Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes Re-Reading the Legion: Archives #1

And in their third appearance, the Legion meets Supergirl! Lets take a moment to recognize the genius of Uncle Mort, who decided that despite different time periods, he'd have the Legion meeting Superboy, Supergirl, etc--and it's usually pretty strait forward and uncomplicated. In this story, there is a throwaway line about the Legionnaires being the kids of the ones who appeared twice prior. Mort smartly threw away that concept, allowing the coolness of Superboy and Supergirl working side by side to play a part in the Legion.

Of course, this issue stands out for introducing such a large array of characters and concepts, as does the second Supergirl / LSH story. Cham, Gim and Lyle all appear--albeit briefly! It's the next story where Linda's super-girlfriends and that handsome young man known as Brainiac 5 steal the show.

Btw, how short is that skirt Supergirl is wearing?! Did the 50's really look like that? Damn me for missing the 50's!

Supergirl is such a sweet kid early on. She was once such a great character for younger readers. Her sharing a "super secret" with Superman is one of those great bits that little kids must have loved.

I notice farm boy Garth put on a bowtie, showing his inability to dress with style transcends eras. Meanwhile, Cos is appropriately looking working class with no tie. Imra, of course, looks smashing and her taming a lion made my heart ache further for her.

It's noteworthy that the difference between this and their first appearance is that the Legionnaires are all stepping in to help Linda protect her secret identity, and thus keep her promise to Superman. Whereas before they were hazing Superboy as part of a cruel joke. Not only could they not duplicate the story exactly, but Supergirl is too sweet to be treated so poorly and readers might not have forgiven the Legionnaires.

There's the old ice cream parlor again! I probably wouldn't have given it any mind if Eryk, Lardy, Lash and Kippers didn't make it famous in LMB lore in Hot Summer Nights!

Cham must have intrigued readers early on, though he looks like many other 1950's aliens. Gim has freckles! And Lyle's first appearance sees him looking very alien with elfish ears.

Gotta love that classic Colossal Boy costume. The cowboy gloves make it complete. It also looks good on little kids, as Legion readers know!

Love the random bird (falcon?) about to land on Supergirl in the third to last panel! Get off that nest, Supergirl!

Jim Mooney forever will be the quintessential Supergirl artist. Dramatic, adventurous, exciting.

The issue ends with obvious foreshadowing for a sequel--how exciting! Starting now, the momentum to Adventure #300 begins!

Action #267

Man, Kara is beautiful!

And she's having a really bad day! Seriously... first the bus to the Superman fair is in danger of being delayed because the drawbridge, then the cyclotron controls jam, then the lion gets lose, then the Kryptonian rocketship ride breaks, then the hollow tree where she keeps her Linda Lee robot is about to be bulldozed... Plus these weird super-powered kids who all seem to know her secret identity!

Incidentally, that Superman fair sounds like a lawsuit just waiting to happen! And... er... why exactly do they have a lion tamer there?

While in many ways this is a re-write of the Legion's first appearance, it manages to achieve a somewhat different tone, and it's pretty clear at this point that Mort has decided that the Legion was going to be an ongoing feature. I wonder, however, if at this point the plan was to have them as an ongoing feature with Supergirl, and leave it that Superboy had only a limited number of appearances with the team?

I have to admit that I've always been kind of fond of the idea that Supergirl joined the "second generation" of Legionnaires rather than being a member at the same time as Superboy. Though It would've made the continuity even more freakishly complex to try to keep track of two different Legions.

Robots, around-the-world space tours, and alien ice cream... again!

Cham! Gim! Lyle! Remember kids... he doesn't just turn invisible, but super-invisible!

Poor Kara's bad luck continues, as she hits a vein of red kryptonite! Those Legionnaires sure chose someone else in a hurry!

Once a year is a crazy long time to have to wait to choose a new member!

I wonder what those weird scroll thingies are when she's traveling back through time?

Can't wait for the sequel!

Action 267


Page 1 - Yep... completely agree with Cobie and Eryk here. For as much of a jerk as Mort Weisinger was (according to just about anyone who worked with him) the fact of the matter is that his contributions to cementing the mythos of the "Superman Family" were nothing short of amazing. By continually reprising various elements in all the different Superman titles, he established a consistent (not sane, mind you... but consistent) universe where the reader had a real sense of the world building going on. The Legion had met Superboy, why wouldn't they meet Supergirl?

Also agree on the Jim Mooney art. Just the best Supergirl artist ever. He always captured the real innocence (and slight naivety) of Kara. She was basically the DC universe's sweetheart. How could you not adore her? I think no version of the character since Crisis has ever been able to capture that quality, and I think Mooney was a large part of why that was.


Page 2 - Midvale... I've always wondered if that was a play on words. Like Metropolis was big, Smallville was small, and "Mid"-vale was... well... medium


Page 3 - Exactly what I'm talking about... just Linda Lee being all cute and kid-excited with her secret thoughts.


Page 4 - "Super-secret". You're killing me with cuteness, Linda.

Garth is a "handsome youth"? He looks like the president of the Jimmy Olsen fan club.


Page 5 - Heh-heh, doesn't it look like that word balloon is coming from the lion? Like he's talking in third person (third-lion?) about the inevitable way that things must play out. Come on, existential lion, you've already shown free will in not entering the cage... it needn't be this way.

I agree with Cobie... Imra looks great here.


Page 6 - Good Lord! Malfunctioning cyclotron, escaped lion, faulty life-threatening rides... this is like the worst quality-controlled fair in the world. Superman should totally distance himself from this PR nightmare.


Page 7 - That is a really well-drawn bulldozer. Seriously, it didn't have to be that good. Kudos to Mooney's details.


Page 8 - The reprise of Adventure 247. The whole "children of the other Legion" is odd, of course, but a little understandable. I assume they were trying to nip in the bud the whole sackful of letters from little kids who wouldn't understand how someone could time-travel 1000 years... and also be able to travel 1015 years. I think they were just trying to keep it simple... even though - to my mind - it winds up being needlessly complicated. Whatever... it didn't last.


Page 9 - "The 30th Century... it's.beautiful... awesome!" Yeah, Kara... it is pretty bitchin', isn't it?


Page 10 - Further 247 reprises - the Ice Cream Shop, the Clubhouse, but then... world building! New Legionnaires!


Page 11 - I sometimes try to imagine - if superpowers existed - what would be the most mind boggling to see. I tend to think that just amazing "feats" like strength, speed, etc., or even "blast" type things like lightning or fire or whatever, would be far easier for the mind to accept than anything involving some sort of transformation to the body. Think about it... one boy grows before your eyes, another fades to invisibility, another just freaking changes into a tree. Personally, I think seeing these things for real would actually blow my mind at first... and probably scare me!

I've always wondered if Gim's "cowboy" type outfit was supposed to be a play on "things are bigger in Texas".


Page 12 - The trans-earth tunnel. I seem to recall that this actually becomes a permanent part of Legion Lore (used in the 80's Levitz run, I think)


Page 13 - Silly Red-K ending, but setting up a sequel.

"Yippee!" More kid-cute Kara.



All in all, a great return to form after that last bit of nonsense. It reestablishes the concept, recasts it to include another part of the Mort line, and expands the cast of the Legion with three great new characters. A+ story.

Action 267

Okay guys, is this issue 267 or 276? I thought 267 was the one with Superboy in the cage on the cover?

Man, do I need a little army of Supermen to do my housework for me. Look at how they get Clark's hat for him and everything! How sweet of them! They could scrub my shower and vacuum my carpets and do my dishes! Maybe they could market them like seamonkeys! They come in a little container and when you expose them to the special gas they grow into the PERFECT PETS.

Okay, gotta agree with Cobie on the length of the skirt. Holy crap, a stiff breeze and she'd be showing off her superpanties!

Supergirl has a....Linda Robot?! Again, I need this in my life. I would just LOVE to be all "I don't feel like going to work today...go in my place Conjure Robot!"

Is it just me or does the Clubhouse look like it's out in the middle of freakin' nowhere? Trees as far as the eye can see!

AWWWWWWW. Brainy was total boyfriend material back in those days! What a dreamboat! XD!!

Wait...how did they not see that Kryptonite rock...wait...

*makes face* I'm not sure I dig her "having two boyfriends". I'm cool with dating multiple people, but this sort of makes Supergirl look like a two-timer. *makes face again* And neither one of them know they're one of her "two boyfriends". Not cool, Supergirl, not cool.

Oops... skipping ahead, Conjie... the third story is actually Action 267.

*looks at file* Hmph. Must be labeled wrong. No worries then, i'll just change it.

Not as seen in archives, but in the original comic... the first of many iterations of Lyle's bizarre costumes:



For this one he went with the Ronald McDonald color scheme.




Ooh... and another thing about Action 267... it adds another piece to the puzzle of what I believe is the greatest conspiracy in the history of the DCU.

You'll remember that exhibit A was from Adventure #247 regarding a certain statue:



Exhibit B is piece of info that stretches all the way back to Action Comics #1, but since this is the first Legion story which references it, I'll go ahead and throw it in here...




Oh, yeah... trust me... this thing is big!

Lyle looks like a wayward prince. Perhaps he was supposed to be royalty, pre-Projectra.

At first, I thought maybe his color scheme was changed to avoid confusion with Dirk, but Dirk joined later. Maybe someone took him aside and said, "Hey, if you use those colors, people will think you have sun powers. Either that or they'll order a Space Happy Meal."

The robot in the tree kills me!

More malfunctioning machines, but the Supergirl robot is made of sterner stuff.

Linda Lee is such a conservative dresser, even for 1960. I never liked the ruffly skirt for Supergirl's costume. I don't think anyone would have worn a skirt that short unless it was a tennis dress or a bathing suit. I wonder why they didn't put her in Capri pants, which were ascending in popularity at the time thanks to the Dick Van Dyke show, but the little skirt is cuter.

Speaking of cute - those big blue eyes that Jim Mooney draws!

Funny how Metropolis looks just like Smallville in the future - and the Stargazer IV ripped off the Jules Verne... why wasn't Midvale commemorated like Smallville? Why wasn't there a Supergirl Museum?

Now the timestream is a pink blur, with years or blank calendar (?) pages. I'm really looking forward to the rainbow time stream.

This is a much gentler rejection story than the previous two. Perhaps it's because she's a girl, and you have to be gentle and polite to girls.

I was looking for some hidden meaning in all three Legionnaires using the expression "the proper time". Perhaps some philosophical message to children along the lines of "to everything there is a season". In any event, I was happy to see her toss the expression back at the Legionnaires.

I think this mystery deserves a thread of its own!

Imagine the disappointment of the little boy in East Toledo when he realized that holding this issue (actually a reprint) up in the air wouldn't allow you to see UNDER that skirt.

If only I'd had the original.

I haven't read them all, but most of the Silver Age Supergirl back-ups in Action are pretty good. The series worked great as a back-up with the right amount of drama and adventure. And of course, an incredible likely lead that was heroic and vulnerable (despite, you know, being invulnerable).

The orphanage setting in the early Supergirl stories was also a fantastic idea, providing a great framework for her to encounter kids that needed help (in secret, of course!). But, of course, one of the cool things about the feature is that there was actually progress made in her life. She was adopted, her existence was eventually revealed to the world, etc. So it didn't follow the typical pattern of always resetting things to the status quo at the end of the issue.

She was created by the same man who designed Mary Marvel, so that may explain the conservative dress. Mary Marvel often wore a ruffled-skirt as well. Here is a link to a Mary Marvel cover if anyone wants to see the comparison: http://dc.wikia.com/wiki/Mary_Marvel_Vol_1_27

The Problems Easily Solved With Time Travel issue.

I read this last night, and while Supergirl dosn't get the treatment that Ordinary Boy got ... it is kind of a bummer.

What a terrible day she had! and Those Legionnaires are really into their rules! I wonder who got Kara's spot?

Well ... since everyone can time travel why dosn't Kara just go to the future a little further back in time and do it all over again avoiding the Red K. Or time travel to next year so she dosn't have to wait to try out again.

Besides ... She's not REALLY old ... she just looks old ... on the outside .... ageist pricks!


I thought Imra looked FIERCE the whole issue ... especially next to the cute doe eyed Supergirl. Imra got the harsher eyebrows, higher cheekbones, and a commanding presence that brought the king of beasts to heel!

btw, wtf is up with this Superman fair ... It is a DEATH TRAP!

I actually liked the wacky, we are the children of the original team, and look exactly like them ... despite everyone being able to time travel business. and our time bubble technology looks exactly the same as our parents. retro is in.


Poor Linda ... back at the orphanage. Nothing like a happy ending.


and sex bots for everyone!!!! (Linda Robot) speaking of, I bet that professor and the Superboy robot from last issue get DOWN when class is not in session.

What ... only Supergirl robots get any action?

It really does look like they just repainted Smallville to serve as Metropolis!

I have sometimes thought that Supergirl's appearance was based on Sonja Henie, Olympic figure-skating gold medalist, film star, and alleged Nazi sympathizer. Short skirt, boots, long sleeves-- all that's missing is the cape.

See HERE, HERE, and HERE

I was 15 in 1960, and as I remember the era, Lightning Lad is out of fashion by about twenty years. Green plaid sports jacket? Bow tie? Who does he think he is? Tawky Tawny?

"Machines do all our heavy physical work! Man is free to labor mainly with his mind!" - Absolutely the futurist utopian vision of the 1950's. And thus the need for the "slim-ray" introduced later.

Supergirl's S-shield is peculiar in a way often consistent with the way she is presented throughout her career- the shield is too small for the symbol, so that less of the "S" is visible.

Supergirl's face is much more animated than Saturn Girl's, evident even in the simplistic art of the period. I mean, way more animated.

Note that so far, "space", means, generally, "the nine planets of the solar system". The Legion will not go truly galactic until later.

Umm... that was the whole point of the Anti-Lad story. It was retconning away Adventure 247 on the grounds that the Legionnaires wouldn't really pull such a stupid prank and must have had some reason.

HA! Just read the Supergirl story! WARNING: These comments have the PPSA (Paladin's Pervy seal of Approval)!

--Gotta agree about the skirt--that thang is super-short! I don't see enough ladies wearing those nowadays for my tastes! My eyes lingered on that opening splash a little too long..... Looks like the outline of some granny-panties underneath, though.

--Those drawbridge workers should've been a mite less blase about the ship, eh? My first thought woulda been, "#$%@! It's sinking!!! I'll bet the folks onboard crapped themselves! Irresponsible mischief, I say, Kara!

--Sorry, Kara, cousin Kal's winking because he's waiting for you to come of age so he can HIT that! Yeah, boy!

--Crap! I was wondering why Jimmy Olsen was shooting lightning bolts for a second!

--What? I swear the way Mooney draws Imra makes her look like a dead ringer for the earliest appearances of Gwen Stacy as drawn by Ditko! (Of course Imra was first.)

--Linda's green blouse & purple skirt--ick! Was that how she was always dressed in that era? (like most heroes in their civilian identities were similarly always dressed the same)

--Nice summary of Adv 247, Kara. Way to gloss over the Legionnaires' abject cruelty to your cousin! Hmmm...on second thought, I doubt Kal included the sordid details. He would've likely started bawling! Super-bawling is a frowned upon Kryptonian power!

--Page 9, panel 2: Supergirl's 'O'-face?

--As a kid, it always looked like the Trans-Earth Tunnel had severed a part of the planet as visualized here. Still does, actually!

--Yup, Mooney subtly drew Kara differently to make her look like "Superwoman". Kara definitely grew at least a coupla bra sizes for that hour or so! Good thing her costume (as stated in one of Kara's thought bubbles) can super-stretch, or we'd be seein' what's under that mini-skirt! (Rassum-frassum! )

And, oh yeah, Kara's TOTALLY checking out Gim's 'collosal crotch' on page 11, panel 1!!!

Setting the stage for 3boot Eat it, Grandpa! and the current version's Lose the Ageism!

And here begins a series of stories where the Legion shows up in cameos or as statuettes--some of which are included in the Archives and a few that are not. That's okay, as this is a pretty groovy Superboy story!

George Papp draws a great teen series. His artwork adds an Archie drama element that is appealing.

Pa speculates on all the LL's in Superboy's life, giving voice to something fans had been asking about in letter columns since 1951!

So by now its established they young Lex also lived in Smallville. I believe that was a recent Silver Age revelation?

Luthor explains scientifically how kruptonite formed via atomic fusion-- cool science bit! In fact, Luthor is shown to be generally brilliant--unlike today when they always focus on his personality defaults. Later, Luthor orders both Supes and Krypto's deaths. He ain't screwing around!

Enter Lana Lang BREAKING AND ENTERING, oh and contemplating PULLING A RANDOM LEVER TO A SCIENTIFIC EXPERIMENT. She's cute though, so I forgive her.

Funny enough, a fuse blowing is what messes Luthor hope. Kind of awesome in its randomness.

Next to show up is Krypto! It's like a cameo tour de force, and maybe that was the point of this story? Luthor, Lana, Krypto and of course the Legion. Anyway, when a dying Superboy and a dying Krypto reach for each to say good bye, that's a pretty powerful moment!

Garth is pretty darn heroic and dashing here! Best appearance for him to date! Odd that Superboy had to go out of his way to explain Garth didn't screw up the timeline. Soon enough Uncle Mort would tell his writers to abandon all that ennui.

And of course the story ends with the best foreshadowing of the entire Silver Age! There MUST be a Legion of Super Villains! Coming soon!
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That first image of Sonja has the peculiar crinkly-ruffled skirt that could well have been the model for Supergirl's costume. They must have gotten that with a knit, which is in line with Superman's original costume knitted by Ma Kent. Superwool, no doubt.




That's why her eyes were so large.