(See the previous threads on
Archives #10, Archives #9,
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 few months, we'll be reading and discussing the stories re-printed in Legion of Super-Heroes Archives Volume 11. Archives 11 has this cover:



Here we have the early issues of Mike Grell's artistic run on the Legion. While Grell is not universally beloved like Cockrum, I personally think he did a very good job of keeping the Legion afloat artistically and upholding the high artistic standards set by his predecessor.

Story-wise, it's more of a rollercoaster. We open with the devastating death of a long-time Legionnaire, and close with another long-time Legionnaire committing flagrant adultery. Cary Bates writes the first few stories, mostly in his established, reliable style, before beginning to rotate with the returning Jim Shooter. IMO, we have Shooter here at his best, worst, and somewhere in between.

The goal here is to read and review at least one issue a week. If the issue has two stories, we review them both the same week. Cool?

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

Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes #203-212.

Got it? Good!

Let's get re-reading.

SUPERBOY AND THE LEGION OF SUPERHEROES #203

I used to dislike this story, until He Who Wanders helped me to see it from a different perspective. After years of regarding it as a desperate attempt by writer Cary Bates and editor Murray Boltinoff to keep the post-Cockrum Legion vital through an injection of cheap shock, I now realize that the initially jarring shift in tone from the relatively light-hearted last few issues is a perfectly natural progression for the Legion. The first precedent which comes to my mind is the way that the joyful triumphalism of Adventure 350-351 (the Devil's Dozen story) was immediately followed by the dark tragedy of Adventure 352-353 (the attack of the Sun-Eater, the formation of the Fatal Five, and the death of Ferro Lad). Without those dynamics of light and shade, it wouldn't be the Legion.

And speaking of dynamics, Mike Grell makes what I regard as an explosively good artistic debut on the Legion. His style, with its heavy Neal Adams influence, is much more in keeping with DC's early-mid 70s house style than Cockrum's was, but I think it's got enough distinction and enough youthful, hungry energy to stand on its own. There are a couple of awkward fish-eye-lens panels (page 5, panel 4 and page 18, panel 1), but they're more than compensated for by the good stuff -- I'm thinking in particular of Superboy's battle against Validus (the lower half of page 15 and the entirety of page 16) and Invisible Kid's death (the entirety of page 20, with the striking and powerful juxtaposition of Validus crushing Invisible Kid in a long shot with a close-up of a dying Invisible Kid's hand crushing Tharok's brain mechanism. Pretty violent for its time, but still leaving the worst to the imagination.)

I liked Invisible Kid -- I even liked his ahead-of-its-time-yet-never-truly-fashionable headband -- and am upset to see him die. Though I'd have preferred the death of a Legionnaire I dislike, such as Cosmic Boy or Karate Kid, the story wouldn't have worked the way it was intended. Overall, I consider this to be one of Cary Bates' better Legion scripts, and a good send-off to an underappreciated Legionnaire.

Superboy #203 & the LSH

This story is important for two very different reasons, and while there are other things to talk about too, it's hard not to focus on them right away.

First, Mike Grell becomes the official full time Legion artist and takes the LSH into yet another new era. This is one of those moments in Legion history where the fans need to step back and appreciate how truly lucky they were. It doesn't really get much better than going from Cockrum to Grell. The sting of Dave leaving is definitely there, no doubt. But he's gone and we must move on--and the sheer beauty of Grell's art softens the blow.

His style is similar to Dave's in the sense that's it's just incredibly different and dynamic than what we had seen in comics before. Much like Jim Starlin (another part of this art movement in the mid 70's) it dabbles in the photo-realistic detail of Neal Adams but allows the artist to be as stylized as they want. The result is stunning. Of special note is the fight scene between Validus and Karate Kid & Sun Boy which is just tremendous in how dynamic and energetic the panel layouts are.

Of course, this is pretty much the sexiest the Legionnaires ever get in their history. We see that start here though it'll only get sexier. There's almost a nice transition from Dave (the man who made them sexy) to Iron Mike (the one who amped it up even further) in the sense that once again Nura is in her sexy nighty! Was that going to be her new costume? One has to wonder!

The opening sequence itself, with a team of Legionnaires trying to break into HQ against another team is great too. Such things weren't new to comics, but the LSH, and DC itself really, hadn't seen it done in such a modern way yet. It just feels very different than what we're used to.

The other major element of this story of course is we get the second death of a Legionnaire as Invisible Kid makes the ultimate sacrifice. Taken apart from the Myla stuff (which I'll get to in a minute), the death is actually better than I remembered: heroic and with Lyle figuring out what the others could not. It comes incredibly sudden, almost out of left field, but those kind of deaths are always much more realistic and hard hitting on rereads.

Unfortunately, either Bates or Boltinoff felt the need to shoehorn in a happy ending so readers didn't get too upset, so we get stuck with the Myla part of the story. This part is unnecessary and adds little more than a campy sense of "everything works out in the end". Without this, it would have been a fairly straight forward story without perhaps too much nuance; by having it, it makes the story feel ridiculous.

Legionnaires die, just like everyone else. And that gives the stories more weight--the heroic moments are more heroic and the romantic moments more romantic because any issue may be that Legionnaires last. I've been saying this era felt "fresh", and the reaffirmation of the superheroes' vulnerability underscores that.

I did like the scene with Lyle and Tinya which explores their friendship (and surely inspires the later scene with Jacques and Tinya years later). More female / male friendships without sexual tension are always welcome. I also like the very subtle nods to Brainy and Lyle's long established friendship. Those two things could have been used to much greater effect and could have replaced the Myla subplot with some strong (re)writing.

Lastly, he's always been a force to be reckoned with, but this issue truly cements Validus as MAJOR foe of the Legion. His relentless march to the LSH HQ reminds me of Omega, and one wonders if this was an inspiration. In Crisis on Infinite Earths there is a scene where Lex Luthor tells Brainiac about the absolute scariest and most powerful super villains and he used Validus as an example; this issue certainly makes the case as to why.

I agree and disagree at the same time. Yes, Cockrum and Grell took the Legion to a level of sexiness they'd never had before, but I think that a little over a decade later, after what I consider a long period of sexlessness, Steve Lightle and Greg LaRocque took the sexiness to the NEXT level. That, to me, is the sexiest the Legion has ever been.



I think your point is valid, but I can't help but wonder if most readers, especially younger ones, might have found the story too grim to bear if not for the semi-happy ending.



Agreed 100%.

Y'know, when I posted the "sexiest ever" comment, I hesitated and wondered if perhaps the Lightle / LaRocque era was possibly able to surpass the outright sexiness. Ultimately, I stand by my opinion on Grell's artwork, but its definitely close in my mind, so we're not far off at all! There was also a kind of one-two punch with Lightle and LaRocque just like Cockrum & Grell too.

(The only other possible artist IMO is Oliver Copiel but only around the start of the Legion series, midway through his run).

With such a vast array of characters and costumes, plus the youthful element (and especially when the characters feel like they're in their 20's more than teenagers), the Legion works better when it feels sexy and exciting!

Agreed about Coipel. His characters got very sexy in the early issues of the Legion ongoing; shame that DnA sank just as Coipel began to soar, but that's a whole other discussion.

I reviewed 203 three years ago on my blog.

My opinion, I'm happy to say, has not changed. I still think it is a wonderful send-off for Invisible Kid and one of the most effective super-hero deaths ever. It works because Lyle is portrayed as fallible--so smitten with love that he shirks his duty, yet he redeems himself in the end. In fact, he cannot accept that his lover is a ghost, and blots it out of his mind--even deceiving himself that he's going to bring Myla back to our dimension as his wife. To me, these traits make Lyle all the more human and endearing, and it was these traits I tried to develop in my "Myriad" fanfic. In 203, they make his death all the more real because we care about him and want him to succeed.

I'm puzzled by the comment that the "happy ending" makes the story ridiculous. For one thing, the ending is not all that happy. Lyle dies. Regardless of what happens to his spirit, he leaves a void in the lives of his friends and any family he has. This is not happy stuff.

Second, comics have always featured representations of the afterlife in some form or another. Drax the Destroyer and his wife were on their way to some higher existence after their deaths when Drax's spirit was given a detour and a transformation into a super-being. Various characters' consciousnesses have lived on in one form or another after their deaths. Even Ferro Lad's ghost dropped in to save his former teammates once.

So, does it really seem ridiculous that Lyle should spend all eternity with the one he loves? I hope not.

Among other things I noticed while re-reading this story:

-- Tharok's robot brain actually does reassemble itself before our very eyes. It's a very subtle sequence, and the meaning of it isn't clear until Lyle puts it together. It requires to reader to pay attention and then look back at the previous panels to see the transformation taking place. Well played, Mr. Bates.

-- Grell is indeed a worthy successor to Cockrum, though the differences in their styles stood out to me more this time than on previous re-reads. Grell's body movements are more exaggerated and look like they belong in a ballet. Karate Kid loses his Asian-ness, at least in this story, and the faces in general seem more generic and less interesting. But the action scenes are quite dynamic and exciting.

-- There's an odd typo on the Lyle/Tinya scene. She tells him that he and Myla are "worlds about." I'm sure she meant "apart."

-- I really like space prison X-33 and the suspended-in-mid-air surgery Tharok undergoes. This is a very imaginative use of the Legion's sci fi elements.

I'm glad I brought you around to my way of thinking, Fanfie. I think this is truly one of the best stories of the Bates/Cockrum/Grell era.

Superboy 203

Close the lid! Honestly, you’d think being irradiated would stop them from posing for a cover shot. At least we won’t see them being that stupid ag…not on the splash page too! There’s a reason it looks lead lined guys! It reminds me of the JLA's blackmail box.

The Legion practice drill seems a little long, even if we do get to see Tinya in something particularly figure hugging it does lead into the dual plots of Invisible Kid’s Invisible (or imaginary) romance and the return of Tharok. Although it’s no secret where the plot is going, the brain building itself was nicely done. I take it that having both biological and robot Tharok’s exist separately would build up to their being more than one version in later Dark Man issues. The infiltrators didn’t get to use all their powers and the Elasti-cape still does nothing for me.

Brainy’s first offer to dissect Lyle to find out what the problem is got cut from the issue for space reasons. His seconds, to invade Lyle’s mind and privacy with his Orwellian mento-scanner is fine though.

Lyle doesn’t come across terribly well in his last appearance. It’s disappointing that he was goofing off during a drill. Even his other worldly girlfriend reminds him about his duty. As a result, his side lost. He’s infatuated, and even points out that he’s waited a long time for a relationship like this. Mon-El doesn’t take it well and Lyle has to tell him that he won’t let him down a second time. Then he goes awol again, as he figures out the solution. No communication devices this issue for the Legion.

Lyle feels that Tinya is the only one he can talk to. There’s the general impression that he didn’t feel as though he fitted in with the others. That’s a common view of Lyle looking back, and it mainly comes from this issue. It’s clear that even Tinya isn’t someone he’s close with, only that he can confide in her.

As Myla appears before the others at the end, Lyle’s secret pastime is needlessly so. Why not talk to the others for a solution? In the end, he only thinks he has a solution because he’s blocking the fact that Myla is dead. So, it's not a good end for someone so scientifically minded.

The way he views his powers sounds a lot like Tinya switching to Bgtzl. In the threeboot version she interacted with both worlds simultaneously. Travel between the worlds isn’t restricted to just Lyle. Myla can go back and forth too.

There’s no letters page, but the editor makes sure that there’s a note of dissatisfaction over the departure of Cockrum.

“Dave Cockrum, who was virtually unknown in the field and gained star-artist status only after we gave him the opportunity to do the Legion, has departed.” Vietnam vet Grell “who has proved his professionalism” (ouch). “The Legion helped make Dave. It can do likewise fro Mike with your continued loyalty.”

Grell’s nightgowned Dreamy isn’t up to Cockrum’s in this first attempt. No Thom beside her either. I don’t think I’m a fan of Imra’s swimsuit. It’s just too much of a departure from the costumes I’m used to seeing her in. I can’t get used to Validus’ nose either.

Still, it’s a pretty good debut. The crushed Superboy pose was nice foreshadowing of Lyle later on. I guess that Validus didn’t kill the others, because they weren’t in his way, or as close to sabotaging the Tharok brain as Lyle was. The Tharok suspended on X-33 looked good too.

Validus gets away, because they haven’t any way of stopping him. Tharok was deadly and was only a brain in a box. A box that looked like neither the cover or the slash page.

We don’t see spirit Lyle and spirit Myla walk back across to her dimension. We’ve only an “I’ll take good care of him” to indicate he’s anything more than pulped remains on the HQ floor. I think perhaps she was just trying to soften the blow for the others. They have lost another Legionnaire that was possibly considered to be surplus to requirements and has now been moved out of the book.

Lyle’s nebulous status ended up giving us his "return" years later in Tales of the LOSH in an underwhelming story. He also appeared when Jeckie was trying to contact the dead in the Magic Wars.

Perhaps so, but I think it is very human. As I noted above, Lyle could not accept that this lover was a ghost, as indicated by his intention to bring her back as his wife. In a way, he succeeds though not in the way he intended.



I really like the use of a shifting visual focus to illustrate how he goes from our dimension to the other. This is good use of science fiction: comparing something unknown to a concept readers could grasp.

After I first read this story at age 10, I practiced holding a pencil in front of my eyes and shifting my focus between it and whatever was in the background. I never did see another dimension, though.



I hadn't read the text feature in years, so I missed the obvious sour grapes. Ouch, indeed.



Maybe it takes some time for a new ghost to figure out how to traverse the dimensions. It took Ferro Lad all of four months (our time) to do so.



Indeed. That was one of the worst developments of the Levitz/Giffen era. Sometimes the dead should stay dead.

I'm not entirely sure, but this may have been the very first time I've ever read "Massacre by Remote Control". It probably shouldn't have been since I've owned the original issue since some time in the late '80s when I procured it rather cheaply as a back issue. I think maybe I was trying to fill in the gaps and get all the issues that were at least between this issue and the Levitz/Giffen run that made me a fan. That's something that I never did, probably forestalled by the arrival of the Archives and the belief that they would keep being published and not only eventually fill the gap but do so with high quality printing.

I probably should have read it after I bought Archives 11 some years ago. I'm not sure why, but I never got all the way thru Archives 10 the first time around. So naturally, I never started Archives 11. Maybe I would have eventually read it some time ago, but along came the Archives project that this thread is the latest installment of. So I figured I could wait 'til the project got there--and here we are! Basically, from this point forward (with the exception of a few issues which may have been reprinted in a digest I read at some point), this is not at all a "re"-read project for yours truly---unless, of course, I DID actually read 203 before and forgot about it.

Anyhow, I have to agree with those who felt that this was one of Cary's best scripts to date. It's not that the basic idea is all that complex, but it's nice that there are some layers to it and some pathos built into it for he who departs.

I like the opening with the four mysterious Roman-numeralled intruders. I must confess that I didn't immediately realize whom they really were and was a little intrigued by them. Having it revealed as an exercise in Legion HQ security and using it as an intro to Lyle's role in the story was really well-done.

Then, the middle part of the story revealed a new and intriguing aspect to Lyle's power: the ability to visit or see another realm. This was pretty unusual as the one-power Legionnaires tended to be very straightforward and simple with what their powers could do. The idea seemed so intriguing to me that I really found myself regretting that we wouldn't see this explored further in this, his final appearance. Of course, in the midst of all this, we learn of Lyle's falling for Myla, this kind of instant-love being a remnant of a Silver Age trope. But it humanizes him in a way that makes what is to come feel more tragic than it otherwise would have. I especially liked that talk with Tinya during the sequence.

Then, the final act commences with Nura (returning in her sexy Cockrum nighty, as previously mentioned) having her premonition. I actually found it odd that she didn't proclaim, "I saw a Legionnaire die!" as she did in numerous other false-alarm visions. But things happen quickly from there as Validus approaches, and the Legion tries to suss out what's bringing him their way. Things end tragically but heroically for Lyle, but the tragedy is lightened somewhat by Myla's revelation at the end.

It strikes me that, perhaps, this may have been the most effective use of Validus and especially Tharok (albeit in the form of a component of his robotic half's brain) in terms of showing what a dangerous, "fatal" threat they truly were. I mean, you see two-thirds of the Fatal Five actually kill a Legionnaire, right? And neither gets a bit of dialogue (admittedly, not Validus' strong suit, natch), which is pretty creepy and effective. Not a fan, though, of Validus' brain mimicking facial features, though. It should just be a brain in there...no eyes or nose.

In a way, though, the Legion itself is culpable for Lyle's death. Keeping such a bizarre trophy and not having it thoroughly examined for being a potential threat proved fatal for him. There've been stories involving dangerous weapons or relics in their clubhouse causing trouble for them before, and this stands as the ultimate failure for them along those lines.

Did anyone else notice that Cary allows way more Legionnaires above his average here, even if many only have brief-but-speaking cameos? We have Lyle, Tinya, Clark, Mon, Dirk, Val, Brainy, Nura, Imra, Jan and Garth--that's eleven Legionnaires, kids! I certainly appreciate the effort, Cary! Lends a little gravitas to the issue, given how it turns out.

Mike Grell, who along with Cockrum is easily one of my favorite artists in the comics medium let alone the Legion, lands on his feet here and instantly shows some of his talent. It's more in line with what Dave had done, so there's not the huge "WHOA!" moment you get going from Tuska to Cockrum. The Legion was truly blessed to have a great artist follow another. I'm sure this had much to do with the Legion's revival having some real legs for quite some time.



While I'll agree that the execution, as I remember it, was bad, I feel that the basic idea was really fantastic and made me wish it were resolved better even more after reading 203. Honestly, the fact that Lyle could see into the afterlife and actually having his successor find him there! Fourteen year-old me was intrigued! Years later when I caught up on all the successive stories (after I'd quit around 305 with an X-Men hard-on! ), I was really disappointed that it was explained away as some demon or whatever impersonating him. To this day, I don't think that was the intended outcome of that subplot.

It's not that I think they should have brought Lyle back, but the idea to make a story that built on things hinted at in the earlier story I think was a good idea. Maybe it could have been resolved as a more solid passing of the torch between new and old Invisble Kids and perhaps Lyle could have been helped to crossover into a more appropriate afterlife, perhaps reuniting with Myla. Who knows? Maybe 2 other Legion ghosts could have helped him out? I think it could have been a classic.

Speaking of one of those ghosts, this story kind of refutes what we like to read into that Secret Origin story with Condo. I guess some have been able to explain away Lyle's infatuation with Myla, but you have to look at what was there, not just what was ret-conned. I suppose, though, that you could see as Condo being gay and harboring deeper feelings for his friend than Lyle ever suspected. Or maybe they were just really close friends?

Overall, a strong story. Not as strong as the overall tale that ended with Ferro Lad's death, but I would say that this one was definitely sadder. Also, the relative implied brutality of his death compared to Ferro Lad's was definitely more of a Bronze Age hallmark in contrast to the Silver Age innocent romanticism. Kind of like how a young blond girlfriend was killed when her neck snapped after being thrown from a bridge a year earlier. (Yeah, I know being blown up destroying a space monster may not seem less brutal, but there was no corpse left behind!)

I must have snipped out a line that was going to ask "Just how was Lyle intending to get Myla into our world?" One of the darker choices was suicide once he realised what she was.

I thought they looked a bit like the Unkillables from Adventure 361.



She couldn't remember who he was, as he couldn't connect with the others apparently But Validus she knew about.

I agree that Lyle's return didn't look as though it panned out as intended. Just as he was caught between worlds, the plot was caught between Tales and the Baxter launch.

I also agree regarding the Condo retconning. But ghosts can take many forms. Perhaps Myla was taking Ecto-Fem (I shall be punished for even making that connection )

SLSH #203 was one of the first issues from the 70s I purchased in the back issue bin, and then later enjoyed re-reading when the eleventh archive came out. While I feel like I don't have any particularly new insight to add to everyone's reviews, I will chime in that I also enjoyed this tale.

I thought Lyle's death overall was well done. I felt it straddled nicely the line between that a heroic path can be perilous, as well as the normal trope of heroes dying via sacrifice. As others mentioned, this really cemented Tharok and to a larger extent Validus as a Legion threat. I did find the Myla revelation silly even when I was younger, but I know that angle makes what happens more digestible for a lot of readers.

When I was younger, I don't think I could tell distinctly where Cockrum left and Grell began. As an adult, the transition is a lot easier to see. However, I think Grell fills the Cockrum void well and the visual momentum and excitement that Dave started on his Legion run isn't dropped by Mike's joining. Like Cobie pointed out, a lot of Legionnaires come in and out this issue and that's largely how I prefer my Legion tales when they're not battling a threat requiring the whole team.

I always thought the Tinya/Lyle friendship made sense, as undeveloped as it was. In addition to their power similarities, both likely served on the Espionage Squad enough together to have built some trust. Between this and the earlier scene with her on a mission with Garth, I really liked the unstated notion that Tinya was more comfortable paling around with the guys than the girls.

Other than my points in my previous post, I can think of two ways that the Legion would definitely, imo, later benefit from Lyle having died:

1) We'd get the Legion's first legacy hero (not including Ayla's time taking over for her then-deceased brother) in the form of Jaques Foccart. Though some would decry him for his use of French and for not being "black" enough, I feel Jaques was a great inheritor of Lyle's legacy and was a terrific viewpoint character for me as I discovered the Legion with him because of the timing of us both coming aboard in close proximity. (Ironically, I originally missed the annual in which he debuted, so his appearance and references to the annual were confusing to me. But it was cool seeing him as a fish out of water during the GDS, even as I was trying to comprehend the story's scope.) I always loved his deceptively simple costume and how his invisibility effect was shown in a cool way thru it. His role in 5YL just solidified and fulfilled the character's potential.

2) I'm sure that Lyle's unfulfilled potential lead the creators behind the Reboot to give him such a big and important role during much of the era. Lyle certainly shone as a character in that era as he never had before or never would since, and I doubt that would have been the case had Lyle not been killed off in this issue. There's no doubt he was one of the stars of the era, especially pre-DnA.

This is great! Lots of posts, just the way I like re-read threads. Will catch up and comment after dinner.

Good point. I hadn't thought of that. Maybe Bates and Boltinoff figured that it would be a good way to fill in the new readers that the Legion had picked up during the Cockrum era.



Very well said.

She's always come across to me as one of the girly-est of the Legionnaires, but of such contradictions are personalities formed.

In terms of the number of Legionnaires featured in this story, sure, it's nice to see more of the team, but most have minor or walk-on roles. Lightning Lad disappears entirely after the training exercise, while Dream Girl and Saturn Girl, both serve the needs of the plot and then disappear. Sun Boy and Karate Kid get to partake in the action, albeit briefly, and Element Lad has a substantial role early on (though it could really have been any Legionnaire who broke into the museum). However, the only really significant members are the four shown on the cover and splash page (and, even then, Tinya never gets to use her power).

There's nothing wrong with this approach; in fact, Bates is quite clever in creating the illusion that more Legionnaires contribute significantly to the story than actually do. I liken it to the approach used on Star Trek: TOS, in which many stories focused on Kirk, Spock, and McCoy plus Guest Star of the week (I suppose Lyle would be the Guest Star, since he's the one who "changes," i.e., dies) while Scotty, Sulu, Uhura, and Chekov are there to man their stations and get thrown about when the Enterprise is attacked.

Yeah, I was very aware that most of the Legionnaires had what amounted to cameos in the story, but I suppose that I was happy to see Cary at least somewhat out of his comfort zone for a change. At least, for once, we didn't have all but about four off-planet, and the extra Legionnaires got to contribute in at least a small way. We had the whole kit n' kaboodle (and then some) in 200, but not as many of them in that one had a line or got in on the action--or at least it feels that way.

It is clever writing. I was updating the Grand appearance database thingy a while back, and there were a number of issues where most of the cast just appeared in the background, and provided nothing to the story. Even a couple of panels for some characters over time can make a difference.

When I first started reading Legion (issue #212) , it was shortly after Mike Grell took over. His artistic ability towards the Legionnaires served as my introduction to the Legion and perhaps because of that, he is my favorite artist by far. I loved the sexiness of the costumes and it was good to see some muscle on the men as well. I felt like he took more time to add detail, especially in the close-ups of Legionnaires faces. More background art would have been desirable however.

Massacre by Remote Control is one of the better one-shot stories in my opinion, though I never liked the whole Myla plot concept. I think those panels would have been better used to develop the plot of Tharok's Brain and how parts of it ended up in the Legion Museum. This would tie the overall plot together better and if written properly, push the envelope on Invisible Kid's unfortunate death.

Lyle was one Legionnaire who was killed shortly before I started reading Legion. I read issue #206 which deals with the clones of both Invisible Kid and Ferro Lad before issue #203; that is how I leaned how Lyle dies. Once I read a few back issues with Invisible Kid I came to the realization that I wish he had not made the sacrifice but perhaps a Legionnaire that I didn't end up liking as much (a few names come to mind but I won't mention whom for certainly I will get an outcry of fans who beloved them.)

This is one of the stories I have re-read several times over the years and many of the stories I grew up on were in this particular hardcover volume. I'm not saying they were always the best stories and I do believe that many of them would have been better told if they expanded the story to cover about 3 comics. Nonetheless however, it was this era of the Legion that I hold dearest to my heart and as a result, is when I started my Legion campaign with my Role Playing Game.

Long Live the Legion!

Welcome to the reviews, Phantom Girl.

I noticed the lack of backgrounds in 203, as well. Whereas Cockrum had lush and convincing science fiction backgrounds, Grell went for a minimalist approach. That's not necessarily a bad artistic choice--it focuses our attention on the characters--but I miss the depth and breadth of Cockrum's vision.

SLSH 203

Although I first encountered the Legion through black and white reprints of their Adventure days, followed by scattered much later stories, it wasn't until the 5YL period that I started collecting seriously. i kew enough from the earlier reprints to know the background but I just HAD to get previous issues to figure out what was going on. So I then bought up all the Baxter series and the later SLSH stories. (See? Having a new first issue and making the stories confusing but engrossing does work!)

As a result I knew for a long time of the legionnaires who died and even knew the basic circumstance but had never read the original stories. That changed recently as I read the Fatal Five/Suneater story and now this one.

Did it live up to the wait? Sort of. I guess all legends grow over time.

Still Lyle did give himself up heroicly and that was well done. The intro was a good attention catcher and the talk with Tinya was a novel and interesting part.

Somehow though the execution just wasn't quite there for me. I'm finding that with a lot of Cary Bates stories - they're not bad but they feel too short, like they've only just got going when they finish. Characterisation was definitely improved over the Adventure days but somehow those stories felt grander.

Still I'm glad I read this. The Myla bit didn't really work for me, and even now I can't help wondering if she was actually the Dream demon in disguise, which would seem to distract from Lyle's actions - silly dope being fooled that way. Nevertheless he did die saving the Legion and that is how I will go on remembering him.

(Oh and I agree that Jacques is a tremendous character, not least in the way he was always written not as a replacement but in honour of his predecessor.)

Thank you! The crickets were a-chirpin' loudly in the lack of any kind of response to this point I made earlier....



....which makes me wonder just how popular or unpopular Jacques' character is among the contributors of the re-read threads. My guess is he's probably right there in the middle, basically a "meh" character, for you guys and by extension most of Legion fandom.

I'll admit he's not even one of my absolute favorites, but I've always had a soft spot for him for all the reasons I mentioned in the above quote. I'd go so far as to say that Jacques is definitely one of the (admittedly many) feathers in Levitz's cap as far as his contributions to the Legion's cast and lore.

I'd be curious as to what the rest of you think of Jacques. I think it's totally appropriate to chime in with that here, given he is definitely a future consequence of SLOSH 203 in the long view.

And as for Lyle himself, I think it bears mentioning that I think he had arguably (in my mind, inarguably) the most distinguished leadership term from the point of the Legion's inception to at least where we currently are in the Archives.

I feel that for probably the first time in the Legion's annals that the leadership role felt vital and important to telling the story. This is in large part thanks to our young Jim Shooter who, in many ways, was the writer to level up the Legion from where it was in the early Silver Age. Making the leader show some real influence in the stories was just one of the ways Shooter did this.

I loved that Lyle was the leader during a significant chunk of Shooter's run. And Shooter showed him to be very confident, competent and incredibly brave while in the role. I honestly can't remember if Lyle was elected by fans or not, but if he was, kudos to young Shooter for taking the ball and running with it! Hell, kudos to Shooter if it was his idea! Either way, it was great to see a quote/unquote "weak" Legionnaire shine in the role. It's fairly rare for the least powerful members to get a shot, so it was nice to see Lyle shine like Nura would much later.

That said, the story has been nagging at me a bit since my initial review here. Mainly because of the implication that Lyle was shirking his duty to make time with Myla. Honestly, the way the story is depicted, there's just no other way to read it, even if the other Legionnaires weren't particularly hard on him.

It nags at me because this is the very same Lyle who I praised above as an exemplary leader. I don't think that Lyle would shirk his duties for any reason. So that's a significant demerit for Cary Bates for not considering the character's history.

It reminds me a little of when a character on CSI: Miami was killed off, and his character's integrity was also assassinated at the same time by it being presented that he'd been lazy about his gun's upkeep--causing a jam at a crucial moment that might have saved his life had the weapon been properly maintained. It's not an exact parallel, but Lyle's character does take a bit of a shot even as his life is ended. But the death itself, at least, is heroic and selfless, unlike the rather senseless death of the TV character.

Also, despite what good I mentioned in the previous posts eventually came from his death, it's still a shame that he was deemed expendable. Ironically, he largely disappeared after having been so vital during his leadership term. I was shocked when someone here elsewhere on the boards posed a trivia question about the Action back-ups era. The question was which was the only active Legionnaire not to appear in any of those strips. Not having read them in a while, I was thinking Supergirl, or possibly Chemical King. Nope and nope. It was none other than Invisible Kid.

Sure, he would appear post-Action and pre-SLOSH 203, but it would seem that Cary didn't have a very hard choice to make when coupled with the comparatively weak power. I think if his history and importance as easily one of the Legion's best leaders was taken into account and if he'd been given more to do in the interim of his term, maybe someone else would have fallen instead.

I read the issue when he was made leader just recently but now I can't remember which one it was! Somewhere in Archive 5 or 6 I think?

This has made me want to look at who was leader in which stories, in particular what stories happened during Lyle's term. I know some of it but not all. Is there a list somewhere of who was leader when? I have a list of their order (and possible year depending on your chronology) but is there a list that has the issues? I'm sure I've seen one in the past somewhere. Anyone know where?

Never mind. I've found in a chronology in a copy of Legion Outpost II number 2 which states when leaders appointed and which issue.

Funnily enough, I did attempt to post about Jacques a couple days ago, but my stupid computer fritzed out on the internet connection at just the moment I submitted the post. I took that as a sign that it wasn't meant to be. However, I'm always happy to honor a request by Lardy, so here we go again...

I, personally, think Jacques started out as a shameless, cynical attempt to cash in on the popularity of the Legion's Marvel counterparts/rivals, the X-Men, specifically Chris Claremont's then-current tenure on that property. The cheesy accent and the tokenism and the whole looking-at-Darkseid-turns-him-into-Cupcake-Head stuff all combined to leave a bad taste for me. Could he have transcended that? Sure. There are no bad characters, only bad writers. DID he transcend that? My answer would honestly have to be "I don't know," because IIRC, when I stopped reading the 5YL due to the S. Erin fiasco, Jacques had only shown up for a panel or two here and there, so never got the sense of how he measured up to his new role as the leader of the resistance. So overall, I put a big question mark over Jacques. And, sad to say, I've never been particularly inclined to explore his potential in fan fiction the way I have some other Legion characters I dislike, but as the saying goes, never say never...

I liked Jacques if for no other reason than that he was a completely different character than his predecessor -- not just because he was black but because of his role as a newbie on team who wasn't certain of this whole hero thing.

In this first appearance (LSH Annual # 1), he's just Danielle's brother, who has brought her to the Legion so they can help with her illness. He's not impressed by the Legion and seems rather antagonistic, yet he does what he must when he learns he's the only one who can save the day. (In a way here, Levitz seemed to be playing off the "angry young black man" stereotype which derailed Tyroc as a character, but Jacques seemed more real and had a personal reason for being antagonistic since his sister's life was at stake.)

His induction into the Legion seemed abrupt, however, and I agree that the "skunk hair" was an unnecessary attempt to make him visually distinct (as if being black in the Legion wasn't distinct enough). However, my standout memory of that scene is that when he reappeared from being invisible, he was shaking--as one would expect from an encounter with the Servants of Darkness! Jacques, in other words, showed his vulnerability more than perhaps any Legionnaire before him.

Later when he discovered the aspect of his invisibility power which allowed him to teleport, he demonstrated more humanity and, I think realism. Most Legionnaires are shown to be "experts" at using their powers and rarely make mistakes. But Jacques' teleportation snuck up on him and was something he couldn't control. However, Dr. Gym'll gave him a choice of having either the teleportation power or the invisibility power removed, or both (and thereby returning to being a normal person). Jacques, to his credit, chose to keep invisibility--potentially the less powerful ability, but the one he could control--thus demonstrating his commitment to remaining a hero.

Fanfie, I think Jacques really came into his own during the last half of the 5YL run, first as leader of a resistance movement that saw the subs finally being portrayed as the heroes they truly were, then the reluctant leader of the liberated Earth itself (what was left of it). He was one of the few characters that maintained his integrity during the awful Legion On The Run issues, and to this day I consider Jacques and Drura to be one of the sexiest couples in the history of comics.

I appreciate the recommendation, Hermit, but there's just too many things I dislike about that era to read any more of it. Sorry.

I agree that Lyle shirked his duty, but I don't see that as necessarily an indictment of him as a character or of Bates as a writer.

For the most part, we never did get to see very much of the Legionnaires' personalities in those days or during the Silver Age, so we're left to "fill in the blanks" from little information we do have. As such, it's understandable if readers feel Lyle was acting out of character here (or Mon was acting out of character back in # 190, when he expressed doubts about being leader). But if we step away from our own perceptions of the characters (or what we imagine the characters to be like), we may get a sense of more rounded--and realistic--personalities.

How to reconcile the Adventure leader Lyle with the Lyle who shirks his duty? A couple of possibilities: Lyle was new to being in love--and, as most can attest, being in love plays havoc with one's priorities and values. Also, Lyle knew it was "just" a training exercise, so perhaps he thought he could afford to sneak away briefly and return before his absence made a difference. (That's not how it turned out, of course.)

I also think he may have started to lose interest in the Legion at this time. When he tells Phantom Girl he plans to bring Myla back at his wife, he must know that getting married would require him to leave the Legion. Yet he never seems bothered by this possibility.

None of this excuses his actions. Mon was right to punish him. But I do think it makes his character more human.




I never watched CSI: Miami, but I grew up on Hill Street Blues and St. Elsewhere, and later enjoyed Homicide: Life On the Street. These three shows portrayed cops or doctors as human beings whose often heroic actions are tempered by human fallibility. In one HSB episode, Officer Andy Renko carelessly opens his car door in traffic as a car passes by and hits the door, causing it to fly off. St. E's good-looking Dr. Bobby Caldwell (Mark Harmon) was a womanizer who famously contracted AIDS. On Homicide, two detectives unwittingly allowed a murderer (played memorably by Lily Tomlin) to escape, allowing her to kill again.

Fallible heroes have to struggle harder to be heroes; to me, that makes them more heroic.

I didn't notice that, and you're right. Having a lot of it set in the trophy room, or having Brainy's close up Mento beam thingy distracted me. I wonder if it's going to have an impact in a story set outside, as Cockrum's cityscapes were excellent.



I wonder if there's something about a hero who gives their life, that elevates them to a character status that they didn't normally have. Lyle had a good run as leader with Shooter, but I think that other writers saw him as an infrequently used weak link. Just noticed that stile86 also considers that legends can grow over time.

I certainly thought more of later versions of the character, than perhaps the first one. I feel that Lyle had a number of those minor cameo roles that HWW mentioned. A few “appears as Legion statue only” appearances too, no doubt.



Yeah, I get that feeling too. I wondered if it was just me getting used to the different story lengths, moving from back up to full feature. But I do prefer having these stories in a single issue, rather than spread out. There's a certain emotional punch from these, going all the way back to Adventure, that I don't think I'd get in a 12 issue Bendis arc to get to the same point.



That could well have been what Levitz was going for when Lyle made his reappearance. I wouldn’t have known that when I first read it. But having read both stories, it’s very odd that Myla didn’t return or wasn’t hinted at.

From the original story, it seemed to be that she was there to avoid Lyle dying with unknown sexuality; to give him a “happy” ending and to give him a bit of a spotlight before the end.




Ah, sorry Paladin. It’s been a busy little issue for comments. No doubt there’s a DC executive going “ …and it was a death issue. Killing things *must* be more popular!” Behind him, Giffen is going “…and we can start with Karate Kid!”



That’s a good point about the character. I wonder if the regular introduction of viewpoint characters allows successive groups of readers to connect with the team. I was going to call them “Jumping On” characters, but that would just start the lewd comments :) I doubt they think far enough ahead to see the appeal of such a thing, or to think about who they’d have to shuffle out of the cast to keep it manageable.

I liked Jacques well enough as a character. But, his origin as an inheritor of Lyle’s formula was also what limited him. He couldn’t influence stories in the way that Lyle could through his own scientific skills. You’re right that his scenes gave us a fresh view of the team. But they also showed his limitations as a result. We saw the Academy, but partly because Jacques needed to get trained. We got to see if his powers could be adjusted (a tradition since the Adventure days of Light Lass) but that was because his teleportation was unstable. That sort of thing. So, while it made his distinctive and vulnerable, too much of it could also build up to make him ineffective.

When he was shown to be politically adept, was when he finally got to have a role of his own. That would have been the time to move him on and to let someone else be the new viewpoint character. It’s a shame we didn’t get to see more of that. It went well with his powers. But they called it Action or Adventure Comics, not Political Espionage Monthly.



That’s certainly the way I read it. It does leave a lasting impression about his character. Although he did figure out the plot, it’s his mooning over the dead girl that stands out more. Still, that’s him in love I guess. The Legion’s other scientist went a bit nuts thinking that his lost love had been resurrected. So, it could have been worse.



That might have been one I answered, not long after I’d taken a good look through everyone’s appearances. That would also be where I get the idea that he made quite a few cameos and appearances as a statue only from too.

He was considered to be a weaker character, which is odd considering just how useful his power is in so many situations. I think Jacques was often almost killed as well though (see sudden ability to teleport). I don’t think Invisibility was used terribly well by the Legion



I’d not argue with any of that. However, there’s another side to it. It took *ages* for Jacques’ resistance to have any effect. Based on his own combat training, I’d have to conclude it was Tyroc and the subs themselves that made them into an effective unit, more than it was Jacques.

While Jacques & Drura were great together, that was just when the team lost whatever little focus it had left. I recall his plans for the team with all the new codenames, and it just drifted way.

He was effective in the Legion on the Run arc, but he had been moved into supporting cast territory as part of it. Which leads me back to Paladin’s feel that he may be a “meh” character for us. I think he’s distinctive and has a place. But he’s better suited for some stories than others and needed that political focus the 5YG gave him. He’s a better supporting character with some major roles when needed as opposed to just having minor (and Lyle-like) cameo role just to make up the numbers.

Huey, I read all of your well-reasoned post and generally agree with every point and comparison you made. I really don't expect Lyle to be infallible at all. In fact, I welcome him and other Legionnaires to be humanized and show imperfections. I guess it just sticks in my craw because this was Lyle's final and (arguably because it features his death) most significant appearance. Most likely, this is the story featuring Lyle Norg Pre-Zero Hour that most Legion fans will remember the most. And in that story, he shirks his duty!

True, fans may remember most about the story his heroism and selflessness against Validus, but maybe others will read or re-read it and wonder if maybe he had it coming because he was shown not to be as dedicated to the job as his peers! I don't feel that's Lyle's legacy at all, and anyone looking for it should look at his role during his leadership term.

Basically, I'm all for characterization and especially flaws being explored, but I'd rather it not undermine a great character in the moment he'll ultimately be remembered for most.

Oddly enough, I still overall like the story!

Lardy,
I appreciate your perspective. However, I can't argue about Lyle's legacy or how later fans might perceive him. I'm not terribly bothered if they think less of the character because of this story. People will always draw upon their own associations and first impressions, regardless of what they happen to be. Some may amend their perceptions later on; others won't.

One of the reasons I like this depiction of Lyle is because I have made mistakes that now make me wince and which probably put me in a bad light with certain people. However, I can't afford to worry about what others think about me; I can only do what I perceive to be right in any given situation and try to make amends when I'm wrong. This is pretty much what Lyle does here, and that makes him easy for me to relate to.

Where it all went wrong for the Legion:-

"Hey Ferro Lad! Quit telepathically texting your twin and fight the Sun-Eater..ah, never mind, there goes Earth."

"Hey Eltro. Quit arguing with your other personality and come and help with ...ah heck..Mordru wins."

Thanks for all the comments on Jacques, guys. I think they confirm my suspicion that he just doesn't appear on anyone's "best of" lists, including my own, but rarely on "worst" lists either. I think that most agree that he's a good legacy character and someone who found some niches to enrich the overall Legion tapestry.

I really wish that his teleportation power had been kept and developed instead of just being discarded, though. It's intriguing to me for the weaker one-power Legionnaires to develop permutations that expand what they can do. It's disappointing, especially since Lyle himself was shown to be developing the ability to see into what he didn't realize was the afterlife. It's not that I think all of the "weak" powers should be expanded, but there's nothing inherently wrong with one or two being deepened.

I've always thought that the Invisible Kids' powers have been marginalized, anyway. It's always seemed too easy for any of them to be detected while invisible. Heat signatures, movement detectors, etc. I think they would be pretty formidable if their power made them completely undetectable, even from telepathy. If that seemingly makes them too powerful, you could write situations where it's detrimental--stuck in stealth mode, knocked unconscious, etc. But if written that way, it could be quite a super power.

I know you said that you don't think that all powers should be expanded,. I think this was one of those times. I remember thinking that having set up the power as a subplot, it was an interesting switch to have Jacques decide that he no longer wanted it. It was a nice switch from the power creep that's seen so often. I's one of those decisions that sets Jacques apart form other super characters.

I think Brainy might have tried and failed to increase Dawny's tracking range around that time too.

I can't disagree with you there. Certainly, Paul spun that resolution in a way that made Jacques look good as a character, but he could just as easily had done so by having Jacques be determined to develop and control the power to benefit the Legion and by extension those they serve. It was certainly a unique power (pre-Gates/pre-Zero Hour), so you could argue Paul took the easy way out. I also doubt this was the exact resolution that was conceived for the subplot, just as I doubt the Lyle/demon outcome was always supposed to be that way.

Wow, there's been a lot of great commentary already for this Archive Reread! Love to see that! I had meant to reply earlier but couldn't put aside the time and then the thread started to get away from me. But a few comments in brief:

- responding to HWW's initial reply to my comments, I can certainly see where his opinion differs from mine when it comes to the romance portion of the story. I guess at the end of the day I just don't believe the romance. I feel I'm being told about it, but because Myla comes out of left field and because the ghost plot feels like a way to shoehorn a happy ending into a death sequence, I'm not able to buy into it. (And I admit that there are many times a decade earlier where I was able to easily get past those feelings and "buy into" such things during the Silver Age; likely this contradiction more to do with the reader than anything).

- another comment by HWW is that one could read into Lyle simply growing tired of being a Legionnaire and wanting to move on. I think he's right on the money here, and I got the same feeling when he mentioned marrying Myla, as that would mean mandatory retirement. But I also can understand those feelings well and think most of us have felt that way in life. Whether it's a job (probably the most common) or a living situation (roommate, etc) or even something as simple as a "social era" of your life like high school, college or the "going out to the bar and drinking with your friends all weekend" phase of your early 20's, there sometimes comes a point where you're only doing it out of habit, and the thrill and excitement have left you. You still enjoy everyone and don't dislike it; you simply are ready for something else. I think it isn't a stretch at all to think someone like Lyle would feel that at this point in LSH history after two of his longtime friends just got married and settled down.

- lastly, there's a lot of good conversation about Jacques. I tend to have similar feelings to Lardy: IK II was never in my top 5 favorite Legionnaires but I liked him immensely and felt he was a stalwart Legionnaire during one of the franchises best eras. He became a Legionnaire I wanted on the roster henceforth. Regardless of where the accent came from or why the streak was in his hair, he had a lot of unique qualities; for a reader who only discovered him long after he was written out of the series, I could care less about those things and simply knew they I liked him. Out of all of Legion history, he was probably the best "new member / Pov character" of all.

Legion #294 - "Gah! Put Some Pants On! I'm Too Offended to Stay in your Galaxy >BOOM!<" - Darkseid

SUPERBOY AND THE LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES 204

I personally consider 204-209 to be a rather blah string of issues. Perhaps the re-read will change my mind about some of them, but it didn't change my mind about 204. I don't think either of the stories are very good, and even Grell's art isn't up to the standards he established with 203. The portrayal of humans in the 75th Century is, in my opinion, boringly written and laughably illustrated -- I assume that Anti-Lad and his father were supposed to look like their brains had expanded, but they actually look like they have giant phalluses growing out of their bald heads! (Apparently, even in the far future, men still think with their genitals.) That makes it hard for me to take the story seriously, and since I don't like most of the Adventure-era costumes, there's no thrill in seeing Grell draw some of the Legionnaires in their old costumes.

The back-up story is better drawn, but even more badly written, I think, because it puts my beloved Brainy in a really bad light, what with his building a Supergirl robot during his blackouts. Creepy is the word for it.

Overall, a very weak issue and, in my opinion, all-too-typical of the next twenty or so issues, except for a few good Shooter stories here and there.

Superboy & the LSH #204: Part 1

Before we begin, a quick memory from the distant past: way back in 1999 on the DCMB's, in the pre-LMB days of the LMB when we were all starting to meet each other, I remember a thread about "most obscure Legionnaires". There were lots of posts about Celeste and Devlin, or Catspaw and Computo, and then oh yes, the Subs were honorary members too don't forget! And of course, the members who joined during the 5 year gap, the ultimate obscure members of all! As a Legion fan whose preboot reading still had major holes in it, I was very intrigued! And then came a post from none other than Rhino, who said "but let's not forget the most obscure of them all--when Anti-Lad was listed on the roster in Superboy and the Legion of Superheroes #204! Now *that* sounded interesting!

For a long while I was dying to find the issue and see this Anti-Lad for myself. And when I finally did...I was totally disappointed to see a goofy looking guy with a penis for a head! Bloody effing liberty!

Fast forward another 13 years or so and here I am able to take the story for what it is, without any preconceived ideas. And you know, I enjoyed the hell out of it! It's a very well plotted story, and in classic Cary Bates style--full of clever twists and turns in a compacted set of pages. It also succeeds in two other ways: Anti-Lad, for all his lack of detailed personality is quite likable and his adventure also allows us to explore the rich history of the Legion's early days, a time period readers haven't seen in a long time.

Speaking of which, I like how this story cements some of LSH chronology even further by showing Tinya, Cham, Gim and Brainy present at the time of Superboy's induction. Most of that was already established, but repeat references make it canon.

Meanwhile, back to Bates' story: I highly enjoyed the ruse Anti-Lad pulls to correct the historical mistake, and think it was very cleverly and enjoyably pulled off. This is also heightened by the great narrative trick that the LSH never knows what's happened...but the readers do.

Grell has taken over for Cockrum, and the art continues to be the major focus of the era. But this story more than any other so far showcases writer Cary Bates as the star.

------------------------------

Superboy & the LSH #204: Part 2

The second part of #204 is basically the opposite of the first. I'm not a fan of this story at all, and think it's partially to blame for all the subsequent "Brainy has lost it" stories that will come in future years, which has become an annoying trope in comics (re: genius has mental breakdown). I can understand the pressure causing Legionnaires to act erratically, but building a robot duplicate of the woman you love in your sleep? Uh, no.

The positives of this story are (A) the countless joked we've gotten on LW about Supergirl robots and (B) the incredible Grell art. Where Cary Bates' story shits the bed, Grell's artwork is superb and his depictions of Supergirl and Saturn Girl are mesmerizingly beautiful. His Brainy is also very leading mannish, and the final panel of their (real) shared kiss is incredibly striking and romantic.

We also get the aforementioned (by HWW) panel of Supergirl officially leaving the roster; now I know why I forgot as I usually purposely forget about this story. While this definitely fits into the "changing the roster" trend of the newer, fresher Legion, it feels a bit more like tying up a long standing loose end.

All in all, I never liked this story but it especially has rubbed me the wrong way on this reread. Maybe it's all the similar Marvel stories using Hank, Reed, Tony, etc that have just made me outright hate such stories.

I fail to see how he's the least bit likable. What exactly do you like about him, Cobie?



Now here we're in total agreement. Cheers, Cobie.

204/Anti-Lad

I fluctuate between finding the story blah (Fanfie's perspective) and enjoying it (Cobie's). It is certainly a clever little ditty, with all of Bates's cheekiness in full force. In his narration (and through Anti-Lad's mouth), he addresses the reader directly, letting us in on a secret not even the Legionnaires themselves know. This must rank up there with the "Paul is dead" mystery that the Beatles oh-so-cleverly let only their faithful fans know about through clues on their album covers and in their lyrics--or so some fans wanted to believe. Who doesn't like a secret story that only you, the reader, know?

The story is also well executed; it does what it sets out to do, and Anti-Lad demonstrates his resourcefulness by setting history right.

I have two standout memories from reading this story as a child. One is that it was supposed to be a treat to see the old Adventure-era costumes again, but I felt underwhelmed by the depiction. This is clearly a '70s version of the '60s Legion, and it misses the story telling sensibilities of the Siegel and Hamilton eras: the wonderful imagination and far-out planets and aliens. All of this is sacrificed for a straight action story, something the Legion didn't do much of at the time.

The other memory is that, for many years afterwards, I wished Anti-Lad had been more clever than to claim he was from a planet with a super-bright sun. Sure, such cleverness would have defeated his purpose as he wanted to be caught, but I still regretted that he had been found out so easily. I suppose I found him likable, like Cobie, and so I wanted him to stick around.

Reading the story now, I wish there was more to it than a simple gimmick of a Legionnaire nobody remembered. Once you learn the mystery, that's all there is to it. It teaches us nothing new about the human condition or the Legionnaires. It's the literary equivalent of a magic trick.

I'm also not sure why it was necessary for Anti-Lad to go through the whole charade. If all he needed to do was blank out the Legionnaires' memories and make them want to give Superboy another chance, couldn't he have done that in some other way? Personally, I think he just wanted to interact with his ancient idols. Nothing wrong with that. I once wrote a story in which a time traveler joins the early Beatles (and unwittingly changes history)!

Be back in a bit to discuss "Brainiac 5's Secret Weakness."

204/Secret Weakness

If viewed through the modern lens of adult perspective and "darker" comic book story lines, "Brainiac 5's Secret Weakness" does indeed appear creepy. However, I don't think that was the intention at the time, and that's not how I've ever read the story.

I think it is quite sweet that Brainy pines for Kara, and that--perhaps because of his own shyness (a trait he may have had in common with Lyle)--he never fully expressed this love. Ironically, Kara felt the same way--as shown in Adventure 368 and elsewhere--so they both appear to be very shy people who never quite knew how to connect with each other. I've been there and done that.

As for Brainy building a Kara robot in his sleep, why not? There are all sorts of ways a 12th level intelligence could be played in comics. During the reboot, it was suggested that Brainy had a multi-track mind that could do several different things at once (which truly would be a super-power since it's well known that human brains cannot multitask). If that's the case, it seems feasible that one of his "tracks" might operate independently of the rest while he was asleep, acting out his dreams and deepest wishes. My only real problem with this idea is that it was never explored in other stories. Who knows how many times Brainy tinkered away in the lab without knowing it? Perhaps Coluans have to take some kind of medication to prevent this from happening. The condition could be similar that of Vulcans, who lose control of logic and become emotional as they near the end of their lives.

My only real complaint with this story is the timing of Kara's return, which just happens to coincide with Brainy's vacation and allows her to pull off a convenient rescue. Of course, the story wouldn't work so well if she didn't return at that moment.

Two things make this story stand out to me. One is the revelation that, even though Kara hadn't visited the Legion in several years, she was still on the active roster. Apparently, the Legion didn't have the heart to expel her, as any organization would for someone who just stopped showing up.

The second is the last panel of Brainy and Kara kissing, which is bittersweet, especially in the hindsight of knowing this would be the last time they would meet for many years. In spite of Kara's promise that she would one day return, it would not be for quite some time. But at least these two shy people got to express their true feelings for each other.

I wish we could all be so fortunate.

And every time anyone agrees with Lardy, Morgan Freeman grows an extra freckle!

That's exactly how I felt. The old costumes were jarring rather than pleasurable in this context.



I feel that way about a lot of 70s Legion stories, in particular many of the ones written by Bates.

Interesting perspective, He Who. It doesn't change my opinion of the story, but I think your insights into Brainy and Kara and your placing of the story in its proper historical context are sound.

In some ways, I'm envious of your generation, He Who, as yours was the last to come of age before superhero comics entered the Dark Age. I can't speak for Cobie, but he and I are of the same generation, and I feel the oppressive wave of dark superheroes had far-reaching effects for everyone born between roughly 1972 and 1982. In my personal case, I tend to have knee-jerk reactions of seeing the sordid side to superheroes.

I agree wholeheartedly with that statement. I had the benefit of reading vast amounts of Silver Age comics before I was engrossed with (then) modern "Dark Age" sensibilities, so in that regard, I have a good appreciation for earlier eras. But at the end of the day, like Fanfie, I come from an era where the "dark age mentality" was so prevalent, and has cycled back through again and again, that it's very difficult to push that colored perspective out of mind when I read comics. Sometimes I think I'm able to, and sometimes I just can't.

Regarding the likability of Anti-Lad, I guess its hard to pin down now that I don't have the issue in front of me anymore. Overall, I just liked his confidence and his sense of trying to do the right thing for his idols, especially that he wasn't going to wait around and do it himself. He also has a healthy respect and awe of the Legion which I appreciate, having that myself. If he had a better visual, he might have caused more readers to want to see more of him.

Good point about the character's need for a better visual. And I wonder whether giving him the penis-head was Grell's choice or Boltinoff's. I suspect the latter, finding it easy to picture the middle-aged editor with a pile of underground comix on his desk, misguidedly deciding that characters with penis-heads are just what the new, "edgy" DC needs.

Thankfully it wasn't Geoff Johns. Cuz you know that sucker would be severed in a second.

LOL

Good one, Cobie, although I think Johns is too paternalistic to support any kind of castration, symbolic or otherwise. I'm surprised Johns' alter-ego/stand-in Superboy-Prime didn't develop a penis-head.

Again, reaching back into more "innocent" times, I doubt Boltinoff or Grell intended for Anti-Lad's head to look like a penis. I think they were just playing off the stereotype that people in the future would have bald heads because they would be more intelligent that those of earlier generations.

I'm not sure why there had to be a "cleft" in the head. Perhaps it was indeed meant to suggest a larger cranium but not too large so the character wouldn't look alien.

Hermit's mention of the Outer Limits in the Star Trek: TOS thread reminded me that there was an episode I saw where David McCallum played a simple man who is artificially evolved into a man of tomorrow, and his cranium expands. Perhaps that's what Grell was going for?

Perhaps. I've never seen that episode, but the idea that people with super-intelligence or mental powers would have large craniums was a staple of science fiction. The Talosians in the original Star Trek pilot, "The Cage," were a good example.

Of course, there's tons of examples in the Legion as well, including Evolvo Lad!

Superboy 204

I think I got this one quite early on, as I knew who Anti Lad was when I used to see him appear in lists of members.

I remember seeing the lists, because I’d immediately tut and say “He *wasn’t actually a member. He had just got through some preliminary tests.” I had to tut, because it wasn’t until recently LASH showed me how to Space Huff. The talking out loud to no one is still the same.

It’s an interesting premise. A mystery from the Legion’s past solved in the far future! A key moment from the Legion’s past too: The induction of Superboy. Just think what would have happened to the team without him (cue someone creating a thread if it’s not already there).

Another question is why can no one remember Anti-Lad?

One thing is certain. It’s got to be done better than Triumph was when they reused (pinched) this idea for the JLA years later. Surely?

Well…

You’d really think that changing time ought not to have been an option with the Time Scanner. It’s really only going to end badly. I don’t see our TV’s creating alternate realities, or microscopes suddenly really enlarging things (That’s Molecule Master’s job.)

“We must do something! But first let’s spend half an hour setting up these ancient dominoes, I just happen to have, to explain a simple point to you.” Hmmm, someone isn’t too bothered about having reality rewritten. Could Anti-Lad’s dad be the Time Trapper? He dabbles in “Time Peeping” for sure. Perv!

Perhaps the Trapper is Anti-Lad. Having messed up with time once thanks to his device, he’s straight off on the forbidden time machine (kept securely, but not really, in the house) to mess with it again.

The story relies on Anti-Lad getting everything exactly right. It’s like one of those elaborate villain plots that Bates has provided us with. Brainy has to figure out that something is wrong. He has to figure out the visor is the source of the powers. He must be able to access the technology to make the Kryptonite link. Then Cos has to make the link between that and the test that Superboy failed? Oh, the visor must also be able to do lots of neat things, including mind wiping and hypnotic suggesting, because the Plot Trapper demands it.

*And* he knew how long he would have to stay, because he’s been mind wiping the Legionnaires not in the room, such as Tinya and Gim so they won’t remember him either. That would have looked odd if Anti-Lad had to stay a bit longer and half the team kept forgetting who he was.

While I can moan about Anti-Lad not being on the team, one after effect of this story is that Superboy’s introduction to the team has been meddled with.

Superboy was supposed to have failed his tests away back in #247. It’s was all part of the Legion pulling Clark’s leg. Perhaps we would have got a better story seeing Anti-Lad misinterpret the failure. Instead, we get genuine disappointment from the Legionnaires regarding Superboy’s testing. It seems that this is a different test to the one in #247. Possibly due to Anti-Lad’s device.

So, Superboy ends up having to be tested twice, invalidating #247? A shame if that’s the case.

Visually, Anti-Lad is distinctive and I wonder if he could defeat Nemesis Kid. Nemesis Kid is just one of the villains who can look at their photo grid with the Legion up on the wall before the cell lights go off at night. They all passed the preliminaries too.

I thought the art was a step back this issue, and the story took some of the poorer elements of this run and sunk a decent premise with them.

Backup Feature:-

Brainy goes off the deep end, not least in part because the Legion don’t get weekends off in the future to relax.

The big plot hole in this one is that having been absent for “years” Supergirl pops up to tell people she’s not staying and will be absent for years. Um…why bother? Oh yes, because she had to save Brainy at just the right moment.

This story would obviously be part of the set up for Brainy’s later actions. Actions that would shape and haunt him for the rest of the Legion comics. Occasionally it would feature more prominently, such as during the Who is Sensor Girl? Arc. I’m sure someone quipped about Brainy having built another android or having a clone?

Grell’s depiction of the android is great though, and it was nice seeing Brainy and Kara together. It also gave some panel time to Star Boy.

http://www.legionworld.net/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=64608#Post64608



LOL I'd never thought of the JLA/Triumph connection, but it's true!

SLOSH 204

1) Anti-Lad story

This one felt like a big throwback to the early Silver Age style of Legion storytelling. (In my mind, at least, the Bronze Age for the Legion began with Cockrum and his costumes arriving.) This isn't just because of the flashback to the early Legion and the old costumes but because of the simplistic and kind of nonsensical/flawed story--with many of its fallacies already mentioned here. Certainly, Cary wasn't one of the more innovative Legion writers, but this one particularly stands out as regressive. By comparison, Paul Levitz's flashback stories which revisited the Silver Age seemed more well-done and less clunky.

There's just not much to enjoy here, other than some decent Grell artwork. Cary's script is flawed from the get-go considering he seems to misremember Superboy's induction story and how the Legionnaires basically pranked him into thinking he hadn't done well. So just a poorly considered story all around with just too many flaws to overlook. Really, my initial statement of this being a early Silver Age throwback is an insult to Siegel, Hamilton and the like. Their veraion may have been hokey but would have made more internal sense.

BTW, Anti-Lad's head, to me, is much more evocative of a butt than a penis. This from a guy who sees penises in everything!


2) Brainy + Supergirl + Supergirl android

This is generally the less popular of the two stories among the consensus so far, but count me among the ones who prefer this story. It's not anything close to perfect, but it feels more like a Bronze Age story than its throwback lead-in. And it doesn't hurt at all that Grell draws a remarkably beautiful and sexy Kara, whether she's the robot or the real deal. And she appears in the costume that I most associate pre-Crisis Kara with as a bonus.

One thing I really like about this story is that it at least addresses the Brainy/Kara pairing for the first time in forever. And I'm a big fan of the two together. Something else else about those two together just feels right, and I'm sure that much of this has to do with the fact that we know they are doomed by her death in Crisis. That scene of Brainy and the real Kara kissing at the end is depicted magnificently and tenderly by Grell. It can't be mistaken for a platonic kiss. There's some real attraction and feeling between the two that goes beyond puppy love or a simple flirtation. These two are star-crossed, and who can't help but feel some longing for them never really getting together?

The creep factor that some here mention is there, but I think the explanation we get mostly redeems that feeling. It makes since that a being with Brainy's particular intelligence may work on something like this subconsciously when thoughts of her weigh so deeply on his thoughts. A brain like his is probably built better for purely intellectual pursuits and may approach emotional problems in inappropriate ways.

The bigger problem for me is the real Kara's entirely coincidental appearance. I'd have preferred that something more story-appropriate had been cooked up to have her enter. Something else else as simple as one of the Legionnaires becoming suspicious and checking in the past to see if it's really her.

Overall, I like the story as a placeholder/update on Kara and Brainy's relationship. We can check it off in their history and place it in a timeline of stories addressing their relationship. Something else else to read over and lament what might have been.

Good point well taken, Lardy. It makes me wish more than ever that Sensor Girl had been Kara instead of Projectra.




Yep, same here.



Now that you mention it...

LOL

I don't know if anyone here remembers "In Living Color", the multi-racial sketch comedy show from the early 90s. Early on, they had a recurring sketch called "The Buttmans", about a family with butts growing out of their heads. That was one of my favorite sketches, but the censors forced the creators to stop making it.

You know, as contrary as it may sound, I wouldn't change a thing about how the Sensor Girl mystery played out. I like what it did for Projectra's story. And as painful as it is, I'm glad we have the sad outcome for Kara and Brainy because sometimes "what might have beens" can be so much more powerful than if things had actually played out. Compare this, for example, to if Jean Grey had never been brought back and how much better that would have been compared to where writers took her and Scott Summers. Gwen Stacy has benefited mostly from this as well if you don't count that awful Norman Osborn ret-con.

You know, I never thought of Anti-Lad's head looking like a penis or a butt until I joined this board.

I'm sure I have no memory of any such show, and neither would any one else here. Because Lardy don't play dat!

SLSH 204

Not much more for me to add than has already been said. I read of Anti-Lad and his shenanigans in the ICG Index titles and was intrigued, but the actual story was fairly meh. As Thoth pointed out everything had to work just right or history would be more screwed. Oh and it was so handy that there just happened to be an ancient set of dominoes on the table.

As for his head, at first I thought it was just poor perspective but then I realised about the brain bit , particularly since it reminded me of the Talosians in Star Trek "The Cage", as He Who mentioned, often referred to as those guys with bottoms on their head.

The Brainy-Kara story was another one that I had read when I was young in a B&W aussie reprint. I guess when I was young I just accepted it. Looking at it now, yeah it does feel a bit like Brainy could use some counselling, but it still feels kinda nice to have the tale of their love revisited and reinforced.

Funnily enough the thing that bothered me when I was young was what the android must have felt like - I mean iron boobs?! Ah the fascinations of the male teenage mind.

LOL

Good times, good times.

It's worth noting that this was a time of immense change for the Superman books. Not only was 1974-1975 the lowest ebb for DC superheroes since 1953, but even the stalwart king of superhero franchises was seeing contraction.

Supergirl had spun out of Adventure Comics into her own series (for the first time) a little less than a year earlier, as Adventure Comics became a non-Super related title for the first time since 1944. Coincidently Supergirl's new series was written by Cary Bates. Exactly one week after the Supergirl robot backup we've been discussing, Supergirl #10 would be the final issue as the series was cancelled.

Also cancelled this month (and prior) were Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen, which would have been unthinkable 15 years earlier. All three franchises would be consolidated into the anthology title Superman Family, which continued with Jimmy Olsen's numbering (this was one month after Superboy #204). Soon enough, both Superman & Lois of Earth-2 and Superboy (now relegated to co-star in his own series) would get features in the Superman Family anthology.

It was certainly a transitionary time for DC Comics. And this was good for the Legion, as even though Superboy stayed on the team, it really allowed the series to grow and thrive as a separate entity from the Superman franchise.

Thanks for the historical perspective, Cobie. I was unaware that all of those cancellations happened at roughly the same time.

I do recall that DC started to lose ground to Marvel around 1972. That was the rationale given for Crisis a decade later. In addition to the cancellations you mention, Green Lantern, The Atom, Hawkman, and Aquaman all lost their titles. GL wound up as a backup feature in The Flash, while Atom & Hawkman were combined into a single title before cancellation.

In hindsight, it seems that the company truly had fallen on hard times and perhaps needed this comeuppance after having ruled the comics roost for so long. When a company becomes Number One, it tends to become staid and boring, and can't keep pace with the radical changes in society--changes to which Marvel readily adapted. A few years before this, Marvel had greatly expanded its line, giving Iron Man, Captain America, the Hulk, and the Submariner their own tiles, for example.

As a child, I knew very little of all this. I was just discovering the world of comics; however, I soon discovered I had already missed out on so much. An older friend owned an issue of Atom & Hawkman and a couple of GL's, so there was a sense that the "good old days" had already passed. Such are the beginnings of nostalgia.

Nostalgia and the "good ol days" are definitely part of any hobby, especially those involving serial drama. My father, who came into his own as a comic book reader when the Marvel Age of Comics really took off in 1963, was often told how he missed out on the explosive beginnings of the DC Silver Age in the late 50's. And those kids often waxed nostalgic about missing the legendary EC Comics boom of the early to mid 50's, which by my father's time was something spoken in hushed voices, as if it an era too incredible to even think about.

I enjoy hearing about your discovery of comics, HWW (and everyone else for that matter). I can easily see how you might think that. What you had, and so many others for decades had, was several publications of reprints too--something missing today. That must have allowed for a confusing but wonderful reading experience.

1968 was the year Marvel split the anthology titles and gave Iron Man, Cap, Namor, Hulk, Dr. Strange and Nick Fury their own titles, not to mention Captain Marvel and the Silver Surfer for good measure. By then, DC was already in free fall, with many series cancelled or on the way out, as they were already looking to other genres, like horror, to expand into.

By late 1971, Marvel began expanding its line at a rapid pace, while DC continued cancelling once stalwart parts of the Silver Age. In addition to the series you mentioned above, DC cancelled within just a few years Challengers of the Unknown, Blackhawk, Metal Men, Metamorpho, Tomahawk, and numerous others. The last hold-outs were Green Lantern / Green Arrow, Aquaman and Teen Titans, who all held in there until about 1972. During 1973-1975, DC barely had any superhero comics at all, instead moving back to other genres. Meanwhile, Marvel's output was absolutely insane during this era.

1972 was the year Marvel overtook DC in total sales. I can't remember the exact year, but later in the decade, Spider-Man would outsell Superman and the Hulk would outsell Batman.

Circling back to the LOSH, one had to wonder if the major reason it not only survived but began to thrive again was because of how more sci-fi it was than superheroey. It definitely stood out. And for non-Bat / Supes superhero comics, if you weren't the Flash, Wonder Woman or the JLA, you basically had a snowball's chance in hell of making it during this era.

All very true.



I don't know why it would have been confusing. To me it wasn't.

Thanks again for the further historical perspective. I knew DC had launched horror titles (as had Marvel, with Tomb of Dracula and Werewolf by Night, not mention Ghost Rider), but I didn't know they were doing so at the expense of super-hero titles. If these horror titles had caught on, one wonders if they would have abandoned super-heroes altogether.

Marvel's growth truly was quite remarkable during that period.



Perhaps the science fiction elements did have something to do with the Legion's popularity. After all, they fit in nicely with the Star Trek reruns, from which Bates and Cockrum plagiarized borrowed liberally, as we've seen.

Speaking just for myself, the Legion's appeal was built on the fact that they were a team I wanted to belong to. I couldn't really imagine being Superman and having a secret identity and a job (ugh!), and I didn't want to be non-powered Batman or Green Arrow. But if you were a Legionnaire, you were truly special. You could do something no one else on the team could do. You got to wear a special costume but didn't have to hide your identity. You lived in a huge headquarters that had everything. You were idolized by people all over the galaxy. And you had lots of friends to play with and be heroic with.

There was nothing else like the Legion--before or since.

SUPERBOY AND THE LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES 205

While it's nice to see Lana Lang as Insect Queen (one of those increasingly rare flashbacks to the Silver Age), and she looks lovely as drawn by Grell, the story winds up going nowhere remotely satisfying, in my opinion. Having almost all the Legionnaires mind-controlled marks this as the missing link between Shooter's "Outlaw Legion" and Levitz's "Universo Project", but this story doesn't reach anywhere near the heights of its predecessor or its successor.

If the villain had been Universo, as it was in both of the aforementioned superior stories, there might have been some meat to the tale, with the continuity of him finding the way of controlling the "strongest" Legionnaires who had resisted him the last time. Instead, we get a goofy-looking casting-call reject for the Guardians of the Universe with the personality of a wet washcloth. And there's no explanation why the villain is not able to control Superboy or Ultra Boy, but IS able to control the equally mighty (if not mightier) Mon-El.

And in the nit-picking department, even though I like how Grell drew a lot of the Legionnaires, I've never liked the way he drew Shadow Lass, whose features seem to change panel after panel. This wasn't the last time this would happen. Also, Wildfire comes off as a cipher, whom just about any Legionnaire could have replaced and spoken the same bland dialogue.

A sure sign that Bates had peaked with the Legion, "The Legion of Super-Executioners" is depressingly by-the-numbers.

The villain did kind of go nowhere. No backstory, nothing to really make him interesting. And for an immortal, no other writer found him interesting enough to use so I suppose, still locked up. Immortality sucks.

There were bits I found nice. The hoax knot. Also connections to Jo Nah's backstory, which really hasn't been told yet. There were real reasons they "won." It was an any badguy can win given enough planning story, which I also appreciate. I shouldn't take a Mordru to take down Legion, for a bit.

I didn't have this one in my binders ;( But that's Okay, because I picked it up when I went through the issues I'd need for this thread. So, this could be the first time I've read this one >gasp<

... comments in the next day or so...

205:

I sometimes wonder about the genesis of certain stories--whether or not, for example, this one began with the cover (the Legion of Super-Excecutioners! What a concept) or with the need to rotate the cast to feature every Legionnaire at one point or another. Ultra Boy hadn't had much to do since 184, so this issue serves as a spotlight for him with Lana thrown in for good measure. I also wonder if Bates was doing his best to accommodate fan requests to see such-and-such character again. In any case, I get the feeling that, after the first few pages, Bates' heart wasn't in this story.

The first few pages are fine. We return to Smallville for Lana's birthday (her 18th, judging by the candles on the cake) and her secret wish that Superboy would pay her a visit. Being the super-mind reader he is, he does just that. In a scene that now seems like an unintentional (?) innuendo, he appears on the windowsill of her bedroom and tells her he's there to give her his present (!). After clearing it with her parents (proving his intentions are at least somewhat noble), he takes Lana into the future to attend a Legion meeting. Just what every girl wants, right?

The rest of the story is, as Fanfie said, by the numbers. Legion HQ has been attacked by a deranged lunatic who turns out to be Ultra Boy. But things are not what they seem (are they ever?). One deception leads to another until we get to the scene on the cover, with the Legionnaires executing poor Lana and Jo.

It's actually quite interesting to read the story with knowledge that Superboy has figured out the hoax knot clue and is playing along until he observes what's what. This foreknowledge adds a slight dimension to an otherwise very slight story.

But beyond that, the tale offers nothing new. Except for Ultra Boy, the Legionnaires go through the motions and are pretty much interchangeable. (One exception: Karate Kid demonstrating his master-of-martial-arts status by taking down the much more powerful Ultra Boy.) The villain, as Fanfie said, is a generic bad guy without anything to make him special. And the ending is, well . . . the heroes win, but we knew they would.

One wonders what Superboy gave Lana for her next birthday, or if they were even on speaking terms.

Superboy #205 was one of the last Legion books I picked up to fill holes in my collection. The reason: for over 30 years I thought the 100 pagers were reprint books, and so I never bothered looking for them. Once I finally did score a copy, the first thing I see is a reprint of the Adventure 378 cover, modified to make it into a contents page. Well, I guess I can't blame them for wanting to get as much mileage out of a Neal Adams cover as they can. Then I glance at the actual contents listing and am pleased to see that they red-haired girl being shot at on the cover is indeed Lana Lang. I've always liked her as Insect Queen, so I find myself looking forward to turning the page and actually getting this story underway.

DC, at this point, is still a bit stuck in the silver age, so we get a splash page taken from the middle of the story that pretty much duplicates the cover, so that's one page wasted right off the bat (unless you bought the book just to look at the pictures, of course, in which case you're someone's little brother and you'd better give that back before he catches you with it).

On to page two (which is really page one, but you knew that already, since I just told you). It's Lana's birthday. Already I'm distracted from the narrative by wondering how old she is. Grell makes her look at least 17, yet we know from a Superboy story that hasn't been published yet that her classmate Clark has yet to see his 16th birthday. Come to think of it, Superboy himself, who shows up at the bottom of the page, looks about 18. Maybe it's a time travel thing.

Anyway, we soon get to the 30th century, which is fine with me, since if I wanted to read a story set in 20th century Smallville I'd buy a book called Superboy, not...indicia says what? Ah, who reads that stuff anyway?

Now where was I? Oh, yeah, the 30th century. I probably should have noticed something wasn't quite right when the painfully shy Shrinking Violet is the first to speak, especially in a group with Wildfire in it. Still, I chalk it up to the expediency of exposition dialogue and read on. It seems like Ultra Boy has gone quite mad, but I figure it's some sort of ploy on his part (he's pulled stuff like this before, remember) and start to wonder if the other members are impostors or something. Next, Grell gets to draw several panels worth of fight scene, proving that DC is indeed moving into the bronze age after all.

The next thing we see is Superboy waking up to see Mon & Shady hovering over him (for some reason this panel reminds me of something Curt Swan did in the first Mordru story). After Bates does us the courtesy of dropping a clue about Superboy's cape (apparently you CAN tug on it if you're Ultra Boy), we see Kal sent off on a wild virus chase by the (at this point in my mind fake) legionnaires, who, like most popular kids, immediately turn against Lana as soon as Clark is out of the room.

It's time for a bit more exposition dialog, as Ultra Boy is now rational enough to clue us in to what is really going on. One short fight scene later we arrive at the cover/splash page scene. Since we've already been here twice, I'll just move on to the next page, where we see that Superboy had it figured out all along (he tends to do that), and that what I thought were impostors are actually the real legionnaires, but they are being controlled by the "mysterious Master". Better yet, we finally get to see Lana change into her Insect Queen costume. Unfortunately, being Lana, she immediately changes into a bee and impulsively rushes into danger and finds herself mind controlled before she can actually do anything.

We finally get to see the "mysterious Master" as he orders Lana to take on Ultra Boy, changing first into a Spider-Woman and finally a WASP (which is her natural form, isn't it? Well, maybe not the TV version, but that's decades away at this point). After she stings Jo, the "mysterious Master" seems to have Superboy in a stalemate, but Jo saves the day by not being as dead as the "mysterious Master" thought he was (but not until we get almost three pages of exposition monologue from the villain (yep, definitely bronze age, as "curses, foiled again" is replaced by "put me down, I say"). All in all, not all that bad a story for its time.

Next, we get a bio of Mike Grell. Keep in mind that by the time I got this book I had followed Grell's career through Green Lantern, Warlord, Starslayer and Jon Sable, so I knew a bit about him already. Nonetheless, there was stuff in here that was new to me. The story about joining the Air Force to avoid the draft hit close to home, as that had been my own plan if my lottery number turned out to be too high (as it turned out it was something like 340 out of 365, so I got to wait a couple years longer before enlisting).

The first reprint is from Superboy #88, from 1961. Interestingly, the tech is all depression era, meaning that if Clark was 13 at the time, he would be somewhere around 40 in 1961. Still, I enjoyed the story for what it was, an entertaining way of addressing a question that has existed in one form or another since Superman first appeared: if he is so powerful why doesn't he just __________. This time around it's the sporting world that gets the treatment, and the various stunts he pulls are quite a bit of fun, especially the classic baseball bit where he pitches, hits and catches the ball on the same play.

Following the Superboy reprint we have a two-page letter column. In typical Murray Boltinoff fashion, only excerpts from letters are used, along with one liner responses from the editor. Notably one of the excerpts is from a Dan Jurgens of Ortonville, Minnesota, who has high praise for Grell's work, as do pretty much all this months letterhacks (or at least the ones Boltinoff has chosen to print comments from).

From here we have the two-parter from Adventure 350-351 that managed to undo just about every change that the series had gone through up to that point (except the death of one of Luornu's bodies). Interestingly the story is interrupted by a three-page Lore Of The Legion feature that finishes what was started in the previous 100-pager. I'm not sure, but this might be the last pre-crisis appearance of Kid Psycho in a Legion book.

And so we arrive at the back cover, with an ad for the Junior Sales Club Of America (Win prizes, make friends or get cash by selling greeting cards) on the inside and a chance to win one of 250 prizes from Monogram's Big Wheel/Big Deal contest...it's a model builder's dream come true!

SLSH 205

Ah, at last a story I haven't read before. Let's go ...

... Well, that was ... fairly average. As everyone else has said this one just drifted along.

So Lana's birthday (good pickup on the 18 candles He Who - I had to go back and count them myself). I wonder what Clark gave her?

Hmm, I'm not sure I would have been as content as Lana's parents, but what you gonna do when Superboy comes a courting?

The art for Lana wrapped in SUperboy's cape was offputting to me. She looked more like a red mummy wrapped in bandages than a cape.

Interesting that the security cell chair is more hi-tech with its energy legs than the single stand wrecked chairs in the communications room. Some sort of security feature?

Jo is a bit monosyllabic isn't he. Nice talk Supes.

Hang on, U-boy ties Supes invulnerable cape around him and crushes him until he passes out?! I have no problem with the strength issue, a bit hand wavy but fine, but the reason people pass out in that situation is that they can't breathe so oxygen doesn't get to their brain, but Supes doesn't need to breathe! I can get that the pressure might be so great that some ribs start to crack or something but there is no reason for him to pass out. Oh well.

"It's a special knot Ultra Boy taught me." Aha! That's the gun over the mantelpiece bit in the plot. We all know Supes is wise to something now. Flying off to a distant planet? Yeah right.

I guess Brainy just brought in the madness drug for gloating purposes (reader exposition anyway) since he wasn't going to use it this time.

Now this is good, Karate Kid taking down Ultra Boy is probably the best part in the whole story and, possibly apart from Brainy and his "diagnosis" (but then that was a fake anyway), the only really appropriate use of any of the legionnaires powers. Everyone else was a placeholder - and yes it does beg the question why Mon-El was controlled.

Ultra-vision goggles. What a handy device to keep around on the off-chance you needed to subdue Ultra Boy. I can't think of any other reason you would have them or any other use. On the other hand wouldn't a whole pile of the Legion's foes like to get their hands on them. OTOH I guess they are rather difficult to use even for this single task since you need to subdue Ultra Boy first to put them on him.

Superboy saves them, what a surprise. I guess being mind-controlled dulled Mon-El's senses so he didn't see Superboy nor hear them talking after the execution. Here's a thought - does the presence of ELtro Gand weaken Mon's mind so he is more susceptible to mind control?

U-boy doesn't know girls? I doubt it. Maybe he is just more used to being in control. Wait, with Tinya as a girlfriend? I take that back. Where is Tinya anyway? Mission I guess. SHe might have been just a bit annoyed to find Jo executed.

You know I actually kind of like Mike Grell's look for the Master. It's good to have a villain who doesn't look like he works out 4 hours a day. Although he does look a bit goofy. Still kudos for trying something different.

Once again a good use of U-boy's one power at a time ability. That has been used well through out the story.

I'm sorry but I do have trouble believing that Superboy can't destroy the helmet with heat vision or knock the Master out with super breath or even snatch the helmet off his head with super speed. We just had an example of how Supes can move faster than sight. Perhaps he is giving Jo a chance to get his own back, since he could instantly telll with his super-senses that he was alright. Or maybe he just likes to listen to villain's monologues.

So I guess it wasn't a bad story and it's nice to read one that's new to me. It's just a bit ho-hum.

stile86 --

Good catch about Superboy not needing to breathe.

You know, for all the appearances Mon-El has put in lately--since he's the leader, of course--he hasn't really used his powers much. Maybe he temporarily lost them at some point and didn't tell anyone. Or maybe he had a tainted dose of anti-lead serum that played havoc with his ability to resist brainwashing. Or maybe . . .

Drat that Eltro.

Ultra-goggles. What prevented Jo from simply closing his eyes?

When I first read the story and saw the splash page, ten-year-old me thought Jo was being executed for wearing the glasses--like he'd become a super-hippy or something! (Hey, it was 1974 in the American Midwest: hippies were as unwelcome as Communists.) Lord knows why I thought Lana was being executed.

Love seeing so many people weigh in! For some reason it seems like a lot of us never read this one before or only managed to when they were wrapping up their collections. It's definitely not a story we've discussed much over the last 15 years, and I can see why.

Superboy & LSH #205

As soon as I saw the cover of #205, I realized I hadn't read this one before! I would have definitely recognized that busty Grell-Lana Lang on the cover! As always it's a unique thrill to read a Legion story for the first time. Too bad for me this one was a bit lackluster.

As with so many Cockrum stories before it, this one is a hard mix of two things: glorious, mesmerizing (Grell) art and a somewhat weak though not terrible plot. Said plot offers little in characterization or twists other than showing how clever Jo, Lana and Superboy are. It also has a bit of a letdown ending win the random, odd looking antagonist who is easily defeated.

Still, the art is gorgeous. Grell is really on top of his game here, and the action feels explosive.

Having never read this story, I was surprised it was an Insect Queen story in an era when Lana appearances were on the decline! Slowly but surely so many Silver Age trappings were leaving the Superman titles and Insect Queen definitely fell into that category. She's used to "okay" effect here by her clever last minute save of Jo, but for the most part she's under-utilized and in peril.

One thing I liked is that it's confirmed at last that Jo's membership was right after Superboy. I know during this era there was rampant speculation over when Jo and Thom joined among the fanzine fandom.

Overall I didn't love the issue though I didn't hate it. It was just a bit run of the mill.

I'm glad I wasn't the only one to see the innuendo! I'm somewhat surprised that it was you who pointed it out, though, Mr. "I never thought of Anti-Lad's head looking like a penis or a butt until I joined this board".

One thing that hasn't been mentioned thus far is the kind of questionable nature of our villain's plan. He was going to take them off to an isolated planet and mind-control them into humping like rabbits in order to eventually spawn over generations a super-powered army. It's hard not to see this rather wimpy looking alien using this whole scheme as an excuse to get his fap on while basically creating his own porn featuring the galaxy's most desirable young adults. On the other hand, you could see the Legionnaires secretly not having too big a problem with it, as this might be what they would do all the time if they weren't burdened with that pesky constant saving of the universe thing.

But seriously, when it was revealed the Legionnaires were being mind-controlled, I (having also not read this one before) got excited and was thinking "Universo!" Imagine my disappointment....

BTW, was this the first appearance of Jo's long sideburns/near mutton-chops? If so, I approve, Mr. Grell! The look works really well for Jo and will endure in the interim when I first meet him during the Levitz/Giffen run. In addition to the iconic costume changes, the varying of hairstyles and facial hair are also welcome changes. Ironically, Jo's costume is one of the few to remain unchanged during this era.

Overall, though, another story that shows DC's reluctance to move completely out of the Silver Age. The gimmicky cover and interior fake-out are exactly the kinds of things you would expect from the supposedly by-gone era. Though I liked seeing her, even Lana's reprise as Insect Queen marks the story as another throwback. Despite having some great artists, it's clear that Cary Bates wasn't exactly going to be the one to bring the stories up to their par.

And, of course, I guess the Legionnaires would have been laboring on their sex planet to this day if not for the timely arrival of Superboy.

That would be the earth-16 Legion

Not Earth-69?

Not going there

(well, except for a vacation, maybe)

Maybe I'm just very selective in my dirty mind.




The whole sex slaves plan reminded me of the Talosians' similar plot on the Star Trek episode "The Cage" (refashioned into "The Menagerie," for those keeping up with the Star Trek review thread). I wouldn't be surprised if "The Master" found the Legionnaires unattractive--different species and all--and truly wanted them just to create a super-powered army. Of course, since he was the last of his race, who knows how desperate he might be.

(There's that dirty mind again!)

Superboy 205

This is a first time read for me. On the splash, Visi Lad I is wearing some cool shades, while Lana looks be enjoying martyrdom a bit too much.

Mon El has been such a cranky pain in the rear, since I joined re reads, that it would be him leading the execution on the cover. Eltro’s really going off the deep end in there.

I wonder when they put in the panel showing us that Lana had asked her parents, before flying off with a Superboy appearing suggestively at her window. There’s a writer that knows what won’t get past the editor…although later…

Wrapped in Superboy’s cape, Lana thinks she’s off to the future. Actually, he wrapped her up like a mummy to drop her off in ancient Egypt. No more pesky attempts to find out Clark’s identity from her.

There was a satisfying shift in gears, when it was revealed that Ultra Boy was the only member of the Legion who wasn’t mad.
Brainy’s experiments with madness drugs. as well as being mind controlled here, are the latest things to build up to later events…

But there was a lot of plot forcing to make it work. There’s no reasonable explanation as to why Jo was immune. If this was TMK’s run people would be screaming favouritism &#61514;:) Ultra Boy is considered to be too powerful for the villain to influence. But Mon El isn’t?

The glasses that force Jo to use one power are too convenient, and are never seen again. Jo is irrational and insane, but cognisant enough to think of a nonverbal tip off to Superboy. Lana’s sting switch is a bit of a fudge too.

And in typical “it all has to work out” Bates fashion, Superboy *has* to guess the symbolism behind the knot, link it to current events and nip back for an unconvincing save. Unconvincing, because the blast was enough to give readers flattened wooden poles, but not to have harmed the people strapped to them.

The villain was visually distinctive, possibly to offset the standard all powerful-all immortal super villain template. His plan to breed a group of super-teens for a few hundred years is a bit different for the Legion. It’s a far cry from the stolen kisses when the Murrans were about to invade.

I am reminded of one of the early ones, where Supergirl’s Legion were supposed to be the kids of Superboy’s Legion (did I remember that correctly?)

But 300 years from this story, Earth is attacked by Backwards Boy, Drooling Damsel and the Incredible Inbred in a very short lived invasion attempt.

I don’t think I’ve seen the villain anywhere before or since. He’s a bit of a one shot, made to order, character.

Superboy’s “you’re out of your sick mind” expression on page 19 tells you everything you need to know about the Master and his plan. And Superboy’s seen a lot of weird stuff.

Speaking of weird, it’s always good to see the 18 year old Insect Queen. She was fairly involved with the story too. Her presence of mind, even when it was being controlled allowed Jo to take the villain’s mind control device away. Her “killing” of Jo and Superboy’s sad expression might have given a few readers a shock too. An early DC comic of mine had a similar scene and that was certainly powerful to me.

Grell’s art was impressive here. The elaborate Cockrum backdrops may have gone, but Grell gives enough futuristic detail to establish the scene and focus attention on the action.

Lana’s attack on Jo looked creepy. Poor Jo being beaten by Karate Kid was also a stand out moment. He even blocks Jo's surprise assault. Nice touch. Karate Kid seemed especially pleased to be on the firing squad too.

Exactly.

Whoa I completely missed that. Had to go back and find the reference. Good pickup and nice to see the continuity.

That is perhaps the one thing that stands out in this story, that Jo Nah's actions, speech and abilities are entirely consistent with his background and past stories.

I was going to say that every male has had the sideburns since Cockrum's start although they are more obvious with Grell. It was the 70's after all when they were the in thing. I've seen photos of my dad from back then and I shudder. Then I thought Paladin would have noticed that so I had another look - and you're right. Jo's sideburns are much more pronounced than anyone else's and it is a good look on him. Interestingly they rather resemble the sideburns on Mike Grell's self portrait in this issue. Maybe he's a U-boy fan?

You do remember correctly. In the first story with Supergirl the legionnaires said they were the children of the original legionnaires that Superboy met. This was the usual confusion with time travel. Supergirl is from Superman's time, the next generation, so when she travels to the future the same amount of time supposedly had passed there and she met the legion's next generation. This is corrected in the next story but crops up again and again to a lesser extent with Superboy and Supergirl often having to leave so they aren't late getting back to the 20th Century.

LOL! This was a great comment! The imagery it put in my head!

SLSH 206

Haunted Story

Even though I only read this story a couple of years ago I couldn't remember how it was going to pan out. Should have guessed they were clones.

First we have to accept once again the "personal continual timeline" theory of time travel i.e. this Ferro Lad and Invisible Kid have to be from after their deaths since experientially it is after for Superboy. They can't be earlier versions of them (who wouldn't know about their deaths - big mouth there Superboy) because it would be crossing Superboy's timeline or some such. Of course the real reason is that Cary Bates didn't think of that as many writers don't.

(Aside: I wonder if the Legion can sue Mike Grell for giving them all serious groin injury from continually stretching their legs out to either side? They also seem to have been stretched lengthwise - some of them are extremely tall in this issue.)

Ok so the two dead heroes have demonstrated their powers - although I wonder how Ferro Lad built up such speed and momentum - roll an iron ball at running speed into a wall and I guess you'll get a crunch but knock down a wall? Also I'm not sure why it was important to catch the parachutist while invisible except to demonstrate his power.

Nice of Superboy to only use his Xray vision on their bodies so Ferro Lad isn't embarrased about his face.

Cue convenient robot menace. At least this is explained at the end.

The battle with the robot was pretty reasonable demonstrating courage, ingenuity and teamwork, all important attributes for a legionnaire. Invisibility enabled Lyle to slip out of the energy ring? I guess it was visually cued.

So back they go and bang! Boy I sure wouldn't want to be near a clone at the end of 48 hours.

OK time for second suspension of disbelief. 30th century tech must be pretty good to a) create full grown clones (or at least legion aged clones) without waiting for the normal passage of time; b) create acquired powers like Invisible Kid's (Ferro was a mutant so his genes would work); c) most significantly imbuing the clones with their source person's attitude, beliefs and personality. I know, I know, the same thing has been done countless times in comics. So just because someone else gets it wrong the Legion has to as well? Oh go stick your head in a text book while I go back to enjoying the story.

Ooh ooh! Now I know where the Dominators got those cell samples to create the clones of the Legion in 5YL! Oh wait, they weren't clones after all but time split copies by Rokk/TimeTrapper. Oh well.

You know if I was a legionnaire I'd be pretty happy that the cloning doesn't work or some day some dastardly villain might have me facing a dozen Superboys or Mon-Els or Ultra Boys. Can you imagine the headaches a dozen Saturn Girls could give, even if they could only last for 48 hours?n Still they keep enough world-destroying equipment already.

That time-phone is pretty useful and could be much more useful. Bet we never see it again.

Finally problem 3 - all through the first part of the story Superboy is thinking, not just saying, but thinking his disbelief and confusion about the two dead legionnaires. Yet at the end we find out that he knew about it all along - or at least long enough to create the robot before they turned up in his secret basement. So is he thinking these things just in case one of the clones has somehow developed telepathy? Obviously written to fool the reader but doesn't really work with the ending - unless Superboy is breaking the fourth wall?

Well after all these negatives I have to say that I didn't mind the story too much. As a demonstration and tribute to the character of the two dead heroes it works pretty well and was a nice little entertaining story.

Second story

Featurette is right. Even though the first story was only 13 pages, this one is only 7. Not much of anything happening here, except a demonstration of the dangers of a super-powered young adult who isn't in full control of their powers. Maybe those other universe super-power-registration people have an idea.

Of course the main purpose is to reinforce the Karate Kid-Projectra relationship and this does that well. It's a nice fairly pointless little love story. It'll do.

Stile86, I am leading these discussions for the time being, so in the future please wait until after I have posted my review.

I will be posting my review this evening.

SUPERBOY AND THE LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES 206

1st Story: There's more than a little irony in bringing Ferro Lad and Invisible Kid back to life -- the issue is cover-dated Jan./Feb. 1975, which puts this comic over a decade ahead of the curve; but when it anticipates the infamous return of Jean Grey over at Marvel in the mid-1980s, that's not something to be proud of. And, yes, the Legionnaires did indeed bring their two dead comrades back to life, by using cell samples they had stored in order to create clones. Problem is, the clones self-combust after only 48 hours. But guess what -- the Legionnaires have cell samples of all their members, and someday they hope to create clones that last. And finally, when we discover at the end that Superboy was in-the-know the whole time, the whole story feels like a pointless waste of paper, ink, and paint. Even Grell seems to be slacking here, not that I blame him when the script he had to work from was this weak. Wisely, this plot thread was never followed up on.

2nd Story: Now, here, Grell seems to be giving it his all, as he gets a chance to showcase his talents for medieval pageantry by drawing what appears to be the surface of Princess Projectra's homeworld of Orando, which turns out to (mostly) be a case of Jeckie's own power working against her. I've never been a big fan of pre-Sensor-Girl Jeckie, and this story reminded me why that is -- she almost always seemed to end up in some kind of helpless distress which someone, usually Karate Kid, had to rescue her from. I've never been a big fan of Karate Kid, either, but I had forgotten (blocked out of my mind) that he comes off in this story like a completely selfish, hot-headed jerk and, to add insult to injury, he slaps Jeckie in the face to shock her back into reality. Amazingly, this story was NOT written by Jim Shooter (he wouldn't return until S&tLSH 209), but it's the beginning of an ugly anti-female streak which ran through the Legion for a while, culminating in the infamous Ayla/Rokk scene in S&tLSH 215; and in S&tLSH 207, Lightning Lad goes so far as to shove Violet out of his way. Effed up symptoms of an effed up decade.

The "clone bank" that the Legionnaires had in storage was indeed followed up on, sort of. Around the time that the SW6 batch of Legionnaires appeared, Mon-El, er Valor, found evidence that the Dark Circle had stolen those cells and created an entire group of alternate Legionnaires. The question was which group was real and which were clones? They never did answer that one, since later writers decided that both groups were legit due to some temporal manipulations by one or another version of the Time Trapper. It was all quite messy by that point, hence the reboot.

What bothers me most about the first story is this: A cardinal rule of fiction writing is that, no matter how much you stretch the imagination, you MUST maintain an internal consistency within your story. Cary Bates violates this rule in the worst way. Superboy clearly is in the dark about the true nature of the two clones, as evidenced by his own thought balloons. The two panels at the end of the story are a direct contradiction of this, however. Bad, bad writing.

Mike Grell's art, on the other hand, is just plain nice to look at. I especially enjoyed his depiction of Invisible Kid as well as the various medieval settings and characters in the second story.

One final observation: #206 was the last bi-monthly issue, indicating that sales were strong enough to increase frequency of publication. I can't help but think the upsurge in the Legion's popularity was in spite of Cary Bates' scripting rather than because of it. I shudder to think how things might have gone if not for Dave Cockrum and Mike Grell.

Superboy 206

As nice as Cardy’s covers are, there’s something about the colouring for the Legion that seems to pitch them for a younger audience. Certainly compared to the Titans ones. He’s still someone who’s work leaps out after all these years.

There’s not a lot of background in this one. That’s to draw your attention to the two deceased Legionnaires. But when I first read this, I didn’t really have any connection to those two, so it was possibly a bit wasted on me. Looking at it now, I’m struck at just how merciless the robot looks, in an Alan Davis’ Fury sort of way.

We saw fairly little of Ferro Lad, so it’s interesting to see him in action demolishing a building. Good use of the Flight Ring with his powers too. Fortunately, Superboy is too shocked by the sight of Ferro Lad to actually think of investigating. It’s touching to note how much he feels towards all of the Legionnaires.

From his PJs to the walk to school, it’s an older teen Superboy these days. Soon, he will cast off the Superboy name to become…Nightwing…um Flamebird? …um…

If two people appeared in a time bubble appeared, I probably wouldn’t want to tell them I’d been further into the future and tell them how they died. But Superboy has always had problems getting his head around time travel.

The story is basically one big set up. Both of the “deceased” heroes are clones. The robot turns out to be a fake test, making all of Clark’s previous responses very strange.

Sitting alone in his basement, he wonders about their appearance and whether he should contact the Legion. Then he knows enough to have created a fake threat and reveal that he’s already been contacted from the future. Something else else doesn’t add up. Neither does being able to use invisibility to get around energy traps. Perhaps Bates confused his power with Tinya’s?

You do wonder about the short life of the clones. How much did they know about their return? They didn’t seem shocked to be told they had died. But they were coy as to how they came back and claimed that their own team didn’t know about their return. Rather than contact the Legion, they take a Time Bubble into the past for a training mission. That would seem to suggest they feel quite lost and isolated.

If they are as close to the originals as shown, you’d have thought a trip to see a twin brother might have been in order for Nolan. Lyle would have been a bit confused trying to contact Myla only to find her already with his own ghost. Cue identity crisis.

There’s a certain coldness about a Legion that brings its own dead back as a test run, and keeps distant from them. Judging by the pair’s return to the future, they are also completely unaware of their time limit.

As a result of the above plot issues, the story lacks any real punch. There's a premise and a final panel, with the rest padded in between.

The big payoff from this issue (apart from influencing the Darkman movie) would appear in the TMK run. This issue provided the basis for the cloned Legionnaires that would feature there.

It was combined with the Dark Circle’s cloning attempts from other issues. The result was a huge number of characters in each issue, but there was a lot of potential in the ideas (even though I’m fairly glad that the big planned reveal from it never got to happen).

Oh, yeah, that's right. I don't think a lot about that particular era, so it's easy for a detail like that to slip my mind.



Agreed. Somebody was asleep at the wheel, and I suspect it was Boltinoff.



IMO Bates had his moments, but most of them were with Cockrum. The chemistry just wasn't there with Grell. Ironically, Grell says he enjoyed working with Bates, but did not enjoy working with Shooter, even though I think most of the good Grell stories came from Shooter.

Yes, I feel the Legionnaires came off very badly in this story.

Two kind of creepy stories.

"Effed up symptoms of an effed up decade."

I don't know if it was the decade so much as something else? It was for most appearances, a progressive decade. Maybe not enlightened but for the most part, we still aren't. But progressive it was.

206/Haunted

I agree with all of the comments so far, regarding the pros and cons of this story. The plot is indeed flawed and too convenient. Yet as an action story it holds up quite well, and it pulls on all the right heart strings.

As a young reader, I delighted in seeing Invisible Kid again and related to his desire to prove himself as a Legionnaire. The was one of the first times I was exposed to Ferro Lad, so I enjoyed meeting him and seeing what he could do. (His power is shown to be far more interesting and effective here than it was during most of his few Adventure appearances.) I thrilled for the two Legionnaires as they approached the HQ, ready to surprise their comrades with their return. I felt a horrible shock when they were cheated out of that moment.

Many of these same emotions return every time I re-read this story.

A few things do bug me, however. One has to do with the story-telling convention DC employed of having a "shock" cover and a "shock" splash page--both of which reveal that the two Legionnaires are dead. By the time Superboy gets around to telling us this in the story, we already know it so the Big Reveal is lost. (Perhaps this story was written for readers with extremely short attention spans.)

Of course, if you were a long-time Legion fan, as many were, you knew Lyle and Andrew were dead, anyway, but suspension of disbelief would have allowed me to play along once. Not three times, though.

The other thing that bothers: In the panel of Lyle's demise, Tharok's robot brain is missing. Sure, the object in Lyle's hand might have confused readers who hadn't read 203, but I think most could have figured out that it was somehow important or glossed over it. In any case, "revisionist" history bugs me.

LOL

More proof that this story was ahead of the curve...in a bad way.

206/Daughter

Again, I pretty much agree with the comments made so far. Val is a selfish jerk, but at least he follows Jeckie to apologize. And what's with the slap? Was there no other way to wake her up?

Also again, the story works for me if I put myself in Jeckie's shoes (er, cape) and experience the story from her perspective. She goes home because she hasn't seen her family in two years and, when she arrives, she finds her worst fears confirmed: Her parents have been deposed and an evil king now controls their fate. This part of the story stokes the right emotions.

The story also has a bit of a fairy tale quality to it as Jeckie is forced to go alone to meet the Morgu. I think it would have been fascinating if the Morgu hadn't turned out to be such a monster after all. If Jeckie had used her power to somehow win it over to her side, we could have had a "things are not what they appear" story. This would have fit in nicely with her power.

However, Jeckie is too passive when the knights take away her flight ring. One would expect her to use her Legion training (Val must have taught her some moves) to resist, whether she could use her illusions or not.

But at least Jeckie gets to save Val at the end. Coincidentally, Dream Girl saved Val back in 201, so it's interesting that the Legion's primary action hero keeps getting saved by women. (A third woman will come to his rescue in 209.) Maybe it was a progressive decade, after all.

Oops! Very sorry Fanfic, I didn't realise. Won't happen again.

Oh duh! Feeling a bit thick now. Thanks for pointing that out thoth.

Haven't had a chance to catch up on everyone else's posts yet but will soon...

Superboy & LSH #206

Much like there was a ghost of Ferro Lad story after his death, history repeats itself as we get a ghost of both dead members not soon after Invisible Kid dies. Though not quite ghosts as we learn. Such stories were very popular in serial fiction since inception since it was so unusual for a cast member to die and then even more unusual for one to come back. That's all been shot to shit now. But I digress.

As before, the Grell art makes it very action oriented, and gives the plot a sense of urgency and tension. This is very welcome as you quickly forget this is essentially a Superboy story sans Legion and are drawn right into the emotional impact.

In fact, soon it feels like we're actually getting a great Ferro Lad and Invisible Kid story as we get continued glimpses into their personalities. Their willingness to die in the line of duty again makes them feel real and hits an emotional chord.

All in all, I like it a lot! And then...the final two pages make the entire story a "what in the blue hell?" moment. Between the questionable morals of cloning your dead colleagues and the fact that they didn't know they only had 48 hours to live--with the Legionnaires treating it like a cold science experiment, it's like taking a turn towards a weird Sci-fi story at early 90's Vertigo. Say what? Though considering the three Legionnaires in question, perhaps this isn't a huge surprise after all. Cold and calculating, these three did form a conspiracy to murder the Time Trapper.

Honestly, even with the weird ending, I still kind of like the story. I doubt it was intentional, but the story feels dark and harsh to me--edgy by today's standards let alone 1975's.

-------------

As we get to the Princess Projectra backup, I have to admit that even I, who has been happy with the quality of the 8 pagers, am getting a little fatigued by this format. I'm ready for some Legion epics again. I'm just ready.

And while Grell's art is stunning--his Jeckie being especially great--this one is on the weak side. Jeckie having yet another malady? Val acting like a child because she wants to visit home? The whole thing because she's sick and let her mind and powers work against her? Ugh.

At least she saves the day and Val realized he was a jerk. In a reverse from the first story, the final two pages help make the story more palatable.

A weird issue for sure. I'm ready for full length stories.

^Me, too. Alas, they will be some time in coming.

I thought we were all sick of DC force-feeding us "dark and harsh" for the past 12 years?

As for the Conspiracy connection, that's another reason for me to dislike this story. I absolutely LOATHE Conspiracy!!

Not to worry. I'm sure your clone will do better next week Just ask Cobie Mk II from a couple of weeks ago or even me from the week before that. Here's a pic of us trying to post crash the thread from a while ago (1974)



I'm taking the picture. I have a L on my outfit. Not for Legion, but from the 50 times Fickles has bumped me off. Although, to be fair, at least 40 of those were for saying bad things about Morrissey.

Thoth, LOL

Aargh! I knew was being appropriately haunted by something that I forgot to type on this one. It was to point out the number of ghost of Ferro Lad stories that have popped up down the years. Much like our chat on Lyle's fate from #203, these two certainly get used despite being living impaired.



Great spot Cobie. Legions within Legions even then.

But it doesn't win you the Re-read Pun Award...




Just thinking that this story also links Brainy's robot Supergirl to later issues where even his own team mates think he might have cloned the dead Kara.

Kara constantly returning for only 48 hours at a time, as Brainy works on improving the cloning...

HA! I never thought of that as I was typing it. Well done, Thoth.

Thoth you crack me up ... and you always make me think. Thanks.

Great spot on the conspiracy grouping Cobie. It's fun to see these things that the writers never did.

Someone mentioned that they wouldn't like to be near one of the clones after 48 hours is up.

Now, imagine that you've returned from the dead. You don't quite know why, but you do know that you died. There's every chance that you'll want to see your loved ones.

Lyle: Yes, mom. Dad. I'm back.
Parents: Lyle! Despite leaving you a little lonely first time round, we love you and will make this time around much better!
All: I love you!

>Boom!<

Querl: 48 hours precisely.
Eltro: Should we not have warned the parents?
Brainy: No. A strong emotional response may be key to breaking the time limit.
Imra: What are we going to do about the dead parents?
Querl: All we need are a few cells...

Querl Dox: Mad cloning scientist.

One wonders if the clones were programmed (perhaps via post-hypnotic suggestion, hence Saturn Girl's presence) not to approach their loved ones or to seek out any other living beings besides Superboy.

Yeah, they aren't just clones. They are comic book clones They have all of the memories of the originals. It's not as though the legion are short of mind controlling/ thought reading/altering equipment stretching back to the Adventure days. Any of those plus Imra raises a few ethical questions.

SUPERBOY AND THE LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES 207

1st Story: I don't have much to say about this one. Officer Dvron comes across to me as a flat, lifeless character, and Bates' use of Universo is terrible (he doesn't even give the villain dialogue!) Even Grell seems to be going through the motions here.

2nd Story: This one had potential, but it gets lost in a continuity fustercluck (later stories established Mekt is the one born without a twin, not Ayla) and in Garth's out-of-character oafish behavior -- shoving Vi aside, slapping Jan and then zapping Jan...yuck. I just can't see Garth acting that way, no matter how bad a mood he's in -- at the very least, I hope Imra read him the Riot Act offstage. Or maybe I should just take a cue from the aforementioned continuity error and label this story as a tale from an alternate timeline. And finally, once again, Grell turns in subpar art for a subpar Bates script.

The most interesting/odd aspect of 207 is that none of the Legionnaires who appear alongside Superboy on the cover actually appear in the main story--except Colossal Boy, who puts in his cameo and then disappears. LL, Brainy, and Cos (if that is Cos and not Mon-El) appear in the backup, but where are Imra, Tinya, and Jeckie?

Another odd aspect is that each of the main stories since 203 has focused on characters other than the Legionnaires: Anti-Lad (204), Lana Lang (205), clones of deceased Legionnaires (206), and now Dvron. Bates seems to have been taking lessons from episodic TV series of the '70s, in which the main characters never change or do anything substantial but serve as catalysts for the guest-star of the week.

In fact, the Legionnaires in this story are pretty much flat characters. Vi and Brin are there to make up the numbers. Ayla gets knocked out (by Cham!) and just about allows the bad guy to get away. Cham is the only one who does anything substantial by getting Dvron to 'fess up.

And the ending ... all Dvron learns from this adventure is that Superboy was right: it's hard to work with the Legion. High fives and back slaps all around. One almost expects a freeze frame.

I've nothing to add about the backup. Yes, it's bad. I will say that, upon reading this, I eagerly awaited 208 and its all-out LSV war, only to be disappointed.

HA! Well put, He Who. "Tonight, on a very special Legion of Super-Heroes..." Ironically enough, Bates did end up working in episodic TV, though much later than the 70s.



Yeah, me too. Like I said earlier in this thread, I think 204-209 are pretty much a consistent slog before the book regains its spark with 210-211.

Superboy 207

When I was growing up I read Marvel’s Star Wars comics, with its Infantino art. I’m reminded a lot of Infantino when I see the science police uniforms used here. It’s a mixed feeling as I always found the Infantino art to be an acquired taste.

Ugh. “Picto-Slides” and “Cosma Bars” in the first non-splash page alone. More Bates Future Lingo that would disappear without trace.

The story has a simple set up. Universo makes a blatant escape from Prison, and the Legion are tasked with recapturing him. They even know exactly where the villain is hiding out.
Very unusually, they allow a non-Legionnaire to accompany them. It’s Officer Dvron. He’s dedicated enough here and has a personal code of honour that directly affects the story. But he’s never really made much of an impact on me, despite later appearances. Normally, considering the threats that the Legion face, you’d expect them to be backed up by United Planets forces, never mind the Science Police. But just try getting a poor artist to draw it all.

There’s little surprise behind Dvron’s actions. The (inferior for Grell) splash page and title show us he’s up to no good, ruining the surprise on page 7 when he attacks his first Legionnaire.

There’s a confused sulk, where Dvron doesn’t tell the Legionnaire why he betrayed them. It’s followed by a pedestrian fight. The best part of it seems to have taken place behind a rock when Superboy is controlled. He turns on his colleagues, but we don’t see much of it. A little bait and switch Universo style allows Dvron to redeem himself.

There are a couple of standard setups & payoffs. One involves Superboy basically declaring that the Legion are a bit too good for nearly everyone else. In the end Dvron agrees, although I didn’t see any of the Legionniares figure out Universo’s escape plan. The other is Dvron thinking like a villain. It’s put in earlier to allow Dvron to figure out what Universo was up to.
We find out that Universo is known as Argus Oranx III This clashes with Rond VIdar being his son, and later issues would quietly drop the Oranx name.

Argus/Vidar was just a villain to order this issue. He had no goals or plans, but the story needed someone with some mind control abilities. Compared to a number of his other multi part schemes, this was a day to forget for him.

A day to forget for Superboy too. It ended well enough. But he came across as arrogant. He was completely suckered by Unverso off panel, nearly allowing him to escape. Ayla subduing him using just her weightlessness powers, was a bigger sign that it was really Universo than Dvron conveniently figuring it out.
There’s not really a lot going on in this issue. Arguably the Legionnaire who came out best, was Gim in successfully patrolling the headquarters for intruders. I guess their pre-Computo gizmos were on the blink.

With a story that’s a little weak, there used to be Cockrum art to provide lots of background details. Grell’s minimal backdrops just focus attention back onto the story, and it doesn’t really stand up to that sort of attention.

Ayla has a bit of a tough issue. Chameleon Boy really thumps her on the back of the neck. And he wasn’t even controlled by Universo when he did it. In the back up story, she conveniently has a fever, removing her from a focus on her brother. That’s just brother rather than twin, as continuity gets a bit rearranged here.

The point of the story is supposed to be a continuation of the Garth/Mekt storyline, but comes across as Garth being a bit of a tool for the most part. He barges past Salu, assaults Jan and blasts a guy in space on a hunch that it’s his brother. If it hadn’t been, he could have murdered someone. It adds to my early encounters with Garth, when he was having a huge selfish sulk as leader.

The story continues to plant the seeds towards Mekt’s rehabilitation in the TMK run. Here, he’s told that the parents he feels close enough to grieve for, wanted nothing more than to see him reform. I’m trying to recall if a statue of their parents would also reappear on Winath, in TMK, when Garth was running the family business. There’s a lot to be said for Proty-Garth compared to Sulky-Garth. Livewire-Garth is also an improvement.

Superboy & LSH #207

I have to agree that overall, this story was very weak. However, I did enjoy reading it, so someone did something right somewhere along the way. You guys covered the bad pretty well (and comparison to bad 70's TV is a good one). Thus, prequalifying my comments with the recognition that there wasn't a whole lot here are a few things I liked:

In part of the long franchise tradition, another non-Legionnaire character is depicted as the story lead with Officer Dvron. Instantly in the first few pages we learn of his eagerness to join the mission and then why, and it hooked me right in to see how this goes for him. That is maintained throughout the issue, and heightened when we learn the real story. The Legion certainly appears to forgive him too quickly, but the story needs to be move on and I appreciate not wasting time. This allows the ending to be set up where he can justify their faith in him. At issue's end, I liked Dvron well enough and would not mind seeing more of him--which we eventually do: another nice thing Paul Levitz did was bring him back years later and make him an ongoing part of the LSH cast.

Universo by now was one of the better Silver Age villains, so he's definitely welcomed back. Unfortunately, he pretty much acts as a plot device all story. One thing I did like though, was the surprising flashback that showed he isn't totally evil all the time, which adds a welcome layer to his personality. One can't help but speculate if not wanting to see someone "die so young" is a reference to latent feelings towards Rond Vidar.

----------

Meanwhile, the second story featuring Lightning Lad is stronger IMO. If you can forgive the blatant continuity mistakes--which are jarring, I admit--there's a lot of good here.

The story is weighed down by the opening scenes where Garth seems like a huge over the top jerk, and yet another Legion female is sick. From there though, the story is chalk full of potent emotional punches.

With the death of the two parents in a tragic accident and the terrible rift between Mekt and his siblings, the Ranzz family is full of potent drama, more so than any other family in LSH lore. You actually feel the impact through all three siblings here, even Mekt. The meeting between the two brothers feels tragic and epic--with potential to reach Shakespearean or Greek tragedy levels.

On the flip side, I can't help thinking of a less tragic outcome, which was TMK: one of the best, understated parts of that run was Mekt finally being rehabilitated and reunited with his family. Hasn't anyone whose ever fallen out with a brother or sister privately wished for such an ending? It is powerful stuff and a shame that brief moment in LSH history was lost and forgotten, with Mekt resuming his traditional role.

For an 8 page story, I felt a lot of emotion here and it made me really think. Grell is great as always but it's the starry space background of the meeting between Mekt and Garth that really worked best in this story. It added to the scale of drama.

Something else else interesting to consider is that we know from the Legion Companion, Cary Bates knew by this point in his run that Legion fans knew LSH history and experienced the stories in the warmth in what's come before. Here he botches past continuity pretty overtly; yet IMO he uses the past very nicely in a way that gives each panel more weight.

Good points on the non-starring characters having key roles, guys. You'd think that spotlighting one of the actual team in something called Legion would be easy enough.

I wasn't a huge fan of Mekt's rehabilitation in TMK. I would have last seen him as a raving loon in the early Baxter issues and shortly afterwards against his sister. So, it was a jarring shift for me. I recall they did a text piece showing his rehabilitation, but for me it wasted one of the Legion's most powerful foes, and one with a direct link to the team.

There was also an element I've seen in other titles, where bad guys become good guys or allies given enough issues. The sort of thing that had Juggernaut or Sabretooth joining X-Teams I guess.

To be fair to TMK, I wouldn't have read the issues around this period where the Ranzz conflict got some attention, when I was reading their run. So, I would have missed some of the source material they picked from. Also, they did go to some length to explain the move, rather than just have Mekt turn up and make amends. I think they even had some of those Orwellian mind altering things going on, that we see all over these issues.

Oh, and Mekt's Lightning effects in TMK were poor considering we used to see him transform into living lightning. To me, the little lightning bolts showed just how weak he'd become. This isn't that relevant to this re-read thread, but it's always bothered me, and it's nice to get it off my chest.

Cobie,
You make a lot of good points about the strengths of both stories. In spite of his flatness as a character, Dvron comes off as likable, and I remember that I, too, wanted to see more of him at the time. It's always good when the Legion builds its non-Legionnaire supporting cast.

Likewise, Universo's good turn should not be overlooked. You're right that his action of saving Dvron's life adds a dimension to his personality--which is ironic since, as Fanfie pointed out, he didn't speak at all in this story.

You're also right about the emotion in "Lightning Lad's Day of Dread," though I disagree that it is the stronger of the two stories. I think it's weaker because it relies on the trope of a hero behaving in non-heroic ways: smashing the computer console, shoving a teammate aside, attacking another, and stealing a ship. Regardless of what trauma Garth had experienced, these actions would get him fired from most jobs or benched as a teammate pending psychiatric evaluation. (Ah, the insights derived from four decades of real-world experience!)

I'm also not sure why he and Ayla never told their teammates about the Ranzz parents' deaths. Granted, it was a trauma they may have had trouble talking about, but, in a year's time, one of them must have opened up to someone. Didn't Imra and Brin count for anything?

But, yes, there is a lot of very real emotion between Garth and Mekt, and this is something I connected with at the time. Even now, 40 years on, my brother and I have tiffs that become wildly exaggerated. At the time, my fertile imagination found it all too easy to cast him in the role of Mekt. (Well, of course I was Garth! What did you expect?)

I found your comment interesting that Bates was just now becoming aware that fans were familiar with and preferred to keep the old continuity. It seems odd that he wouldn't have known this all along, but I guess DC was still operating under the assumption that their very young audience turned over every two years or so. At Marvel, such blatant continuity violations would have been unforgivable--at least until somebody won a No-Prize explaining why they weren't errors.

Just a couple of things about 207:

Mike Grell originally intended for Dvron to be African-American, and drew him as such, but Murray Boltinoff instructed the colorist to make him caucasian instead. The story I heard is that Boltinoff already had a new black character in the works and didn't want to take away from that character's impact when he made his debut a few issues later. The fact that the new character (Tyroc) ended up being a horrendous stereotypical character (but a modern, hip, 70s stereotype so it was OK), combined with the lack of willingness to include a normal character who just happened to be black, shows how deep racism ran at DC at the time.

The complete disregard for continuity (e.g. the mixed up relationships in the Ranzz family and the name Argus Oranx III for Universo) was a Boltinoff trademark. Many of the stories he edited for the Brave and the Bold had blatant continuity errors, the most common being characters from Earths 1 and 2 showing up in the same story together without any acknowledgement that they were from parallel universes. It wasn't that the multiverse was all that hard a concept to grasp or that it was really all that difficult to keep track of who was from what world (even after they began adding more and more worlds such as Earth-X and S, not to mention Earth-C). No, I believe that Murray Boltinoff just plain did not give a rodent's posterior about continuity or the fans who took it seriously. It was editorial attitudes like this that allowed Marvel to supplant DC as the industry leader.

Thanks for the behind-the-scenes information, Hermit. It really puts the general mediocrity of the Boltinoff Legion era into perspective. What I still don't understand is how the same Murray Boltinoff could have edited the brilliant original Doom Patrol run.

One story I heard is that he was showing signs of early onset Alzheimer's disease by the mid-70s. Both Bob Haney and Jim Shooter have mentioned it in interviews.

Thank you, Hermit. That information makes it a lot less tempting to characterize Boltinoff as an out-and-out villain.

It's an interesting point about continuity, and particularly attitudes to it around that time. As HWW said, with a number at DC believing that there was only a few years in each readership cycle, I can understand Boltioff's view (if that's what it was).

It would make sense to continually polish each tale for its spot in the recycling. Highlight the things that make the individual story work, rather than weaken it due to links it might have with other events.

There's a bit of a sliding scale in this. A number of folks feel that continuity is something to be ignored/shifted/tweaked whenever there's a storytelling reason to do so. Others feel that this invalidates the consistency of the book. I look to the number of reboots as a blatant sign that things will get changes either gradually or by big, clumsy Events either way.

A recent example I read came from Dick Giordano's biography. It was a choice between going with a strong Batman story, or neutering it because the main character in it had been referred to as married in a single line in a single book.

The shifting of the Legion from being the kids of the Legion Superboy met is one example of the Legion's own shifting continuity when it suited.

That's a good point, thoth. There is always a balance between telling a good story and sticking to established fictional history.

As a fan, I love fictional history--be it Star Trek or the Legion or Babylon 5 or something else. A fictional history creates verisimilitude. It also gets fans involved by creating a sort of puzzle for them to figure out by adding up details as they are revealed.

One of my favorite hobbies in the early '80s was figuring out the birth years of the Marvel characters so they could age in real time. I was greatly annoyed by Marvel's "compression of time" and chose to ignore it until it was no longer believable to do so. Of course, in my version of events, I ignored the idea that a Spider-Man who was approaching 40 was still in grad school, among other things, but I could be selective. It was MY Marvel Universe. Fictional history encourages that sort of fan ownership.

However, fictional history can bog the story down and dilute the impact of any single story since it must now fit into the grand scheme of a larger story. Few creators can pull it off. J. Michael Straczynski did so brilliantly on Babylon 5, but that's because he plotted the series out as a novel, with a definite beginning, middle, and end. Most TV and comic book series are not conceived that way. The fictional history develops almost by accident instead of by intent.

As a writer, I can certainly see the pratfalls of adhering to continuity. I haven't managed to turn my book, The Power Club, into a series yet, but, if I do, I can see the potential for errors or conflicting information to creep in. In writing the False Alarm prequel, I decided on a back story for the main character that I hadn't conceived of in the original book (in which she has a supporting role). I'm toying with the idea of changing the ethnicity of another character (though it would not be a contradiction since I never referred to her ethnicity in the first book).

Those are the sorts of things that make story writing interesting and a living passion for writers. In grad school, I learned that a writer is always beholden to the story he or she is telling, and everything else must serve the needs of the story. That's why sometimes even real historical facts are bent or ignored. Some creators take this to extreme--Oliver Stone, for one--but a compelling single story is always much more memorable and meaningful to the audience than something which fits into a larger, continuity-laden series.

SLSH 207

Not much to add as everyone has covered it pretty thoroughly.

First story somewhat predictable although I was happier with the second half with Cham's tricking Dvron (although his knocking out Ayla was not good) and nice to have Dvron redeem himself - of course he had to somehow. It's a good point that the Legion hardly do anything right or well in this story except act as supporting characters for Dvron.

Second story could have been so powerful. As it is it came off as not bad and yet also terrible. I'd like to say Garth's actions are grief fueled but he just comes off as acting like a jerk. Thankfully he will gain some maturity in later years although he didn't do so well when he was leader. I was one who liked the Mekt redemption in 5YL and thought it was handled tastefully and realistically, but I can see the downside of loss of a great villain.

I am looking forward to seeing if the upcoming LSV war is any good.

I was thinking of the scene where Mekt met Roxxas. It wasn't that Mekt had reformed. It was that his therapy seemed to have emotionally neutered him. I think the SP treatment meant that he *couldn't* get angry, resulting in an easy win for Roxxas.

SUPERBOY AND THE LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES #208

Whatever the true intention was behind this battle between the Legion of Super-Heroes and the Legion of Super-Villains, the result comes across to me a contrary answer to the under-populated tales from recent issues, and even if that's a mistaken assumption on my part, it's still an overcrowded, unholy mess of a story. Neither Bates nor Grell seem to be at ease here, the former needlessly complicating the plot while the latter performs erratically (the foreshortening on Colossal Boy in the panel before the big battle is particularly poor.) The multiple coloring errors make things even worse.

Hang in there, folks. Things will get good again in 210.

Superboy 208

I always get a chuckle form the splash page. Instead of a group of evil villains cackling over the demise of their enemies, it looks like a modelling club that has just irradiated itself.
With extra pages, the pace is relaxed. We see Mon El and Superboy with the Kents, and then Ultra Boy with his parents, as the Legion prepares to award a peace trophy. All are set ups in the plan of the Super Villains. The villains have quietly planned their attack. There’s no posturing as they diligently perform their roles. The staged set up would be a hall mark of this Legion in their later return, but this is considerably lower key than teleporting a planet.

Bates finally realises that , by using time travel, Superboy can appear whenever he wants. Unfortunately, he doesn’t realise that this will also include any barriers put in his way.

With key members away, Sun Boy is in temporary charge, and it weighs on him. There’s a link from this story back to the Mutiny issue and forward to the 5YG, where leadership also proved challenging for Dirk. There’s a little flare up of anger when things don’t go to plan here too, as another reminder to Mutiny.

When the villains’ plans are undone, they are easily defeated by the Legion. Projectra takes down Nemesis Kid in panels that foreshadow a later encounter. Lightning Lad delivers a telling blow to Lightning Lord as his sister would do years later. It’s not a bad thing that the Legion are shown as superior. They have the initiative, a plan and have been more highly trained than their rogue counterparts.

There’s no real reason provided as to how Chameleon Boy foiled Chameleon Chief’s plan. He was standing outside, just as Chemical King had been before him, and there was no suggestion that anyone entered the room while on guard duty. There’s also no coverage of Chameleon Chief giving away the overall plan. It’s one thing that he was caught. But it’s another that the Legion knew to have Cham imitate a Crate Creature at the exact moment that Lightning Lord came to retrieve him. Yet Chameleon Chief would appear as a member later on, despite obviously giving the game away here.

Having the members with X-Ray vision targeted was a nice twist from them also being the strongest members.

Superboy and the LSH #208

I guess my initial reaction about 3/4 of the way through "Vengeance of the Super-Villains" and then especially after, was that this story was so rife with potential. It was right there on the precipice of being a great LSH story...and yet is falls terribly short of living up to that potential.

First, we get a return appearance of the LOSV, and this time with added Sun Emperor and Chameleon Chief, who were kind of obscure Jimmy Olsen villains by 1975. And better than that--they really seem to be on their game! Sun Emperor comes off like a true mastermind, very unlike his Levitz era psych-killer self. (I guess Ron Karr was on a hot date this night?). They truly feel like a serious threat!

Second, no less than 15 Legionnaires appear in this story! That's huge for the Legion of this era! That in and of itself has some novelty value.

But the problem is that the story just falls very flat. It's 20 pages or so but feels like a short story. And this is because rather than the big battle we want, Bates relies on his trustworthy short story tricks of a "clever trick" to resolve the problem with a quick wrap up. It's a bait & switch and its very unsatisfying.

More than that, the 15 Legionnaires previously mentioned don't really do all that much. No one changes, experiences anything, or invests the reader.

Now--there was potential. And it lies right with Sun Boy. It's hinted at that this mission may have helped him overcome is fears of being a leader. And this would be a terrific story to read if you consider his Legion past: the alpha male take-charge leader of the earliest days, then the devastating Mutiny of the Superheroes story, followed by a reduced leadership role that one might infer was caused by the trauma of mutiny. This story could have been used to pick up those themes and help Dirk overcome that trauma.

*And* they could have used Sun Emperor, who is overconfident as a leader but comes up short, as the flip side / dichotomy of the whole story, which aesthetically works well.

So much potential! But the story is stuck in the tropes and beats of the era. Even Grell's art felt a little half-hearted, as if both he and Bates were comfortable and weren't going to put themselves on the line.

208:

I like the build-up of the story: Getting to see Mon and Superboy vacation with the Kents, the "betrayal" of the Kents and Jo's parents, Sun Boy's anxiety over being leader, the LSV's well-thought out plan . . . all of this works very well.

And then we get to the battle scene, in which five Legionnaires who don't otherwise appear in the story take down the LSV in two pages. On one hand, the blitzkrieg attack is quite effective and does show the Legionnaires' superiority. On the other hand, the story ends too quickly. Compare this to the knock-down, drag-out action stories over at Marvel, and this one can't help but fall short. It feels antiquated by 1975 standards.

For me, the biggest disappointment was that emotional drama of the previous issue is not followed through. I was all set for Garth to really let Mekt have it, and for these two brothers to come to some sort of decisive closure in their relationship, but this doesn't happen. Garth is a bit player, and Mekt only slightly less so.

But, yes, nothing really happens or changes. This story, like most of the ones before it, is mind candy: something sweet to keep the reader entertained between homework and bath.

I would have been so impressed if DC had put this much thought into continuity in those days. The "Mutiny" story was unknown to me until many years after reading this story.

Good point on the wasted Garth / Mekt potential. It was so completely wasted that I easily forgot about it only one week later.

Yeah, overall, this was another Cary Bates story flop, albeit one with more potential than his most recent ones. For example, there were even more plot holes not mentioned by our panel so far. A minor one: how did Jo come to realize the LSV was behind the plot? Did he reason what Clark and Mon did about the familiar energy bubble? A major one (to me, anyway): how did the LSV control the parents? None of the members shown are known to have hypnotic power, much less the ability to travel thru time as would be required for the Smallville portion. These and other brushed-over details further illustrate how far behind Cary's plots are from contemporary Marvel plots which typically would explain these things.

One thing the story did for me unintentionally was make me think a bit more about Mon. It's a throwaway line: "Vacations can be lonely without my own parents to visit!" It made me think about how all of Mon's relatives are dead because of his 1,000-year exile in the Phantom Zone. But it also made me wonder why he couldn't visit them in addition to/instead of the Kents. Forgive me if Mon's folks have been shown to be dead before the Bob Cobb appearance, but it seems to me he could visit them or other friends and relatives on Daxam in the past if he wanted to. He could even commute via time-travel as a Legionnaire like Superboy did.

It just brings up fascinating, (presumably) unexplored story potential for the character. Was he presumed dead to his people when the Phantom Zone incident happened, or were they informed? Either way, or if none of the above happened, the possibility of his visiting or returning to live there doesn't seem ruled out. Or is there some paradox that his presence when he should have been absent for a thousand years would cause damage to the timeline? If so, that's a story I'd like to read. If not, those are also stories I'd like to read. Certainly, Mon-El and his unique circumstances feel criminally under-explored at the very least.

(This is all assuming, of course, that I'm not forgetting or never read something in the lore that explains or explored part or all of this in some manner.)

So I don't know if it's a credit or a debit on Cary's part that a little throwaway line like that could send me on such a nice mental journey. I will say, though, that "Vengeance of the Super-Villains" is definitely better than his last few stories. For one, I like to see that the LSV isn't forgotten. I'm unsure of how many appearances they have between this one and Vol. 3's LSV War, but I'm willing to bet they are few and far between. If Cary were planning on staying longer than he did, I wouldn't be surprised if he were planning to use the LSV again. And I think given the sneak attack the Legion pulled, it made sense that the LSV were easily overwhelmed.

So I'd argue that it's not a bad LSV story because at least the LSV were used. It shows they still exist and that they are attempting to execute a decidedly vile and deadly terrorist attack. I definitely would have preferred to have seen them utilizing their skills more and fighting their counterparts in a more satisfying battle. (In fact it occurs to me that this plot almost seems better suited as a Universo story, possibly utilizing hypnotized Legionnaires to do what Individual LSVers did.) But it's good to see some LSVers again, and it definitely could have been better plotted or even extended to be a satisfying 2-parter. Oh, Cary--such a lazy Legion writer...

BTW, at this point were the adult LSV still recurring threats in Superman stories, or did they stop appearing by then?

Grell's work here is still enjoyable, but there are points where his art seemingly veers away from his style and resembles typical Silver Age styles for some reason. Maybe he was on a tight deadline or because he had more characters to draw than usual? It's funny, though, how detailed Dr. Larx Kenrik appears to have been drawn. I'd swear that Mike used a real-life model for him...possibly Cary or someone at DC? Just a guess.

I see now that pretty much every male character has the Grell sideburns at this point. I commented a few issues ago about it being particularly appropriate for Jo, thinking Grell did it mostly with him. This is not exactly the case, but I think the look endures particularly long with Jo where some of the others get them dropped over the succeeding years. I could be wrong.

Overall, it'll be good to see Cary's role as writer of the strip be reduced after this issue. His run wasn't completely without merit, but it's clear he is not at all in the same league with the best writers to have shepherded the teens of the future.

I always thought Dr. Larx Kenrik was modeled after Henry Kissinger.

Now that you mention it, he clearly looks just like Kissinger!

Of course today most writers (and countries besides the USA) would label Kissinger a war criminal and mass killer, rather than deserving any type of peace award.

and Roosevelt and Churchill and Kennedy and Johnson and pretty much anyone making decisions others don't care to make during a war. "Mass murderer" and "hero" seem to have more to do with politics or which side of the war someone is on than anything else. I can see the attraction of seeking out political power but I can't imagine what it can do to a person, a good person, when they have to use that power. I just know that while there were eventually many protesting bombing, there weren't many willing to give up their cushy lives here to go fight against it.

Ultimately, in this country anyhow, the people are responsible. Individuals are just the blame.

Yeesh! It's nice to see the one of the more minor points I made latched onto.....

The thing about Mon is that is that his timeline is also complicated by the fact that he spent over a decade in suspended animation between his visit to Krypton and his arrival on Earth as well. I wonder if the (inconsistently applied) pre-Crisis DC rules about not co-existing at the same time as yourself would prevent him from traveling back to the period while he was in suspended animation? So his only option might be to visit them after he's projected into the phantom zone, which would mean he's *lost* all those years with them already.

See, that's one of those things I'd forgotten about Mon's backstory--the time spent in suspended animation. To me, that would really give Mon the responsibility to let his people know of his survival.

I suppose, though, that while he was in the PZ, he would have had the ability to observe Daxam and his family in the intervening thousand years. Maybe he sees himself returning as disrupting the timeline. Certainly, that could dissuade him from actually living in the past like Superboy. There's no telling how much his living there and producing heirs would have changed things. And of course there's Shady to consider...at least after they met and became an item.

Still, it's probably a great untold story or series of stories.

A few bit's n bobs...

I was also thinking about Mon El not popping off to see his folks while he was back in this time zone too. I put it in the same basket, as Superboy never figuring out just how flexible time travel makes everything in a Crisis.

I was wondering if there was another reason, such as Mon's age when he left Daxam...

Mrs Gand: Honey, there's another man at the door claiming to be our time travelling child all grown up.
Mr Gand: That's the third this week! They can't all be ours!
Mrs Gand: Have you been seeing that secretary again? That's it! I want a Space Divorce!

The Legion bylaws are amended to prevent anyone time travelling to meet their relatives before they should have known them.

Good spots on Jo's Ultra Psychic powers and the hypnotised parents. It also raises the question of the LSV's time bubble access and their ability to monitor events in the past and on Rimbor.

I was also wondering if we had see Radiator Roy use his energy bubbles before. No mention of it in Adventure #320

I also meant to comment on Grell's poising of the LSV. Mekt looks composed, but those hands could be gripping the arms of his chair with some internal anger issues. Nemesis Kid lounges with the arrogance of invulnerability. Spider Girl's reclining S pose is like a curl of hair. Roy is interesting. I don't see the forward leaning pose as studious. I see it as beaten down. Having spent most of his fortune on gaining powers he couldn't control, I wonder if it was his debts or revenge against scientists that led him into a life of crime. Getting experimented on became the story of a revamped Storm Boy later on too.

Cham's powers shifted around a bit, but I'm still not used to seeing him impersonate inanimate objects.

Why does the base of the trophy look just like the monument outside Legion HQ? Is there a lost story where the pointy bit of the trophy turns out to be Tyr's gun hand?

Thanks for the info on Kenrik. I had wondered if it was supposed to be a nod to someone in particular.

We also get another glimpse that Jo's life is far from the rough, gang driven upbringing later versions of him would have us believe. I think my first reference to that, would have been in the TMK run. Beyond his amnesia issues with Cpt Frake, it was something that I'd never thought of for him really. It was certainly played up at least form that point on.

Jo's dad reminds me a little of what I imagine Dirk's to be. Happy to see his son race back into adventures with a knowing wink.

Because of the order I picked up issues, I thought that Sun Emperor was based on the evil Sun Boy impostor from Adventure 290 (where the legion are in session on Xanthu), rather than the guy who showed up in a 1962 Jimmy Olsen issue (#63). In Olsen, the LSV is viewing events from the 21st Century, rather than 30th or 31st.

Also, for those with the floppies, one of #208's back up stories is Lana Lang's Detection Kit where her dad really grounds her for considering writing down that Superboy and Clark Kent are one and the same. It's from 1961's Superboy #93 and Cham impersonates Clark in it.

Was that the one where Lana's dad tries to spank her with a hairbrush, stops upon realizing how ridiculous he looks, and then grounds her? And Lana just gets more determined than ever to prove Clark's secret?

Yes, that's the one Ibby Although...quick check... he realises that Lana is too old for that before he does it. But there's no records, or snacks or dating for a whole month! It seems to put her off, but Clark knows it's only a matter of time before she's snooping again.

I'm glad even the writer realized how ridiculous the spanking would have been.

At least you got a response! I posted a very thoughtful and detailed commentary on adherence to continuity versus story integrity a page or two ago, and no one had anything further to say. Nada.

Speaking of continuity, this is one place where I think Bates made a wise choice, either deliberately or not. Bringing in Mon-El's back story or even mentioning that he had been in the Phantom Zone would have made the story unwieldy. It would have also served as a distraction from the LSV plot.

The only thing we really need to know is that Mon has no parents of his own, whatever that means. As readers, we can infer the rest.

I did, but it got rebooted

Drat that white space!

Nothing kills a good story more quickly than a lack of internal consistency. If something happens on page five that is contradicted on page 20, there had better be a good reason for it, or else the reader will feel cheated. In a series the author has to consider events from past episodes in the same way for precisely the same reason. Comics (and more recently Marvel Movies) have taken it even further, creating a narrative that covers several ongoing series happening in the same fictional setting. Still, if you are going to claim X and Y are sharing the same universe, the rules of that universe had better apply equally to both X and Y; if the author chooses to ignore those rules, then the entire shared universe is invalidated.

If you are going to write something out of continuity, that's fine. Just make sure the reader knows that it's out of continuity.

Babylon 5 supports the things that can go wrong when writing a production serial, something even JMS acknowledges. There are websites dedicated to re-ordering the episodes to put them into hindsight continuity, things within impossible to correct. Some of the needs are blamed on production, indecision over whether the series will be continued or even JMS himself.


It goes to our continuing discussion, when writing a product, a serial, which has to play even somewhat into some other continuity or agenda, how much fault or credit should be going on the writer and how much on the editing process. It seems to me, the one making the bucks should be assigned the blame. It's the editors' job in such a setting to fact check and feed back corrections to a writer. The writer of these comics are for the most part, hired guns. They can't be expected to know 20-50 years of history and continuity to perfection when even a solid 5 year series, written by one very talented guy cannot accomplish it with or without the difficult setting.

As readers, we have as much time as we care to examine, reexamine and detail the discrepancies, decades of discussion. Serial writers have deadlines measured in days and weeks.

All in all, it's good sport to find these discrepancies but as someone that works under deadline daily, even hourly, and has worked in design process, I see a big difference in something that can be changed after the fact and something that cannot. Without that nearly individual, nearly out of any continuity ownership given to Fables, Sandman, Watchmen,..... serial writing for comics has to be one of the hardest gigs in writing to get excellent. Fanbase gives bottom rung the blame and where the buck should stop gets a pass.

It's been so long since I've watched B5 that I'd forgotten, if I ever knew, about any continuity errors. But the presence of such errors illustrates how hard it is to keep a fictional reality consistent even when just one writer is at the helm and writing most of the episodes.

Sometimes things are even changed on purpose. In the early '90s, the series "Sisters" contained a character (a daughter of one of the titular sisters) who aged from 14 to 18 in between the first and second seasons. The older character was played by Ashley Judd, who became an integral part of the show; the series was better off for the change.

Pretty much nodded my head for all of that.

Off the top of my head, I think there are continuity stages.

Internal Consistency within the single story, without which it will often fall apart. Pulsar Stargrave does not escape the Legion on his suddenly appearing Space Unicorn. Not when he was about to escape on his Space Harley only the page before.

Continuity within a series. Where the parameters are much the same each time. The locations and the cast remain steady and the setting is roughly set. The Kents run a store in Smallville, where Lana Lang is obsessed with uncovering young Clark's ID. There's a lot of fluidity around the actual stories. Weird things can happen frequently, but the status quo is reset each time. The Kent's repair any damage; Lana is thwarted; people don't move from disaster zone Smallville in droves.

Continuity within a series can shift gradually too. The Legion Supergirl met aren't the kids of the ones Superboy met as my earlier example. Cosmic Boy losing that helmet. Rays from the eyes etc.

Then there's continuity across a publisher. How can Superman be off thwarting Kanjar Ro this month in the JLA, while he's lost his powers over in Action.

As soon as that status quo isn't reset; where global events happen in one book but aren't mentioned anywhere else; where
characters go through prolonged, drastic adventures in one book while they appear in 10 other books that month, then there's a possible problem.

It depends on how the publisher views the necessity of needing to have all their books set in one world connect up. Certainly, DC felt that the lack of Publisher Continuity was a main reason why they trailed Marvel. But it wasn't the only one. Likewise, there's a difference between organic continuity between multiple books created by the same team, and mandated continuity forced on all creators working on lots of different titles.

So, there can be lots of movement between the stages. It can lead from early ideas that are dropped; shifts in origin to more blatant retcons and reboots.

An example I gave earlier had Giordano drop change continuity to make a more powerful story. Since I imagine that writers of later stories quite often feel that earlier things are getting in the way of *their* story, perhaps Bates felt the same. Or perhaps it was simply that it felt not important enough to care about. As Blockade Boy said, these are guys who are earning a living doing often multiple books, for large audiences, who they have to entertain each month.

If the book was spot on in continuity but suffered in quality, then Bates would have been looking for a new gig. Examples of that sort of view of continuity plagued DC up until DCNu (where I just stopped). There was the Dwayne McDuffie post regarding the number of story iterations he had to go through to get something past editorial tinkering. DC haemorrhaged creators, as edicts came down from above.

Personally, when this sort of thing becomes the norm I find that the quality of the actual stories plummets. Whether it's to fit an Event, or a crossover by committee, or DC's Marketing Whim of the Month it just gets harder to produce a story that entertaining in it's own right.

Another example, picking up on the ST shuffling. In Giordano's biography, an editor would never publish late. That was because he'd order three books to be done at the same time, and the first one that was complete would be the one that got published.

That was Batman. So, each story would have Internal Continuity (good quality talent involved), it would have Continuity within the Series (Bats wasn't going to get his back broken in one issue, only to be fine the next). But, it didn't feel the need to focus on the Continuity across the Publisher. Once the story was complete, the status quo would be untouched to allow the other books to work.

The books all shipped on time and the writer/artists could focus on what they needed to do to entertain. So, while Events have their place, and the big two feel they are their main trick to get some sales, it can often be at the cost of getting entertaining single books out on schedule.

Since Fanfie is taking a hiatus, I'll get the moospball rolling (mooping?) on S/LSH 209.

"Who Can Save the Princess?" has not gone down in history as one of the Legion's finest stories, but it's altogether not bad. In fact, it's the story I've enjoyed most since 203 and probably the most fully realized lead story since 201.

We've got all the right elements: a dramatic situation, high stakes, and even a ticking clock. The story is simple and straightforward: Princess Projectra encounters her latest disease, the pain plague--a condition so debilitating that it will kill her in a few hours unless the Legionnaires siphon off her pain into their own bodies--one hour at a time.

It is quite heroic for the Legionnaires to voluntarily subject themselves to such "unendurable pain" for their comrade, but the problem is there aren't enough Legionnaires present to go around. Everything rides on Superboy, who must travel some distance through space in order to siphon off Jeckie's final hour of pain. In the meantime, Timber Wolf takes the first hour of pain--with disastrous results.

Jim Shooter marks his return to the Legion with this story, and he does so in style. He takes this simple plot and weaves in a few unexpected twists, such as Superboy's grand arrival amounting to nothing and the princess being saved by ex-Legionnaire Duo Damsel, who makes an unannounced guest-appearance (e.g., no blurb on the cover announcing her return). Shooter even finds time to bring back KK's dynamic new costume from 193, and to give us a somewhat plausible reason for his costume switch. (You mean KK has had only one orange-and-brown costume all these years and no spares? Whatever did he wear on laundry day?)

Shooter clearly knows his Legion and cares about the team in a way Bates never demonstrated. This feels like a Legion story, with the Legionnaires front and center--something we haven't had in a long time.

A few odds and ends:

I got a kick out of TW's "woman driver" remark. A hundred percent sexist, yes, but it sounds like something a he-man like Brin would say in any century.

KK is far more loving towards Jeckie here than he was back in "Welcome Home, Daughter--Now Die." In fact, he comes off really good in this story, using meditation to block out the pain (a nice echo of 201, in which his mastery over his body was so total he didn't realize he had been wounded). He's willing to sacrifice himself to save the woman he loves--a situation that will come to tragic fruition much later during the LSV War.

Imra also comes off well in this story. She thinks ahead, realizing the dangers her power could cause while she's under the influence of the pain, and goes to great lengths, assisted by KK, to avoid this.

KK and Imra also use teamwork to subdue Brin--another aspect we haven't seen in awhile.

All in all, a very satisfying read after too many undernourishing tales.

Just want to chime in that I will read & review but am currently traveling for work until Friday. So will be a little late (and will reed the posts then, so as not to bias my reactions...)

209/"Hero for a Day"

Well, we're not quite rid of Bates yet, and, in this backup tale, he does what he's been doing for quite awhile now: Introducing another character to be his lead while the Legionnaires take supporting roles in their own book.

It's a nice idea, though, using Legion fan "Flynt Brojj" to represent all Legion fans, real or fictional. Flynt gets to do what all fans everywhere dream of doing: spend the day with his heroes, tour their headquarters, and, ultimately, save the day.

(The name "Flynt Brojj," by the way, is an amalgam of real fans Mike Flynn and Harry Broertjes, who spearheaded the letter-writing campaign to save the Legion from oblivion, in case you didn't know.)

If I were Flynt, I'm not sure I would be thrilled at starting my grand tour in the Legion's parcel receiving dock. What's next? The broom closet? But, anyway, it's a good thing the tour starts there, because something goes terribly wrong--and only Flynt can save everyone.

The story relies on a typical Bates bait-and-switch: a clever plot twist in which things are not what they seem and an apparently minor detail (Flynt's oversized flight ring) turns out to be the solution to the mystery.

The only thing really of note in this story is how Sun Boy first panics and then brushes Flynt aside. These character traits build off of Dirk's anxieties over being leader in 208 and can be seen as indicative of his unfortunate turn during 5YG.

Superboy 209

Karate Kid channelling huge amounts of energy through two metallic orbs, on the cover, reminds me of Superboy’s own demise many years later.

Shooter’s back. The changes are noticeably different. On the first page, we get a bit of women driver sexism, and “Tim” as a nickname for Timberwolf, which doesn’t seem to work. Referring to his as a Super –pets reject was much better. Years later, as Furball, that’s exactly what he would become.

It’s life or death for Jeckie as she’s ravaged by the pain plague. Fortunately, others can siphon off some of the pain that makes the plague fatal. Timberwolf goes first and, in keeping with the animalistic nature that Shooter has so quickly established for him, goes nuts. The others contain him. It’s convenient that a handy hour’s worth of pain goes into someone, whether they maintain contact with the victim or not.

More changes are on the way. Imra’s powered seems far more based in mind control than telepathy. We get a dark vision of just some of the things she could do if the pain becomes too much for her. Having an army of super powered, mind controlled thralls is certainly a switch.

Another switch is Karate Kid’s uniform, as he brings out some handy bondage gear to keep Imra’s senses mute. I don’t even want to know where the Legion stored that.

There’s a tense finale. Superboy, who has been set up as easily able to handle the pain throughout the story, turns out to be so immune to it, that the pain doesn’t enter his body. Karate Kid, having already stoically survived an hour, moves to take a second. Only to be stopped by Luornu, who splits the remaining hour between her two selves. Lu is a perfect character to make an hour aiding Jeckie more bearable (and not having to sit through an hour of court gossip either). Her arrival was set up through Imra’s call to the subs and the reserves earlier in the story.

It’s a short tale that serves only to show the Legion’s sense of duty to each other. We never find out the reason why Jeckie has the plague, if it has affected others or how the Legion combats it elsewhere. It’s just a plot device and the story has a contrived feel to it as a result.

Speaking of contrived plot devices another turns up in the second story. It’s a Witch Wolf that conveniently can irradiate anyone, while also turning their powers against them. If Nemesis Kid were ever to get a pet, it would be a Witch Wolf. Like the first story, we’re not told how it got there or why. The reveal at the end would suggest someone like Universo, last seen as a cardboard cut out plot device in a recent issue, was involved. But we could easily never see this story linked to again.
We get to see the Legion’s postal delivery service, that foreshadows the 3d printing of today.

We’re also introduced to Flynt Brojj, the Legion’s superfan. He gets a tour of the Legion HQ because he raised more than anyone else through charity funding. It’s something super rich Lester Spiffany should have thought of.

Flynt is one of those cult Legion characters. His popularity is also helped by him being named after Mike Flynn and Harry Broertjes. As with so many recent stories, he’s a non-Legionnaire who takes center stage and solves the problem of the day.

Flynt would pop up from time to time over the years, always supporting the Legion. His last mention was as a resident in one of the Dominator chambers. Perhaps showing that even Flynt turned against the Legion on Earth was a step too far for the creative team, and we didn’t get to see him appear in that run.

I loved the Super-Pets reference, too. This is another indication, I think, of how well Shooter knew and cared about the Legion. He worked in a by then passe reference long-term fans would get and created some good-natured bantering between Val and Brin.

Another welcome change with Shooter's return: The splash page begins with the action instead of creating an artificial and unnecessary "second" cover.



True, but it's worth noting that this change didn't come out of the blue. There were many Adventure-era stories which showed that Imra could mentally control others.




You're right that there isn't much of a theme or overall point to the story, which perhaps is why its remembered only as another "Jeckie gets ill" story.

And though the pain plague is contrived, I thought it worked quite well here, much more so than the contrivances of the second story.

It does have that earnest seriousness of older stories.



Good point about Lu not being announced. It makes a nice change having a genuine surprise. But one that was set up in the story as the general call did go out. Simple and effective. Nicely contrasted to Bates’ plotting in the back up.



Although Super-Karate is his unique talent Val, like many Legionnaires have other overlapping abilities. His training led him to believe he had the power of Ninja invisibility, duplicating Lyle’s power. Lyle’s power, however, actually works. The Legionnaires try not to laugh as Val goes around starkers on laundry days around Legion HQ.



Having guest stars take over on a book with such a big central cast, certainly seemed to be a trend. You even point out that his first back up to Shooter can’t get away from this


I first read that as more of a “Bates doesn’t care”, along with your “rid of Bates” comment later. But yeah, Shooter is certainly closer to the characters, although I don’t think I dislike Bates’ run as much as others might.



I wonder if his sexism was actually part of the standard android programming Karth Arn gave him. Equality promotes peace across the 30th century united planets. Except for one old throwback, who happens to be the chief android programmer of the UP. All the people are fine, but their robot help are completely sexist.



Even without Shooter (and with the exception of that back up you mention) Val has been shown to be really effective. I get the feeling that this was often through the artist, rather than the writer. This was definitely his era, and I suppose will lead onto his solo title later on. With Shooter back, and Val being a bit of a favourite, I’m expecting to see more of this.



This is another interesting look at how readers identify with the book. I’ve never been much of a fan of the Legion’s biggest fan. He’s always struck me as a bit obsessively sad, hanging on the Legion’s every action. I do recall a nice moment where a couple of the Legionnaire’s look to contact him first to break some news, but that’s was more about the nice continuity that the character himself.



Good spot HWW. The good thing about this is that it’s never really overplayed. You don’t have the other characters wandering around going “Gee, that Dirk sure cracks under the slightest pressure.” It can all be inferred from his actions, reinforced gradually over a large number of years.



I was thinking of the Adventure era when I saw the change in her powers. It’s probably another reflection of Shooter’s return to the characters. With Imra, my early reading of her was at a (still very effective) lower power level. So, for me, the Adventure tales and this story are the odd ones, rather than the other way round as it would be for others.

On Bates: He wrote most of the formative Legion stories of my childhood, so I have a soft spot for him. During these re-reads, however, their weaknesses have become more glaring to me.

I appreciate his contributions to the Legion--particularly in partnership with Cockrum, who took his ideas to another level. But I don't think Bates was well suited to the Legion. This is suggested by the fact that he kept writing stories about characters other than the Legionnaires.

I was wondering if this was something that Bates likes to do as a writer. Highlight an issue, by having the characters react to it or a character more centrally connected to it, rather than it happening to one of them.

While I most remember that long Flash run, before the Crisis, New Guardians and Silverblade ( making an appearance in Teed's #10s Cover Comparison thread.

There was the JLA, where I don't recall too many standing out. A quick look shows...

JLA 116- centres around The Golden Eagle (who would become a Titans character later)

JLA #117 - is really around Hawkman. He was returning to the JLA, and fits the mould of an outsider character.

His next two were...

JLA 120&121 - Where the central character was Adam Strange.

Then it's ...

JLA 123&124 - which centres around Bates himself, Maggin and Schwartz (in there with my least favourite tales). Both JLA/JSA react to them.

Finally it's 138 & 139 - which is an Adam Strange story in which the JLA appear.

So, when it comes to these two team books, it would seem that this is just the way Bates likes to write them.

It's a pretty standard approach to writing long-running serials. Keep the core cast and their relationships stable while using them as a backdrop to a story focused on a character introduced for that story. See numerous classic crime dramas.

Yeah, that's true of the classic ones. I'd also say that (from what I've seen which isn't that much and this may be rubbish) that more modern crime dramas have more subplots involving the central characters that their predecessors.

Likewise, the casts in police procedural things is a bit larger than it used to be too. That allows for more of those character arcs. So, I think there's been a move towards what we would recognise from reading comics on TV shows today.

Back then, Shooter realised the potential to get stories from his cast in addition to standard threats. Denny O'Neil did likewise as did a number of Marvel writers. It's not something I get from Bates.

His writing style certainly fits some of the continuity options to return things to the way they were by stories end. Do what you like to the guest stars as long as the central cast don't get addicted to Lotus Fruit. Although when things like that are done, it's often just for the one story too.

Thanks for the breakdown of Bates' JLA run, thoth. It's been years since I read those stories.

In Amazing World of DC Comics # 14 (an all-JLA issue), there is an interview with Schwartz in which he appraises various JLA writers. On Bates, he says something to the effect that Bates preferred writing single hero stories, not group stories. Bates, according to Schwartz, once wrote a Flash/GL team-up and neglected to have them team up except for one or two panels Schwartz snuck in.

Crumbs. I've not seen my AWoDC books for ages. Must be in there somewhere. For the summaries above I just lazily went with the index.

Thanks for that HWW. That seems to sum it up nicely. A team up book without a team up or, in our case, a team book that doesn't focus on the team.

>shuffles uncomfortably towards telepathic earplug<

Well it's Tuesday, and about new issue time so...

Superboy 210

The opening scene stands out for the little hints into the Legion’s background. There’s the mention of very accurate weather control. This would eventually become an issue when the UP economies collapsed years later.

There’s also the mention of WW VI, a computer controlled holocaust. It occurred only 200 years before the Legion’s time and, was a war that “nearly ended life on Earth.” This perhaps explains a lot of what we see in the Legion. A struggle to reach a utopian ideal; a look back to youthful times as a golden age, embodied by the Legion itself; the shadowy potential science-threats we see in the background, where minds can be controlled and thoughts invaded.

There are little touches on the Legionnaires too, as they practice in combat conditions. While it’s odd that Lightning Lad, sworn to uphold the Legion’s law against killing, would call one of his bolts’ his “death bolt,” it’s fun to see Tinya use her power to escape the weather conditions.

The death bolt is there to show the reader that Lightning Lad is using all of his powers. Only that Frankenstein inspired electricity, and an assist from the weather control system, allow the revival of Soljer, the story’s main character.

Soljer doesn’t recall his real name, only his mission in that last war: to capture Metropolis. His weapons seem supernatural, formed from the same iron will that keeps his almost corpse-like form moving. We’re told early on that WWVI used Super weapons, and Soljer brings some of these to bear on the Legionnaires. “Even Superboy can’t withstand Anti-Energy!” shouts Brainy. I get a chill remembering Kara’s death in Crisis 20 years later. Tinya is brutally stabbed by a phantom blade, nearly killing her. Grell’s art doesn’t hold back from showing her pain. He forms the weapons as he needs them. I’m reminded of the Superman villain Bloodsport, who was also a soldier, or claimed to be, teleporting weapons as he needed them.

On seeing Projectra in the background, the solution seems pretty clear. She shows Soljer that his mission is complete. Since that was driving his will, he collapses finally dead.

Jeckie is assisted by Cham, who has some odd assists in this story. Jeckie’s illusions defy the senses, so it’s odd that she couldn’t have shown Soljer the illusion of his sergeant.

Likewise, Cham is able to remove the phantom knife form Tinya. Unless there are creatures out there that can tune into Bgtzl, this replicates Tinya’s power. Had she arrived after Cham to join, she would have been refused as her power would duplicate an existing member. It’s another in a long line of plot-convenient uses of Cham’s power.

The fate of Soljer, in giving the villain what they want, is a tried and tested device. I recently read the JLA fighting Despero, where the Martian Manhunter provides a similar ending. A similar device was used in the closing issues of the Ostrander/ Yale Suicide Squad.

But there is one similar story that stands out in my mind. One that I read before I got this back issue. It was of a man, a father, who had been caught in a nuclear exchange between two superpowers. He survived, doused with chemicals, while his family died before him.

Like Soljer, he too walked with the only goal being to reach the heart of the city. It was a Judge Dredd story. One clearly picking up the pathos of a lost life from a past time. In the end, the Judges also gave the man what he wanted, without the benefit of having Jeckie around. That meant his blowing up the Judge’s station house, and himself, in silent protest at the war that had killed his family and destroyed his life.

With Soljer being the central character in a Legion tale, Shooter is taking a cue from Bates. However, Shooter’s previous run in Action showed that he could work on a more personal, sometimes harrowing, level. It’s a story, if the examples I’ve given above are any indicator that made an impact on a lot of readers, who went on to use elements of it themselves as comics writers.

Interestingly, the United Planets put up a statue to him. A statue to a guy who had just blown up lots of property (hard to imagine there not being some deaths). While a soldier dying to protect his buddies might seem great to the UP, you can imagine that Earthgov is not so thrilled. That's assuming they were the ones who won the war, successfully defending Metropolis from Soljer and his squad.



In the back up, it didn’t take long at all for Shooter to focus on his favourite character, Val Armorr.

A young man with a heroic future is raised without knowledge of his real father, only to find that his mentor is the one responsible for killing him. Despite it being uncannily similar to the later Star Wars, it’s not written by George Lucas. It’s Shooter’s origin for Karate Kid. It’s a decent martial arts/ sci-fi mash up with a view firmly on the relationships and legacies in Val’s life. I’m not sure how much of an issue Val’s ethnicity is, but it seems to get some definitive background here too. Shooter gets a lot into seven pages, and Grell seems to have some reference shots to bring some extra realism to the art.

In summary, this is a very strong Shooter issue. I think it’s one of the earlier ones I got from this era. Having read my share of supernatural war stories and that Judge Dredd story from above, I don’t think it impressed me much at the time.

210/Soljer

After several issues of fluff stories, it's both a breath of fresh air and jarring to read two stories with deadly serious premises: one about a soldier who tries to carry out his mission from beyond the grave, and the other about honor and vengeance.

Both of these are very good stories, but they suffer from the restricted page counts. I get the feeling that Shooter has something meaningful to say in both, but the message of each is diluted.

For example, I love the portrayal of Soljer as not a bad guy. He's a hero in the truest sense of the word, laying down his life for his comrades. And, even from beyond the grave, he still carries out his mission as he understands it, oblivious to the damage he is causing to civilians while fighting a war long over. (I, too, wondered if there were any casualties.)

Phantom Girl's injury is horrific in a comic that had avoided showing any serious injuries to anyone until this time.

This story was published at the end of the Vietnam War, and I can't help but feel that Shooter intended this as a sort of commentary on the war. Shooter, born in 1951, was of call-up age during the war and likely had friends who served overseas. The utter brutality of the war and of Soljer's actions seems to reflect this stark reality.

However, the story stops short of being an antiwar tale, or even a pro-war tale, but it is nice that the UP chose to honor Pvt. Essad after the fact. In the end, this is all we are left with after a war: an attempt to honor the fallen who cannot be present to receive the honor themselves. The fact that Essad is honored 200 years after his sacrifice calls attention to the futility of such honors.

I thought it was brilliant how the Legionnaires defeated Soljer by making him think he had won. To me, this suggests that victory truly is in the eye of the beholder. Essad caused a lot of carnage, but he died thinking himself a hero. For many people who go off to war, this perception is all that truly matters.

My main criticism of the story is that, as thoth alluded, the Legionnaires drop in and out of the story as the plot demands. Cham does not appear until midway through the story, and Jeckie appears only at the very end, yet both are crucial to the story's resolution. In one sense, the story acknowledges long-time fans' familiarity with the characters, yet it's sloppy writing not to set up Jeckie's involvement earlier.

There are also some rather jarring transitions. In one panel, we see Soljer standing outside what looks like a 30th century restaurant or gathering spot. in the next panel, we get the aftermath of his attack. The jump from beginning to end is too sudden.

Another jarring aspect: When I first read this story, I thought Lightning Lad's lightning bolt had somehow traveled through time to strike Essad in the 28th century. What's really happening is that he gets struck by lightning twice--first at the same instant the "gamma grenade" goes off and then, 200 years later, he is accidentally revived by LL's bolt. In my view, the first lightning strike is wholly unnecessary and adds a confusing element to the story.

All in all, I appreciate the serious tone of this story and how it depicts war and soldiers in terms that do not fit tidily into heroes and villains, but I wish the story had had more room to breathe.

210/Black Dragon

In addition to the Vietnam War winding down, the early-mid '70s were all abuzz with karate, judo, and kung fu movies. So it's no surprise that Val takes on a Bruce Lee-like appearance by now, or that this solo spotlight has a lot in common with martial arts movies.

Val is called to choose between honor (avenging his father's death) and his Legion calling to not kill. To complicate matters, he learns his father's killer was Val's own beloved Sensei, who raised him from infancy and taught him in the ways of martial arts.

Interesting setup, but rather stereotypical: honor and vengeance being, as I recall, popular themes of martial arts movies. What bugs me, though, is that Val never really faces any kind of dilemma. It's a forgone conclusion that he's not going to let these thugs kill the Sensei, and that he regards the Sensei as his true father. After all, that's the "right" thing to do. So, we learn nothing about KK's character, though the story provides a nice origin for him.

Lots of good action scenes, as well.

Superboy 209

Catching up on last week's stories, I think HWW did a great job summing up both stories. The first one isn't ever going to make a "best of" list of Legion stories but it's not bad. And this is because Jim Shooter is back and his love of the LSH is easily conveyed, as is his purposeful, direct approach to stories that don't rely too much on bait & switch gimmicks.

All the Legionnaires come off fairly well besides Jeckie. Even though Val remains his favorite, Imra and Luornu are especially well used.

I will note that Brin's comment about women drivers is very sexist but very "of the times"; it's too bad Shooter has such a long history along these lines though as I couldn't help but think that his reemergence at age 23 marked the beginning of his bringing some anger towards women issues to comics.

The two Luornus battling one another the instant they feel the effects of the pain plague must be yet another indicator that the long inferred subplot of multiple Luornus being distinctly different and at odds with one another is alive and well.

I love the story of how Jim Shooter came back as much as anything. Basically tracked down by the men who inspire Flynt, they convinced him to come back to comics and the Legion. And they did it, amazing enough, on the record! You can actually read the interview as it happens in the Legion Companion and see Shooter feeling nostalgia and enthusiasm for the Legion again. These guys not only saved the franchise but then continued to work to improve it! If only we could follow their lead now.

On the Flynt story both Thoth and HWW have good commentary on Flynt himself and the story. I like Flynt and always have. He's a bit of a tribute to the fans and can represent us; all the while also being a nod the long running theme in the series established by Hamilton of anyone overcoming impossible odds and being heroic.

Grell's artwork serves to tie both stories together and he's up to the task this issue. His figures are incredibly attractive and dynamic, keeping the Legion feeling fresh and sexy.

Hope to get to 210 shortly as the Soljer story has long been a favorite.

You know, even though Jeckie gets a bum rap for falling ill so often, I think she serves the role she needs to serve in this story. It's really Val's story--as much as any story which is not a solo spotlight can be any Legionnaire's story. He's the one whose character is revealed by his dogged determination to sacrifice himself for her. The story would only work this way if someone close to Val (e.g., Jeckie) were threatened.

In a way, I feel this story does a better job of revealing Val's character than "The Lair of the Black Dragon."

Superboy 210

Since the first time I ever began to read these stories from the 1970's--which were the last LSH stories I ever read--my favorite was always "Soljer's Private War". Even though it's quick and without too many layers, there's simply a ton to like.

The artwork by Grell is his best so far--simply stunning. Pages 2-3 are explosive, with terrific layouts and detail. And in the end, Grell's depiction of the futuristic Metropolis destroyed is horrifying.

More than that, this is great science fiction at its best: grounded in humanity and tells us a lot about ourselves today. You could argue this is a story about PTSD; you could say it's simply about the lingering consequences of war. It's relevant today more than ever: "War of super weapons, directed by computers". Sure this wasn't in the 21st Century? Regardless of how you interpret the story it's a straight forward idea with a lot of meat.

Again, Shooter shows why he was the master of the Legion. He shows multiple Legionnaires, great usage of powers, dramatic action sequences and a control of continuity. Even simply remembering that the most recent world war would have been the sixth is impressive.

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2nd story:

Meanwhile, the kung-fu craze of the 1970's had boiled over by now; as usual, once DC comics jumps on the bandwagon of a trend like this, it usual means the craze is trending down. Still, DC created Richard Dragon and then someone must have realized they had the perfect karate star--probably the recently returned Shooter, highlighting his favorite--and soon Karate Kid of all Legionnaires would get his own series. Here we get a teaser to test the water I suspect.

It's not a bad story at all: actually well told with a fairly succinct structure. The plot is all familiar tropes but the limited back up page count keeps it terse and almost poetic.

Still, even though Karate Kid has long been a favorite of mine, I don't have much interest in his solo adventures. I'd rather read of him as a Legionnaire interacting with the others. Thankfully we won't have to read the KK solo series on this reread.

Also, catching up on Thoth and HWW's commentary, I definitely agree the Soljer story could have used the full length treatment. The detail you both honed in on, such as including Cham and Jeckie earlier on in the story, would have been welcome.

A subplot with a Legionnaire dealing with their own PTSD or private war (which is ultimately futile) would have really put it over the top.

It's interesting that you mention PTSD, Cobie. I was thinking just today that the story could be read in that vein. In fact, "Soljer's Private War" resonates even louder today in the era of real PTSD and mass shootings.

Indeed. Given what the Legionnaires have experienced in their young lives, it's hard to believe none of them suffered from PTSD, shell shock, or whatever the 30th century equivalent would be.

Yeah, I was thinking about how when looked at as a metaphor for PTSD, it really makes the story applicable to the modern day as much as the 1970's. Great minds and all that!

And you're absolutly right: there are plenty of obvious candidates for PTSD (Dirk / Mutiny, Gim / LOSV betrayal, etc.) but really any Legionnaire could be suffering from it. Who knows what they witnessed when they've seen civilizations at war with one another or pirates raiding defenseless planets or whole worlds being blown up. There's really an untapped well there for stories.

Considering the time when Shooter wrote this, there’s a maturity shown in his writing. As HWW says, it doesn’t pick sides and shows that the heroic die just as easily as anyone else.

I mentioned that there was an issue of Suicide Squad that used the same device as this issue, in a dead man believing he was still alive through will alone.

That book also had a war issue, and it was a partisan, immature affair that showed none of Shooter’s ability here.

As for PTSD, the first name that comes into my mind is Mon-El, tormented by his 1000 years in the zone, where he witnessed death on a huge scale and who would rather die than face it again.

The main thing I wanted to say about the Soljer story was how dynamic Grell's layouts to finished product looked in it. They really just popped and took the story to the next level. In fact, as I thought about it more and more, I realized that they reminded me of Steve Lightle's work during his much later Baxter run. I've never really thought of Lightle and Baxter having similar styles before, but in at least this one instance, I can see some comparisons in their storytelling sensibilities.

In any case, though his stories have been well-rendered from his arrival on the strip, this one really shows some growth and dynamism that help solidify him as a worthy successor to Cockrum. I've been a big Grell fan for a good while now, and I'm pleased to watch him begin to show signs of developing here into the great artist that he would absolutely become.

Agreed about Grell's work on Soljer. So many shots stand out, beginning with the splash page of Garth frying an unknown person (who turns out to be Superboy) with a "death bolt." The shot of Essad jumping on the grenade literally leaps out of the panel, and the illusion of Metropolis destroyed is horrifying. Grell certainly came into his own on this one.

Superboy 211

This was a powerful follow up to Edmond Hamilton’s Element Lad origin story way back in Adventure 307.

Shooter’s mature plotting once again provides a strong story. In the end, Jan Arrah, did try to execute Roxxas, the killer of his race. In so many other stories, the hero comes to his senses before committing the act. Often this is sudden and unconvincing. Instead, Jan is all the more vengeful because Roxxas is using his dead planet as a secret base. Only after the act, does Jan realise that his murder did not bring him the peace he wanted so badly.

Years later, and in a different, rebooted Legion, Lightning Lad would also resign before killing another being, so as not to dishonour the Legion.

Element Lad's "right" to interpret Tromian law, as it's last survivor, doesn't seem to cut much ice with his colleagues. Unlike Jeckie's actions in the Baxter run. Royalty has it's privileges.

Only Chemical King saw the impact that the environment and Roxxas’ escape had on Jan. While he’s there to provide a super-powered way of letting Jan follow through on his wishes, the tale does provide some insight into Condo’s outlook. His look at Trom’s ruins is an excellent set up panel. I’d like to read into Condo’s actions that perhaps being a little bit of an unintentional outsider in the Legion made him more perceptive concerning the actions of the others.

Both Jan and Roxxas achieve critical turning points in their characterisation due to Condo’s actions. By letting them seemingly achieve their goals, he has given them a glimpse of the world where those actions would lead. He’s then brought them both back, to see if they wish to follow that path again.

In Jan’s case the answer is no. We would see him add a spiritual aspect to the practical Tromian heritage he already had. Later reboots would focus in on this aspect of Jan, most notably leading to his changes in the Abnett/Lanning run.

Roxxas would see his choice reinforced by Jan’s actions. He wanted to die, and Condo has prevented this from happening. Haunted by the ghosts of his guilt, and isolated fugitive status, Roxxas would have a breakdown. In the TMK run, the voices of his ghosts would be head as voices in his fractured personality.

This story provided the spine to one of the central threads of the TMK run. In that run, Roxxas would eventually begin a path of reconciliation. Perhaps it was the recent, mature look at Lightning Lord that prevented it happening here for Roxxas. But probably it was the simple sense of justice that Roxxas would never escape his crimes.

Interestingly, Condo would be one the team sent to raid a Haven for most wanted criminals. They trust him to handle himself in a team without too many heavyweights. Adding to the issue’s theme, Condo knows that his power is capable of killing the criminals, but that he wouldn’t be a Legionnaire if he did so. Instead he slows their metabolism instead of stopping it.

Legionnaires who kill is further reinforced through Star Boy. He provides a thematic link from Element Lad’s origin, through his own self defence and to Element’ Lad’s revenge here. Star Boy’s expulsion from the Legion when he felt that he acted in self defence, is an earlier example of the Legion throwing off plot clichés to provide unexpected outcomes.

Thom’s inclusion in the story was a little obvious as soon as Element Lad and Roxxas appeared. He was, like Condo, perhaps an unlikely choice to tackle bands of hardened crooks.

Unlike Bates, the use of Condo and Thom shows that Shooter can reach into the back stories of any Legionnaire to provide the cast for the story he needs to tell. He doesn’t need to bring in a guest star as a focal point.

211/Ultimate Revenge.

This story, after those of the Cockrum era (197-202), has always burned brightly in my memory. I think "The Ulitmate Revenge," along with "Soljer," stands out for exploring serious themes such as war and revenge. This one also takes another risk by showing a Legionnaire being fully human--desiring revenge as any human would after enduring unspeakable tragedy.

I recall reading an interview once in which Shooter identified Adventure Comics # 307 as the story which made him want to write comic books. As a then 12-year-old, he was so disturbed by Element Lad's matter-of-fact reaction to the slaughter of his entire race ("*choke* My homeworld ... gone!") that he resolved to do better. With "The Ultimate Revenge," he gets his chance to set things right and partially succeeds.

Roxxas, the slaughterer, has escaped from prison and made his way to a deep space sanctuary for criminals. Shortly after he arrives, the Legionnaires do, as well, and round up most of the criminals. The wily Roxxas, however, gets away, but not before he is spotted by Jan. The Legionnaire is so shocked to see his people's killer again that he hesitates in apprehending Roxxas. However, he soon deduces where Roxxas has fled--the ruins of Jan's homeworld, Trom--and follows him there with one purpose in mind: to kill him.

In reading this story again, I admire what Shooter attempted to do, but the story lacks much of the finesse and artistry of "Soljer." It's too straightforward and rather clunky in fulfilling its objectives. For example, Star Boy is in the story for no other reason than to remind Jan of what happens to Legionnaires who kill. Chemical King's exposition on Page 4 reminds us that killing is against the Legion's code, which is necessary information but delivered in a very obvious manner. And its convenient that Star Boy, who has worked alongside Jan for years, knows nothing of his history, giving Jan an opportunity to fill the reader in. Even if Thom was on a leave of absence at the time of Trom's genocide (as we will later find out), one would expect him to have a conversation with Jan or follow the news at some point . . .

These complaints may seem minor, but they actually interfered with my enjoyment of the story. It is simply too "bald" of a tale, if you will, too unadorned and lacking in nuance. ("Soljer," by contrast, left it up to the reader to determine if Essad was a hero or villain--and invited us to question our assumptions of both. There's no such ambiguity in "The Ultimate Revenge.")

It's great that Chem used psychology and his power to give Jan what he wanted, but it's also mighty convenient that Jan responded the way Chem expected. It's also mighty convenient that Jan got what he wanted anyway--the ultimate revenge--by letting Roxxas live.

A couple of odds and ends:
-- Dirk seems to be growing more accustomed to being a leader in this story. He's the one who examines the tapes and figures out what Jan is up to, for instance.
-- There are some nice nods to the Legion's past in this story. In addition to flashback of Star Boy's trial, we also learn that Cosmic Boy is vacationing on Kathoon (presumably with Night Girl) and that Lightning Lad has possibly gone to Amarta, another name for Winath.

211/"The Legion's Lost Home"

This story, too, is well intentioned but somehow falls flat. This is one of Bates' few forays into the Legion's past--developing a new story off of previous events. In this case, we learn whatever became of the Legion's original clubhouse after it was damaged by the Fatal Five back in Adv. 366. Simple answer: It was given to the Subs.

Again, nice idea but weak execution. The story seems to exist mainly to introduce new costumes for the Subs (which are never seen again) and to build some mystery about who they are. But the true mystery turns out to be that "Cos" and "Shady" are being impersonated by villains who just want to retrieve a rare gem from one of the Legion's holding cells.

Nice story but inconsequential.

Jarring bits:
--Shady did not wear that costume until much later than Adv. 366. Also, it's not clear why she would be sorry to see the old HQ go since she only joined the Legion in the same issue as its destruction.
--How much time passes between Page 1 and Page 2 of the story? It's not at all clear and, on re-read, left me confused as to why the Legion waited so long to give their scrapped clubhouse to the Subs.

You do a wonderful job of pointing out some unexpected treasures in this story . . .



. . . and in connecting it to later Legion stories.



To be fair, Jeckie had resigned from active membership before her execution of Nemesis Kid. I also like to think the Legionnaires were a bit older and more experienced by then, and more understanding of Jeckie's situation. In reality, I know that Levitz substituted Jeckie for Supergirl, and, in doing so, defeated any sort of in-universe logic.



Very interesting interpretation of this scene. I thought of it as more of a throwaway line, but I like where you're going with this.

Worst super villain hideout...of space. "Oh, it's only hidden from one side." It has that nice touch of DC Silver Age Sci-fi. Taking a premise and running with it.




I do agree that they were obviously there for those reasons. But I felt that, if the story had a few more pages, it could have been hidden a little more in some other background Legionnaires. I do think that using Star Boy's back story to push this tale along is a step up from stories where only Star Boy's powers could save the day, and he just happens to be on duty. I kept wondering what Ayla was doing in this story. Perhaps Garth, and the bitterness long running resentment can cause, could have been an option for a longer tale.



I forgot to add this into mine. It was a surprise. Imagine all those Legion cafeteria conversations where Thom puts his foot in it, because he can't be bothered learning about anyone else. I had even checked out the Legion index to see who had been in the fist Element Lad story. Sure enough, there was Sun Boy making his presence, along with Condo and Thom for different reasons, necessary. I think Thom is a bit bitter after the Legion creators forgot about him for so long, they developed Ultra Boy in his place.



Between the panels of this issue and next, Jan gets a hold of the first working gun he finds, and goes back to get Roxxas before he's carted off to a rubber room of space.

I'd have liked to have seen Jan come to terms with pulling that trigger. I'd also have liked to see the reaction of the other Legionnaires to one of their own who was willing to kill, even if it didn't quite work out that way.



I couldn't resist putting the comparison in Looking back over the comments though, I'd probably not like to see a group hide behind different membership statuses to excuse actions such as murder. Likewise, it's an issue that being older may or may not make you more likely to forgive such an action. Neither of which I was thinking of when I posted it.




Every little hint helps when it comes to underused characters like Condo. This was a very good issue for him.

I do wonder if he said "that scum deserves to die" before Jan pulled the trigger or just as he was doing it anyway. The former may helped goad Jan into doing it, robbing him of the complete freedom of an action he could then learn from. The latter, which seems more likely considering the depowering of the gun and altering Roxxas' metabolism is just to prevent Superboy acting.

But it's an interesting choice of words. Perhaps the criminality on Phlon gave him a different outlook on justice. It's an outlook that he knows is different as well as he knows the boundaries not to cross. For example, earlier in this story he notes that he could kill the criminals on Haven, but makes the choice not to. That's the choice he gives Jan by stopping Superboy. Jan failed that test, but Condo had taken extra steps to prevent the end of Jan's time in the Legion.



thanks

Ayla should have changed her name to Fill Up the Numbers Lass, as she serves the same non-role in 202 and 207's lead story and is conveniently too ill to do anything (except fill the reader in with exposition) in 207's backup.

Yeah, Thom belonged in this story for exactly the reason you state: his own history of killing and being expelled. It would have made more sense, though, if Chem had been the one to not know about Jan's past. Chem hadn't been around that long.

However, the notion of Thom being so self-absorbed that he knows nothing of his teammates' lives has a certain amount of real-world appeal.

Adding to the Silver Age sci fi goofiness of the Haven is that Trom, a now uninhabited planet, is left without any guards or sentries or automated warnings. What's to prevent more pirates from looting whatever valuables they can find? What's to prevent another race from colonizing the planet?

*Sigh* Growing up ruins the logic of some of these old stories.

There was that Legion election issue by Levitz/Giffen where he sits around moping about his own bad fortune. In the midst of a team with members who have suffered numerous traumatic events. It might even have been with Wildfire. Me, me, me, me with Thom

Well, it's (later?) established that the planet is highly radioactive, which presumably would discourage colonists.

Good point, EDE, though if the Trommites could survive there, presumably other radiation-resistant species could, too.

Superboy #211 1st story

Following the terrific lead story last issue, #211 gives another story that I've always loved, and upon reread feel that even more so. Shooter really is back; and Grell continued to bring his A-game.

First and foremost, it is an excellent idea to bring back Roxxas, one of those silver age characters that could have easily been lost to obscurity like Kranyak or Molock. Instead Shooter recognized how potent a story his return would be, and he plays it exactly as it should: super-emotional, with Element Lad pulling the story forward as he pursues Roxxas and leads the other Legionnaires a chase.

The theme, a message on revenge, isn't new but it works because it's grounded in characters we love with motivations we understand and share. The twist with Condo at the end adds a layer of heaviness to the story, as Jan was ready to pull the trigger but thankfully is saved by Condo's quick thinking. If only all of us could be saved from our own stupid, petty decisions. Nonetheless, Jan not being the one to make the decision is not an easy answer and that makes it feel genuine and really. Shooter caps it off by Roxxas revealing how haunted he is by his actions which sends Jan's story home.

Btw, love that Condo plays such a great role in this story.

I also love the attention to continuity here. Ayla & Condo joined after Jan did and Thom was on his extended leave; that's good attention to detail. Thom's moment showing his regret in killing Kenz Nuhor is also excellent, and another great throwback to past history that adds weight to the story. HWW spoke about continuity enhancing stories a few pages ago, and his story served as a perfect example.

All in all, there's a lot to love here.

--------------------

Superboy #211 2nd story

The second story starts out a bit slow with me whispering to myself "what the eff is this all about now?" There's great art but it feels pointless. And then quickly, we start to see an interesting twist.

And then finally, a nice little payoff: the Subs! After a few years we get a quick check-in, as they have cool new Grell costumes and get to inherit the Legion's original, iconic headquarters.

It's one of the more forgettable stories, but as a back-up, it's a nice little story that I appreciate. Naturally, Bates is the best at these little novelty gems.

----------------

Letters Page Alert!

Tom Bierbaum is spotted in the letters page gushing about the recent stories!

A few thoughts on your comments:

- Thoth, nice line of thinking connecting Jan and Roxxas' futures henceforth from this story. You nailed it.

- HWW, great catch seeing Cos visiting Night Girl. I can't recall if they were ever officially dating as of yet?

- Also, good comment on Dirk and his growing comfort with leadership. These moments are small, but as we've said, they craft a subtle development for the character. We've definitely seen this with Dirk again and again.

- regarding Thom's not knowing about Jan's past, I like this line from HWW: "However, the notion of Thom being so self-absorbed that he knows nothing of his teammates' lives has a certain amount of real-world appeal". Yeah, I like that too. Who doesn't know someone like that?

Our thought on Thom seem to match up with the writers...


From Lightning Lad's thread...

Shooter: A big fullback of a guy, he is slow, steady. faithful, honorable, reliable, loyal, thrifty, brave, clean and reverent. And dumb. And probably hung like a horse, which will be the deciding factor in Dream Girl's settling down with him in that isolated observatory.

Bierbaums: Maybe not as bright or as deep as most of his teammates, but Thom is a good man who really believes in the Legion way. And he's determined and earnest enough to make it work. Initially, he and Dream Girl were a good match, but as Nura matured, she came to overshadow him in virtually all areas except simple strength of character, and that's left a gap in Nura's life since they split.

[Off-topic: I just noticed: thoth registered exactly 10 years after Cobie. Great minds and all that.]

Very cool! Which leads to two major observations:

- there is guaranteed to be another major, incredibly important-to-the-LMB poster who will debut on September 17, 2023. Let the speculation begin now!

- in LMB-fiction, this may mean Thoth is somehow related to me.

And I'm related to both of you! My birthday is eight days after your registrations, and I was born 40 years before yours and 50 years before thoth's*.


*I'm actually only 28 due to time travel.

Amazingly, I was actually born on my registration date! My parents registered me first thing. I had my user name before I even had my real name.

(okay, okay, we're really getting off on a tangent, I know )

Later it would be revealed that Cobie travelled back from the Legion's time and has been "arranging" for poster to register at set dates as part of his master plan.

In other news, it was a happy day when thoth found out he was the long lost forum son of Cobie. thoth told eager Omni-reporters and his new dad "Can I get the keys for the time bubble and some walking money for the bar?"

Legion re-read extra! I wonder if Thom was written out, not because the writer's forgot, but because he was too self absorbed to notice he had to be somewhere?

Rereading Shooter's comments I remember being a bit stunned that he thought of them in that way.

Superboy 212

Tinya, Tenzil, Rokk and Salu are transported to WWII after this issue to become “The Losers!” No, forget that. It’s just Calorie Queen bad mouthing our heroes on the cover. Recent issue shave had little bits of the action, or dialogue, appear over the bottom of the large logo. It’s a nice touch. But the issue loses points as the splash page repeats the cover again.

In the world of comics where women are provocatively dressed for their supposedly male audience, Phantom Lad’s skimpy costume shows that balance redressed (if not undressed) in the Legion’s time.

This issue offers us a different take on the tale that formed the Legion of Substitute Heroes. We see a hopeful candidate fail to make the grade, only to end up as part of a super powered group. Except that the reason that these guys can’t get in, is because their powers are already held by resident Legionnaires.

Anyone’s first question would be “Well, what about the two Kryptonians then?” The Legion will try to get round this by saying that “they’re special” or that “one is there for their super breath and the other for super ventriloquism”, but it’s a con.

The rejects are upset, and Cosmic Boy and Chameleon Boy’s dismissal of their challenge will not have helped. Unlike the Subs, the Rejects feel they can power their way onto the team.


The six Legionnaires are taken out very easily by their counterparts. Sure, there’s a message coming up as a payoff to this. But it’s disheartening to see that all that Legion training hasn’t sharpened them up individually.

The book tries so hard usually to make the Legionnaires operate along with Superboy. But he’s cealry on a different level, defeating all six interlopers in seconds. He does use that annoying stretchy cape again. I had no idea it was this popular a device for writers, until this reread thread. It creates a divide between the likes of Superboy and the Legion.

It’s a divide heightened by Cosmic Boy and Cham’s response to Superboy’s intervention. Although they really were beaten, they feel slighted that he had to save them and now they want to turn the tables on the rejects. The Legionnaires don’t look or sound too good at this point in the book, carrying a poor attitude throughout. There are a couple of Rejects who do seem like better prospects if this tale was your only contact with the Legion.

This story had an unpublished page. Following his defeat at the hands of Calorie Queen, Tenzil adopts that standard “I’m not worthy” trope of the Legion. He’s taken to task by Karate Kid. Val feels that, while Superboy has multiple powers, the others think they have to prove themselves to be Legionnaires. He also points out that, while a Legionnaire doesn’t always win, he always fights. Tenzil is left with a decision to make.

Which is why when we return to the published book, Tenzil at first looks uncertain in the return match, and then seemingly runs away.

The Legion win the return battle by using teamwork. They say that it’s this teamwork that allows super heroes to win. Which is odd. None of them thought to plan anything during the several hours they had between fights. It takes Tenzil to remind them of it.

Which is another odd thing, because Tenzil acts alone to defeat Calorie Queen, so team work never came up there. He uses props, but not the help of a colleague. Other oddities include no one spotted Chameleon Boy or Chameleon Kid change into pillars/ trees in the middle of a fight in an uncluttered plaza.

If the Durlans were that good at disguise, there was a chance that Tenzil would have eaten one of them by mistake to win his combat. I dread to think of the internal injuries Cosmic Boy causes Esper Lass by magnetically spinning the iron in her blood.

It’s a straightforward story, built on an older concept. But the execution doesn’t really work. Sometimes this can be due to a limited number of pages, but I’m glad that this one didn’t have more to work with and that it was ended quickly. The Legion’s attitude to both rejects and Superboy was ungracious. They were easily defeated despite being professional versions of the rejects, and they won only because one of them showed some initiative.

The drafting of Tenzil as a Bismollian representative was a well-executed subplot throughout the story. It gives Tenzil’s triumph over self-doubt a capstone after he has also helped his colleagues.

This subplot would be used in a similar way years later in the Levitz run, when Star Boy was summoned to be his home world’s planetary champion.

Another reprise would be Karate Kid’s speech in the unpublished page. Here it distinguishes a gap between Legionnaires and Superboy, highlighted earlier in Superboy’s dispatching the rejects, and the need to constantly prove yourself.

Val would use a very similar speech at the start of the Baxter run. Only there, he would make the distinction between himself and the whole of the Legion. His reasoning there was based around his constant training to maintain his skills, compared to having dependable super powers that always worked when required. His statement that “..A Legionnaire doesn’t always win…” here reminds me of the fatal events following his speech in those Baxter issues.

Of course, it wasn’t just Superboy and Supergirl who had multiple powers. There’s Lar and Jo too. So Val’s lines don’t really hold true for the group, let alone how those powers are used. Val’s speech does highlight the growing number of newer characters who also had multiple powers though. Wildfire and Timberwolf were two and later Bronze Age characters would also have more than one ability. There’s also the growing tendency for characters to develop their super abilities in more powerful ways as time goes on.

So perhaps it marks a point where it’s recognised that there was a definite move towards a Legion in which there were fewer characters with odd ball powers.

Making this point clear was Tenzil’s departure this issue, joining Lu and Chuck on the way out of the group. Tenzil’s unacted upon suggestion that the worthy Calorie Queen could replace him, emphasises the shift.

It also highlights the differences between Superboy and the rest of the Legion, in the minds of the creative team. That's something that would also come to a head alter on.

212/Last Fight

I actually found myself rooting for the rejects in this one. It's about time somebody gave the Legionnaires a comeuppance for their nasty treatment of applicants all through the Adventure run. Our so-called heroes were so mean and arrogant, they would put Steve Jobs to shame.

It was silly, of course, for the rejects to think they could force their way into the Legion, but people have done a lot sillier things. Also, these guys apparently didn't read the fine print on their Legion applications: No duplication of powers. (What, you mean there was no fine print? Then the Legion really does have a lot to answer for. I see a multitude of lawsuits coming.)

What's even more interesting is that some of these rejects are more powerful than the Legionnaires they purport to replace. Surely the Legion could have done something with these promising young would-be heroes: send them to the long unseen Legion Academy perhaps? But the truth of the matter is, the Legionnaires were jealous. That's gotta be the reason.

No, the Legionnaires do not come off well in this story. They let their emotions get the best of them, something no hero should ever do.

From an adolescent's point of view, though, I understood how the Legionnaires felt when I first read this story. They were upstaged in their own headquarters and, to make matters worse, they were upstaged again by Superboy. It would be as if Mommy or Daddy had come running to save Little Rokky from the neighborhood bullies. Win or lose, Little Rokky has to do some things for himself.

So, if the audience for this story is very young, as Boltinoff thought they were (he insisted that the Legionnaires were all about 15 years old, per Shooter in The Legion Companion), it works on an emotional level, but not much else.

Grell can't even be bothered to come up with imaginative costume designs for the rejects, save for Magno-Boy and Calorie Queen. The rest are boring or rip-offs of the Legionnaires' costumes. (What was Phantom Lad thinking? His fixation with Tinya seems to go beyond merely taking her place.)

And so we say goodbye to Tenz, but he had not been a presence in some time. The last issue in which he played an active role was back in # 184, IIRC. So Tenz's departure--his fans notwithstanding--was not a big deal, though the manner of his leaving gets points for being unique. As the Vietnam War had just ended for the US, the prospect of being drafted still loomed in young men's minds (and this prospect may have inspired "Soljer's Private War," as I previously suggested). It was nice to see Shooter introduce this reality into a Legion story and spin it in a new way.

The only other saving grace in this story is Calorie Queen, who, despite a name that's even sillier than that of the Legionnaire she wanted to replace, shows some gumption and personality. It's truly a shame the Legion did not give her a second chance. It makes me wonder why the story ended the way it did, with a near-promise for her return.

(In fact, I was so convinced of her return that, shortly after I read this story, I drew a group picture of the Legion with her in a prominent spot. Imagine how foolish I felt when she did not reappear.)

The "missing page" (which was also published in the Legion Handbook) provides some characterization, but it, too, fails to convince. Tenz has been a Legionnaire for many years now, yet he thinks of giving up just because he was "clobbered by a girl"? How fragile the male ego.

(Oh, and by the way, about the "clobbered by a girl" line--it inspired the final scene in my Legion fanfic, "Myriad," which I linked to some time ago. When Tenz tells Lyle he would probably never get "clobbered by a girl," I was attempting some ironic foreshadowing. I wonder if anyone caught it. )

212/Death Stroke

So, Cosmic Boy gets two chances to act like a jerk in the same issue. Must be some kind of record.

The first half of this story I like because it focuses on two underutilized female characters, Shadow Lass and Night Girl. They save each other's lives while battling a typical gang of thugs. Then we get a recap of Lydda's origin followed by the reason she went after the gang alone: to prove something to Cosmic Boy, who jilted her that evening because she wouldn't abandon a mission in order to spend time with him.

Cos must have picked up some of Val's attitude from back in 206. Perhaps the Legion boys were suffering from a contagious disease of their own, the prick plague?

In any event, it's at this point that the story turns south--way south. Lydda repays Shady's kindness by telling her to get lost so Lydda can go after the thugs on her own. But the thugs, smugly believing they've killed Lydda, decide to preempt Cosmic Boy's inevitable revenge by killing him. They catch up with Cos just after he's been a jerk again, not allowing his date of the evening to finish the movie they're watching because he finds her as intelligent "as a clam."

Before the villains can off Cos, Lydda catches up them just as the sun rises. She uses the last of her power to dive bomb into the baddies. Then, after being slapped by one of the thugs, she lays there helplessly while Cos gets beats up the bad guys.

So, what could have been a spotlight of female empowerment or a female buddy story turns out to be a setup for the male hero to save the day.

To make matters even more unbelievable, Lydda forgives Rokk for his assholery. Personally, I find their last lines to be rather creepy:

Cos: After you've been checked out, I know a swell spot for a picnic--during the daytime, of course--

Lydda: --when I can't resist you! You know how to reach a girl, don't you?

A girl with very low self esteem, perhaps.

The artwork is better here--particularly in the night-time scenes. There's a lovely shot of Lydda at the bottom of Page 4, and it's nice to see Charles Bronson movies retaining their popularity after a thousand years.

Superboy 212 - Backup

I must have got this issue fairly late on. Up until then, I had thought that the Shadow Lass/ Night Girl combo would make an impressive team, without knowing that it had already been done.

I'm also used to seeing Lydda wearing a bit more clothing, so the skimpy outfit was a bit of a surprise too. I thought it was Laurel Kent for a moment.

I'd like to focus on Lydda's selflessness throughout the story. She may be a substitute ("reject" gets another mention), but she takes her role seriously. As she should considering the number of times the Subs have saved the Legion, and how effective they were as a unit, before their comedy spell with Giffen.

Lydda saves Shady's life without thinking of herself. She then saves Rokk, again knowing that it might be the last action she ever takes, and despite their breakup.

And that's what looms in the background of this story. Lydda's relationship with Rokk. He's selfish, conceited and disrespectful. It's not the first time he's been written like this either. He's like that in this issue's first story too.

While he realises how much he misses Lydda, Rokk gets away far too easily as the couple are reconciled in a "happy" ending. I don't think he's really learned any real lesson here. I would have preferred it if Lydda had beaten the interesting group of crooks, to show Rokk that she's a lot more than someone he can make demands of at the drop of a hat.

Having Shady also help in the finale would have shown Rokk that his attitude as a Legionnaire was wrong too. But somehow, I don't think that any of this would have crossed Shooter's mind.

The reprise of Lydda's backstory doesn't do her any favours either. Her father tells her bluntly that he wanted a son. He wants her to be famous to the point that he experiments on her. Since this story has Lydda look up to Rokk as "masculine and secure" perhaps she's seeking approval from a surrogate father figure.

Rokk's macho outlook is further highlighted in this story by his possessiveness over Lydda and taking his replacement date (whose name he gets wrong which is inconsiderate) to see Death Wish CCLXXVI.

There's some problems around Night Girl's powers. Kathoon has lights. They have no sun, but there's heat, power and definitely light since we can see what's going on in the panels. Yet, she's super strong there. So, it should be a property of solar radiation that weakens her (ah, comic science) not just turning on a light, as shown here.

Then there's the issue that every crook knows how her powers work. It's worse than everyone knowing that Projectra's powers are illusion based. At least Jeckie's illusions defy the senses. Lydda is a bit of a sitting duck. Perhaps keeping that information more of a secret would have helped the Legion and the subs a bit more.

Plus points are the early focus on Lydda and Shady; some ncie Grell work; an old fashioned catch the crooks plot and Lydda uses the last of her power as the sun rises.

A final thought on Rokk. Take his attitude here and in a number of stories: Selfish, conceited etc. Then add in that he can be pushed to vengeance (the firebombing attack on his family). Add to that his interest in history and time travel along with the dark, terrible future he's supposed to have. And the reveal of him being the Time Trapper is as plausible as a number of other options.

"And at the end of days, the Trapper sat alone amidst the ruins of aeons. Alone, because every woman knew what a tool he was. Rokk Krinn: Trapper Tool."

It is kind of interesting seeing how Rokk was portrayed in this era when nowadays the accepted portrayal is that he's a calm collected intelligent leader and Garth is the brash immature one!

Superboy #212

The Legion of Super-Rejects story is one of those ones that is full of little novelties that make it pleasing to a committed LSH reader but when taken on its own as a story kind of comes up pretty short. The concept itself, hitting on the concept of several Legionnaires coming from planets full of potential replacements, is a natural one rife for exploration so kudos to Shooter for thinking of it. The subsequent anxiety the Legionnaires feel and the desire to prove themselves in an official battle is natural too.

But the resolution leaves me feeling unfulfilled. I get what he's going for--teamwork and cleverness make a Legionnaire. But those things are taught, and I doubt all of the Legionnaires themselves knew that on day one. So really...no one actually ever proves the Rejects wrong. No one fights for and wins their spot like one does on a sports team. So I don't love it.

This issue is noteworthy because it eliminates the last Adventure era member that I consider part of the "70's housecleaning". I hate to see my man Tenzil leave but I've always known it to happen now so I accept it. I do like how it's done though: Shooter lived through a time in US history when the draft was terrifying beyond belief; yet he turns that here into something similar but oddly intriguing. Perhaps drafting politicians would be 100x better? I think it's kind of brilliant!

I also get the sense Calorie Queen had more planned, and Shooter was setting her up to join? Somewhere, someone put the kibosh on that! I guess they finally got the Bismollion out after over a decade of jokes and didn't want to trade him in for another.

Meanwhile, I like a lot of other things:

- Ferro Lad statue in the beginning is a nice touch.

- I also like how Cos and Cham are kind of dicks to the rejects. I mean c'mon. If it was me my response would be "fuck off junior I've got work to do". Especially if I was founder or leader of the Espionage Squad.

- and lastly, the sexiness factor is through the roof here! Grell really goes for it about the Rejects! Cal and especially Esper Lass look good. And I know Lash and other "leg men" love that Phantom Lad.

------------------

As for the second story, I'll say this: I've never liked it because Cos acts like such a jerk. It's so over the top that I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop and find out its an all an act. But it's not.

But here's what I do like:

- Night Girl and her new costume reach new levels of sexiness that are inconceivable. Perhaps the hottest character / costume ever.

- Crafty Colson is a super obscure villain who appears twice! This is his first one.

- a clone of Charles Bronson is a movie star in the 31st century! Because there's no way Death Wish 3 survived 1,000 years.

- Sinde gets one panel but gets dozens of threads on Legion World, inspiring hilarity beyond imagining. I'll always owe her for all those laughs!

Otherwise, the less said about this one the better.

Catching up on comments, let me first say: WOW!! I never knew there was a missing page and it totally makes sense. It sounds like it doesn't improve the story at all, which is pretty impossible to do, but at least it addresses a real narrative bump in the story structure.

Also love Thoth's insight about Lydda's feelings for Rokk being influenced by a desire to win her father's love. I think that's pretty spot on.

HWW, love that you drew a pick of the team with Cal on it. Makes total sense after reading the issue!

All in all: tough issue to read though great to look at.

Perhaps someone can scan in the missing page. In the meantime, here's my "trans-script" of the page:

Panel 1. KK and Tenz in the rec room. KK's hand on Tenz's shoulder.

KK: I saw what happened! Superboy doesn't understand how important pride can be . . . He has a variety of powers, but the rest of us have to prove to ourselves we deserve to be Legionnaires!

Panel 2. Tenz turns to face KK.

Tenz: Maybe I don't deserve to belong, Karate Kid! Being able to eat and digest any kind of matter isn't exactly world-shaking! Lots of times I felt as though I didn't qualify for the Legion!

Panel 3. Two-shot: Tenz, in shadow grimaces looks ashamed as KK looks on.

Tenz: To top it off, I got clobbered by a girl! Maybe I should quit and let her take my place!

KK: Come on--a Legionnaire doesn't always win . . .

Panel 4. With a dismissive wave, KK walks off, leaving Tenz with clenched fists.

KK: ... but he always fights! If you want to chicken out, do it before the action! Don't cave in when the others are counting on you!

Panel 5. Full shot of Tenz alone, defeated.

No dialogue.

Thanks, thoth.

You know, in re-reading that page, it occurs to me that, while Tenz's "clobbered by a girl" line may sound sexist today, it made perfect sense at the time. I imagine adolescent boys of any generation hate the idea of being beaten by a girl. It's one of those "manly" notions that males adopt as they struggle to understand their own roles as they grow up and what it means to be masculine.

I still see this attitude in my students, many of whom are active duty military members. The subject of women in combat frequently comes up, and the male soldiers almost always oppose the idea. They claim that it would be distracting for male soldiers, who have a natural desire to protect women, and that women cannot meet the physical requirements of combat. (Of course, there are many examples which prove otherwise.) My female soldier students are invariably in favor of women serving in combat.

Given the notion that Tenz never had been "beaten by a girl" before, his self-doubt here may be easier to understand (though still misguided).

Before this thread slips out of sight, I wanted to add some thoughts on 211 and 212, the last two that I didn't get a chance to comment on.

211:

First, I'd like to say that 211's lead story, "The Ultimate Revenge", was my very favorite of this volume. The story itself was pretty darned good, but it's made even better by how it revolves around Legion history. First, it has the terrific idea to follow up on the most tragic thing to ever happen to a Legionnaire by revisiting the genocide of Element Lad's people. Second, it incorporates Thom's killing of Kenz Nuhor to enhance Jan's story.

Many Legion stories, particularly the more recent in the Archive editions, seem mostly to tell their tales in a vacuum. Yes, some villains return and what-not, but rarely has the vast body of stories already told been utilized to delve into the Legion's backstory or enhance the current story with some perspective on what's happened before. Here, both do, and I really loved it.

In Element Lad's original intro, what happened to his people is kind of glazed over. Here, we find out exactly how Trom's demise was carried out and revisit what was intended as a one-shot villain and how he's dealing with what he'd wrought.

It's all fascinating as is Jan's decision to carry out his vengeance, rather than turn the other cheek. Only Condo's quick thinking prevents it. I think that realization is key for him and helps Jan move on to the spritual take on the tragedy that we later see him adapt. Plus, with how it ends for Roxxas, you can start to fill in the blanks from here and when we (presumably) next see him in 5YL.

It seems, though, that maybe Jan should have at least been court-martialled, as the murderous intent was clearly there and was only averted due to Condo's quick thinking. I like to think, though, that the Legion chose to look the other way out of compassion for him. Though Superboy, for example, had lost his people as well, it was not due to the sheer malevolence of one man and his gang of space-pirates as it was here.

It's a great story on a number of levels. Subtle and not over-done. And, again, I love Thom's inclusion and the perspective he has to offer based on his own experiences. The Legionnaires have a wealth of backstory to be re-examined and explored. It's nice to see Shooter do so here, especially, revisiting stories that were originally told by other creators and that preceded his original run on the characters.

As for "The Legion's Lost Home"? Not much to say there. It was cute and ultimately, as the Hitchhiker's Guide says about Earth, "mostly harmless".

212, I just read today, as a matter of fact. (I had read 211 about the same time as the rest of you but got derailed by a change at work and, sadly, by Dev's death.)

I thought the lead story "Last Fight for a Legionnaire" was entertaining and featured a pretty decent alternate take from what other Legion rejects had done. I thought it was interesting for applicants from the same planets and with the same powers as current Legionnaires to challenge the powers duplication rule and do so by proving themselves better at what they do and potentially getting in as replacements for that reason.

Hoestly, I was fully expecting the re-match to be one-on-one with each Legionnaire proving themselves against his or her challenger. That didn't happen, except ironically with Tenzil out-smarting Calorie Queen. While I can see the "teamwork" point Shooter was making, I would have liked to have seen each Legionnaire ultimately proven superior after all were handed their asses a few pages earlier.

And, of course, we get three future LSVers out of this story: Esper Lass, Magno Lad and Micro Lad. I thought at first that the Durlan would be Chameleon Chief until I remembered that the Chief was already an LSVer and appeared only a few issues ago.

I really love Calorie Queen's design and wouldn't have minded at all had she taken Tenzil's place. Speaking of Tenzil, it was interesting to finally see the story where he got drafted and be reminded in the caption that it helps pay off where we see him in Shooter's Adult Legion story. I also can't help but smile thinking of where this takes him 5YL. It does, however, make me wonder about the circumstances that bring him to eat the Miracle Machine and get driven insane by its consumption in another story that I haven't read yet. I wonder when it happens?

As for "A Death Stroke at Dawn", it's really a shame to see Shooter's misogynistic attitudes out themselves in a story again. "Again" meaning, I don't know how much there has been in his previous LSH stories, but there is certainly ample evidence in his later stories I've recently read, such as in his Avengers run.

What starts out looking like an awesome Shady-Lydda team-up story just devolves into a portrait of a woman with no self-respect and her knuckle-dragging neanderthal of a boyfriend. I'd love to say that this is Shooter trying to inject some reality into these characters by portraying a very imperfect and, sadly, somewhat realistic relationship, but I think this is/was how he thought couples were supposed to relate. I don't know if this is his own poorly developed view of relationships or if it somehow reflects his own parents' relationship that he took for "normal". In any case it persists throughout his later writings and is definitely a huge flaw in his works.

"Testing the waters" for a possible return to the re-read...



Lardy, that mirrors my own thoughts about this story and about Shooter in general 100%, and it was so beautifully put, I couldn't have said it better myself. Thank you.

He was talented, no doubt about that. I consider four of the six stories of his in this volume to be among his very best work, and regret that I was too messed up at the time to review them. But it's all too clear he had what might be called..."issues" with women.

I've never met the man, but I get the impression -- from analyzing his stories, reading interviews with him and articles about him -- that he had to grow up way too fast. And when that happens to people, they often times turn out, shall we say, underdeveloped in emotional and social matters.

What I think he really needed was a hard-ass editor (i.e. Mort Weisinger) who could rein in his more disturbing and self-indulgent tendencies. That his creepy sexual politics first surfaced late in the Adventure run (the ending of the Taurus Gang story in Volume 8) IMO lends credence to the theory that Weisinger was delegating a lot his editorial duties shortly before he retired. And, of course, at Marvel, Shooter was EiC for most of the time he was there, so there was nobody to stop him from writing and/or plotting some very disturbing stories indeed.

On the topic of Mort Weisinger and young Jim Shooter, Weisinger was actually pretty abusive toward him and I wouldn't be surprised if some of those experiences carried over into how Shooter would later handle his own editorial reigns at Marvel.

To quote some posters at CBR on the subject,

Weisinger's methods were undeniably harsh, but he got good results. He treated all his writers badly, not question about that. Jerry Siegel quit working for him even though he was turning out some of the best scripts of his life. Unfortunately, that's just how it often goes in the entertainment industry. It attracts extreme personalities -- the hyper-sensitive and the under-sensitive. Frequently, it's the latter who end up in charge.

Is it a coincidence then that Shooter's reign in Marvel was arguably their best period creatively and from a maintenance of tight continuity standpoint?

I don't fully agree, Stalgie, but there was certainly a good amount of significant work being turned out from Marvel at that time, although I think a lot of the credit for the tight continuity would have to go to the late Mark Gruenwald.

According to Sean Howe's book "Marvel Comics: The Inside Story", Shooter became such a micro-managing tyrant his last two or three years at Marvel that he arguably ended up tearing down what he had built up (Exhibit A: Secret Wars and Secret Wars II.)

That's also a good point, Fanfie. Gruenwald was definitely one of the top notch continuity hounds in comics at the time and I'm sure Shooter's tenure would not be as fondly remembered by fans without him.



Ugh, Secret Wars.

Aside from alienating many creators, that may be the one major creative dark mark on his Marvel era resume. Shooter single-handedly invented the dumb, storyless event comic overnight with Secret Wars.

Something else else I forgot to mention in earlier posts was that Weisinger and most of the writers who worked for him came from a generation that was discouraged from challenging authority and/or risking job security. Shooter was almost alone among his peers with the old-school attitudes he learned from Weisinger, so there was bound to be friction.

As for events, there have been many that I've liked a great deal, including the original event, "The Avengers-Defenders War", which was published over a decade before "Secret Wars". I think Shooter set a bad precedent with both of the original Secret Wars events -- the first one was dumbed down because, with the toy line attached, it was aimed at grade-schoolers; the second was just a gross exercises in undiluted egomania. I haven't read the "Unity" event from the early 90s when Shooter was running Valiant Comics, but I think it's telling that the main baddie was a woman.

You're welcome. But thanks right back atcha for opening my eyes about Shooter's misogynism last year when I reviewed the Korvac Saga. I certainly thought of you as I wrote my reaction to the Night Girl story.



I'd be curious to hear which ones those were and what your thoughts were on them!

Awwww...you're welcome, Lardy.

Re: the four Shooter stories in this volume that I liked, I think "Soljer" is unbelievably powerful yet never preachy or heavy-handed, and Grell really seemed to be giving the art his all; the Karate Kid story is a superior potboiler which engaged me despite my dislike for the character; the Super-Rejects story again has exceptional Grell art, as well as plenty of good character bits, although I agree with you that the resolution could have been better; and the Element Lad/Roxxas story is a great study in how far even a gentle soul like Jan can be pushed, yet still end up making the morally right decision; that's why I think Erin should have been killed by Roxxas in 5YL as originally planned -- would Jan have been able to pass this test the way the passed the previous one? We'll never know, outside of fan fiction.

Lardy and Fanfie--welcome back to the reviews (and welcome, Kappa Kid, er, Stalgie).

Lardy, you're right about "The Ultimate Revenge" springing out of two previous Adventure stories. At the time, I think this is what I enjoyed most about the story--that the Legion had a past which could be used as a springboard for current stories. (Marvel did this routinely, but it was still unexplored territory at DC.)

I also agree that Jan should have been court martialed. Regardless of how the incident turned out, the intent to murder was there.

Um, I'm not sure what you mean about Jan passing the test in 211, Fanfie. In my view, he failed.

Thanks, He Who.

One caveat: I may not be returning full-time to the re-read until Volume 13, when Shooter and Boltinoff give way to Levitz and O'Neil. Volume 12 just has too much dreck in it, IMO.

Well, I see his decision not to kill Roxxas as passing the test. But there is admittedly a lot of moral gray in that story (which is what makes it so good.) I'll have to re-re-read it, and also look at what you guys said about it earlier in this thread.

Thanks! It was never my intent to leave, but things happen. Other than work stuff, it really was hard to get back into the flow of reviewing stories after losing Dev. It just seemed a trivial thing in light of his tragedy. But I ultimately know he'd want us to continue doing what we love, just as he would.



DC was soooo behind the curve on this sort of thing! It's hard not to prefer same-era Marvel when past stories routinely affected current stories, magnifying their significance, with the latter. Nothing wrong with standalones but continuity and call-backs certainly are rewarding for long-time readers. Plus, this story far from alienates newer readers as everything they need to know is recapped.



I'm torn. Part of me says it totally should have happened. The other part is happy that the Legionnaires showed compassion for him and let it go.

Ooooooh-kay. I had forgotten about the Chem twist. Like I said, I was really messed up around the time I was re-reading the last few stories in this volume, so even an important detail like that got by me.

Jan did pull the trigger, but he also learned something important about himself when he realized it wasn't what he wanted. So in that sense, he passed the test.

Good point, Lardy. That's more or less what I was thinking but couldn't quite articulate.

Let's face it--you forgot that Jan pulled the trigger. But you did remember what he learned from the story!

Exactly.

You're both right that Jan learned a powerful lesson after he pulled the trigger (and, more importantly, so did the reader). However, in my view, Jan still failed his ultimate test.

He gave in to his base desire for revenge. In that instant, he became no different from any villain who does the same thing. The true test of Jan's character was holding fast to the Legion's ideals--the ideals he embraced--in the face of enormous temptation. To use a simplistic analogy, it's easy to learn that one should not steal a piece of candy after being caught. It's far greater test of character to choose not to steal in the first place.

It's interesting to compare Jan's situation with Thom's. Thom's life was threatened, so he had a legitimate reason to kill Nuhor (even though an alternative existed). Jan had no such reason to kill Roxxas, as the latter was kneeling before him and unarmed. The reason Jan gives--as the last surviving Trommite, he had a right to execute Roxxas--is shallow justification. It would not hold up if the relative of a murder victim executed the killer, and it should not hold up for Jan.

The major difference, though, is that Roxxas lived while Nuhor did not. But Roxxas did not live through any action of Jan's.

Jan's justification under Trommite law is also wishy washy in my opinion. He's invoking the justice system of a civilization that effectively no longer exists. Under what court of law, would invoking that rule work? I would guess that the Science Police would brand him as nothing better than a religious terrorist under that kind of thinking.

I don't know. I tend to sympathize with him. I mean, Roxxas killed his entire race! That's something extraordinarily heavy for him to deal with. Should a Jew who lost his family and whole village at Auschwitz not want to kill Hitler if he had the chance? Wouldn't he have the right?

Oh, it's definitely against Legion Code, and Jan notably resigns just before he commits the act. The Legion would definitely oust him if the act stood, but I'm not so sure he'd be convicted of criminal charges under the circumstances. Or if he was, the charges or the sentence would be well below their fullest extent.

I sympathize with Jan, too, just as I would with the relative of a murder victim or anyone who has endured horrific tragedy. But sympathy does not equate with condoning his actions.



It would be totally understandable if he or she wanted to kill Hitler.



I would argue no.

I completely sympathize with Jan too! It's some pretty heavy stuff to deal with when you have the opportunity to avenge the deaths of millions by taking one murderer's life. Unfortunately, Jan's justification wouldn't be justified under a court of law. Capital punishment is always an interesting debate to see in superhero comics and I usually air on the side of mercy, but there are good arguments on both sides. In hindsight, I wish that Shooter could have spent the next issue or two to really explore the ramifications of how Jan's actions impacted him going forward. It could have made for great material!

I should note that I'm pretty liberal politically, so I'm not some right-wing NRA booster! But I'd be hard-pressed to tell Jan he shouldn't kill Roxxas.

Great to see your posts Lardy, Fickles & BraJa!



I definitely enjoyed seeing the use of legion history to strengthen a story, to build themes and to plant seeds for stories to come. It's not continuity for the sake of it. It's there for definite story purposes.



I agree as we'd seen it happen to Thom and would see it happen to Brainy later on. If you're colleague had just tried to murder someone, and you were in law enforcement, it would be very odd for there not to be repercussions.

Perhaps this is a different form of continuity. While it draws on the Legion's past, it's still very much a complete story, in the traditional way. Compare it with the Levitz years where subplots would carry over multiple issues. Although, I'm reminded that poor Salu seemed to be pretty much ignored having just come out of the sens-tank. But, there's a lack of a character arc where, Jan would react to the changes this encounter would have on his life. Next month would be another complete Legion Adventure! Just a thought.

This discussion actually reminds me of LoSH #297, where Cosmic Boy is put in pretty much the same position, though on a smaller scale. The Legionnaires don't even reprimand him from nearly killing the criminals who killed his parents, just like after Jan nearly killed Roxxas. I wonder if all these near murders make the next weekly meeting awkward.

Yeah, even with all of the excellent continuity displayed here, the Legion was caught in an era of done-in-ones at this point in time. A court martial would have involved a Part Two, which is something we haven't seen (I think, or was there one under Cockrum?) since Shooter's time on the Adventure era. Since we know that Shooter himself wasn't opposed to continued stories, we have to assume they were mandated by Boltinoff, who may also have mandated that very few stories were allowed to even be book-length. So any thoughts of ramifications being explored were unlikely or impossible.

You could use these two examples--and Kenz Nuhor and the Infinite Man on the other extreme--that the Legion really only cared about actual murder and not murderous intent.

In one of the alternate timelines in LSH 300, an adult Legion votes to suspend the code against killing while earth is being overrun by Khunds. Superman resigns in protest.

One might see this scene as a logical outgrowth of these stories. The Legion makes an exception here and an exception there, and, before long, they start to question the moral foundation of their code or to deem the code no longer relevant. They use situational ethics to justify their actions.

On Shooter, I can only imagine it's a combination of the relationships he'd seen and his own development.

There's a definite lack of maturity in that side of his writing. I'd make allowances for his age here, but as has been pointed out, it sort of stayed like that. Perhaps it's also a reflection on just what he thinks works in a comic book or how he was told such things work in a comic.

Yup, Weisinger was a real piece of work. It's a personality I've seen to varying degrees pretty much everywhere I've been, so it's certainly not confined to the comics industry. It's just that normally you don't get to read about it.

I've read articles from both sides of Shooter's time at Marvel. Form what I've read (and this caveat should be applied to everything in this post) I broadly agreed with Shooter on a number of points. The firmer hand from his time with Weisinger seemed to be badly needed. But with a lot of positions, they come with a shelf life, and that approach is only viable for a certain period of time. Which probably resulted in it being counter productive the longer it went on.

We interrupt this post for Comic Book Confessions!

When I first read it, I quite liked the first issue of Secret Wars II

There were characters I was unfamiliar with, and the Earth bound setting seemed to suit the Marvel world. I hadn't read too many Cosmic Being trying to find their Humanity stories at that point, so there was some novelty. I don't think I read too much more of the story, but I remember being interested.

I thought the Secret Wars II tie ins were a lot better than the main story!

Yeah, and you're on very unsteady ground if that's your policy. Good point.

But, this is only murder we're talking about. It's not as though Jan was getting married. He would definitely have had to resign in those days if he did anything so heinous as that Which is probably connected to the maturity in writing we've just been talking about.

Well, I bought Secret wars I as a 15 year-old and thought it was super-cool! I haven't re-read it in a long, LONG time, so I can't attest to its quality over the long haul. I'm not overly optimistic about it, though.

Secret Wars II seemed even then kind of...mean?...especially in how it ended, even back then. Ultimately, it's about a godlike being trying to learn what it means to be human. And then he gets murdered just as he's about to take the last step.

I could have back peddled on my post so fast I would have broke the time barrier "I was young!" "I didn't read much Marvel!"

Thinking of Civil War, I could have went with "I only read the start!" as that one nose dived off a cliff.

But there you go. Incidentally, I read Secret Wars too. All of it. I'm not sure why that was. It was in a different format, and the first few issues would have had some sort of free gift. Once those got you, the newsagent would keep it back for you. Once that happened you had to face the newsagent's expression of soul crushing depression if you said you wanted to cancel something.

Oddly enough, there's a magazine that I've picked up a couple of issues of recently. My dad picked up the last one, as I couldn't see it when I went in. The newsagent had kept it back for him, and the question of doing it constantly is only a month or two away. Some things never change. I only wanted to read a couple of articles!

On Jan:

Form TMK #12 as Jan, Salu and Ayla stand over the seriously injured Roxxas...

Ayla: You know, if we don't do something, he's gong to die, right there.
Salu: After what he did to Blok and Jo-- I really don't think I give a damn...
Ayla: It is better than he deserves.
Jan: No. This isn't about him, or his atrocities. Or even Justice. It's about us-- and how much of us would die in this room with him.

Now, was that already plotted out by Giffen with only the Blok reference added. It's certainly the end of the first arc, conflict-wise. So, it may have been plotted out.

Reading those lines, it's easy to connect it with his experience of having wanted vengeance previously, and having learned a valuable lesson from it.

Or...

It wasn't plotted. It's something he finds a little easier to pull from his contemplative butt, but isn't based at all in him having been tested with Erin's death.

I was just thinking of all the mind "conditioning" we see in the Legion Universe. It was still mentioned as late as the TMK run. So, presumably even monsters had a chance of rehabilitation. With such a framework in place across the UP, perhaps there's a cultural difference in Jan exacting revenge.

It does leave plenty of discussion about whether UP credits should be used to rehabilitate monsters...



Yeah, I'd hate to be having to lead on that one....ah, rats...

Please pop in when you can Fickles!



Considering the fate of many female comic characters is a fridge or equivalent, I'm wondering how many positive women characters are needed before it's not "telling" when a villain is a woman? Likewise for race or sexual orientation...

I read quite a bit of Unity at the time. The female antagonist had been abused sexually and then, sadly, passed that abuse on to her son. I felt sorry for them both. It was a realistic treatment of what happens when the cycle of abuse is perpetuated.

It's always dicey when a writer makes a woman or a member of some other disenfranchised population a villain. Accusations of stereotypes abound. Yet, if there are no villains who are women or gay or black, etc., it sends a different but equally unrealistic message.

I was thinking about this while reviewing the Shrinking Violet story for # 214. I was ready to dismiss it as another "weak female Legionnaire" tale. But, as I pointed out in that thread, it makes logical sense that Violet would become afraid to use her power after suffering a traumatic episode.

One always has to look beyond stereotypes and evaluate a story or a character in a broader context. Given what Jo experienced in 213, Violet's fear doesn't seem so sexist. Likewise, Unity should not be judged by Shooter's supposed misogynism or immaturity in earlier stories.

I've never read Unity or much of Valiant, so I can't speak towards that. However, I'm curious as to whether your evaluation of the Night Girl story would hue towards it coming off as misogynistic or not. I say this because you qualify this tendency of his as "supposed". Of course, you could mean that all of this conjecture is "supposed" because it's what people take from some of his stories since he's (presumably) never gone on record as being a misogynist.

As for me, I'm not so sure if it's a tendency that he intends or is even fully cognizant of. But I think it almost has to speak to something in his subconscious make-up.

Lardy,
I don't know Shooter personally, and I'm not qualified to say whether or not he is a misogynist. So, yes, unless he comes out and says he is (and who would?), I'm not comfortable labeling him or anyone else with such a disparaging term.

As I just pointed out in the Archives 12 re-read thread, Shooter's portrayal of men and women in these stories was not much different from what was seen in popular movies at the time. There's a scene in "High Plains Drifter" when Clint Eastwood rides into town and is accosted by a woman (a prostitute, if I remember right). She attempts to seduce him, but when he stoically resists, she insults him and starts to leave. Only then does he grab her, take her somewhere, and (we are led to believe) rape her.

These types of portrayals were quite common in films at the time. Men were men, and they didn't take bullshit from anyone, not even women. I can't help wondering if Shooter attempted to make his male Legionnaires adhere to this exaggerated portrayal of masculinity.

As for women, they were supposed to be devoted to their men, no matter what. A very popular song of that time was "Stand By Your Man," which extolled this philosophy. Perhaps Shooter simply intended to show how devoted Lydda was, and, through her devotion, make Rokk realize he was lucky to have her.

Today, such attitudes seem bizarre to us--and that's good because we have a much better understanding (I hope) of the complexities of men and women and how they relate to each other. I'm willing to concede that some of Shooter's depictions appear misogynistic to us today, though they may have been intended merely to depict cultural assumptions of the time.

It's easy for readers to try to psychoanalyze writers or ascribe to them behaviors evident in their characters, but this is a form of projection that doesn't really serve any purpose.

All fair points. However, I've read a lot of Silver and Bronze Age stuff over the last couple of years. And it's fair to say that female characters are often portrayed as weaker or even subservient to their male counterparts. I was especially disgusted to read how Sue Storm/Richards was marginalized compared to Reed and the other two when I read the Masterworks with the original Inhumans and Galactus stories. With her and numerous other examples, its fair to say there was a good amount of sexism evident in how the male writers wrote the female characters.

Shooter, though, seems to go a few steps further, writing scenes like Rokk slapping Ayla and the extra creepiness in the Lydda story. These and some of the things he did years later on the Avengers strip seem to cross the line from sexist into misogynist. Neither is a great attitude to have, but the latter is even worse than the former. I don't know that Shooter is a misogynist, but I feel pretty confident in saying that a number of the things he's written can give that impression.

I mean, in this example alone, if Boltinoff really intended for this to be a kid's book, then how could he let at the very least a scene like the slap make it into the final product? This story appeared in the '70s, so it's not as if there hadn't been some social progress in favor of women by then.

Anyhow, none of this is meant as a tirade against you, Huey. I just hate to see this kind of tendency in any semi-intelligent entertainment. I'm not overly politically correct, by any means, but I hate to see this sort of thing rear its ugly head.

Oh, I'm not taking it personally, Lardy. In fact, I appreciate the dialogue. Thank you for your initial question.

You're right that women were marginalized in comics for years. The Scarlet Witch nearly fainted every time she used her hex power. Wonder Woman was regarded as the secretary of the JLA for no apparent reason other than being the only woman on the team.

By the mid '70s (the era we're reviewing), things had started to change. Wanda had become a powerhouse character after her tutelage with Agatha Harkness, and Valkyrie was introduced as a badass swashbuckler. The Black Canary was a powerful replacement for Wonder Woman in JLA.

Even in the Legion, women were often portrayed as active and successful members of the team: Nura (201), Jeckie (204), and Vi (214) each took a turn in saving a male teammate. Even Lu returned (209) to save Jeckie. It is telling, perhaps, that the last story was the only one written by Shooter. Otherwise, female Legionnaires seem to be in the background or victims in his stories (e.g., Phantom Girl's stabbing in 210 and Jeckie's illness in 209).

So the evidence for Shooter's mistreatment of female characters is there, if one cares to look for it. But I think this evidence has to be viewed in the larger context, as I suggested above.

As to why Boltinoff allowed the slap to be published--perhaps neither he nor Shooter thought anyone would make a big deal of it. We can say in these more progressive times that it comes across as demeaning and violent towards women, but I don't think that's how it was perceived then. Women's lib was all the rage at the time: the idea that women should be treated the same as men. So, if the male Legionnaires shoved each other around (as Garth did to Jan back in 207) when they were upset, why should women be exempt? That may have been their thinking, and, as a 12-year-old in 1975, that's how I took it.

Granted, there are differences between pushing and slapping. The latter is usually seen as a demeaning form of violence--a way for a man to assert his superiority over a woman. I didn't know that at the time, and I can't say what Shooter or Boltinoff might have thought.

So... Invisible Kids death ... not good storytelling in my eyes. Always thought that his death was kind of the "cheapest" of all the Legion deaths, and rereading it now with my daugther confirmed my opinion. The fight with Validus was kind of lame from the beginning, the ending was forced, and the ghost dimension or whatever it was Myla came from was another of these "one hit wonders", there in this issue never to be visited again.
Invisible Kid dies to be united with his never seen before love interest to make a meaningless death even more meaningless cause he lives happily ever after in some kind of limbo afterlife.

Just like for example the fairy tale dimension Chameleon Boy nearly married into, here we have another example of a throwaway story element. Those were used way to often in that time period. Even my seven year old daughter was kind of annoyed to see Invisible Kid die and to hear from me that Myla and he would never again be mentioned...

But I was staring at the pencil and tried, I mean really tried to look beyond it and you know what I saw....tears because my eyes thought this was stupid. No limbo dimension. No IK.

Wait I will try again.

Ok, I was just asked if I was constipated. Experiment over.

For what it's worth, I offered a different take on Invisible Kid's death on my blog.

Ha now he did it again - done with Archive #11, and it was Shooter who saved the day (or the book) again. Yes, Cary Bates finally tried to do a blockbuster with Vengeance of the Super-Villains, but it felt somehow lacklustre. But I really could feel the mood changing with the first Shooter stories, Soljer Private War less so than the Karate Kid origin story or Ultimate Revenge. Those were not perfect but expanded existing back stories. They were less isolated than the stuff Bates was doing, no wonder cause Shooter probably still lived and breathed the Legion after all those years...

What hit me was how a story like "Lair of the Black Dragon", told in less than ten pages, today would be probably told in six issues - exposition, riddle, backstory, flashback, fighting, all this would be told so much longer in 2016.

I concur with a lot of the points you made, CK. Soljer is a stand-alone masterpiece, and it arguably has Grell's best art in a Legion story. Lair of the Black Dragon is a very 70s action-adventure potboiler, what with all the martial arts and exotic locales...but in a good way; and, yes, it does what it does with an economy that is impressive indeed by modern standards.

But it appears to me that I liked Ultimate Revenge more than you did; I think that one was way ahead of its time, and dealt with complicated themes better than a lot of supposedly more "sophisticated" stories from the last 10-15 years.

I'm also curious -- what did you think of the Super-Rejects story (I, personally, love it), and the one where Cos yells at Night Girl, cheats on her, and then they get back together even though I don't think either of them have gained a speck of wisdom?

Oh I did rather like Ultimate Revenge better than Soljer, I guess I was not clear enough in my words. I thought it was very well done and of course with Chemocal King in it, I am kind of biased anyway

I really thought that a major difference between the Bates and the new Shooter stories was that Shooter took more notice of the fact that there was actually a team of twenty plus heroes with, back then, ten plus years of history. Going back to Trom, expanding Karate Kids origin, this is the stuff I always liked to read. Bates stories did hardly add anything to the Legion myth, and did not really refer a lot to what had gone before...

As for the Super Rejects, yes quite a funny story, at least for introducing Calorie Queen (always loved that name). Again, Shooter took Legion Lore and added to it by giving Matter Eater Lad a new job, thus writing him out of the book but still keeping him along for future stories. But he forgot about Calorie Queen as a replacement later on - of course he did cause I guess Tenzil was written out of the book for his super power, not because he lacked personality

Night Girl is a favorite of me and my daughter, so again I'm biased. Mostly I was wondering how she managed not to fall out of her new costume