Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes Re-Reading the Legion: Archives #3

Exactly what I thought. and if he did, surely there would have been some female criminals as well - couldn't there have been enough to restart the Kryptonian race?

And it's just funny that Superboy suddenly has the power of total recall in this story. What? I am so going to be on the lookout for the next time he forgets something!

Actually, Princess Projectra joined before Brin.



I assumed he joined the circus because he needed to eat--another example of Dr. Londo designing his androids too well, perhaps--or was lonely.

Well, circuses have been known to be full of "freaks", and one feels they are a freak among society, one might seek out those they believe would feel similar.

I don't know if the coloring in the Archives is 100% faithful to the original "Lone Wolf Legionnaire" story, but, if so, the flashback plays more than fair with the readers by showing that all the androids have 'black' hair and not 'brown' hair like our supposed Lone Wolf android. Only when Dr. Londo is presented with the Zuunium is 'Karth' colored as having brown hair. So if the coloring in the Archives is faithful, the readers should notice that all the androids are black-haired.

We'll need someone like Cobie reading from the originals to confirm whether the hair-coloring in the flashbacks is accurate. (And no, it's not stated in the text that all the androids are identical, but they sure all appear to be so in the flashback.)

Wow. That's surprising because in the original, all the androids are dead ringers for Brin, hair color and all!

So Archive hair coloring = FAIL!

Bah! I'm surprised the androids weren't all Brainy!

Although, he was introduced before Princess Projectra was.

You still see it in any story involving evolution. I remember one particularly disturbing Star Trek Voyager episode where two crew members evolve, independently but identically, into future human forms as if evolution were a single train track that living things inevitably follow.

With characters like Evolvo Lad who became more interesting in later series I just shrug my shoulders and get on with the story.

There was a character with a very similar power, accurately named Inertia, in the 1985 Squadron Supreme miniseries. She had the ability to absorb the inertia from someone or thing, halting them in their tracks, and then give that inertia to something else forcing them to suddenly move in a different direction. Her power was used quite effectively.

ADV 324

I agree that this seems a fairly well written story. The pacing and the split between intro and plot balance well.

Yes they do seem a bit gullible but no more so than most stories around then.

I too enjoyed seeing Colossal Boy battle Duplicate Boy and wondered if it inspired the later story.

As for Duplicate Boy using multiple powers at the same time this story is the only time I remember seeing it happen when he uses Superboy's heat vision to light the sticks on fire while shrunk down to Vi's size. It actually surprised me to read it. And yes it does potentially make him unbelievably powerful. However in all his appearances he seems to have to consciously think about using a power so perhaps that is his Achilles' heel. A surprise attack would take him out pretty quick, and if he is panicked or not thinking clearly he is unlikely to make good use of it.

Oh, and the old "I can't understand how a girl as pretty as Shrinking Violet could be one of the tyrannical Super-heroes." Haven't our ideas reversed. These days if a woman (it's usually female although there have been male cases) is noted as being exceptionally attractive we are all meant to wonder what their secret agenda is. In it's own way that's as bad as the "ugly is evil" stereotype.

I think this is the one you meant, right? It is a great scene, and is it just me or does it look more Curt Swan-ish than the darker and stiffer usual John Forte-ish?

I agree this would have been a fabulous idea. In fact my own reading of this story has always been annoyed at it having to be a bald Lex revealed and thus is evil. What if this were Lex from a parallel universe (we even have Cham from a parallel universe in this very story) who is evil tricky even though he hasn't lost his hair? Or what about a good Lex who in the story does lose his hair but stays good and the Legionnaires manage to restore it but only temporarily? No I like your version best, this is good Lex and his future (past?) is known and can't be changed but these are his adventures with LSH when he was a boy (a good boy!).


I wonder how the rest of the rest of the monorail passengers feel about Cos's trick. "Blast that stupid kid is doing it again!" Wonder if the SP are on his case?


I love this bit! Great stuff. I wish they did it more.


Not one of the greatest stories but some great moments. Really, let's punsih him by letting him go home embarrassed? STill I always liked Lex's space/time ship. Very different and quite cool. Wonder if he will make one for me?

Hey, great catch! Your post was worth reading just for this.

Adv 326

Interestingly I remember this story much better than the later Thora one since it was another that I read early and multiple times in a B&W reprint.

Many have spoken of the sexist messages in the story and how they detract from it today. I don't find them quite as bad. In many ways it's the girls who are shown as clever and inventive and powerful in this story while the boys are too caught up in their hormones to think straight. That's the sort of joke we still make today (Big Bang Theory anyone?). Let's look:

Saturn Girl directs the returning boys to go on a further month long mission (presumably they were still under the limit of space missions established in the Sun Boy story) with a plausible if briefly stated reason. The boys obey without questioning. This could be seen as loyalty and obedience to their chosen leader so a tick for the boys, but it still comes off at least a bit gullible and is a plus for Imra's leadership abilities.

The girls have detailed plans for which boys they will doom and how they will do it. As was written above, they divide and conquer. Knowing what males are like (now I'm being sexist but as a member of the gender I think I can say it) the girls plan to distract the boys with romance - and it works. As also noted only Jan appears to fight back when Cos could probably grab something magnetic outside the box and surely Brainy's force field could break them out. (BTW I'm surprised wooden match boxes still exist in the 30th C. Perhaps Luornu asked Kara to bring it from the past.)

Even the writers's use of Femnez shows an interesting role reversal with militant women and passive peaceful men. Yes at the end the women "realise the error of their ways" and invite the men back, but it seems to me that both sides are at fault here and the men were acting pretty wimpy complaining to the women about their practices but not doing anything about it. How the two sexes resolve their differences is not shown and it may have resulted in a more equitable society than we have today. I get the criticism that it shows the women of Femnaz as foolish and needing the male wisdom, but I don't think that it has to be taken to apply to women or men in general, especially after seeing how the two genders of legionnaires behave in the story.

Moving past that issue as a young male I found lots of fun in the story (surprise, surprise) and always thought the cutest image was Kara doing the twist although I admit to wondering if Salu was shown wearing dark panties or was that just the shadow from her skirt.

The various boys reactions are hilarious and frankly not too far from reality. Males, particularly young males, even if they normally have certain principles of not dashing off with every "bird in the forest" (an admittedly sexist phrase), still tend to react a certain way when an opportunity presents itself. It's fun that the only two kisses that don't happen are with the super kids - guess they didn't want to interfere with 20C romances.

Oh and I have to wonder do all the statues in the park have bazooka rayguns in them like Light Lass's?

Sup 117

Silly. Forgetable. Boring frankly. I didn't like this one (although I agree the Curt Swan art is nice).

Each legionnaire was shown using his powers once but most;y not very impressively.

"Superboy's greatest ability here is to stop time." Ha! I like that. He does fit an amazing amount into those panels which seem to take forever.

As has been noted much more could have been made of this story, but I guess it was just an 8 page filler and that's all we got.

That's it! Thanks Stile!

Really fantastic job by Forte. I can see the Swan influence too. Perhaps one of Swan's inkers stepped in to assist?

People need to say 'Awp!' more often.

All the discussion about androids above makes me think, how well are androids really supposed to approximate human thought and emotion? Is it realistic for such to happen in a science fiction setting? We have the 20th century Red Tornado for one, who is able to care for Kathy Sutton and Traya. And then we have Karth Arn, and Brin Londo not even knowing that he isn't an android despite the thoughts and emotions he has. Whew.

"What we have here is a failure to communicate"--or to define terms precisely.

Brin was not a Legionnaire in this story, whatever the story title. So, while your statement is correct, it is incomplete as it implies that he was the next Legionnaire to join without the standard style of code name. It would have been more accurate to say he was the first Legionnaire to be introduced without such a code name.

Thank you, thank you. No applause, please.

For my next trick, I will lecture on the nuances of the semi-colon.

A semi-colon is what you have left after an incomplete colonectomy, right? :>

Set and Reboot:

The semi-colon is actually a very useful piece of punctuation, and when people misuse it (which they do frequently), it stands out like a Khund in a Gil'Dishpan colony.

If anyone's interested, here's an article I wrote on the proper use of the semi-colon.

There is a bill working its way through Congress that addresses this.

Thanks, HWW! I learned something new today.



I blame the story title for all our confusion