Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes Long Live the Legion! TURNING POINTS - Major “What if” possibilities in Legion History

This topic is for examining major events in Legion history and speculating what if they had never happened or had reversed outcomes. I’m going to examine some of the Adventure Era’s main events (in chronological order,) but I invite other posters to offer their speculations on reversed or eliminated events of their favorite Eras as well.

What if the Legion never got a series in Adventure 300?

Which is really two issues: 1) what other features instead might have debuted in Adv 300, and 2) what would have happened to the Legion without a series. I’ll deal with the second issue later.

The prior Bizarro World series itself might have continued past Adv 300, but I doubt it would have lasted much longer as superhero comedy has a short life expectancy. Looking at the early 1960s Superman mythos, I can see three possible series that might debuted instead than Legion in Adv 300.

The Amazing World of Krypton - This series did debut a decade later in Action, and yet Krypton was already a very popular theme in 1962, throughout the Superman titles, so this series could indeed have debuted much earlier. The series would have probably focused on the El family, likely rotating between stories on Jor-el and his science and Little Kal-el & Krypto’s misadventures, with occasional Krypton historical pieces or travelogs. A lot of potential was there, a whole world to be explored and developed.

The Bottle City Of Kandor - Like Krypton, Kandor was a very popular element of the Superman mythos, and later became the locale for the Nightwing & Flamebird series in Superman Family. Nightwing & Flamebird themselves debuted only a half year after Adv 300 in Superman 158, so if there had been a new Kandor series in Adventure, they could easily have become the new main characters.

Typical Kandor plots would have been about Earth visitors, especially Superman’s friends, and also ultra-scientific detective stories playing up the ersatz Dynamic Duo angle of Nightwing & Flamebird. They probably would have exploited the typical lrypton themes like new forms of Kryptonite and Phantom Zone stories, which leads into the next possible Adventure feature.

The Adventures of Mon-el - We immediately associate Mon-el with the Legion, but at the time of Adv 300, there was no connection at all. They had appeared in one story together (Adv 293) and would again a month after Adv 300 (Superman 154, a must read for Legion fans, BTW) but Mon-el had long been established in his own right as an individual character, being using throughout the Superman titles as a deus ex machina.

And he was very popular. It’s very possible that a solo Mon-el feature might have been Weisinger’s second choice to debut in Adv 300, and, perhaps, he combined the two ideas by including Mon-el in the Legion debut.

What would a Mon-el series in 1962 have been like? Well, first we have to observe that he would never have stayed in the Phantom Zone for a 1000 years, so his series would have been set instead in Superboy or Superman’s time-period (or both?!) If it was Superboy period, he would have had to stay in the Zone, because of the prior stories of him in the Zone during Superman’s time. Ongoing stories of Mon-el in the Phantom Zone would have short-lived appeal; a series couldn’t be sustained (certainly in the early 60s) with that single setting. So it would have been in Superman’s time.

Most likely the big-cover-proclaiming-event of a Mon-el series debut in Adv 300 would have been his liberation from the Phantom Zone, probably by Superman. But what would happen to Mon after that? Seigal could have revived his Bob Cobb identity and utilized the traveling salesman job for keeping a variety of settings and characters. He probably would interact with other Superman characters and the few villains of the time. Most likely he would have become Superman’s other emergency backup after Supegirl.

My big speculation is that he would have become a boyfriend of Supergirl! Really! A rival with Brainiac 5 for her affections! I think it would have been a natural development given the typical plot devices and attitudes of the time.

His series could have lasted a while if they kept him in costume a lot, and yet gave Bob Cobb a fearless personality as opposed to Clark's milksop disquise. I think the series could have run 3-5 years.

But what about the Legion? If they didn’t get their series in Adv 300, what likely happens to them.

Initially they would have continued in the same type of plot gimmicks. Like Star Boy, (the phony) Sun Boy, and Ultra Boy, Legionnaires would have kept showing up in Smallville to share adventures. That mean three things.

1) All existing Legionnaires probably would have had their turn at Smallville visits (Triplicate Girl, Bouncing Boy, Invisible Kid, etc.)

2) New Legionnaires that were developed by Seigal & Hamilton would have been utilized to visit Superboy: certainly Element Lad, Polar Boy, Duplicate Boy, and Beast Boy; maybe Chlorophyll Kid and Evolvo Lad; Lightning Lass and Matter-Eater Lad probably wouldn’t have ever been created (based on their actual first appearances.)

3) At least some of those frequent one-shot super-pals that Superboy always met would now have become Legionnaires visiting Superboy. Since these one-shots were usually similar powered to Superboy, then the Legion really would have become the Legion of SUPER-heroes, a collection of real powerhouses. A lot of one-shot heroes that few of us can recall would have become major players of the Legion (like Mon-el and Ultra Boy.)

Supergirl & Brainiac 5 would have developed their off and on romance in her series, and probably would have had a different tone to it. Brainiac 5 might have been eventually used in some of Superman’s Brainiac battles.

Moving into the mid & later 60s, the Legion might have been used for recurring adventures with the JLA and/or the Teen Titans, like the famed JLA/JSA matchups.

Most interesting, Legion deaths might have become even more frequent as writers and editors would have seen so many heroes as a ready source of fan attention-grabbing cover martyrs. Seriously, I think it would have averaged one Legionnaire death a year. Those one-shot heroes might instead have become only three-or-four shot heroes. Legionnaire deaths probably would have become a standing fandom joke much like Legion applicants did become.

Yet in this scenario, the most famous of Superboy’s super-pals, Mon-el, never joins the Legion because the Legion Adv 300 debut in which he did join never occurred. Which leads to the next and similar major What If scenario.

What if Mon-el was not added to the Legion debut in Adv 300, and thus never joined the Legion

This is different from the above discussed Mon-el series in Adventure because in this scenario, the Legion still has its series debut, but Mon-el is left out and remains in the 20th century as a supporting character residing in the Phantom Zone. In this scenario, Mon can remain in the Phantom Zone, without the gimmick’s potential being quickly exhausted because he’d be only appearing irregularly and in different books.

As a enduring supporting character, Mon would have been brought into the greater DCU by the mid-60s. Of the Superman titles, the only one he didn’t appear in was World’s Finest (except as statue in the Composite Superman stories.) He probably would have appeared there next in this scenario, thus connecting him into the Batman mythos. He would have shown up in a few Batman stories helping the different Batman characters with mysteries as a secret observer in the Zone.

But I see Mon's character gravitating more to the science oriented Fox & Broome titles of GL, Flash, and the Atom. (I don’t know why, but I see the Atom and a Phantom Zone Mon-el becoming crimesolving buddies!)

At some point though, in the late 60s he would have been liberated from the Phantom Zone, and since he would have been around 7-9 years by then, it would have been a major event in the DCU, perhaps being done as a two-issue story in JLA. He might have even become a member of JLA, perhaps replacing Superman ot J'onn, but if his youth had been played up against Superman’s maturity (and additionally in a romance with Supergirl) then I see another possibility for a non-phantom Mon-el in the later 60s DCU.

First, he could have partnered with Robin, becoming a junior World’s Finest team (especially since the silver age Superboy was in a different time and unavailable.) This might have become a back-up or alternating feature in WF. And my big speculation here is that this association with Robin might have made Mon a likely candidate for joining the Teen Titans, as another example of a proxy Superboy (who could never join until post-Crisis!)

Being roughly power equals, he might have even had a romance with Wonder Girl. And wonder Girl and Supergirl could have a catfight over Mon! Me-ow! And Woof!

Another possibility of a Zone liberated Mon, is that he could moved to Kandor and become the Nightwing in the later series Superman’s Family. Many possibilities for a footloose and fancy free young Daxamite from the Phantom Zone.

Well, it’s a lotta fun speculating about what would have happened if the landmark issue of Adventure 300 had been changed either a little or a lot

My next What If scenario will concern: 1) what if Lightning Lad had not been revived, and 2) what if it was Saturn Girl, not Proty, who sacrificed herself to revive Garth.

I think a big "what if" would be "what if the Legion was from space, but the present rather than the future?" Needless to say, the Legion would have had much closer ties to the rest of the DCU. Unlike "Green Lantern" which also dealt with space all the time, "LSH" would have charted the present DCU's alien worlds and their geo-political landscape.

Considering the Legion visited "Superboy" -- Superman when he was young, that would mean having to establish the Legion as SuperMAN's contemporaries, aging them for "current" adventures while they remained young for their times with Superboy.

Well, Drake, when you consider it, you have described many of the aspects of L.E.G.I.O.N., which wasn't that bad of read. It's main thematic distinction from Legion was replacement of youthful optimism with organizational intrique and ruthlessness. Which can be interesting in small bites, but wearisome in bigger doses.

Being set away from the main DCU action, Legion has been allowed to develop it's own themes and approaches, without having to conform to DCU's prevailing thematic vogues, i.e. most skip-week nonsense events thankfully do not include Legion.

My "what if" has more of industry and publishing matters than story matters. Sorry if that isn't quite what was called for above. I know that I have to think some more about alternatives to the already-told Legion tales. (Though see my character alterations and setting choice in the "Dream Team" thread.)

What if Dave Cockrum had gotten his artwork back from DC that depicted Chuck and Luornu's wedding?

That may seem esoteric, but that reasonable and refused request was the trigger event -- and a stupid one, on DC management's part -- for his departing from working on the Legion stories. If Dave had stayed, instead of (at least) Grell, Sherman, Broderick, and the early Giffen:

~ The science-fiction edge for the Legion would have been far sharper.

~ This, in turn, would have pushed Superboy further out of the Legion's milieu, which would have been a positive and flexible development, cutting restraining ties to eras past.

~ Nightcrawler and Storm would have joined the Legion.

~ Dawnstar wouldn't have been created. A tragedy for me, but on the other hand, we'd never have known what we were missing.

~ The stories would have been better positioned, in tone, to ride the crest of the "Star Wars" wave in the late '70s.

~ Cockrum and Levitz? *swoon* ... That would have made the Legion into a comics icon of resonance equal to that of Wonder Woman, at least, and nipping at the status of Supes and Bats, as well.

~ We'd probably never have seen Giffen's work on the title, as he filled in some of the science-future background that Cockrum would have provided. As much as I'll always admire and would have missed Giffen's early depictions, we'd also have never had the TMK era -- for me, devoutly to be wished.

~ Today, even after other artists and the general industry implosion, "LSH" -- never named "The Legion" -- would sell at least 50,000 copies a month, not fewer than half as many.

~ We'd have seen Halle Berry as Storm in two Legion movies, thus far, and few would remember the failed Marvel series about mutant "X-Men."

This looks like a fun thread!

Reep-- Well thought-out and presented scenarios, a joy to read. The only point I can disagree on is the "Legion deaths" explosion that you postulate might haave occurred. I can NEVER see this happening at 1960s DC.

Grey-- Interesting theories. However, given Cockrum's inability to maintain a monthly schedule even then, we still probably would have gotten Grell, Sherman, Giffen etc. on board eventually. I'll theorize that Cockrum probably would have left the title when it went monthly. What's most likely is that Grell's run would have been near-completely eradicated or reduced to inking Cockrum only, but everything else would have stayed the same.

Reep, a very good read indeed! And you know I'm anxiously awaiting the next scenarios. If any of you read my reply to what your favorite Trek episode is you know that What If's (or alternate realities) are my kinda stories.

Grey I agree with you on most points as well. Like Lash already mentioned, unfortunately Dave probably would not have been able to handle the monthly commitment. But I don't think we would have gotten Giffen on the title as Dave would have had the time to do background that Keith provided. I still see a Great Darkness happening but a little earlier and it probably would have involved at least 2 Legionnaires dying. Sort of a 30th Century mini-Crisis.

I also wouldn't see the Legion being a big seller still. Maybe more than they do now but not quite what the X titles sell today. Dave provided a lot of what made (past-tense) the X-Men great but so did Chris Claremont and John Byrne. I don't think losing Storm and Nightcrawler would have been as big a blow as we think. But those two characters and whatever else Dave would have come up with would have been enough to propel the Legion up past the JLA and JSA, making it the team book at DC and one of the top three next to Supes and the Bat where it would still be today.

And wouldn't it have been great to see at least one Legion movie? Hell, right now I'd settle for a semi-regular cartoon series.

If I had to choose between one movie or a series, I think I'd choose a series just cuz there's so much stuff in Legion lore (and so many members), that it needs a series to touch on all the good stuff.

Giffen was a Legion fanboy that wanted the title. An extended Cockrum run may have delayed his arrival but would not have eradicated it, I think.

And I still think an extended Cockrum run wouldn't have meant we would have a Storm and Nightcrawler in the LEGION. Remember, those characters were already rejected by DC.

Basically, what an extended Cockrum run would have brought us is another dozen or more Bates/Shooter issues drawn by Cockrum instead of Grell (with the possibility that Grell would have done SOME of the stories anyway since back then most issues were split into 2 shorter stories).

I still think that Cockrum's role as a creative catalyst for others' work remains underrated. Almost criminally so in how it's not acknowledged as having propelled "X-Men" to its current blockbuster movie-series status.

The Legion would work better as an animated series, or as a series of animated films -- but with "Shrek"ian 3-D animation, though, or something akin to what was done with "Final Fantasy." The SF background would never have been accepted otherwise, with sets having been built. (The original "Trek" series has aged badly in that respect.)

If Cockrum and others had put more resonance onto a few core characters, though, the push would have been far earlier for a Legion movie, and one with live action.

The one quality of the Legion that works against movies of all sorts is its huge cast of varied talents, one that (unlike the X-Men) cannot be reduced much for movie directness without losing its reason for being. Even a current panel hog such as Imra doesn't grab the dramatic foreground as much as, say, Wolverine does over at Xavier's estate.

I certainly believe an extended Cockrum run on LEGION would have killed the X-Men relaunch. It would have been devestatng to Marvel Comics.

Greybird, I agree with you and the others here about the great importance of if Cockrum had stayed on. Legion would have been enhanced significantly as you illustrate, but clearly without his participation in the revival of X-men the whole history of Marvel, of COMICS is radically altered. Coincidentally, I observed a few days ago that that one page by Dave of BB & DD’s wedding probably is the most important single page of comic art in the history of the medium. I can’t think of any that can even come close. That page caused the history of comics to change, however it occurred. Did Dave ever get it back? If not I wonder who has it?

And now on with my What if Adventure scenarios!

What if Lightning Lad had not been revived?

The first concern to be dealt with is the reason why he was revived in the first place - the Adult Legion story in Action 289 revealing that Lightning Man and Saturn Woman are married. This really isn’t that big of an obstacle considering subsequent revisionism throughout DCU. Specifically it could have been suggested in the letter column that Lightning Man was a reformed Mekt who joined as a man, or even instead of a Lightning Lass joining it was Garth’s twin brother not sister. Many scenarios could explain Action #289, so it’s not really a problem.

Then if Weisinger decided not to have Garth revived, the next question is what other Legionnaire pairs up with Saturn Girl romantically (till of course a possible marriage with some indeterminate Lightning Man in the future.) First inclination is to say Rokk because he’s the other founder, yet in only two issues after Garth’s death in # 304, Hamilton writes his first Legion story and creates Lydda and her love of Rokk. So I think that is too close in creation, and probably fixed in Hamilton’s story, to consider Cosmic Boy as a love interest for Saturn Girl.

As the only blond, I think Saturn Girl would still be the next female to get attached (yes, it would have made a marketing difference then, especially with the broken heart angle.) As a popular character, her beau also probably would have been one of the popular males. I mean, guys like Invisible Kid and Star Boy are out simply because they weren’t in real use then. So who was popular with Hamilton and available? Three stand out.

Element Lad, Mon-el, and Sun Boy. A legitimate case can be made for each. Jan was newly created and of course secretly revealed his power to Imra. That could have been developed, but I think Hamilton’s inclination would be to match an established character with her. Mon-el is such and they were both leader types, but the obstacle is that he’s a Superboy clone and to have him paired-up would obviously prompt fans to suggest pairings for Superboy, which was a no-no back then because of Lois & Lana. (Shooter toyed with a Superboy flirtation four years later by Luornu, and another two years finally did match-up Mon with Shady. But by then the real world had literally changed.)

I feel Hamilton would have matched up Sun Boy and Saturn Girl. Most fans forget have popular both Sun Boy and Saturn Girl were in the early years; both were in every issue, and often on the same teams. Hamilton obviously saw a connection between the two. Dirk could have been played up as a hot head to Imra’s cool blond. If they had paired up, Shooter probably would have come up with a different origin for Dirk, and also Dirk’s image as a womanizer wouldn’t have evolved.

Sun Boy and Saturn Girl would have been the Legion’s planetary power couple, probably a major continuing part of Legion history.

Two other notable changes occur if Lightning Lad stayed dead. First is # 332 and the robot arm. If he wasn’t around, who plays the lead in Hamilton’s Moby Dick pastiche? I think the answer’s pretty clear given the story he wrote. It’s got to be Ultra Boy since Hamilton played up his “Jonah and the Whale” origin by having him swallowed by SMDOS [is that the first time ever Super-Moby Dick of Space has become an acronym?!?! I want an award!]

So Lightning Lad on Shanghalla means Ultra Boy winds up with a robot arm. I’m sure this now “doubled” whale/monster association would have become a main aspect of Jo's bio (whereas the Jonah & whale origin eventually was forgotten,) also with him becoming a monster hunter now and then. SMDOS would probably have become a recurring character; and an insane Jo, if so written, could have revived Jungle King’s Legion of Super-Monsters. Ultra Boy also might have become the designated chief adversary of Validus, who is the remaining big change created by Lightning Lad non-revival.

Because of a non-existent Garth, Validus’ origin becomes invalid as it was premised entirely on the his mental lighting being caused by his parentage of Imra and Garth (as retroactively written by Levitz, as suggested earlier by Legion fans.)

Parenthetically, there’s always been a strange connection to me between Validus and the Silver Surfer as two powerful creatures from space with longtime totally unknown origins. I liked assuming both were somehow embodiments of space itself, somehow created from space stuff. When each were revealed to have originally been humans, I felt letdown, like great science fiction potential had been lost. Sometimes writers take “humanization” of characters too literally!

Basically, Validus’ origin could now be anything, but I think the mental lightning connection would still have prompted fans to make a similar speculation that I think Levitz would have used: Validus was the son of Lightning Lord and Saturn Queen! Imagine the possibilities: an innocent monsterchild raised by those two to hate the Legion. He escapes them and winds up with the (Legion created) Fatal Five. Possibly a battle between the Five and the LSV for control of Validus or both teams uniting to square off against the Legion. In any case, Validus no longer disappears in any reversion to the Ranzz's son, and in staying around so does perhaps the entire original Fatal Five, and therefore the Empress never creates her Five.

Many changes if Lightning Lad is never revived, but it’s not even half as much of what happens if Saturn Girl dies instead of Lightning Lad!

What if it was Saturn Girl who died and not Garth?

In other words, what if either Garth never saved her, or later if Proty didn’t intervene in Garth’s revival? What would Legion be like if there had been no Saturn Girl to lead them.

Vastly different since she was the center of the team in those first two years. First, who becomes the new Leader? In either cited death scenario above, it’s probably Lightning Lad because the spotlight is so strong on him and he’s possibly the remaining most well known Legionnaire (the founder’s trio was the Legion before Adventure 300.) Two other contenders are Mon-el, still in the spotlight a lot, and Brainiac 5 who did become Leader after Imra and is an obvious choice for kids because of his supermind. Still. I think Hamilton would have went with dynamic and “electric” Lightning Lad during that first year.

So then, conversely with the prior What If speculation, who becomes Garth’s honey-bunny if Saturn Girl resides in Shanghalla? (None of the other females had any prominence at that point, so the romance establishing story would have been the girl’s “coming out” debut in the series.)

The candidates: Triplicaticate Girl, Shrinking Violet, Dream Girl, & Phantom Girl. I can’t see Trippy Girl because Hamilton never matched her up during his long tenure. Shrinking Violet wouldn’t have been a good match to Hamilton; it seemed the Duplicate Boy romance was clearly his attempt at pairing the “weakest” girl with the “strongest boy, a novelty lost with the dynamic but not all-powerful Garth. I think Dream Girl was such a gimmick one-shot character by Hamilton that I can’t see him pairing her up with a major recurring character like Lightning Lad. Star Boy was a returning “forgotten” character of unproven appeal so he was perfect for a one-shot “floozy” girlfriend.

Which leaves Phantom Girl, and since she actually was the first female Legionnaire that Hamilton paired up, I think she would have become Garth’s sweetie if Imra wasn’t around. Garth and Tinya - two caped crusaders who become the Legion power couple instead of Dirk and Imra.

And the dominos fall: who then pairs up with Ultra-Boy? Violet of course. She was next in line, and a now amped up Ultra Boy (no longer with the only-vision-power thing) becomes the surrogate “strong” boy to her “weak” girl in Hamilton’s next created romance. Which also means that possibly Trippy Girl matches up with Duplicate Boy, or there simply never are any Lallor heroes.

Actually those are neither likely outcomes for the Lallors. Consider that the Legion is “down” two females: Imra and the never created Ayla. The Lallor have two females. I think Hamilton would have made #324 a multiple hero joining story, similar perhaps to Shooter’s first story two years later in #346.

But not all Lallors join the Legion. We can eliminate Evolvo Lad as a dupe Brainiac 5, but he might have been changed into Jungle King’s brother in a similar storyline, using his primate aspect to lead a new Legion of Super-Monsters. This also might have been the case for Beast Boy, but I think Hamilton would have seen his potential and appeal as the first feral Legionnaire, who likely would gain some of the popularity that Timber Wolf would years later. Beast Boy would have been a hit and definitely not killed off by Hamilton in #339.

He might have been paired with Life Lass or more likely Duo Damsel or Gas Girl (because of their better contrasting powers.) All three newbies would have joined together and becoming enduring Legionnaires rather than fading away early in Adventure.

Duplicate Boy, on the other hand, would have become a major villain. Hamilton wouldn’t have put a near-omnipotent powerhouse in the Legion as Dupe Boy would destroy dramatic tension by easily defeating every and any opponent, which was probably the reason the Lallors actually faded from the mythos - Dupe Boy was a story killer.

Interestingly, though, as a villain, Hamilton might have used him in the nearly the same way Shooter used Nemesis Kid - a traitorous new Legionnaire. Hamilton did use traitorous applicants: “false pretenses” lad in #321 and later the Murran spies in #334. Dupe Boy makes a great Mega-villain, and could have become the first recurring major Legion villain, eclipsing the still developing Time Trapper.

If Hamilton had used this new-members-with-a-hidden-traitor story (again, a fair possibility with his known plots and the obvious female shortage,) then what would Shooter had come up with for his debut? If he had submitted the same story, Weisinger may have very well rejected it as too derivative of Hamilton’s story.

So if Saturn Girl had died, Jim Shooter might never have come aboard and teamed with Swan to create the stories that really birthed Legion fandom from their remarkable collaboration of youthful imagination and masterful talent. Legion’s run in Adventure might have ended around # 350 or 360.

If Saturn Girl died, there may have never been any organized Legion fandom. We wouldn’t be here and I wouldn’t be typing this! Of all the What If scenarios possible from the Adventure era, it seems the death of Saturn Girl is the most far ranging in impact for the series and the fans too.

These What If scenarios can be a little time-consuming, so I’ll probably wait a while before continuing. Next one will probably mostly focus on the recreation of Star Boy and Ultra Boy’s powers during the second year, but I may have a few words about if Element Lad had never joined.

SATURN GIRL was arguably THE most important Silver-Age LEGION character who wasn't Superboy, so I certainly agree that her death early on would have dramatically altered The Legion's development and LSH fandom!
Nice work.

Great scenarios, all. Never thought about what those early changes might have wrought. Or what the absence or presence of a particular creator might have done long-term.

Grey, I don't know that you wouldn't have had Dawnstar regardless of who was writing/designing the Legion. I think a winged character with hunter/raptor abilities is a given. Somebody would have come up with it, it might not have been your beloved Dawny - but who knows.

I was thinking of a thread along the lines of "Could the Legion work as a 21st century team" but it seems to be covered in Reep's discussion of the Lar Gand possibilities. Fascinating and credible.

Thanks for saying that about Dawnstar, FC. I was thinking more in terms of her being a strongly shaped and fairly personal visual creation of Mike Grell. Ironically, her first appearance was two issues after he'd left the book.

Getting a handle on her abilities clearly took some time. A more purely raptor type may have been too "primitive" for the 30th Century. Yet feathered wings ... well, that would've been too potent and beautiful a trait to forego forever.

Actually someone with wings, as such, made part of her arms, was even proposed by Cockrum, and she might have ended up on the Legion team. Or on an offshoot, as he suggested in this visual proposal from 1973 for what would have been the first DC team of "Outsiders."

If I may wander into an alcove here with an aside for Greybird: if there was no Dawnstar, would you be reading The Legion? Did that one character kindle your interest, or revive it?
For anyone, I'm just wondering, with a team book, how much of your interest depends on one character and the extent to which interest wanes if that character is killed/written out/or just not featured much.

Well, that is quite a close-to-home "what if"! I'll expand on it, and I hope it's not too boring for others.

To first answer FC: Yes, Dawnstar is the one who got me through the door to the 30th Century. Yet without her -- and she did depart the stories, literally "in spirit," long before they stopped drawing her -- I managed to have the rest of the Legion keep me, just barely, inside the door.

I had enjoyed some of the Legion tales back between ages 9 and 13, but only sporadically as I ran across them in comics others had bought. Until I gave up even that small interest, for the usual diversions of adolescence -- as well as having more intricate and wider-ranging reading, required and not.

If Dawnstar hadn't existed, I probably wouldn't have had my interest revived nearly a decade later, after college. I picked up "LSH" v2 n286 (February '82) in a 7-Eleven solely because Pat Broderick included her prominently on the cover. I had long been fascinated by winged humans in art ... don't ask me to explain why, for at the root, I really have no idea. And I hadn't remembered such a lovely winged woman being in the Legion.

Fortunately, it also was Paul Levitz's return to writing the Legion stories. So Dawny got me to pick it up, but it was Levitz's storytelling that kept me there. And which soon induced me to haunt back-issue bins for what I'd missed of her, and the Legion, in the previous half-decade.

I didn't buy that many of them, though. Especially not new ones -- I usually read them on spinner racks, which hadn't yet vanished. And then, with the few I did have, I did what I've mentioned elsewhere: I threw them away.

Not just once. Four separate times. I had a recurring and wholly private spasm of being self-conscious, even in the confines of my apartment, for liking these stories so much. And after having a couple dozen back issues at hand, I'd toss them in the trash. (Once I managed to sell most of them back to the store first.) Putting away childish things, I thought, as the saying goes ... for a while.

This went on for a dozen years. It certainly wasn't helped by TMK -- I retched when I picked up "LSH" v4 n6, and saw what had been done to mutilate my favorite. (I wasn't fooled by Giffen, not for a minute.) That alone was good for skipping it all for a few years. After that, the reboot was too confusing for a casual comics browser to unravel.

Then in 1997 I was re-reading my fifth copy of "Superboy" 226, Dawny's debut story, and I finally told myself: Admit it. This Starhavenite, and the rest of the Legion, they've all gotten under your skin, and they deserve to be there.

And they've finally stayed there. I'm the least "collecting" comics fan I know, but I since have filled two and a half short boxes with those I know I'll keep and re-read. Including the Legion's Levitz eras, with his breaks, everything from '77 to '89 -- and few others, consistently, until "Promethea." These, finally, are NOT going away.

Very interesting theories, Reep. A few nits or alternate ideas, though:

1. I don't think it's likely that Ultra Boy would have remained a villain. Silver Age DC just did not have its established heroes turn evil, unless mental illness, mind control or Red K was involved.

[As an aside, it was still several years away before a Legionnaire was allowed to wantonly execute a criminal. Of course, I'm referring to Element Lad in SUPERBOY # 211; he was saved from that fatal mistake by Chemical King. But this illustrates that even in the more "sophisticated" '70s, DC would only go so far in letting heroes do evil deeds.]

I also don't think it's likely that Jo would have ended up with a robot arm. That particular injury seems unique to Lightning Lad -- the robot arm made a "cool" augmentation to his lightning powers. It's difficult to imagine the robot arm on any other Legionnaire. I suggest that Jo would have been left with some other disability, or none at all. Perhaps the Super-Moby Dick story would never have been written since it's uniquely tailored to Lightning Lad and his role within the Legion (e.g., his relationship with Saturn Girl, as well as his specific powers).

2. I'm not sure if killing off Saturn Girl would have spelled the end of the Legion in the '60s. She was the most prominent female Legionnaire (and only fully developed personality among the girls), but her absence would merely have allowed someone else to be developed in her stead.

For example, perhaps Lana Lang gets real insect powers instead of using a ring. She then joins the Legion on a regular basis, traveling to the future in a time bubble for meetings. Lana could easily fill in the void left by Imra, as could any number of other female characters, with some tweaking by the writers.

3. Jim Shooter was a talented and ambitious 13-year-old. As I recall, he'd submitted other story ideas to Weisinger besides the one that finally got selected. If "One of Us Is a Traitor" had also gotten vetoed, Shooter would still have persisted and eventually won the day. I imagine he would have worked Karate Kid, Ferro Lad, Princess Projectra and Nemesis Kid into the Legion in some other way. (In your scenario, the story was rejected because of the traitor angle, not because of the characters, which Weisinger certainly recognized as unique.)

That's my opinion. I find the rest of your theories fascinating and thought-provoking.

HWW, I have to disagree about LL, Jo, & SMDOS. If anything the story is more fit for Jo because of his origin, and Hamilton somewhat used this by making him a proxy hunter of SDMOS at one point of the story. The lost arm and LL seems fixed in our minds, but there's no real connection to LL I can see. Hamilton used it as revenge gimmick because Melville did. Moby Dick caused the loss of Ahab's hand, leg, whatever it was. The loss of limb was part of the Moby Dick angle, not specifically connected to Garth.

My point about Jo leading a revived Legion of Super-Monsters was a minor possibility. The major point was that if he was the focus of the SMDOS story it would augment his orgin's "monster connection" and Legion writers would have beat that double connection to death. Jo would have had a "crazy" side (like Brainy,) always chasing monsters at the drop of a plot gimmick.

Therefore I believe Starlin would have had Super-Moby Dick frame Jo for An Ryd's murder.

Never trust green space whales with teeny red wings. And I sure as hell wouldn't marry one either.

I might date one, but I question their parenting skills. And hygiene. Yeah, that's a big scale-tipper right there.

Your point about Super-Moby Dick is well-taken. DC did like to "adapt" popular books and movies to the Legion (e.g., Goldfinger as Starfinger), so the story probably would have been written with or without Garth.

I also agree that Jo makes a more natural substitute for Ahab, given his own origin, but that doesn't seem to be what TPTB were thinking; otherwise, why not have him become crippled by the beast instead of Garth in the first place?

Something else else about Lightning Lad made him a more likely "victim." Perhaps it was his relationship with Saturn Girl, the most popular girl Legionnaire, as we've discussed. (She spends a lot of time caring for and about Garth in the story, as I recall.) Or perhaps it was the very dramatic image of lightning ricocheting off the beast. Garth's power certainly made it easier to create a scenario in which he would be maimed without getting too close to a creature that could swallow him whole.

This opens up another speculation: How might Jo have been crippled by the beast? Would the Super-Moby Dick merely have chewed off his arm (which would have been rather graphic for the '60s)? Or would he have been injured in some other way?

I'm just going to post the scenario now, go to sleep, and post the rest later. What if John Byrne had decided Clark Kent started his heroic career as Superboy (or as Clark a la Smallville or TAS Legion Episode) post-crisis?

Here's another thought that I'm going to throw out, which I haven't really had time to dwell upon:

What if John Forte hadn't died while still the penciller of the Legion? Would his run have continued on, which would have meant that Curt Swan wouldn't have got the assignment? Would Jim Shooter's story have had the same resonance with Forte's art instead of Swan's? Another possibility is that Forte might have passed away or been unable to continue the assignment at a later time when Swan wasn't available and another artist gotten the assignment such as Jim Mooney, another member of Weisingers stable of artists who had done previous fill-in assignments on the Legion. Either way, I think that it would have been a blow to the Legion's progress as a series. (Not that I would go so far as to say that Forte's death was a positive thing. That would be mean and grossly unjust.)

Okay, back to my idea. What Byrne had decided to make Clark into the post-crisis Superboy? First of all, the "Legion's Superboy being from the Time Trapper's pocket universe" story would never have happened. Superboy would have never died, eliminating the "issue 38 is tragic" tradition. Since Superboy never died, the conspiracy would never have happened, which means that the backlash that that created (Brainy quiting, death of Luornu's second body, Mon-El's eventual death)wouldn't have happened either. Suddenly, we lose a good chunk of the latter part of LSH v.3. What storylines would have taken it's place? With two of its pillars standing, would the demoralizing that swept over the Legion (which according to TMK lead it being disbanded) during that era have hapenned? Would the Legion still be around after the five year gap? Would the TMK Legion have ocurred at all?

The changes don't stop there. Supposing TMK wrote v.4 more or less the same like they actually did. Issues 4 and 5 as they are would have never ocurred, quickening the series' pace. Glorith would have never been revamped, and the first v.4 annual would have focused on another aspect of Jo Nah. Or would it? Even with Superboy on the fold, Supergirl was still a problem. Would the "soft" reboot still have happened, to take care of her? Would Laurel Gand still replace Kara?

What about the postboot Legion, had it still occured? Would Kal-El have become a member? Would Kon-El, had he been created, meet Kal?
The possibilities!

Matlock, I've likewise considered possibilities about Forte's tenure and departure. One of them concerns Swan also.

What if Swan had started as the Legion's penciller instead of Forte? This was entirely possible. There are seven, count 'em, seven reasons to suggest it may have been strongly considered by Weisinger.

1)Swan did frequent Superboy stories, so he was natural candidate to start a regular back-up series in Adventure.
2)He had done several pre-series Legion apps. He was already familiar with the costumes.
3)Adventure #300-307 were single chapter stories, they wouldn't have jammed up his work load.
4)Swan interior art would have the increased saleability of the debut issue of #300.
5)He did Superman 154 (argh, 156?, the Virus X story) which was clearly a vehicle to promote the Legion, as their new series had just debuted a month before.
6) When Forte took sick, Swan was the first artist chosen by Weisinger to fill in on Legion(#313.)
7)Hamilton and Swan were already turning out some great sci-fi themed stuff in Superman by summer 1962; their particular team would have been a natural to start a future setting series (as evidenced by their brief end-run collaboration of #340-345.)

I feel their were two primary reasons why Forte got the Legion assignment. He was the artist on Tales of Bizarro World, which Legion replaced in Adventure, so in one sense he was just continuing his assignment in Adventure, but on a different feature. Second, Weisinger tended to primarily use Swan on Superman & Action to maximize sales on these "flagship" books; he did other titles mostly to give a periodic boost to their weaker profits.

Which makes you wonder about how and why Swan got his eventual Legion assignment in probably Fall 1965? Was he the only artist available for this difficult feature? Or had Weisinger "wised-up" and realized with all the fanmail and probably higher than expected sales that it was worth it to make Swan the primary artist? I think the later is true because of the shortly later hiring of Shooter. Weisinger obviously was feeling some heat from Marvel and took a big chance hiring a 14 year old kid as writer for a book with a million characters.

I'm sure Jim's letter with his salient analysis of DC & Marvel at that time, as well his hand drawn stories are what persuaded Weisinger to reevaluate standard editorial positions.

As much as I love the early Forte stuff, I think we all can realize, and drool, what it would be like if Swan had drawn Adventure # 300-339. It might have significantly slowed Marvel's rise in the early sixties if DC's most responded book had had a topline artists on it.

I find this a fascinating and well-thought out thread. The chunk I've 'quoted' particularly struck me.

I'd never seen how balanced the Heroes of Lallor and 'Shooter's Four' are.

Duplicate Boy= Nemesis Kid is the most obvious parallel.

Beast Boy= Ferro Lad in that both are limited shape-changers who die early.

Gas Girl= Princess Projectra in that both create insubstantial threats from the air. Or she could be a parallel to Ferro Lad, since both change to elemental material.

Evolvo or Life Lass= Karate Kid. Well, this is the weakest of the comparisons, and doesn't really work. Although you could make a zen sort of comparison between Evolvo's shifting states and KKid's martial quests.

Dang it-- now I want to see a face-off/meeting of just these eight or nine!

TN

I'm glad you had fun with it, TN, and thanks for the compliments.

One point of elaboration about Dupe Boy. If he hadn't been so all-powerful, the Lallors may have become regular characters throughout Adventure and even Superboy, and thus perhaps in mid or later Adventure, Shooter may have rewrit the # 315 plot - Subs tryout test and winner joins legion - with the Lallors in a competition to join the Legion. I think it's more likely than not if Dupe Boy had instead been in the power-range of Ultra Boy (say a duping power but also some odd limitation or certain weakness approximating Jo's one-at-a-time qualification.)

I hope to continue my Turning Points pondering in a few days or so. Right now I'm preparing my Final Tally write-ups for Polls that are closing soon. I'll try to squeeze it in when I can.

Just bumping for now. Maybe I'll get back to it soon.

One interesting thing to point out is that the Heroes of Lallor were reader-generated characters. I'm not sure how that would effect one's analysis of the situation, but Hamilton/Weisinger might have been loathe to turn reader-suggested Legionnaires into villains.

They did do that, however, in a way with the Murran spies, so I'm not sure if the consideration is relevant at all.