Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes Re-Reading the Legion: Archives #2

I was impressed by this, as well. The Legionnaires effectively become supporting characters in their own series. This shows how rich the Legion's universe was, and how it lent itself to being filled out in all sorts of ways. Some writers, editors, and fans may feel that the Legion has always had too many characters, but stories such as this show how a large cast can be a strength.

I think it's the latter. They wanted to make sure the characters were recognized. They used to depict Clark sleeping in his glasses too. I remember a reader wrote in about it once and they replied, "not a mistake, but drawn on purpose so readers would recognize him". It's odd though, that Garth is depicted in his costume in the flashback, but Ayla is not depicted in the one that she wears at the end of the story, however, she does have the bouffant hairdo that she later sports, not long hair, as the story specified she previously had.

Yes, it was quite annoying the way every character had to explain what they were doing in every panel throughout the silver age, when it was usually obvious from the art. Element Lad: "I'll use my element-changing ability to change the poisonous kryptonite to harmless helium" or some such.

Sadly, the level of some readers' intelligence didn't improve even in the 1970s. S/LSH # 211 contained a flashback in which Star Boy (now wearing his black starfield costume) recounted how he was expelled from the Legion (then wearing his purple and white costume). A wily reader complained that the artist forgot to depict Star Boy in the flashback panel--apparently not realizing he'd changed costumes!

There will always be idiotic readers, but it's unfortunate that DC often chose to write down to their level.

See also characters always wearing basically the same outfit in their civilian identities.

At the end of the day, though, I'd take the heavy exposition of the Silver Age over some more modern comics where you are just left scratching your head as to what actually happened after you read them.

Were tree-men common in sci fi or comics in this era? I'm wondering if Hamilton had used them in a story or if he took the idea from the Tree Men of Abro.

The Tree Men of Arbro couldn't reproduce because of a lack of chlorophyll - now there's a hero task for Chlorophyll Kid. This story's tree men have suffered a massive population explosion. You've got to figure there was a big die-off from this; perhaps their entire race died off as well.

There's Marvel's Groot, who first appeared in 1960 and the Cotati (from the 1970s). Tolkein's Ents go back further, and there's a raft of talking trees in fairy tales. Apart from Groot, I don't recall any tree beings in contemporary comics.

Regarding the "never deviating from costumes" idea, which as Jim says extends to civilian ID's, there's some evidence this came from Mort himself, and was done on a editor by editor basis. One Superman artist (I can't remember which one anymore) recalled that they wanted to have some fun with various clothes the characters would wear--simply to alleviate boredom at times--but Mort believed younger readers would be thrown off.

Yet over in say, Green Lantern, Hal Jordan is shown wearing a different set of clothes every issue--indeed, that is part of the charm of his social life. When Marvel really got going, their characters constantly had different clothes. So I think it really comes back to Mort (and Jack Schiff did this too).

What's funny is this was definitely *not* a thing in the Golden Age!

Wasn't Thom even wearing his old purple shirt in that story? Hard to believe that reader couldn't figure out that the guy in the flashback with the big star on his chest was STAR Boy.

Hamilton had definitely used Plant Men previously. In the Interstellar Patrol series, Plant-Men come from Capella, for example.

And Thom even had the same haircut!

Do you mean, was Thom wearing his purple shirt during the present events of the story? No. The purple shirt appears in only one panel, as Thom recalls how Brainy "proved" Thom could have stopped Kenz Nuhor without killing him.

(I use "proved" in quotation marks because Brainy ignores the fact that being hit in the head with a heavy tree limb might still have resulted in Kenz's death. Brainy was just being a good prosecutor. He would have done well on "Law and Order.")

In the panel's caption, Thom (headshot only) says, "I should know! I once killed a man in self-defense . . . but Brainiac 5 proved I could have avoided it . . ." So, even if readers were thrown momentarily by the change in costumes, a preponderance of other information should have cleared things up.

Didn't Johns retcon things so that Star Boy received his starfield costume much sooner, like around the time that he was expelled? Maybe this was the justification.

There's a fine balance between too much exposition and not enough.

The Star Boy example I mentioned above illustrates, I think, how this balance can be achieved. The reader who complained notwithstanding, the scene does not have to explain that Star Boy changed costumes. It relies on the reader being able to interpret from other information that he's the same character. The scene also does not have to identify Brainiac 5 (who does not appear elsewhere in the story); the reader can infer that he's another Legionnaire or someone with the authority to expel Star Boy from the Legion.

(Though, if readers really needed confirmation of Brainy's identity, he is depicted on the cover banner and appears in the backup story, which, coincidental to our discussion, features the Subs!)

Jim Shooter, who wrote the story in question, appears to have trusted the reader's intelligence. This is much better than Legionnaires constantly referring to themselves and each other as "Legion member Mon-El" or saying, "I'm Matter-Eater Lad. I just joined the Legion so many of you may not know me yet. Please tell me what you already know and what new readers don't."

I don't know about the retcon. If so, it doesn't seem to make any sense.

I must be remembering a different story. There's some story starring Star Boy where he's hanging out in a cut-down purple shirt from his old costume and shorts, telling another Legionnaire his hard luck story.

^^That's LSH #306.

A few random comments about Adv. 306:

Kids in the future are so technologically advanced that they can dig out their own mountain headquarters, build a spaceship, and build a "Warning Wall" monitor system.

What did happen to the plant man kayoed by Night Girl? After he woke up, was he arrested? Did he get away? Did he discover he was the last of his race? There is definitely an untold story here.

Notice the spellings of some code names. In addition to "The Chlorophyll Kid," we've got Stoneboy and Sunboy each as one word. Anomalously, Fire-Lad is spelled with a hyphen.

If super-powers existed in the real world, I get the feeling they'd be on the level of the Subs', not the near-godlike abilities most Legionnaires exhibit. But think how useful it would be to make plants grow super-fast and to super-sizes. Ral could clean up as an organic farmer. And Brek would be much in demand for food storage, beverage cooling, and cryogenics. Even Dag could rent himself out as an undercover museum security guard. So, the Subs' problem wasn't that their powers weren't good enough. It's that they defined being heroes and helping people only in Legion terms.

That said, it's awfully convenient that the invading threat just happened to be one that could be thwarted by their particular powers. If the invaders were something other than plant men, earth would have been doomed.

Well, as we'll find out in the next Subs appearance, they're also pretty effective against invading lizard men, at least those that are vulnerable to cold.

Adv 306 or Where Conjure Lass would probably end up were the Legion real life and not in my fantasy world.

WHOA, what happened to Polar Boy's NECK on the first page?!! It looks like his head is balancing on a snowball! Or that he swallowed a tennis ball!

Man, the Legion should have hired someone else to design/carve their tribute statues. Because man do those suck.

Truthfully, i've always been confused as to why they'd reject Polar Boy. True, he didn't have THAT great of control over his abilities, but in this story he seems perfectly competent. And it's the 30th century! Surely the Legionnaires could find some way to protect themselves from the cold.

Lydda is really pretty in this issue. I wish I could get my hair to do that. XD

StoneBoy's power really IS absolutely useless in a combat situation. I mean, I guess with a little creativity you might be able to use it a bit...but really? NAAAAAH.

I've never understood why the Subs didn't just FORM THEIR OWN TEAM. I mean, sure, they can stand for the same ideals as the Legion, but if they're going to be a separate team anyway they may as well just call themselves something else!

Oh, Conjure. Stone Boy useless in a fight? Perhaps...

But in the real world, Stone Boy and a modestly intelligent engineer could be wealthy beyond the dreams of avarice.

Since Stone Boy's power violates the law of conservation of mass, that means that he could be a component of an actual operating Perpetual Motion Machine of the First Kind. And that means infinite free energy!

He can buy an army to fight for him.

In retrospect, you do kind of wonder why the Subs didn't think, "Crap! I didn't make it into the Legion. Hmm... let's try the Wanderers. After all, they admitted a guy with a blowgun!"

True. True. Not only that, but The Legion of Substitute Heroes is just TOO LONG A NAME. How do they expect people to remember that?!

Yeah, but that's like hiring the Flash to power a city from an exercise bike. Given an inertron bike & chain and some super-lubricant, it could be done and would supply more energy than any conventional means, but it would be the ultimate in drudge work for the guy doing it!

...super-lubricant.

God help me, I'm so immature.

Read up on Buckyballs, which potentially carry the greatest lubrication potential known to man!

Maybe they didn't want to do all that wandering.

The potential profits for KY just shot through the roof!