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

Jimmy Olsen # 72

As Cobie notes, this story works precisely because it's short and silly--and it doesn't aspire to be anything else.

"The World of Doomed Olsens" is based on a simple two-act structure:

Act I: Jimmy is kidnapped by the Collector, who tells Jimmy that for crimes he has unwittingly committed, he is sentenced to spend eternity rooted to a world along with various versions of himself.

Act II: Jimmy sees through the hoax, and the Legionnaires induct him as a reserve member.

That's it. And that's all the story purports to accomplish. As a result, it's one of the more satisfying reads so far.

Of course, this isn't really a Legion story--it's a Jimmy Olsen tale, and it benefits from having a single protagonist with an already well established personality. In many of the Legion stories, neither Siegel and Hamilton seemed clear on who the "hero" of the story was, so they treated the Legion as a collective protagonist. The result was a group of more-or-less interchangeable personalities distinguished only by power and costume. Here the Legionnaires return to their original status as supporting characters, so their personalities don't matter so much. The Legionnaires may suffer in terms of character development, but the story as a whole is better for it.

As for Jimmy, he was never essential to the Legion--his membership was more of a "Why not?" type of idea. In his next appearance, for example, he's summoned not because the Legion needs his Elastic Lad powers, but because they need his skills as a reporter to find a story for the Legion newsletter! (Presumably, there are no good reporters in the 30th century.) I agree with Cobie that comics these days could benefit from a shot of unabashed silliness like this.

Jimmy Olsen #72

--I definitely dig classic Jimmy Olsen stories!

--I love Jimmy as a celebrity!

--Strange that the Wolf Man serum also changes the color of his clothes!

--Er, you'd think they'd put the Wolf Man as part of the slide show, rather than endangering the audience!

--That looks suspiciously like a Legion time bubble the Collector is in! And "Gion-El" is an anagram for "Legion". I wonder...

--You've got to wonder when the Legion was concocting this hoax, and realized that they needed roots to suddenly grow around Jimmy's feet, they start regretting have rejected Chlorophyll Kid.

--I really wonder what the "Collector" would've changed Jimmy into if he hadn't guessed the scheme right then?

--That's one pretty amazing deduction!

--Wow! I'm surprised Jimmy knows the Legion so well that he knows the detail of where Proty is from and everything! But wait... it's Proty II, because Proty died in the last story we reviewed! (They could've easily just said this story took place before that one, couldn't they?)

--I'm curious about the many times Jimmy has helped the Legion in the past!

A fun, if inconsequential story. As I've said previously, I'm not the biggest fan of Jimmy's involvement with the Legion, but it works okay as long as it's confined to his series rather than actually a part of the Legion series itself. I do find myself wondering what all the audience of "Meet the Celebrities" are thinking after Jimmy is kidnapped mid-show and never returns!

Random cool thing, possibly related to the revival of Lightning Lad:

In Superman #163, published the month before, a rival hero, Wonder Man, appears in Metropolis. His origin? The Superman Revenge Squad use a machine to transfer the consciousness of a Superman Robot into an android!

There was a Jimmy Olsen one-shot published last year (I think) which portrayed an updated Jimmy but kept the crazy nonsense of the Silver Age. It was pretty good, although I don't think I could maintain a regular diet of Olsen.

Mark Waid said in some interview that he dreaded having his stories labelled "fun" - perhaps he was thinking of fun in terms of this Olsenesque silliness. As a break from both the Legion stories of the time and the tone of the current stories, the Doomed Olsens is enjoyable. What character today would say "Darn this fiend!"?

The Collector reminded me of Evillo.

Chameleon Boy says that Jimmy has helped them so much in the past. Are these untold or unarchived stories?

There was a real Superman imitation called Wonder Man. DC sued Fox Feature Syndicate for copyright infringement and won largely due to the testimony of Will Eisner. According to Toonepedia, it was a lawsuit with merit.

The ironic thing is that Victor Fox (whose own history is fascinating) was able to realize almost immediately that Superman was a game-changer, and he jumped all over it. Meanwhile Harry Donenfeld, publisher of DC Comics, was incredibly slow to catch on and some say the lawsuit against Fox itself is what made him finally take notice of the sales figures which were skyrocketing every time Superman appeared on the cover of Action Comics.

The sole appearance of Fox Feature's Wonder Man can be read here, for those interested!

Proty/Garth is an extremely stupid thing to put in an actual comic book. If you really think the resurrection story doesn't make sense without it, you're better off having the story not make sense than putting in the retcon and making it canon to the point where everyone is stuck with it until your entire series gets written out of canon.

It's like having Lightning Lass be a guy with a sex change. It explains away the bad science of Winath having identical twins of opposite sexes, and also explains why she would be attracted to women--she was a straight guy before the sex change (if you're the kind of fan who thinks that needs explanation). The main difference is that this stupid idea hasn't become popular among fans.

Well, as comments on this thread suggest, it *is* popular with some fans.

I'm not sure I understand your analogy. Are you suggesting that Lightning Lass could only be a girl because of bad science and that she could only be attracted to women because she had been a guy? Or are you saying that any story which puts forth such an idea would be stupid?

If the latter, I might agree with you . . . but I don't think Proty/Garth falls into the same category. If anything, it was a brilliant reinterpretation of the character that did not change anything that had gone before. It simply put everything in a new light.

It's understandable why some fans wouldn't like the change . . . any story which says, "What you've always thought about this character isn't true" is a challenge to accept. But that doesn't make it stupid.

I strongly dislike the Garth-as-Proty storyline as well. But I don't think it would be appropriate to call it stupid, or imply that fans who like it are wrong somehow.

Tastes vary, and with a team as big as the Legion, there's bound to be one or two characters (or character plots) that I don't care for, since I'm only 1/16,000th of the current readership.

Adventure #313

Though a bit of a goofy concept, this is a pretty great cover! I find it so amusing that its almost the exactly same layout of the next cover with Alaktor. Also notably is Phantom Girl doesn't make the cover but makes the opening splash; Lydda--already more prolific than all the girls save Imra--does though.

Good of Lydda to make sure the Legion still don't learn of the Subs. At this point, my theory is the Legion knows but hasn't revealed that yet.

Naturally Supes and Mon have business on the other side of the universe. Thus, still no true adventure of Superboy and Supergirl side by side in the LSH. This story does show though that its pretty commonplace for the two to be in the 31st century, instead of just for special occasions like funerals.

That's either Tenz or Jan Jor on page 4, panel 4!

Supergirl versus Satan Girl is the biggest action sequence yet! This had become a full fledged Supergirl story now!

No worries Chuck, go ahead bouncing with the monsters. We've only got half our roster on the verge of death!

As Satan Girl mops up the dude Legionnaires, Cos stands by Lydda! Aha! He's falling for her right back!

The Super-Pets to the rescue! And Beppo looks pissed!

That kooky Red Kryptonite! I'd think this was written by Seigel, who always loved using it.

This story is noteworthy for the nice Curt Swan artwork--his first in a Legion lead story. His usual inkers are both here, Moldoff and Klein, and you can easily tell who does what.

Adv. 313

As a Supergirl solo story, "The Condemned Legionnaires" works quite well. Once again, the Legionnaires are reduced to supporting cast members, as most have little to do in the story. All the girls get sick. The boys stand around and wait for Supergirl to arrive and repair their ship (women do all the work, even in the 30th century!), and they either stand around and watch or fight ineffectively against Satan Girl. The only Legionnaire who helps advance the plot is Lightning Lad, but he basically serves as courier for the Super-Pets.

What we have here isn't bad, though. We have a bonafide super-villain who is hell-bent (snicker) on killing all the female Legionnaires for unknown reasons. Supergirl has to go through a trial-and-error process of figuring out Satan Girl's origin: Is she a Kryptonian? A Daxamite? An android? And Satan Girl, like all good villains, knows every move the hero will make and every place she will hide. The stakes continually escalate as not only do the girl Legionnaires get sicker every time they encounter Satan Girl, but Satan Girl herself has a time limit--only 48 hours to accomplish her goal!

Furthermore, Supergirl and Satan Girl get into a fight that lasts . . . oh, several panels--one of the few actual fight scenes we've seen so far. (And girls fighting? Pretty risque for the early '60s.)

It's almost a shame that Satan Girl didn't stay a separate entity. She is a formidable foe and a villain one loves to hate. She preys on the weak when they're down, mocks Supergirl's efforts to learn her identity, and even hates animals. Of all the villains so far, she's the only one I wish had returned to fight the Legion again.

Sexist attitudes abound, however. I'm sure it probably sounded macho for Supeboy to tell the girl Legionnaires they were all doomed (page 3, panel 3), but it comes off as heartless. The Legionnaires showed more sympathy for Lightning Lad when he was actually dead.

And although Supergirl realizes that Satan Girl's powers don't work on animals, she never figures out the villain's true identity. Unlike Jimmy, Superboy, and other male Legionnaires who make brilliant deductions based on scant evidence, Supergirl must wait for the villain to reveal her own identity. I guess girls just aren't as smart as boys.

So what we have is a good story but not a great one. It relies on tried-and-true tropes (including, of course, the "evil self" motif of science fiction) and offers little new; however, it did pull me back into the story and make me root for the hero in a way that # 312 did not.

Digression No.1: When I first read this story, circa age 12, it was in a reprint owned by a much younger neighborhood boy. The boy pointed to a picture of Chameleon Boy and said, "That's the bad guy." This prompted a lecture from me on how not all aliens are bad guys. (Of course, I was also watching "Star Trek" at the time . . .)

Digression No. 2: With all the things prohibited by the Comics Code, it's always surprised me that DC got away with the name Satan Girl. While there is nothing satanic about her, one would think any reference to the Judeo-Christian devil would be verboten. But the name is just there, without incident.

I totally agree on Satan Girl--its a shame she didn't end up being a Daxamite female or the descendent of Supergirl's enemy Lesla Lar or something. She's probably the best antagonist yet, and a recurring super-powerful female enemy of the Legion would have been a terrific addition to the mythos.

And I wondered the same thing about the name "Satan Girl". It's actually such a great name! (Leading the LMB to co-opt it of course in introducing Lucifer Lass back in 2002).

Adventure Comics

So, this story continues the trend of the strongest stories in this volume tending to be the ones in which the Legion are pushed to the background, and other characters taking center stage. For the most part, this is a Supergirl story, with the Legion simply providing supporting cast for her. It works pretty well, though.

We start out with Lightning Lass, Saturn Girl, and Shrinking Violet each using their powers in helpful ways. Poor Triplicate Girl and Phantom Girl don't even get a scene getting sick!

Incidentally, I've always really dug those aliens that Saturn Girl is helping to establish contact with!

Superboy and Mon-El are conveniently distracted "far across the universe" so they won't be in the story!

Sheesh! Even Night Girl gets a bigger role than Lu or Tinya! You'd think the Legionnaires would be wondering what she's still doing hanging around on Earth!

I've always loved Satan Girl's look! And, yeah, it's pretty hard to believe that name is acceptable by the CCA!

Quarantine World is a pretty cool idea, which will be re-used 5YL. The robot nurses always crack me up: "My electric circuits are going out-- I'm being deactivate somehow..." It just amuses me so much imagining them saying that as Satan Girl blasts them with heat vision!

Probably some of the most intense action we've seen yet in the series in the battle between Satan Girl and Supergirl!

I love the bouncing aliens, and Bouncing Boy having fun with them! This world's being inside a cloud of darkness is also kind of cool.

There must be a great untold story of how Supergirl first discovered the Puppet Planetoid! Note that Ultra Boy isn't around, so the scene where he saves Sun Boy from the giant puppets must be yet another visit!

The second appearance of the super-pets! It sure is convenient the Legionnaires keep running into bad guys whose powers don't affect super-powered animals!

And poor tragic Satan Girl! It really is a shame that they couldn't have found a way to bring her back on a regular basis.

Anyway, definitely a solid story, and one of my favorites of the volume, though, as I said, it easily could've been a story from Supergirl's series rather than the Legion's with only a couple of changes.

Just reread JO 72. Surpising how short it is. This is the problem I always had with the Sherlock Holmes stories. He always makes these outrageous leaps of conclusion based on the tiniest bits of circumstantial evidence. Jimmy does the same here. I'm sure his microphone was made partially of lead and he would know that of course. Also silly that Jimmy doesn't even try to run away. He just assumes he's rooted to the ground with those fake tree roots because the Collector tells him so. Not exactly Legionnaire material if all the effort he makes is throwing that tiny little microphone at the bad guy.

I didn't get my hands on Adv. 313 until I was probably in my late 20s. The first reference I ever saw to "Satan Girl" was in Adv. 350, when Sun Boy and Supergirl discuss her while he hands Kara her costume, which I had as a kid of about 9 or 10. I misread "satan" as "satin" and thought it was a reference to her costume being made of satin! LOL!

I agree that it would've been great to see a repeat appearance of Satan Girl. Was disappointed in the inclusion of the super pets, who always seemed silly to me. It is indeed surprising how many villains are powerless against animals. The brain globes of rambat, Satan Girl, the Luck Lords . . . anybody else? Maybe the LSH should just retire and let the LSP take over.

Special Bonus Review: Superman #165

So Lois Lane and Lana Lang, rivals for Superman's affections, are each about to do something spectacular to create an impression on him. Lois is about to become the first woman astronaut, while Lana is investigating rumors of the tomb of Circe, who is supposed to be under a sleeping spell.

So, Lois's mission goes awry when a random meteor appears, and Supes has to save her. Strangely, the meteor does not break up when Supes hits it, but merely deflects towards the Earth, and so he has to plunge down towards it to destroy it. But Supes finally destroys the meteor, and Lois lands safely.

Meanwhile, Lana has uncovered the tomb of Circe, who wakes up, and, discovering what time period she is in, reveals that she too wants Superman having previously met him on one of his trips to the past. Circe decides that she will use her magic to make Superman hers! She begins by showing off her power in front of government leaders and scientists at the Metropolis Museum. First, she reads the mind of one of government officials, producing the schematics to a top secret invention. The she precedes to change Superman's head first into that of a lion, and then to that of a mouse. Powerless against her magic, Superman agrees to be her slave.

Circe then precedes to make Superman do silly stuff. At a site where Supes is supposed to begin the digging for a new city hall, Circe makes him climb up on a crane and dive down into the ground, but he manages to do his excavation of the city hall site while upside down and underground. Then, Circe makes Superman stand on his head while juggling, but then he manages to foil a robbery while in this position.

Seeing that Superman will still continue to do good works no matter what ridiculous position she puts him in, Circe decides to give up and return to her own time.

Meanwhile, watching members of the Superman Revenge Squad decide that their mysterious plan to strip him of his powers has failed. Supes watches as they leave.

Then Superman meets with Circe, who turns out to be, in reality, Saturn Woman, who had pulled off the feats of magic with the help of her pet, Proty II. It turns out this had all been an elaborate scheme by Superman to fool the Revenge Squad members, whose ray had actually stripped him of his powers, except when he was upside down, because of pseudo-scientific gobbledygook about his powers having different poles or something. Anyway, Supes had summoned Saturn Woman from the future as a way of giving him an excuse to perform all super-feats upside down for the 24-hour period which the ray would last.

Anyway, another decent "Legionnaires show up from the future to help Superman fool the bad guys" story, notable because they are starting to get rarer at this point. Lots of great Saturn Woman hussiness in this one!

Wow! Maybe something did happen at that Christmas party with the mistletoe.

She really is a great villain. She could have joined the Fatal Five and given them more gender balance as well as overall power.

I really enjoyed this story. It's goofy Red Kryptonite, which allows all sorts of nonsense, but there is a real mystery about what's going on with the female Legionnaires and who Satan Girl could be.

It was actually quite moving to learn that Satan Girl just wanted to stay alive. This made me think of Ishiguro's novel Never Let Me Go about clones who just wanted their own lives yet knew they were doomed. Quite chilling! If Satan Girl hadn't been so nasty and had just been taking drastic measures to ensure her own survival, she could have been quite a sympathetic character.

She could've joined the Devil's Dozen! After all, they're already short a few members!

Yeah, I was kind of wondering if the real reason Proty II was there is that Proty/Garth sent him alongs to keep an eye on his wife!

You know, I'm loving these bonus Reviews! Yet another LSH appearance I either never knew about or totally forgot about!

Yeah, it's amazing how many times the Legion pulled Superman's fat out of the fire. History might have been very different if they hadn't kept interfering.

I'm wondering why Satan Girl didn't return. Perhaps someone at the CCA raised a stink over the name after all.

She didn't really have much of a setup for a return, and the Legion wasn't really doing recurring villains at this point.

Even if the CCA caused problems, one would think she still might've made a return appearance by the 70s, when Marvel was actually publishing a comic called "Son of Satan" for awhile.

If the CCA had had a problem with a character named Satan Girl the comic would never have been published as is.