempts to determine who should go, but his efforts are constantly thwarted. (In a nice touch of humor, Brainy's machine reveals that Brainy himself should get the boot.) The saboteur of these efforts turns out to be Superboy, who refuses to give a reason for his conduct unbecoming. KK has no choice but to accept his resignation.

Alone with Lu (or at least half of her), Kal admits that with Mon-El around, he feels useless as a Legionnaire. It's not a convincing reason, as Mon has been around for quite some time and has never stopped Superboy from hogging the action. But Superboy departs, Lu cries, and the Legion honors him in typical fashion: by erecting a statue.

It's almost a shame that the resignation didn't "take." It's always hard to say goodbye to groups or clubs one has belonged to, particularly when one graduates from high school. The story would have mirrored the lives of the Legion's target audience if Superboy had indeed said goodbye for good. In this way, DC could have assured its young audience that life does indeed go on even if people must leave your life to do other things (attend college, get jobs, get married, etc.). Those transitions would come to the Legion, but not for another 3-4 years.

A solid story, but one that leaves me feeling underwhelmed. It would have been nice if Superboy had been given a more convincing reason or build-up before departing.

Things of note dept.:
--Supergirl stays because, Superboy reasons, Brainy is close to her. Here Kal proves what a dunderhead he is for not noticing Lu's feelings for him.

-- Supergirl is persuaded to stay in part because, if she goes, the Legion of Super-Pets will lose Comet and Streaky. Ironically, this story marks the final appearance of the Super-Pets (who do not even rate a cameo when BB & DD get married).

When Superman isn't present for a calendar year, his Superman robots have standing orders to capture Lois, Jimmy and Perry and replace them with Robot Duplicates.

Those duplicates spend their days revolved around their lost idol. The real Lois, Jimmy and Perry spend the rest of their days in the tribute rooms Superman set up in the fortress of solitude.

That poor actor. Stuck with a robot Lois.

Even Kal noticing Lu's feelings for him, I don't think makes him obligated to stay or defeats his reasoning that S-Girl and Brainy's is a mutual attraction and should be considered. He's being gallant in giving that a chance.

The writer on the other hand, I don't give such a pass. Superboy isn't known for being oblivious, it would make more sense to me that he knew Lu's feeling at least to some degree and that he acknowledge them in kindness, even if they're not mutual.


And was the adult story the motivator for writing him out of Legion or were there some internal DC politics at play here?

From what I understand--from a later lettercol reference--Superboy was written out because he was deemed redundant in Action Comics, which focused on Superman.

Interestingly, there's a letter in the same issue (387) by one Randy Oftedahl of Foreston, MN, who suggests Superboy be written out because he's "hardly ever featured in your Legion stories anymore" and "he must grow up sometime." Mort replies that Randy must have been "peaking into our minds" and "taking telepathy lessons from Saturn Girl."

Aloof, cold and constantly pining after Superman. Who could tell the difference?

Action 387

No Man Escapes the Auditors!

We’re introduced to Warp Transport, which would allow the Legion to view and step into pretty much anywhere they liked. Obviously Professor Sayar, the inventor of the device, is a villain. But before he can get any further panel time a bigger villain disrupts his work. Wayland Bannan, conjuring images of the voracious Wayland-Yutani corporation from Aliens and the absolute chill of Polar Boy. Out villained, the Prof vanishes.

With 26 members the Legion must pay taxes. It may seem like a bit of a daft premise to get rid of a certain member at the end. But, with all the Orwellian technology we’ve seen in the 31st century it’s no surprise to see such laws in place to prevent gatherings. Any group large enough would find themselves financially penalised, helping to quash any subversives. On the other hand, any group that wants to make its voice heard would have contributed more to the society it wanted to shape. Little things like this make this era of the Legion fascinating.

For a team that works so well together, there is no shortage of members keen to leave. Timberwolf is even willing to toss Chemical King for the privilege.

It’s always a disappointment to see Bouncing Boy and Duo Damsel put themselves down. It’s harsh to see Karate Kid telling her to shut up though.

After everyone puts in a request to resign, the ballot papers burst into flame. Lots take responsibility, but someone wanted rid of Dream Girl to leave her paper intact. A paper that she didn’t write!

Brainy tries to use the computer to count feats, knowing it would eliminate him. The others deem him too important to the team, an opinion every writer shares with them. Note that Bouncing Boy has a much lower score than the others shown.

In the end it’s Superboy who goes, with a touching farewell scene with Luornu. He’s responsible for the sabotage, making me wonder what reason he could have to want to see Dream Girl resign. It gives, the usual Legion statue carvers some practice though.

The story is a fudge to ensure that Superboy leaves the Legion. There’s not much of a story. In fact, the person who incited the tale, Mr Bannan, doesn’t appear at the end to let the team off the hook. It all takes place in the HQ and involves the members all trying to resign before the others. Their nobleness gets a bit repetitive after a while.

Elsewhere there’s a literally jaw dropping finale to the Superman story. The sheer scope of it is very impressive. The Time Trapper makes a further appearance. There’s a parallel with the ideas in this story to the big Time Trapper/ Infinite Man conflict years later.

I'm fine with Bannan not reappearing at the end. He's not really a villain; he's just the device that sets the story in motion. (There's no reason why a device can't have an attitude.)

I did wonder how Superboy knew that Nura had not put her own name on a paper. At some point, she must have told him, "Gee, Kal, I'm going on a Legion mission in six months, so I guess I'll see you when I get back. No, wait, I guess I won't!"

Personally, I think Kal wanted Nura to take the fall because he feels threatened by sexy women (re: Lana in Superboy 197).

I quite liked Bannan. I could see him ruining the Dominator take over of Earth in the 5YG based entirely on Intergalactic Tax Law.

I can't recall if the Nura thing was ever an actual plot. If only I had an archives thread to keep me reading. Hooray!

Hawker Phuy. When he was born, the nurse asked for the baby's name and his dad hocked a loogie.

^

Action 388 is a reprint of Adv. 302, so, moving on . . .

Action 389 "The Mystery Legionnaire"

This is my least favorite story in the Action series, even though it tries hard to impress and has a few things going for it (such as an active role for Vi). The whole story rests on a mystery that isn't much of mystery and, when the Big Reveal happens, it comes off as a letdown. On re-reading the story, I just kept waiting for it to be over.

"The Mystery Legionnaire" centers on Klim, an android created by a group of disabled prison inmates to carry out their crimes. Klim soon runs afoul of Cosmic Boy, Chemical King, and Shrinking Violet, who defeat the android by separating its head from its body. However, the autonomous head escapes and vows revenge on the one Legionnaire it holds responsible for its defeat. The identity of this Legionnaire is the "mystery" upon which the story is built.

It turns out that the mystery Legionnaire doesn't exist. Due to a malfunction in Klim's visual receptors, he had merged the images of Cos and Chem, thinking they were one person.

And that's it. That's the entire mystery. Which makes it not a very good mystery because the outcome of the story is still the same. Nothing would have changed if Klim had targeted Cos or Chem or even Vi.

Stories such as this rely on intellectual challenge--match wits with the detective--but we're not given sufficient clues to piece together what Klim saw and, as a result, the resolution feels like a cheat.

This story also resembles other villain-with-a-revenge-motif tales ("The Fallen Star Boy"; "The Impossible Target" from Superboy 199), but it also falls short in this department. Whereas the villains in the other stories had intensely personal reasons for going after a Legionnaire, we're expected to care for Klim because he loses his artificial body and is defeated while running from a heist. Also, while villains such as Yark Althu and Orion Jr. managed to isolate a single Legionnaire to even the odds, this was never the case here (though Vi does go after Klim by herself); if anything, it felt like the Legionnaires were ganging up on this poor, semi-defenseless head.

But, as I said, there are some good things about the story. Vi, for example, is the one who ultimately defeats Klim not once but twice, proving that she should not be overlooked because she's tiny and female. (However, writer Cary Bates telegraphs this "message" by revealing early on that the Legionnaire Klim is after is male, thus excluding Vi from his revenge scheme.)

Another good aspect is that it features Chemical King. Once again, the writer shows some interest in conveying scientific principles when Chem uses his power to create oxidation and then liquid nitrogen.

The story is also fairly well paced, although it relies too much on flashback and exposition. The narrative jumps back and forth from Klim's point of view to the Legionnaires' for no other reason than to tell the reader details the characters already know--a device that quickly grows tiresome.

Of note: This story marks the first foray into Legion writing for Bates, who would shortly go on to redefine the Legion with Dave Cockrum.

Of special and odd note is the letter's page, in which Ray Fannan from Shoreham, NY, speculates that if Lightning Lad and Saturn Girl had children, the children's powers would be combined into mental lightning like Validus. Hmm . . .

[Sound of crickets chirping.

HWW walks on stage, looks around.]

HWW: Hello, anybody here? Cobie? Thothy? Jim? Tracker? Anybody?

"Anybody" chiming in.





Yep

Is that why everybody has been so silent? Nothing to say about this particular story?

The mystery of who Klim was seeking revenge was rather obvious from the flashback storyline that Cosmic Boy and Chemical King had subdued him. I had not thought of Shrinking Violet having unscrewed the android's head.

The story was rather uneventful, and although Klim is hailed as some great android villain, he was taken down too easily. Action #389. falls flat all around.

I just noticed that Klim spelled backwards is Milk. I wonder if there was any significance to that or if Bates was being too clever for his own good.

It's also a brand of powdered milk.

Very interesting article on Wikipedia. Klim can stay safe for years if the can is unopened. The cans themselves were useful in an escape attempt from a German POW camp. Maybe these attributes inspired Bates to create an android which was built by prisoners and which bided its time for revenge.

Action 390 "The Tyrant and the Traitor"

The Legion does "Mission: Impossible" in this one. It's good to have a story that showcases the Legion Espionage Squad (though only Cham from the team's core members appears in this story--no Lyle, Tinya, or Vi), and the two-part structure allows Bridwell to stretch the story out and develop it with effective twists and turns.

Cham is briefed by a UP official on the planet Lahum, which is run by a dictator called President Peralla, who plans to conquer other worlds. Peralla is opposed by Diol Masrin, a rebel leader who is secretly allied with the Dark Circle. In undertaking the mission, Cham must ensure that both Peralla and Masrin fail. Pretty good set up, so far.

In a scene straight out of "M:I", Cham goes through file photos of his fellow Legionnaires to assemble his team. One would think he'd have their powers memorized, but perhaps he's too preoccupied with Janice Warren to think straight. Oh well, it provides us with a quick introduction to Cham's team of five Legionnaires: Brainy, Brin, Jan, Imra, and Val.

They ambush a ship of gunrunners who supply Masrin, and Cham impersonates first the captain of the ship and then his lieutenant, Chavak, in order to gain entry into Masrin's compound. While marching to the compound with some real rebels, Cham and the others encounter humanoids who don't die (good thing for the Legion's code) when blasted; instead the humanoids turn into fragments which reassemble into new humanoids. Interesting idea. I wonder how it will play out in Part Two.

Then Cham encounters the greatest test to his impersonation of Chavak (not to mention his fidelity to Janice): fooling Chavak's girlfriend, Yroa.

Meanwhile, Imra undertakes her part of the mission alone by mentally prompting one of Peralla's cronies to give her a job. All goes well until one of the crony's associates claims to recognize Imra. And that's as good a place as any for a cliffhanger.

"The Tyrant and the Traitor" is a well-told story, but it does not feel like a Legion story. As mentioned above, it would be more at home with Jim Phelps and the Impossible Missions team. Little is learned about our heroes, who do what the plot requires them to do. I miss the characterizations Shooter put into his stories, yet I admire Bridwell's ability to plot and pace a story. If the two of them had worked together, we might have seen something truly memorable.

Action #389

It’s a passable little story, where not a huge amount happens. The Android Kilm’s origin is unusual, although segregating injured super villains seems a bit discriminatory.

The switches between trying to capture his body and flashbacks change the pacing to make the story more effective. The mystery is a simple one with a straight forward pay off. There are only three Legionnaires in the story and Chemical King and Shrinking Violet get some good panel time to show off their powers.

And that’s about it for this one. It’s not terribly memorable. There’s possibly a subtext about the futility of vengeance in a world of shifting perceptions and truth. But I may be reading into it more than is actually there.

Elsewhere, Superman takes an interest in sports, if only to punt balls onto the spikes of invading alien ships.

I think you're right about the subtext, thoth. If the story had been longer, perhaps it could have been developed more.

Action #390

A certain sixties espionage programme is blatantly mined for this story. And who better to star in it than the Legion’s espionage squad?

The Legion is to overthrow a leader but also to ensure that the popular rebel leader doesn’t get into power either. The fun of being a spy clearly clouds Cham’s mind to the moral ambiguity of using the Legion to topple governments on the whims of the UP.

Interesting Cham doesn’t take any of the members that would become mainstays in the Espionage Squad. He does go all Black-Ops to paint some Legion cruisers black to camouflage them in space.

Adding to the moral murk is Saturn Girl reading everyone’s mind and using the information to forward the UP’s political goals.

Cham uses the Legionnaire’s real names of Brin and Val to hide the fact that they are superheroes. That’ll be the publicly identifiable Legion, who everyone knows about. Good job Spy-Cham!

This issue has the potential source of Lobo in it: ruthless humanoid mercenaries who replicate like starfish when injured.

Every side in the story is a bit crooked. Both president and rebel leader repress their followers. The rebel leader is in league with the Dark Circle too.

Saturn Girl implants suggestions to get a job with the president’s scientist. He seems creepy enough that he would have leched after her without the mind control. There’s more social commentary about how backwards everything is. Then there’s a little cliff-hanger as Saturn Girl’s identity may have been revealed. Perhaps Cham called up and asked for Imra off panel.

This one stands out by getting the extra room that a two-parter can provide. Without Super-Hog, the Legion can work well within the plot without having to jump through magic kryptonite hoops.

It’s a very plot oriented story, which is quite fitting for a book called Action Comics. Not much beyond names and powers is shown for the Legionnaires. Although Cham may have more woman trouble next issue.

A continuing theme (well, for me) is the shadowy nature of the UP as shown in Adventure.

Since no one actually comes out squeaky clean here, it’s an issue I quite like. Even if it is a bit of a rip off.

Elsewhere, Superman delivers a device to the President that will destroy him should he ever go mad. A cover that would inspire a number of future stories, mainly involving Batman having contingency plans for everything.

Here, the shadowed President turns out to be Lex Luthor and Superman is blown up on the first page. All thanks to a rubbish power supply to the oval office. No, that doesn’t happen. There’s a coyness about showing who is DC’s prez though.

Inside, Clark’s use of powers, super robots, the super-ness of kitchen appliances from Krypton and child endangerment make this a ridiculous super-tale. Lots of madness to be enjoyed.

Good points about the Legion getting involved in politically murky situations. Ah, the Sixties! The US government could do no wrong and heroes did what they were asked to do because the government was always right, right?

There's a certain amount of indoctrination going on in stories like this. Imra's mind control, Cham's impersonations, and even the Legionnaires blasting the poor lifeforms of the planet are not questioned because the ends justify the means, apparently.

Action #391

Uh Oh! Imra meets Marli Zhorg, another telepath from Saturn. That conveniently shuts down Imra’s telepathic powers for the issue. But the issue makes up for Saturn Girl’s thought powers by having every other character info dump last issue’s plot to us through thought balloons.

With the fame of the Legion, you’d have thought Marli would be a bit more up to speed with what her friend had been up to.

The Humanoids attack the rebel camp. Brainy gets a very nice moment as he finishes a secret formula. I’m not sure what difference it made to Element Lad’s attack though.

Having had success against the Humanoids, the rebels want to attack the city. Thanks to the Legion secretively making them victorious, they have become more bloodthirsty and reckless than ever.

The rebels are victorious due to Element Lad’s continuous power use and Brainy’s force field. Inside the city, Imra reveals her true colours (forced due to limited remaining panel space) telling her ex-friend that she’s on the wrong side. Not that there’s a right side here. The Legion compound this by setting up the rebel leader’s fall from grace in front of his own men.

With both sides defeated as planned, the Legion depart. Not in a camouflaged craft as seen last issue, but in a bright shiny red one. So much for the covert jungle lift off.

Behind them is a civilisation that must now choose a way forward, and elections are hinted at. Hinted at by one of the rebel leaders cronies who nominates another crony to take charge until those elections come around (if they ever do). Their new leader’s love interest? The very recent ex- of a galactic space crook.

The victorious forces are never made aware that the Dark Circle had already betrayed them by providing obsolete weapons to fight the Humanoids. They are probably just aware that gunrunners supplied weapons that made them win.

After the usual reprisals, that the Legion don’t stick around to prevent, we’ll have the dodgy rebels (there’s no reason at all why they don’t just follow their former leader’s example), the remnants of the dodgy dictator, and the Dark Circle out there looking to see which side they can influence. At least the UP can just send in the Legion to oust the next leader they don’t agree with.

The worrying thing is that the UP sneak in, destabilise everything and then leave without looking at the repercussions of their actions. Stop me if this sounds painfully familiar from real life

I’m not sure what Proty’s role was in this one. I must have missed something?

I like the unintended moral questions that this story raises. The genre shift works for me and it's good to see that it's not the espionage squad I know that always gets to go on these missions. The two parter gave it more space, but I felt the second part was more rushed.

Elsewhere, the cover shows the true origin of Superboy –Prime.

I thought having the president being in shadow was coy last issue. That’s nothing compared to going out of the way to avoid showing who Superman marries this issue. She even gets a new wig just to confuse readers. I reckon the wig isn’t a fashion fad, but that Superman has married a self-conscious Lex Luthor.

The actual story has a smiley Batman look to hand over the reins to his similarly vigilante son. Meanwhile Superman is super-jealous and a super-idiot to his son. In a tale that must have had young readers having anxiety attacks thinking of their over expectant parents, Superboy can do no right. It just gets worse and worse as the poor lad becomes more and more desperate to please.

There’s a battle of Superboys in here too. Another tick for the Superboy-Prime origin issue.

Incidentally, last issue's Supes story had a moment where Superman's mind could result in the reduction of his powers. Something else else picked up years and years later in Robinson's Golden Age.

Action 391 "The Ordeal of Element Lad"

The best thing about this two-part story is that it is, in fact, over and done in two issues. This is a lost skill these days, with endless subplots and multi-part crossovers. To be able to tell a complete story with various plot points and have it make sense is a rare gift.

The worst thing about this tale is that most of the obstacles set up in the previous issue are resolved very quickly and there is no real tension.

The Legionnaires' plan, for example, relies on the conceit that they are not recognized in spite of the fact that they have public identities and have been lauded as heroes for years. It's a good thing Marli Zhorg does not read the news, or perhaps the news on Lahum is censored by President Peralla.

Marli recognizes Imra from their college days, and they renew their old acquaintance. Imra even allows Marli, a fellow "Saturnian" to monitor her thoughts as she sends a telepathic transmission to Querl, "a friend," telling him of her new job. Brainy and Val realize that with another telepath present, it will be impossible for Imra to inform the Legionnaires of what she learns about the humanoids.

But no matter. Val, it turns out, has been slimed by one of the creatures. Brainy uses this sample to analyze its composition and informs Element Lad, who uses his power to transmute the humanoids into magnetic lodestone, causing them to repel one another. (Jan does this in secret while the rebels think they are repelling the attackers with their useless rifles--hence "the ordeal" as Jan has to strain his power to its limits.)

With the humanoids no longer a threat, Masrin and his rebels storm the capital and depose Peralla (who, in an interesting touch, appears only as a distant figure in this story). The Legionnaires reconnect with Imra just as the latter is being exposed by Marli as a traitor. (This is the second Action story in which a woman gets slugged, but, in an ode to traditional values, it's a female Legionnaire doing the slugging this time.)

A victorious Masrin tries to claim all of the president's treasure for himself, but is persuaded by the Legionnaires to give some of it to the people. Just in time, an exhausted Element Lad (who has to be carried by Brin) transmutes the gold into lead, causing Masrin's followers to suspect the latter of double crossing them and to arrest him.

All very neatly tied up. Even Yroa isn't much of a threat since Cham realizes she isn't really interested in Chavak but prefers another rebel instead.

"The Ordeal of Element Lad" is the best plotted of the Action stories, and a true accomplishment since a lot of ground is covered very quickly without being rushed. In the end, though, the story doesn't amount to much. Jan recovers from his "ordeal" and is even given bonuses by KK and Cham. (One wonders what a Legion bonus looks like. An extra stipend? A day off? A special seat in the meeting room?)

In a typical nod to the times, we are told that the citizens of Lahum will cast aside dictatorship and hold elections. Ah, if only real political problems were resolved so neatly.

(Perhaps there can be a sequel to this story in which the new leader, Nym Belev, is revealed to be a pawn of Mordru.)

On the letter's page, we learn that Mon-El has been elected the next Legion leader by winning nearly four times as many votes as his nearest competitors, Superboy and Element Lad, who tied. Superboy is out of the running since he recently left the Legion; thus, EL begins a tenure of some 13 years as deputy leader before ascending to the top spot himself.

HWW, you covered all my bases.

Yeah, it's a pity that 389 struck out.

I have thoroughly enjoyed doing these Action reviews, and I appreciate the thoughts of everyone who has offered theirs. Even when the stories aren't great, I learn so much from reviewing them and reading others' reactions.

Interest in reviewing has waned again, as it periodically does, so this review will be my last for awhile. If anyone wants to pick up with the Superboy run, I'll be happy to chime in.

Action 392 "The Legionnaires Who Never Were"

Will thoth forgive me for making another obvious joke that Bates' sophomore effort is, well, sophomoric?

This isn't the worst story in the Action run--that honor still belongs to 389 (also by Bates)--but it's a close second. It reads as If Bates took a crash course in reading the Legion's catalog and decided the things that made a good Legion story were 1) the Legionnaires prank each other, 2) the Legionnaires impersonate other characters, and 3) the Legionnaires distrust each other because a futuristic machine tells them to.

All of these outmoded elements appear in this story. As a result, "The Legionnaires Who Never Were" reminds me a lot of Adventure 267, the Legion's second appearance and one of their worst.

This story does earn kudos for spotlighting Princess Projectra and Saturn Girl, and for portraying the former as a competent, clever, and forceful Legionnaire. The days when missions were too tough for a girl appear to be long over.

Returning from a mission in which they've failed to nab a criminal, Jeckie and Imra are treated as if the other Legionnaires don't know them. KK and the rest brand the two girls spies and introduce two newly admitted Legionnaires who happen to be male versions of the girls.

I'm not sure if this development should be read as a reaction to Women's Lib or if there is some deeper significance going on here. But "Saturn Lad" and "Prince Projectur" look silly in their costumes, which were obviously made for girls. ("Saturn Lad" might not have been so bad if his costume were modeled after Imra's classic Silver Age attire. However, Imra chose this tale to introduce her fan-designed bikini costume.)

The girls are arrested and imprisoned. Jeckie figures a way out, though, and confronts Val. She tries to rekindle his memory of their relationship and, when that doesn't work, she forces him into a kiss. If this were a more adult-oriented story, Val might have responded in a more natural way which would have been the tip-off to Jeckie. Instead, her kiss puts him to sleep--literally--with knockout serum as part of her ploy to get the truth.

It is ultimately up to Brainy, disguised as Prince P, to slip up when he thinks Jeckie is threatened.

Once the ruse is blown, the Legionnaires 'fess up that the whole thing was a test to see if Jeckie was going to flip out like their latest fancy gizmo predicted she would. She passes the test, and the gizmo is revealed to be yet another flawed piece of junk.

As a "tack-on," Mon-El is sworn in as the next Legion leader just in time for the team to be dumped from Action and cast into oblivion.

"The Legionnaires Who Never Were" is actually built upon a serious science fiction premise (an episode of "Star Trek: The Next Generation" was built on the same premise with Dr. Crusher being trapped in an alternate reality where people in her life keep disappearing and no one remembers them). With a less juvenile treatment, it could have been an insightful and exciting exploration of identity, self-confidence, and relationships.

Instead, Bates chose to go with a silly and implausible treatment. (Really--Brainy can't see through the illusion of the monster appearing in Legion HQ? Jeckie is fooled by "Saturn Lad's" claim to read Vi's mind?) It's fitting that the Legion's Action run ended here before it degenerated into further inanity. The series needed a rest before evolving into the greatness to come.

Thanks a lot, He Who, for carrying the torch that helped us get to the end of a tough volume to get through.

Onward to Volume 10, and just four more stories to go until Dave Cockrum arrives!

It's worth noting that the end of the Action run marks a turning point for the Legion, as longtime Legion editor Mort Weisinger retires and is replaced by Murray Boltinoff, who had edited the brilliant original Doom Patrol run, which would have seemed to make him a natural for the Legion. Unfortunately, the Boltinoff era of the Legion is memorable in spite of him, not because of him. I believe that if most of the Boltinoff stories had been drawn by lesser artists than Dave Cockrum and Mike Grell, I doubt they'd be so fondly remembered today. Oh, there are some stories I like for reasons that have nothing to do with the gorgeous art, but in my opinion they're the exception rather than the rule.

Which is a long-winded way of saying that, while I will return to the Archives re-read once the Cockrum/Grell era starts, don't expect me to go easy on Cary Bates or the returning Jim Shooter. Or Murray Boltinoff.

I'm really looking forward to reviewing the Bates/Cockrum era, because that was my defining era as a Legion fan. I expect that I probably won't think as highly of these stories as I did then--I was nine/ten when I first read them!--but that's okay. It's part of the process of growing as a writer to go back and look at earlier stories and find new things in them.

Very well said, He Who.

I initially read most of the Bates/Cockrum stories in my early 20s, because I'd recently discovered Cockrum's X-Men (in those pre-everything-collected-in-trades days, that was through the Classic X-Men monthly reprint series) and wanted to see more of his Bronze Age art. At the time I dismissively felt that Bates was no Claremont, but I've come to believe that if Bates had had a better editor than Boltinoff, he might have done something as good as his 80s/early 90s Captain Atom run.

It's true that Bates was no Clarement, but then Claremont was no Bates. Bates could tell a complete story in half an issue, whereas Claremont never knew when to end things.

LOL

Good point well taken.

Action #390-391

This was an interesting two part story. I liked the fact the fact that the Legion Espionage Squad doesn't have to just consist of Shrinking Violet, Invisible Kid and Chameleon Boy. While Cham heads up the team, the inclusion of Saturn Girl, Timber Wolf, Element Lad, Brainac 5 and Karate Kid are refreshing. Nice seeing Proty taking a role too.

I agree with comments above about the Legion's dubious involvement in overthrowing a planetary government on the whims of the UP Council. On the other side, with the revolutionaries tied to the Dark Circle, I was a bit disappointed that the Dark Circle didn't make an appearance. That would have made an interesting plot development in the second half of the story by upping the ante. But alas, we're stuck in the Action back-up era with a shortage of space to tell stories.

Still, the most interesting aspect of the story was the way Element Lad used his powers in a covert way to take down the baddies. Overall, this was an interesting issue amid a rather subpar Action era.

Action #392

The only big development of this issue was the roll out of Saturn Girl's new outfit. While she and other Legionnaires needed new threads, I must admit I was never crazy about Imra's bikini look. To me it turned her into more of a Hooters girl than a formidable looking Legionnaire. Fortunately this costume blunder was corrected by Levitz and Giffen in LSH #288.

The worse part of this issue was having Saturn Lad and Prince Projectur showing up as guys wearing women's costumes. I must admit I groaned when I saw them. It was just too hideous to look at. I was glad to see this issue come to an end.

This was the first Legion comic I bought on the stands. All other Legion stories I'd read before this were hand me downs from neighbor kids. I thought it was pretty gullible for Brainy to buy Jeckie's illusion monster who just appeared to swallow her out of thin air. Isn't he supposed to be super smart? And he knows what her power is right? Also thought it weird that Saturn Lad and Prince Projectur wore such feminine versions of the girls' costumes. Would it have killed them to at least have long pants? And for brainy to wear his baggy bulky costume underneath a skintight costume with bare legs? And why not just have a Caucasian Legionnaire play Prince Projectur? Why go to all the trouble of covering up Brainy's skin? Just a pretty silly story all around. I did enjoy the artwork and the archive computer portraits though.

Action 392

Seeing Saturn Lad and Projectur, I’m reminded of those sites that put male heroes into the heroine costumes, to highlight how female characters are objectified. They were decades behind this issue.

The tale focuses on Jeckie and Imra. They have been tasked with capturing ranged weapon specialist Pozr-Du. Keen music lover will be aware that Pozr (or Poser to his enemies) Du is a boy band joining descendant of the band Husker Du from the 1970s and ‘80s.

Our two heroines nicely illustrate that having a flight ring can make you an easy target. Both are shot from the skies. Waking hours later, they return to HQ only to find that no one knows who they are. Worse, they have lost their powers and have been replaced by male counterparts on the team.

There’s probably a thread to be created in working out how the Legion would have turned out if Projectra and Saturn Girl hadn’t have been in it up to this point. Supergirl’s initiation would have gone differently. Superboy might remember everything from the future etc.

Ever earnest the Legion imprisons the two in a disease inducing Detention Sphere 40 feet in the air. There are rumours that Amnesty Intergalactic still operate on a couple of the fringe worlds, but they aren’t allowed near the UP.

The two wonder if they are dreaming their predicament. Perhaps they are on another Earth. It’s nice just to see a couple of earths rather than the usual Flash faces explaining the multiverse to us.

Jeckie goes on a mission to persuade one Legionnaire that they are the genuine article. She enters Val’s room. Just off panel Projectur hides behind a curtain.

She tries to persuade Val (whose name isn’t supposed to be common knowledge- yet is to the entire galaxy) by sparking some romantic memories. For a change in comics, this means nothing to Val. Jeckie is reduced to using knockout lipstick. The lesson to all readers is to watch your drinks and your lips when out at night. You could be stalked by someone from Orando.

Using a truth disc (yet another item leased to the Legion from the UP Orwellian Dept of Control), Jeckie starts to figure out what’s going on. It’s all an elaborate test.

I laughed when it’s revealed that Brainy found the data on which member was about to crack up. I guess he realised there would be an audit trail and substituted the real finding (him) for Jeckie’s.

Why he’s asking the Archive Computer (store of Blok’s future viewing) rather than the Medi-Computer or Psych-Computer is not explained. Why they didn’t just wait for Nura to faint with a prediction is also unknown.

It’s rumoured that during the 5YG, when Circe dressed up as Legionnaires for Dirk, Dirk dressed up as Saturn Lad for her.
The enduring thought from this story is that of Brainy trying various stockings to hide his green legs for his Projectur identity.

The Legion still have an adult advisor in this issue. He’s there to remind us of Ultra Boy’s origin. Also, to keep the genders from wandering into each other’s rooms and to stop them playing elaborate, mad “tests” on each other. I doubt future parents would send their kids to Legion Summer Camps run by these advisors.

This is a self contained story that regresses away from the “relative” stories in earlier Action issues, even as it sticks to a similarly small cast. It has overly serious dialogue when there’s no tension. Imra positively gloats that she was in on the scheme to deceive her colleague. Lar seemingly couldn’t wait to oust Val as leader to take over himself.

The best thing to come out of the issue was panel time for Jeckie and Imra, something that would be missed in later ensemble issues.

"Mad? Mad Querl? I'll show you mad....>snap< Oh, it looks like the computer was right..."


Elsewhere in the issue: Superman’s wigged, shadowed mother is ignored when Superman returns from his fortress of solitude without his son. Superman broods over what a failure his son was, not least because his was outclassed by Batman’s son. And now his wife keeps going on about something. What has she got to do with anything? Yup, that’s the Super-relationship in this imaginary tale.

I’d like to say it all turns out fine in the end. But, Superman sacrifices his power for his son. A son who, thanks to Superman’s rubbish training, is only going to get thousands killed. He’ll still be worse at everything than Batman junior too.

I never really liked Saturn Girl's bikini outfit either. It lacked the pizzazz and originality of Luornu's, Tinya's, or even Jeckie's Cocrum-designed outfits. I guess it's no surprise that Imra's costume was designed by a fan. Fans often have a great deal of heart but no real training in costume design. Some even worse outfits are coming up in Superboy # 183.

Bates subscribed to the theory of never let logic stand in the way of a good story (re: Superboy 200).

Well, without Imra there would have been no one to read the two would-be assassins' minds to learn they had been sent by Doyle to assassinate Brande, so Doyle would have gotten off scot free and may even have tried to kill Brande again. Without Brande, there was no one to found and bankroll the Legion . . .

Without Imra to add the necessary ingredient to his anti-lead serum, Mon-El may still be trapped in the Phantom Zone.

Without Imra's attempt to singlehandedly face Zaryan the Conqueror--and LL's sacrifice in the same battle--Zaryan may have conquered earth or destroyed the Legion, so Jeckie may never have had a chance to join.



I wondered why Val was sleeping in his costume. Those late-night poker games with Prince P must have worn him out.



Heh. Interesting theory.

Action Comics #392:

I'm re-reading the original copy I bought back in 1970. Between the Superman story and the Legion story there's a reader survey form. The Flash says, "Answer all the questions so we know who you are and what you think is groovy." There's a top prize of a portable color TV set.

There are 25 questions.

Question #5 -- "How interested are you in reading about: (a) Pollution, (b) Black People, (c) Space Flights, (d) National Problems, (e) City Problems, (f) Sports, (g) Hobbies, (h) Romance, (i) Astrology."

Question #9 -- "What two kinds of records do you like most? (a) rock, (b) country music, (c) Bubble gum music, (d) folk, (e) soul."

Question #16 -- "Comics have helped me in: (a) english and spelling, (b) reading, (c) science, (d) history or current events." (...yes, "english")

#5 -- c, h, i

#9 -- All of the above

#16 -- All of the above

Why is Ultra Boy shown solo in the panel that says "the adult advisor swears Mon-El in..."? His sleeve is shown in the following panel, too. But then, Ultra Boy is also shown in the group shot in the same panel.

It's because it isn't Ultra Boy in the single panel or swearing Mon-El in. The Adult advisor there is the latest to fill the role after Marla, who appeared as "the Legion's new senior advisor" way back in Superboy 98



Marla was introduced because it dawned on someone that these teenagers had no supervision and were only moments away from drugs, sex and worse...communism or something.

Anyway, Marla had the same uniform that Ultra Boy did.

Perhaps Ultra Boy's "action costume" was actually one supposed to be used by Legion trainees. But Ultra Boy kept it as his costume.

This was back when Ultra Boy just had penetra-vision and before he got a number of the forgotten Star Boy's powers.

So I’ve been largely absent on LW for the last few weeks because of an incredibly busy work schedule and then the last week and a half I was on vacation with my family and spent as little time online as possible (which was a nice break!). But I’m back and with a vengeance am ready to close out my reviews of the 9th Archive and the Legion’s run in Action Comics! From here, I plan to start bringing my 10th Archive in my briefcase on the train every few days to actively participate on each and every reread there (which is great since I only own 3 actual Archives: the 1st, 2nd and 9th).

Much kudos to all of you for keeping this thread going and providing such awesome commentary along the way. I just got through reading the last few pages from where I last left off and the thread remained as enjoyable as ever—sometimes more enjoyable than the stories. I think a lot of us fond some new appreciation for most these stories on this reread which is nice to see, especially in the ability of these creators to tell actual complete stories given their limited space.

Action Comics #387
The first thing I noticed upon returning to reading these Action back-ups is how much I was enjoying the E Nelson Bridwell / Win Mortimer combo, especially the way in which they seem to really have a great handle on the 10 or so page length in the back-ups. These stories just feel fresh and interesting to me and that’s because every panel is utilized well.

The story hits on something that just about everyone can relate to, and just about everyone hates: taxes and the red tape of bureaucracy. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve come to appreciate the importance and necessity of both things (certainly more taxes than the latter, but still…). I’ve also always enjoyed when superheroes have to conduct “business”, which was always done in interesting ways in the Avengers series throughout the decades. So essentially I think the premise is a good one—but I’m still not sold on the 25 members idea, which seems kind of shoehorned in. *Yet*, now having 12 years experience dealing with legally binding contracts, oddball statutes and obscure tax loopholes, this story feels a whole lot more realistic than it did when I first read it as a teen!

Various Legionnaires volunteering to be the one to bite the bullet and suffer is cliché, but its done with a lot of charm here. Bridwell really makes it succeed (and Mortimer makes it look interesting by having them tussle with each other as they do). They then go ahead and have a whole slew of Legionnaires showcase their powers in a way that just makes me smile. That’s a lot of bang for your buck if you’re getting a feel for the Legion for the first time!

At one point it looks like the story is coming down to what is going to eventually happen (largely off-panel): eliminate Supergirl from the active roster. Bridwell enhances it with the twist that it feels like Supergirl is doing it so Brainy doesn’t have to resign, and that provides the little extra “oomph” to make the scene work even better. Brainy then outright tells her he loves her—a really big show of emotion for him! Yet a few pages later I’m surprised she is also saved from having to resign.

From there, the twist of Superboy being the one to resign occurs, which always feels like a “little known fact” since he quickly rejoins chronologically (though in reality, it was longer given the gap between stories over the next 10 or so back-ups). Despite that, we get something that really does feel like it matters: Luornu’s kiss goodbye to Superboy. This moment feels like it really is a goodbye, as henceforth, Luornu’s crush on Superboy becomes a thing of the past and she refocuses on Bouncing Boy.

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Action Comics #389

I have to say—I don’t think I’ve EVER read this story before! What a cool feeling it is to find a story you didn’t even realize existed! And with Chemical King to boot!

Of course the big change here is Cary Bates steps up to become the new writer of the Legion for the first time, and he does a pretty decent job. The idea of Klim is an interesting one, and his origin is certainly unique with a bit of charm. For a back-up antagonist, he does the trick. The story structure is also interesting—perhaps a bit too much flashback time, but as a mystery for the readers, it has a nice little set-up and payoff. One complaint is the way Bates plays fast and loose with how the Legionnaires use their powers, but that stuff doesn’t bother me really.

Special mention has to be made by the lush, beautiful art in this story by Mortimer and Jack Abel (on inks). It really felt dynamic and exciting, with some really oddball panel layouts. I enjoyed it immensely.

Not the greatest Legion story ever, but I don’t seem to have minded it as much as everyone else did.

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Action Comics #390-391

I’ve always liked this story immensely from the first time I read it for a variety of reasons. I think the premise itself is really terrific, with the Legion having to handle both a fascist dictator and a rebel group that has obviously been infiltrated by subversive forces. It rings so true to much of human history, particularly in the last 150 years. It also is a story directly about the Legion’s espionage squad, which is a novelty in and of itself since we rarely have gotten to see the Espionage “officially” do anything (or as official as a group doing business off the books can be).

Brainiac 5 and Saturn Girl have always felt like good candidates to be “sorta” members of the Espionage Squad and I like their inclusion here. Element Lad certainly isn’t espionage-ish, but Cham’s inclusion of him here shows that Cham is calling the shots and what he says goes. And thus, his inclusion works in that sense.

From there, Bridwell does a good job showing the Legionnaires trying to maintain their cover yet use their abilities and knowledge to accomplish the mission. He does a good job keeping the tension high and the story interesting. In addition, he adds a bit of steaminess to the story by having Cham kiss Chavak’s girlfriend and Imra use her powers to get noticed. (It would have been unnecessary for me—if I ever see Imra walking around in a miniskirt and boots, I’d immediately offer for her to be my assistant any time she wanted).

The second half of the story picks up with the cliffhanger about someone recognizing Imra being addressed—and in a pretty interesting way, considering how obvious it is! Sure she knows Imra, but from before she was a Legionnaire. A nice twist, even if its too tidy. Imra then rolls with the punches and alerts Brainy “in code” once more showing why she’s the grooviest.

As you’d expect with a two-parter, the second part contains a ton of action, and Bridwell smartly gives the payoff of Jan using his powers to make the Legion’s deception work. The story wraps up most of the loose ends nicely as the rebels and the Legion dispatch the dictator (with Imra having to give her friend a quick right uppercut). They then use some ingenuity to make the rebel leader lose his credibility and thus his position. In that sense, they are doing true espionage work, as that is often the best and least complicated way in getting rid of someone.

All in all, this story remains a favorite. It also has whetted my appetite for full length stories again, since this was essentially that.

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Action Comics #392

The last story of the trade comes in the form of Action #392 and it would be a full six months before the Legion appeared again in Superboy. For some reason, I always feel like it’s a much larger gap between Action and Superboy, considering six months is kind of like nothing these days. This also marks the end of Win Mortimer’s time on the LSH. I started off being very apprehensive about his work, but I’ve grown to really enjoy it and appreciate it. His layout on page 9 in this story is indicative of how far he’s come—he positions a flashback of Val & Jeckie having a very romantic scene right in the middle of the page, and it starkly differs in both layout and tone from the top and bottom, making it “pop”. It’s really well done.

This issue is also a milestone in that it gives Saturn Girl her new costume! Much sexier, and more befitting of the sexy, swinging 70’s, it’s a taste of what’s to come once the rest of the Legion starts getting new costumes. So many Legion fans from the 70’s associate Imra’s bikini-costume with that era, that its kind of become iconic. It’s fitting that the last story of this Archive gives us that taste of what’s to come.

Besides all that, this story is one of the weaker ones of the entire Archive. It’s at first relatively straight-forward without too much to set it apart from a hundred other similar stories, and while Imra and Jeckie are both capable, neither gets really fantastic moments. As if the boringness isn’t bad enough, the story then has an awful and IMO mean twist that puts Jeckie through the ringer and makes the Legionnaires look like class-A jerks. As with a few stories at the tail end of the Adventure run, this kind of thing might have been okay in the 50’s when it was done with some charm, but it just doesn’t jive well at this point in comic book history. Really, the best part is the usage of the Legion flight ring which is a precursor to future uses by Cos and Dream Girl.

The issue also ends with the election of Mon-El as Leader and Element Lad as Deputy—his first in a long series of being Deputy to someone else’s leader. This is a little jarring too because it appears to be an artist mistake of depicting Ultra Boy when they meant to do Mon-El, which if that the case is yet one more jarring element to an already jarring story.

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All in all, while the Archive ended on a weak note, for the most part is exceeded my expectations and ended up impressing me quite a bit. I’m glad I got to read these stories, which I normally skip over most of the time when reading, thinking or talking about the Legion.

Onward to the next Archive and Dave Cockrum!

Glad you've managed to catch up, Cobie, and we look forward to your chiming in to the Volume 10 thread already in progress.

Cobie, you saw a lot more positives in these stories than I did--and that's a good thing! I appreciate your insights, in particular with regards to Mortimer's growth as an artist.

Thanks for the reviews Cobie.

From #387


I've always seen the Legion tax issue as EarthGov still having limitations on the right for groups to assemble. You can assemble as an organisation in larger numbers, but only if you're rich enough. No doubt there are various loopholes, but the Legion would be a little idealistic for those. It fits in well with all the sinister science implications going back to the Adventure stories for me.

From #390-391


Cham always gets the girls. No wonder he was fine in the Rimborian sauna in the 5YG, while Cos was less than keen.

From #392


That panel is supposed to be of the Legion advisor. He's in the next panel, hand still raised, along with Ultra Boy and Mon-El.

Cos probably couldn't figure who to slap around. (Yeah, I know, another cheap shot! Bad HWW!)

Yes, bad HWW >typed thoth who came very close to a similar cheap shot in the Cos as Trapper posts in the last couple of days <

^

The fun thing about re-reading these old stories is noticing a consistency in how certain characters are depicted. Cos certainly has anger management issues, judging by Superboy 173. Mon-El's insecurities manifest themselves in Action 384 and perhaps in Superboy 176.

It's hard to be believe the writers (especially multiple writers) imbued the characters with such traits intentionally, yet there they are!

Mon El kind of reasonable to figure but was the Cos stuff just random? Let's give magnet guy anger issues? Doesn't seem to add up stereotypically. I'm surprised they didn't make him clingy. Guess they were saving that for Velcro Boy.

At this point Mort was getting very close to retirement and all kinds of changes were already happening within the offices of DC. So I wonder if they experimented and took a page out of Julie Schwartz playbook here and had Neal Adams create that dramatic cover first and then had Shooter write the story around it? That would explain the illogical subplot with Invisible Kid and Shrinking Violet and the total lack of communication amongst the team during this crisis.


It's also possible that was done for the Adv 378 issue as well. I also wonder if Adv 378 was written by Shooter ST-TNG Best of Both Worlds style, where he crafted the cliffhanger and then would figure out how to finish the story another day.

I just took another look at this story, and the Seeron quisks the team away literally in just a few seconds after Ultra Boy gives the ok or as the caption reads "and so in the space of a breath". I didn't pick up on that until this read, but the Seeron gives them no time to leave a note or anything of that nature. But again I think all of that is just Shooter positioning things so that Lyle and Salu can stumble in all clueless and recreate the scene from the cover.

As already mentioned in another post, it's odd that Jo is so protective of Tinya in this issue when she can turn to phantom-form at the first sense of danger and be perfectly fine. But Tinya never seems to use her power here. An in-story reason would be that Tinya's power is not working 100% in the Seeron's world. A real world reason would be that Shooter wanted to milk the damsel in distress angle.



I agree. This was a very creative use of Condo's powers in this issue. And Shooter pulled another page from the Julie Schwartz playbook here by going all super scientific with the hero. I wonder if Condo were to have used this metabolism trick frequently, would it have caused permanent damage to his body?




Ultra Boy definitely shined here, and it's almost like since Val was indisposed Shooter jumped over to Jo to fill this issue's mary sue shoes. Another interesting note is how Star Boy was right there and being very vocal as Jo's #2. I don't remember Thom as being portrayed as the aggressive type very often. You would think that Timber Wolf would be filling that role, but I don't think he said two words this issue.




Doing a quick re-re-read of this issue, I got a geeks ganging up on the bullys vibe. Shooter liked to work in some of his school experiences and classmates into his stories, so perhaps this is his version of having seen some of the meek and mild switch gears and take down a bully at school?

I had no idea that this story mirrored the Odyssey. It just seemed like a very convoluted story. Perhaps I need to start reading the story titles and get a clue lol.

The thing that really bugs me about this story is that just two issues back B5 was all wound up on the space-time continuum collapsing if Superboy were to die. And yet here he dies (by being eaten alive by a beast with Kryptonite teeth. really?) and no one bats an eye over that condunrum? Lu (and the others) clearly know Superboy someday becomes Superman, and yet they are buying into his death here. This would have worked better if say Shooter subbed Mon-El here for Superboy.

Oh then there's the whole thing Superboy does this set up because the legionnaires would never believe the story directly from one of their own members who just happens to have premonitons of the future that always come true in some fashion. More eye rolling.

Also the use of the super pets here was another eye-rolling moment. I wonder if this was another Mort-required Super Pets appearance, and Shooter was at the point where he just said screw it and "phoned in" this story.

While the plot was a mess, Shooter came out strong on characterization - especially with Chuck and Lu. And I wonder how many other Legion ladies know how to smoke and salt space-rabbit? Also Jo gets the spotlight again in place of Val. And I do like that Shooter had B5 sit this one out and used Lyle instead as the smart Legionnaire (but not smart enough to see through the set up) who figures out how to get everyone off the planet.

One other noteworthy item - after hardly using Chuck at all for the first half of his run, Shooter apparently discovered the coolness of Bouncing Boy as he uses the character quite a bit in the last year of Adv stories.

I came across Jim Shooter discussing the Forbidden Fruit story on his blog. We started discussing it here.

Apparently, Shooter's original story was rejected by the comics code. In it, Brin would have resisted the Doctor as shown. But then Ayla would have given him some Lotus Fruit, after deactivating the bomb she had attached to herself (thankfully this was nowhere near the Khundian Asteroid mission, or it would have got messy). It would be a long, difficult road through rehab for Brin rather than him just beating the habit at the end of the published story.

It doesn't say whether that would have been off panel, with both characters going on extended leave of absence, or if it would have been a proper subplot. Considering the shorter nature of the stories at that point, probably the former. Jim Shooter's blog entry on it is here.

Thanks for sharing, thoth. I appreciated Shooter's comments on drugs on and his own two drug experiences.

The Comics Code rejecting stories for the most inane of reasons, or no reason at all, was a reality back then. The tragedy is two-fold: Their policies prevented comics from really taking on weighty subjects and having something meaningful to say about them, and they made getting over a drug addiction look easy. It's its own way, the CCA may have done more harm to young people than comics themselves ever did.

I just came back from a writer's conference, in which one of the presenters is the author of Mid-grade fiction (roughly 6th, 7th, and 8th graders) as well as a middle school teacher. His books deal with heavy subjects such as loss of a parent and bullying--in other words, stuff real kids go through. One thing he said resonated with me: Lectures and public service announcements will quickly be forgotten by kids, but a single story about suicide, for instance, can reach them. Comics, too, have that power, or at least they can.

I can only imagine that they couldn't be seen to show any kind of enabling behavior, such as Ayla supporting an addiction by providing the drug. The code wasn't equipped to deal with messy little things like... reality

Is the author's books mid grade fiction because that's where the education system feels they are placed within their curriculum? Or are the books written for what the author perceives is a mid grade level? Or does the former lead to authors tailoring their work accordingly? it's something that raises a little internal flag when I see things being pigeon holed. Partly for exactly the reason you mention. That certain works are deemed to mature for younger minds. So, they are kept away from them even though they contain a wealth of experience and life lessons.

Ayla: You will get better. I'll support you through your Lotus Fruit addiction.
Brin: Even through all the relapses and emotional stress?
Ayla: Even then... because ... I'm pregnant.
Brin: But Ayla... we're never going to get a teenage pregnancy subplot through the code either!
Ayla: So.. you're saying that I shouldn't keep the baby?
Brin: Gah! Not going there! This whole conversation will never reach the page!

The author, C. David Milles, self-published the books, so they are not part of any curriculum. However, he took real incidents and concerns in his students' lives and wrote stories based on them. One in particular deals a girl coming to terms with her father's death and questioning the existence of God. Here is the Amazon link.

I bought it and another book called "Redemption," but haven't read them yet.

The thing about Ayla giving Brin the lotus fruit made me squirm. I supposed the idea was to wean Brin off the drug gradually, but this would need to be carefully explained. However, I do think they could have (and should have) gone ahead and showed him recovering for months.

Pregnant Ayla? Leading perhaps to a drug-addicted baby? Oh, the horror!

A drug addicted Cub? Yikes! I was just going for an old fashioned abortion storyline. Oh HWW!

The Lotus Babies mini series will be coming out from Young Animal in a couple of months.

Cub was Jo and Tinya's baby . . . which makes me wonder who the father of Ayla's Cub's truly is. Drug addicted and with uncertain parentage . . . I sense a six-issue mini-series!

You'd think if the Comics Code was so moralistic, they would have wanted to show how difficult it is to break an addiction. That could have taken six issues and all the while, Ayla is coping with pregnancy. Without her Legion stipend and for some reason unsupported by her family (just for the drama), she turns to dealing Lotus fruit to make ends meet, then sells her newborn, unable to care for him as a result of postpartum depression. Might take more than six issues.... a dark romance comic....

^The Legion as written by Harlan Ellison.