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

Adventure #301

Lester Spiffany-- a Legion World fan favorite, tries to buy his way on to the team! But no super-powers means no admittance!

It kind of feels like ol' Uncle Mort just said, "Crap! We keep getting letters by kids wanting a return of this Legion of Super-Heroes group. Let's bring 'em back in the most incoherently bad story about them we can come up with, and if the kids still like them, we know we've got a hit on our hands!"

Superboy #86

Fun fact: I remember being really annoyed that the first Archive completely lacked information on which issue each story came from, so my copy has issue numbers written in pencil by me on the first page of every story!

That crazy Superboy! Not only is he responsible for Lex Luthor going bald, but he actually saved strands on Lex's hair as a trophy! No wonder Lex hates him!

Not sure if this is the first in-story mention of the "L.L." thing, but it's an iconic element! And the first appearance of Legionnaire statuettes! (Given to him "after an adventure on Superboy Planet, which they had built in my honor!"; way to whitewash that crazy story!)

Luthor, meanwhile, discovers how to bring stone to life! Thus confimring my longheld theory that Blok has been a Luthor plant all along!

Everything's quiet in the city, so let's randomly gaze up check out what going on in space! An asteroid with a giant hand growing out it? Seems suspicious.

Living kryptonite men! I love Luthor smashing the statue and cheering on the kryptonite men as they attack Superboy!

I never realized before how randomly pointless the Lana-breaks-into-Luthor's-lab scene is. Four panels to establish the existence of a secret lever that could defeat Luthor's plan, which doesn't even get used in the story! Oh well.

You would think the power outage would have the same effect as pulling the lever, though. Wouldn't Lex's machines stop working, and thus the kryptonite men stop working? Oh well.

I wonder what Clark/Superboy would have said if someone had ever stumbled upon his collection of Legion statuettes.

"Um, er... they're my uncle's! He's kind of weird that way."

Adventure 282


Boy, it sure doesn't take much to convince Professor and Mrs. Lang to allow a strange boy to take their daughter to an alien planet in the future!

Superboy #89 not only introduces a critical component of the Legion mythos, but a critical component to the Superman family in general, especially the Silver Age. Mon-El arrives in a classic story that is IMO excellent from start to finish. For the past decade, Superboy writers had done stories in which Superboy encounters a similarly powered boy, and with this story they have perfected it.

It also continues the long tradition of Superboy dealing with the innate loneliness of being Super. Here, we see him get one step closer to addressing it, which will culminate in the Pete Ross stories they are about to ensue.

Mon-El is magnificent. A classic costume--simply played with a reverse color scheme to Superboy--and by story's end he has a nice combination of power and pathos. What's amazing is how many times he shows up in Superman, Action, Jimmy Olsen and other places. I'm sure there are a few stories I haven't ever read and don't know about where he's shown up somewhere.

Evidently, Mon-El also has super-intelligence, explaining his quick learning of English and knowing what a riverboat is.

Btw, Papp is a really underrated artist. He does great facial expressions and very intricate backgrounds. His composition is actually reminiscent of Steve Ditko in that sense. You can see Superboy's eagerness to have a brother, which makes it all the more heartbreaking. At the end of part 1, when Krypto doesn't recognize Mon, Superboy's face is full of panic--you see he immediately knows he's been wrong but refuses to admit it to himself. One page later, he clearly is projecting his anger towards Mon after feeling so betrayed.

The Bob Cobb identity, and the Kent's commitment to the ruse, are pretty great. Mon looks exactly as you'd expect a traveling salesman to look in 30's.

Ah, the reason for the "Mon-El" moniker. Er, sounds good Clark.

Superboy's side trip to Ancient Egypt is pretty wild. I wish there were more of these. The history is a little funky--4,000 BC is a loooooong time ago. But hey, it's still awesome!

Btw, Miss Joyce is pretty hot!

Meanwhile, a gang of crooks is raining lead balls with a catapult down on Smallville. Which crooks do, from time to time, I guess.

But don't worry. That is downright plausible in comparison to the Jack in the Box Monster two pages later. Say what? Someone has to post that panel. It's batshit crazy in a way only the Metal Men and Wonder Woman usually achieved.

The final 4-5 pages hit the reader like a bucket of ice water. Superboy has made a tragic mistake and cost himself the chance for the brother he always wanted. Mon's story of meeting Jor-El and Lara is great, and adds yet another layer to the Superman mythos.

I wonder if the original plan was for Superman to cure Mon, and then it occurred to Uncle Mort that he would be a perfect fit in the Legion? Certainly seems that way.

I think this is also the first appearance of the Phantom Zone? It arrived as a throwaway concept yet is so rife with possibility that it immediately would be set to recurring use. It's a great idea too--the Superman writers should use it more often.

Robert Bernstein wrote this one, as he did a lot of Superboy and Adventure stories. He did a great job--while not a "true Legion" story, its the best written story yet (if you choose to ignore the catapulting lead balls and an alien weaponized jack in the box).

"If there is a Legion of Super-Heroes, there MUST be a Legion of Super-Villains!". Perhaps the best foreshadowing ever in comics! And the promise made to fans didn't take long to come true--and boy, does it deliver.

- how about Mekt destroying Orphan City? And then threatening to kill a school bus full of kids? Viscous!

When I reread Archives #1 last summer something that stuck out was how much I enjoyed the Tom Tanner story, otherwise known by its awesome title "Secret of the Seventh Superhero!".

This is my favorite story in Archives #1, though its really a Superboy story with an LSH cameo. It's just one of those classic, well done Superman stories that the Golden, Atomic and Silver Ages did so well. What I like most about it is Tom Tanner himself, who I wish we saw again. Though he starts off very cliched, he undergoes a true change in the story: he feels the love of a family and realizes how wonderful it is; he gains the respect of his piers; he shows a true and honest appreciation for learning (a true 1950's ideal) and he ultimately decides to do the right thing.

One thing I noticed about the silver age - almost anything that appears in a story will have some significance later on! As this story will illustrate:

Action 287 - Supergirl's Greatest Challenge

And one thing I miss in the Legion is all that "fascinatingly futuristic" random weird crap that was always showing up. Although we saw a little bit of that in 5YL; mostly reruns, though. (Blok on the Puppeteer Planetoid comes to mind.)

The Boy with Ultra-Powers!

There's something about statues in these comics. It continues to this day with the fallen Legionnaires' statues getting bigger and bigger. I'm reminded of the toppling of Sadam Hussein's statue by this opening page. Will mankind ever lose its love of statuary?

At the time, would readers have figured that Ultra Boy was from the Legion's time, or were spandex-clad youths showing up in Smallville from all corners of the galaxy?

Marla and Jo arrive in Smallville on the train. No doubt they traveled from their time bubble in the Gobi Desert. Oh, later we learn that the time globe is parked outside Metropolis, so the electrical interference problem must have gotten fixed.

If these texts were being spoken aloud, what effect would the ellipsis have? "No one must suspect we are ... (drum roll? ominous sound? confused sigh?) DIFFERENT!" And what a set up line for a story about two gay guys in Smallville in 1962.

Yet another time-spanning communication device, the cosmicscope.

It appears that Rimbor isn't up to speed on Earth history, since Jo has been tasked with discovering Superboy's identity. Jo sure is clean cut, compared to how he'll be portrayed in later years. I guess it will be quite a while before we see Marla again. I still can't get over their almost-matching costumes.

That Pete Ross is one enterprising youngster. Two jobs, one at school and one in Kent's store! Plus he's a noble guy, protecting Superboy's identity, and courageous, refusing to give in to a robber's threats. Yet all he gets is a coin from the future and an invite to a Legion meeting.

Three Superboy robots crammed in a closet! Kal assumes one of them saved Pete from the robber; do they just take off and patrol on their own?

Aww, poor Krypto. Always trying to help and all too often abused. There's Jo having a laugh about it; maybe he does have a bit of street gang in him after all. Nosy too, looking into Pete's safety deposit box.

Another Superboy signalling device, a flag. If you're not the White House, Pentagon or Chief Parker, you use the flag, not the flashing table lamp. Smallville's too small for a bat-signal type of device, which probably wouldn't show up in the daytime anyways.

Considering HWW's point that a focused plot is a better story, this certainly ranks as a better story. Everything that happens is related to discovering or hiding Superboy's secret identity. It's quite toned-down, in terms of space age/future craziness, but very coherent and smooth-flowing.

Adventure Comics #300 arrives en force, as the Legion gain their own feature at long last.

The other major "transition" in this story is the one Mon-El undergoes, as he transitions from a supporting character of the Superman titles to a full on member of the Legion. That begins here, as his early saga is coming close to its conclusion now. They should really make a Mon-El Archive or Showcase.

Some highlights:

- Imra doesn't hesitate to order Superboy around! And then: calm down Clark! Sheesh, no need for name calling. I note Garth sticks right up for her, too.


- er, Superboy seems to momentarily forget how time travel works when he suggests he'll cure Mon as Superman. So does Luthor with his reason for making Ulthro "Adult".

Adventure #301


There's tons of interesting-looking applicants here that we're not introduced to! Some hold that the one from the final panel, who is particularly inspired to keep trying by Chuck's story, is really Matter-Eater Lad, who will become a member a couple of issues later.

The Fantastic Spy

Sun Boy and Lightning Lad have been injured in a rocket crash. They are operated on, fourth-dimensionallly, by Dr. Landro, who places healing capsules in their legs. They soon return to the Legion and the team sets about on various missions, only to realize that their must be a spy among them, sabotaging their efforts. Could it be new member Matter-Eater Lad?

My first thought was of Cobie, who so loves Dr. Landro's hot nurse.

Dr. Landro himself must surely be another L. L. character. Leonard? Lev? Loomis? We never got a name at all for the hot nurse.

It's still the 21st century.

The mineral Energite and element (?) Lurium are mentioned. Some enterprising fan must have done a periodic table of the Legionverse, but I've never seen one.

Cham changes into a voluptuous beauty and poses as disguised Cosmic Boy's wife, another great scene from Legion history.

The Legion agrees to essentially murder Meglaro, a villainous brain-in-a-globe character, by transporting him to 100,000,000 AD when the sun is dying and its planets are depopulated. It's okay, it was a Science Police order and, in the end, Superboy takes care of it.

Brainiac 5 struts his stuff with the formula ((FW21/17W) - 250 rogots), which turns out to be a head fake, but fools the other Legionnaires. What is a rogot? I love the idea of there being entirely different units of measurement in the future.

Brainy repeats his evil ancestor story. He's obsessed with it.

Matter-Eater Lad, suspected of being the traitor, flies away. His means of flight is neither evident nor explained. The very fact that he flees leads Cosmic Boy to conclude that he must be guilty. However, he is proven innocent in the end as the real traitor is revealed: a miniature man hidden within the healing capsule in Sun Boy's ankle! Dr. Landro was working with a team of villains all along!

This story is a chain of deceptions and mysteries (most of which seriously stretch the limits of disbelief), as both the bad guys and the Legionnaires try to outwit each other.

I think the real deception remains undisclosed: Dr. Landro's hot nurse was the mastermind behind it all. Observe how she evaded capture, nay, even suspicion. No doubt she was controlling Landro with blackmail or sex, and posed as his nurse when it served her evil purposes.

Who could she have been? And is she still on the loose, operating under deep cover in the shadowy underworld?

Adventure 304

The basic plot motivator, a message from a heretofore unknown alien race that their computer has made a vague prediction that *some* Legionnaire will die foiling the invssion of Zaryan, just seems way too weak for the story.

I wondered about that as well. She threatens them with expulsion if they follow her... but wouldn't that require a vote of the entire membership?

Again, I think the story would work better if she'd stripped the other members of their powers temporarily, but then you'd have to find a way to make Garth immune.

Adventure #305

So, this is a bit of a lighter story after the dramatic events of last issue. Lightning Lad's death is referenced at the beginning of the story, demonstrating that it will have an ongoing effect on the series, but then we quickly move to an audition to take his spot in the Legion.


The core of the story revolves around the new applicant Marvel Lad and the mystery of his identity. We quickly discover that he has the powers of Superboy/Mon-El, without their vulnerabilities. Good thing Saturn Girl is suddenly called away by telepathic summons so that she can't read his mind to discover his identity! (For the record, I'd like to think she was in on the charade, and made up the lame excuse to leave so that no one would ask her to uncover his identity...)

You reminded me that, even though I'm a dozen years younger than your dad and from the Midwest, the super-heroes were viewed more or less the same. Thanks to a cartoon show, everyone in my neighborhood knew the DC heroes, but everyone liked Flash, Hawkman, Green Lantern, Aquaman, and even the Atom more than Superman.

Superman got to "hang out" with the cool heroes because they were all in the JLA, and so he became cool by association.

It could be that Imra did not strip the others of their powers, do more serious mind control, etc so that if in the off chance she failed there would be other Legionnaires ready to go to defend Earth against Zaryan.