It's funny reading your dad's experiences, Cobie, because when I was about 6-11, there weren't many of us at all reading comics (though I think most people had some familiarity with super-heroes through Saturday morning cartoons), but by the time I was 12, I don't know of anybody in my peer group (including me) that was actively reading comics. It had just ceased being cool for teenagers at all.
Great to hear about your guys experiences! For my Dad, by 17-18 it definitely wasn't cool. He collected in secret for a little while until atoppinf entirely...not to come back until 1981!
By the time I was a kid, it was the sad natural next step, except with a weird aberration. No one I knew collected comics...and then with the speculate boom everyone, even adults, were interested. But even my fellow 11 year olds had the unrealistic idea of making an investment instead of enjoying them. Soon, they all went away, as did Youngblood, gate foil covers and other gimmicks, and I was the last man standing again. I think all in all, two other guys from my high school liked comics (out of 400). I didn't meet a comic book fan with a real knowledge of comics until Pov in 2004.
I was lucky to have discovered the Legion (and comics in general) when I did, as I was able to share them for maybe a year or two with the kids in my neighborhood.
One guy, who was almost exactly two years older than me, had a small collection of comics, and he actually gave me two Adventure issues (# 368 and 372). But most of the others only knew super-heroes through the cartoon; for them, comics were a passing fad.
By the time I was 12, I was truly the only person I knew who read comics or liked super-heroes. When I tried to express my interest in middle school by carrying a Thor folder or drawing Blackwing (a Daredevil foe) on my binder, I was met with taunting and teasing.
The old fogie in me thinks kids today have it so easy. With all the super-hero films, super-heroes are cool again--probably cooler than they've ever been. I've had several college students who openly admit they read comics, an unpardonable "sin" when I was their age.
Re: Mon-el's cockiness as Marvel Lad, I took it as him feeling so good and optimistic to be out of the Phantom Zone and flexing his muscles that he was just bursting with high spirits.
That's the problem with knowing the ending and beyond, but it's also part of the enjoyment of re-reading.
The thing that bugged me was Saturn Girl just dashing off with some lame excuse, with no development. Did she go to cry her eyes out over Lightning Lad? I did like how she was the one to reveal Dynamo Kid as a fake. She must have been annoyed that he was duplicating Garth's power.
She tells him to pay for the damage as well! I don't recall any other applicants being told to even fix things after they screwed up. Who pulled all the quills out of everything after Porcupine Pete let loose?
Reading these comics as a kid, we never read them in order. Children would inherit comics from older siblings, buy some and they would all circulate through the neighbourhood in a disorderly fashion. The issues were probably all done-in-one, so there were no continuity problems - not that our 1960s brains were capable of anything more than jumbled, uncritical thinking anyways.
This epic three part novel tells us of "The Last Days of Superman!" Per the cover, it's not a hoax nor a dream, but real!
The first part shows us how Superman saves a space capsule from a meteor, only to discover that the meteor is a leftover remnant of Krypton that contains a sample of Virus X, which kills all Kryptonians within 30 days! Jimmy Olsen quickly closes the lid to case in which the virus is contained, but Superman feels weakened, even once he is well away from the Kryptonite meteorite! There is only one conclusion... he has caught Virus X! With only 30 days left to live, Superman sets out to accomplish his bucket list of things for the benefit of humankind, but, in his weakened condition, he's in no shape to do it! So Supergirl calls in many of his super-allies, from the Superman Emergency Squad to Lori Lemaris to the Legion of Super-Heroes in the far future to assist!
While most Legionnaires are willing to help, Brainiac Five refuses to come! "Superman's fatal illness gives me the chance I've waited for-- for a long time!" Is this perhaps his chance to finally betray the Legion and fulfill the evil ambitions of his ancestor Brainiac, Superman's greatest enemy?
Anyway, Superman robots build a series of canals (similar to Mars's) to irrigate Earth's deserts, Supergirl diverts a planetoid that will someday hit Earth, and the Legionnaires gather together a large amount of iron which, when magnetized and electrified by Cosmic Boy and Lightning Lad, is able somehow to kill off a deadly space fungus that is headed towards Earth. And Sun Boy creates a vast burning globe in the Antarctic in order to melt the ice caps and make the continent some day inhabitable by humans!
Meanwhile Supergirl returns to the future to figure out what's up with Brainiac Five. It turns out that he had been working day and night to find a cure for Virus X, motivated of course by the fact that his ancestor was Superman's greatest enemy! Though he has failed, his attempt does inspire Supergirl to travel back in time to Krypton to check and find out if the Kryptonian scientist who had placed the sample in the case that fell to Earth had ever found a cure. But her trip to the past reveals he had not, and had to destroy the sample he was working on. But it turns out he had failed as well, and had to destroy the sample!
But wait... if he destroyed his sample, then how could it have fallen to Earth and infected Superman? Enter Mon-El, who contacts Saturn Girl telepathically to inform her that Superman's not infected at all, but the only problem is a piece of kryptonite lodged in Jimmy Olsen's camera, and he's been wanting to tell people this all issue, but no one ever bothered to contact him! So... problem solved!
Oh yeah, along the way the Legionnaires also help Lori Lemaris defeat a giant mutant sea creature, which probably explains why she was at Lightning Lad's funeral.
This is actually one of my favorite Silver Age Superman stories, though it suffers from being a little too epic to fit in one issue! At a time when a full issue story was still fairly rare, we're given a story so big that it really probably needs at least two issues to do it justice. Of course, in modern comics, it would be like a two-year event! Anyway, definitely an essential story for Legion fans, as not only does it have tons of Legion content, but it's also written by soon-to-be Legion scribe Edmond Hamilton!
There's also, of course, bits that remind one of things that will actually show up in Legion stories, like melting Antartica to form South Pole City (already mentioned in Adv. 247) or irrigating the deserts (which will later be one of the Seven Wonders of the 30th century).
I wonder if it confused readers at the time that sometimes the Legion would show up as Adults (as in the issue before this), and other times they would show up as teens. It makes sense that the teen Legion would be featured this issue, since Supergirl recruited them, but still I can only imagine that it puzzled a few youngsters back in the day.
And Sun Boy creates a vast burning globe in the Antarctic in order to melt the ice caps and make the continent some day inhabitable by humans!
...thus causing climate upheaval which would lead to world wars IV, V and VI, before everything settled down and South Pole City was established.
That story also shows Brainiac 5 actually doing something with his super-brain, as in "The Mystery Legionnaire", in which he found an antidote for Mon-el's lead poisoning. In the early Archives, he often doesn't act any smarter than the other Legionnaires.
This is also another Mon-el saves the day from the Phantom Zone. If this was used often, it must have gotten old pretty fast. However, I wonder why the Espionage Squad didn't send people into the Phantom Zone if it could be used as some sort of all-seeing eye.
It's good to have the Lori Lemaris-Legion connection cleared up. I thought maybe she was just a celebrity funeral crasher.
That story also shows Brainiac 5 actually doing something with his super-brain, as in "The Mystery Legionnaire", in which he found an antidote for Mon-el's lead poisoning. In the early Archives, he often doesn't act any smarter than the other Legionnaires.
Yeah, one of the things I'm trying to figure out is when exactly it was established that he was supposed to be "super-intelligent". He's described as a great scientist here, but my current theory is that the idea of his intelligence qualifying as a super-power doesn't actually occur until the story that retcons Brainiac into a computer (and also provides the explanation of his adopted son booting his intelligence).
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This is also another Mon-el saves the day from the Phantom Zone. If this was used often, it must have gotten old pretty fast. However, I wonder why the Espionage Squad didn't send people into the Phantom Zone if it could be used as some sort of all-seeing eye.
Especially since Phantom Girl can enter and leave the Zone by her own will.
This is a fantastic story! One of the very best Superman stories and totally epic.
Nice that your investigations revealed why Lori Lemaris was at the funeral! I wonder if there is an untold Jerro versus Brainy story where Lori somehow ends up an Honorary Member of the Legion?
Also noteworthy is how pervasive Canals are! I guess they are kind of a big deal.
Cos didn't want Marvel Lad to join the Legion, did he? He keeps upping the ante, generating more and more outrageous tests and then looking for any old excuse to reject the applicant. (Killing creatures is against the Legion code? They didn't worry about that with Supergirl's destruction of the negative man and negative creature, and they didn't expel Lightning Lad, after he returned to life, for killing Zaryan.)
Given how Cos has been written recently, as well as in the Postboot and Threeboot, it makes sense he'd want to bar any horribly arrogant and cocky members from joining - that kind of attitude can get you killed no matter how powerful you are.
Re the selective application of the Legion code, poor Star Boy!!
Last edited by Invisible Brainiac; 04/28/1309:27 AM.
Also noteworthy is how pervasive Canals are! I guess they are kind of a big deal.
This is just a couple of years before the Mariner probes finally put to rest the idea of Martian canals, though they weren't taken seriously by scientists by a couple of decades before this!
I realize I'm late to the party. Wish I'd been in on this from the start. One of the things that intrigues me about the Marvel Lad story is the author's projection of JFK being re-elected, which he of course was not, due to his assassination in his first term. Siegel must've been a super-democrat!
I hope we're moving on to discussing the rest of the Adventure series, staring with Adv. 306 next! I've been scanning all my Adventures and have almost finished the series. Then onto their Action run and various silver age guest appearances.
I was lucky to have discovered the Legion (and comics in general) when I did, as I was able to share them for maybe a year or two with the kids in my neighborhood.
One guy, who was almost exactly two years older than me, had a small collection of comics, and he actually gave me two Adventure issues (# 368 and 372). But most of the others only knew super-heroes through the cartoon; for them, comics were a passing fad.
By the time I was 12, I was truly the only person I knew who read comics or liked super-heroes. When I tried to express my interest in middle school by carrying a Thor folder or drawing Blackwing (a Daredevil foe) on my binder, I was met with taunting and teasing.
The old fogie in me thinks kids today have it so easy. With all the super-hero films, super-heroes are cool again--probably cooler than they've ever been. I've had several college students who openly admit they read comics, an unpardonable "sin" when I was their age.
I had friends who bought comics but they were satisfied with the 3 for 29¢ packs of coverless comics you could buy at local corner stores at that time (1967-68), I bought my share of those but I preferred comics with covers on them. I remember being embarrassed when a friend described coming over to my house & there were comic books lying all over the place to the 5th grade class.
I've always heard that Weisigner was a massive Kennedy supporter, and planted many subtle and not-so-subtle pro-Kennedy bits throughout the Superman line (such as JFK helping Superman preserve his secret identity).
Seigel, Broome and Kanigher all had democratic views.
DC had a rep in the 60's for being a conservative company, and maybe they were to the hippie crowd, but the majority of their 50's writers were democrats and liberals.
Imra is stunning from his first park bench appearance. She really also is a star from the get-go. I can't wait for when she gets pushy and puts the Legionnaires in their place!
Actually, Imra was a hottie all the way back to her very first appearance, in Action Comics 163
As I recall, that particular "Girl of Tomorrow" is changed into a future woman by a ray or serum or something, rather than actually being from the future!
(Better late than never.) The most important comic in Legion history. Not a great story and frankly I'd be thinking twice about joining a group that pulled initiation stunts like that, but still fun to see the future, the gadgets, the labels (as Keith Giffen once wrote "SUPER-thought-casting, no ordinary thought-casting here") and of course most of all the other characters in the background - this really was a legion.
What I enjoyed most was that they look so young. They actually look like young teens here. They won't look this young again until the reboot archie legion and maybe not then. This is a group I can believe is a bunch of kids and that makes it all worthwhile.
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