Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes Re-Reading the Legion: Archives #4

^ To be perfectly honest, though, I'm not completely sure whether I bought 286 first or if I bought 287 first, then went back later and picked up 286 which was still on the spinner rack.

P.S. Imra's parents would be the Ardeens, not the Ranzzes.

Hm. I must have a similar syndrome to the one Levitz had when he returned for the retroboot and had issues remembering stuff about their families!

Mine was 301. What a great great start to my Legion fandom!

^ I remember being so excited and surprised to see all those new costumes debut at the same time! (I love how Vi/year is leaning against the UPC box!)

I wonder if the Mutiny story prevented Sun Boy from ever winning a term as leader. With so many of the guys getting elected, it seems odd that Sun Boy was not one of them (except for a short term as deputy in v2, I think).

I think he was deputy during that LSV story in the Grell era. SLSH 208 I think.

Adventure #338

The cover of #338 proclaim "The Showdown with the Time Trapper everyone's been waiting for!" And unfortunately, the issue never lives up to its hype, nor all the great build up for the last two years. For that, this issue never really works for me.

I'm not sure how Hamilton had envisioned the big confrontation going originally but I agree with past sentiments that this probably wasn't it. Like Eryk suggested it, I believe it probably had to do with Dream Girl. Regardless, we get a second super-babies story, which again isn't my favorite.

The issue isn't all bad, as we get introduced for Glorith for the first time. Glorith is really a great villainous, and a real femme fatale. She also has one of the most sudden and crazy deaths ever. It makes me think of Lash and all the "splorp!!!!" posts over the years. I love that TMK took this random character and made her one of the most essential parts of Legiondom, creating one of the all time great villainess for the Legion. We could have used her in recent years, for sure.

The Time Trapper, with his great look and immense power, deserved better. But no worries--he'd get it! He'd just have to wait 20+ years.

As always with the weaker stories, there are a few random scenes to enjoy: such as golddigger Markita trying to seduce Lyle! I think you picked the wrong Legionnaire, Mar! Meanwhile, Jan bails out Tenz when Ma Kem is fishing for Mother's Day gifts! And Cham is playing actor by chasing around Elizabeth Taylor XIV.

Following last issues usage of Imra's real name, we see a few instances here. The series is definitely maturing.

The Fountain of 1,000 chemicals appears again...and really saves the day! Yay chemicals!

The Superboy / Brainy trip to the distant future is too quick. It makes me think if this was a two parter, something more could have been made of the story with additional time travel sequences.

While most of the super babies are scared or goofing off, ol ironbutt herself shows why she's the #1 badass of the Legion by calling the Time Trapper "bad man"!

Once the Trapper has them start robbing banks and wrecking property, the story really start to head south.

Not to dwell on it, but the ending itself leaves me really unsatisfied. The Trapper stranded and the Legionnaires laughing...it's nowhere near as serious as it needs to be.

All in all, probably my least favorite story thus far--maybe more so than Adv #267.

Bonus House Ad comment: A Bob Hope Ad featuring Super-Hip!

Bonus Lettercol review: a younf reader describes how he and all his friends play Legionnaires. Man, I wish I was 8 and I could play too! (Oops...I'm 32 and I do that anyway with LMB).

It just seems like the most logical choice to me.

Parents have been attending their children's weddings since, well, Anthro and Eva tied the knot (literally) all those millennia ago!

The guy also doesn't look like Jimmy, and isn't wearing Jimmy's usual Silver Age identifiable style of dress. And why would Lucy be there?

They're also on Imra's side, and the mother is blonde. With all the Ranzz's hair being red (to later become white for Mekt), one would think using Silver Age logic that their parents would have red hair. The same logic would apply to Tinya, plus we've come to know her mother as a brunette over the decades. If its anyone's parents, it's surely Imra's! And we also know they're still alive.

The other option is "random bystanders" but that seems even less likely to me for a cover. Since Camera Eye, it's been quite rare for a walk-on cover cameo!

Lets just remember that while she's a tough, capable and über-heroic leader in the Legion, Imra is a wholesome girl from Titan who surely has a great relationship with her parents. Natch they'd be there!

My friends and I used to play Legionnaire when we were kids too, Cobie.

Adv. 338

“The Menace of the Sinister Super-Babies” can’t make up its mind what sort of story it wants to be—humor or horror. The premise of the Legionnaires being reduced to infants, which has been used before and will be used again (in 356) is intended for humor. It provides silly (but not necessarily funny) scenes of toddler Legionnaires frustrating the Time Trapper, stealing a real train, and robbing a bank.

On the other hand, the Time Trapper is truly a mean SOB who tricks an underling and Glorith into devolving themselves (that's murder), kicks Invisible Infant in the rear (that's child abuse), and nearly smashes Chameleon Baby against a pile of rocks (that's attempted murder).

As a reader, I’m unsure how I’m supposed to react to this story: with laughter or disgust.

It comes as no surprise, perhaps, that this story was written by Jerry Siegel, not Edmond Hamilton. Of the two, Siegel’s stories are the least thought out and rely more on concidience or convenience to move them along.

For example, it’s a mighty big coincidence that the Fountain of 1,000 Chemicals happens to be there, and it’s mighty convenient that the chemicals retard the Legionnaires’ de-evolution.

The story is also very sloppy. Even minor references such as whether the story takes place on Mother’s Day or Halloween are distracting. (One might suppose that in the 30th century, the dates of these holidays have been moved, but that’s merely an excuse for sloppy editing.) Why would *all* the Legionnaires present need to touch Glorith’s hourglass? Wouldn’t only one or two need to examine it? Also, the climax of the story rests on Star Baby finding a “toy” and Brainy manipulating the “toy” in order to trick the Time Trapper, but at what point does Brainy have time to do this?

Another sloppy feature (and one Hamilton shared) is the tendency to drop Legionnaires into the story at random. Invisible Kid, M-E Lad, Cham, and Saturn Girl are given clear introductions, but then Star Boy pops in at the meeting and Ultra Boy joins them (apparently) en route to the amusement park. Light Lass doesn’t show up until it’s time to devolve. As I mentioned earlier, it’s distracting and confusing when the reader does not know which characters to expect to be present.

And I had to laugh when Ultra Boy said, “One mere girl withstand the entire Legion? Impossible!” Where’s Mon-El, Shrinking Violet, Triplicate Girl, Colossal Boy, Phantom Girl or even Sun Boy? But perhaps Jo was trying to sound intimidating.

For all his meanness, the Time Trapper cowers and begs Superboy not to hit him. Villains, like bullies I suppose, aren’t so tough. But, even so, he’s dangerous. It’s unbelievable and irresponsible for the Legionnaires to leave him stranded on an alien world, where he’ll have plenty of time to figure out how to shut off the force field. Why not ask the Science Police to pick him up?

This story is a clunker. That it falls in the middle of a streak of very good to exceptional stories that began with 330, with the exception of 334, is disappointing. That it provides an anticlimactic resolution to the Time Trapper plot line begun two years previous is inexcusable.

Yeah, this one is a big clunker, and like you say, the fact that it appears when it feels the stories are really rocking and rolling, only makes it feel more so. Maybe Reboot can salvage this one like he did Adv #267?

I didn't bother to check who wrote it, but now that you mention Siegel wrote it I'm not surprised. The Time Trapper seen here is almost an entirely different character from the one in "Code of the Legion". In the prior story, he was incredibly powerful, mysterious and had elements of the abstract / grandiose villain we've come to know. Here, Siegel has him almost as a mob boss type that fits his typical view of villains and bullies being cowards when all is said and done.

Luckily for us, another string of great stories is about to ensue. Er, once we get through the Kid Psycho story.

Mob boss, yes. What does TT need with all that stolen loot, anyway?

Meh, it's a super-babies story. It would need more than a rescript to save it!

Generally annoying to read; I loathe the toddler talk. It's a mix of baby talk and adult observation. Me hate! Wah-hh! The later Legionnaire babies story (in the ophanage; the first Legion book I remember reading) is much more tolerable. At least Siegel could have made Imra a bossy kid.

Time Trapper as mob boss is a good description. For some reason, I see Dom DeLuise playing the part; it's that old school silly. Lots of evil laughter. Trapper is all too human; he is much better as a mysterious force.

Still, a few things I liked:

The destroyed future city with the Trapper's peculiar building

Another (?) future devastated by nuclear war, with only a few humans remaining.

Sexy, devious, evil Glorith (pre-splorp)

The word "splorp"

Since there's a chemical spray to reverse the de-aging, it does provide an explanation for Glorith's return. Who rescues her, why and when remains yet another an untold story.

Rejuv with Vitamin E and anti-splorping compounds. You can get it at Walmart.

I was completely prepared to hate it, but I kinda liked it instead! I mean, if you throw out the let-down of a 2-year build-up and how it ill befits the Trapper's awesome later storyline and just take the story on its own merits, it's a pretty fun read. I think that, more than the story itself, it is those expectations that are ruining the story for us re-readers.

I'm not saying that those criticisms are unfair and unwarranted. Certainly, the build-up was extensive and prominent. And it's impossible to marry this Trapper with the entropic threat who would become (IMO) the Legion's greatest nemesis. So I understand why the story's a massive disappointment in those contexts. In the latter case, however, it's later writers who took the character's potential and made (him?) great. Hard to hold Siegel responsible for not having that same vision at the outset. I'd say that very few, if any, DC villains of the Silver Age to that point really came across as all that menacing and dangerous. It was still a kids' medium, after all.

I simply LOVED the opening bits with Lyle, Tenz & Jan and Cham! Some fun glimpses into what our Legionnaires are up to in their downtime. I mean, Lyle ditching a date he wasn't into, Jan helping Tenz give his mom a nice Mother's day present ("...it looks good enough to eat!" ) and Cham (At first I thought Cham was just scaring that girl for kicks! ) starring in movies? Pure gold, my friends!

The infant Legion was cute and, imo, not that terribly handled. I found some of it pretty plausible with child behavior at that age. yes, I could've done without them talking like Bizarros, though!

Glorith comes across more diabolical than the Trapper. I am SOOOOO glad TMK would later revisit the character and make her a great part of Legion lore. It's too bad Siegel let her get punked by the Trapper like that. That was quite the ignominious SPLORP! (No one else noticed that the minion gets SPLURPed instead of SPLORPed? Maybe the sound effect differs according to gender? )

Anyhow, we get a lot of what recent stories have been commended for, especially getting to see Legionnires (albeit , mostly baby Legionnaires) effectively using their powers. We also get Superboy as a non-factor. Plus, memorable villains. Though the Trapper doesn't meet past or future explanations, it's hard for me to name many more memorable in the run-to-date, right?

That all adds up to a decent, above average early-Adventure era story in Lardy's book! So...

P.S. That low-cut blouse Markita was wearing--no curve going up? Is it possible Markita had a uni-boob? That may have been the turn-off for Lyle! It may have even been what turned him gay!!! )

I remember, even as a ten-year-old, somehow feeling that my intelligence was being insulted by stories like this one (and, as it turns out, most other Siegel tales).

Hamilton's work, on the other hand, tended to inspire my own imagination, much as Heinlein's youth-oriented novels from the early 1950s did.

You let Siegel off the hook too easily, Lardy. While your point is well taken that this TT cannot measure up to later versions and should not be expected to, the story is still sloppy and lacks a clear sense of whether it's supposed to be funny or serious.

But I'm glad you enjoyed it. Diff'rent strokes . . .

I dunno. It's not uncommon for "funny" stories in the Silver Age to have supposedly dire threats in them. In any case using the sound effects of SPLURP and SPLORP to kill bad guys off is pretty funny!

Superboy #125

This is the last Superboy story to be only slightly connected to the Legion that is included; there is one more LSH story in Superboy in the Silver Age but that's clearly an LSH story.

I've always liked Kid Psycho and wish we got to see him more than we did. There's this, a few cameos and his death. That's too bad since there is a great built in tension to any time he has to help out.

He's also the first with the "Kid" in front of name rather than at the end, which just sounds cool.

The plot structure is classic Otto Binder, who writes his last Legion-connected story here (which is always sad he didn't do more). Strait forward, with repetition, then a twist. For an 8 pager, it lends a certain forward momentum and charm.

While a standard Superboy story, the origin of Kid Psycho has some cool moments, such as the Monster Constellation. It's a great sci-fi origin...and then out of nowhere, his planet is destroyed!

Superboy # 125

And now we are introduced to the most useless character in Legion history: Kid Psycho.

It’s not the debilitating effect of his power, which shortens his lifespan by one year every time he uses it, that makes him useless. It’s that so little is done with him or with this potentially awe-inspiring premise.

Even this introductory story—which is really the only story to feature Kid Psycho before his death in Crisis on Infinite Earths twenty years later—fails to develop the enormous potential of a hero whose own power is killing him.

The cover tells us we’re supposed to “cheer” and “cry” for Kid Psycho, but I did neither, largely because no one in the story does. Even when KP learns of his own condition, he takes it in such stride that the Legionnaires can’t help but admire his heroic quality. But heroism means nothing if it’s not under-girded by humanity, and neither KP nor anyone else in this story exhibits much humanity.

The story begins earnestly, with a strange, turbaned youth appearing in Smallville and asking Clark Kent (of all people) for Superboy’s address. One supposes that not everyone in the 30th century knows Superboy’s secret identity, but they have enough historical appreciation to know in what town he lived and who to ask for directions.

In any case, when the youth finally meets Superboy, he demonstrates his force field power and keeps Superboy in the dark about how he got it. Here, Kid Psycho reveals an inkling of a personality. He sounds bossy and even condescending when he tells Superboy he can go ahead and repair the broken wire and, later, put the snakes back in their cage. Superboy plays along, and his patience is rewarded: Kid Psycho saves Superboy from a kryptonite trap (amazing how bank robbers have an endless supply of kryptonite in these stories) and then tells his story.

Kid Psycho’s origin is overlong and info-dumpy, but it provides some really cool illustrations of his astronaut parents going up against a space monster and nuking it into a constellation (!). Because of their exposure to “biogenic radiation,” their son is born with an enlarged head and a array of powers, including super-intelligence, telekinesis, and force field generation, the last developing in adolescence. And just in time, too. KP’s world soon collides with another planet (*choke*), leaving him an orphan.

We could have done without this bit of unnecessary pathos. Whether KP’s world lives or dies does not affect the rest of the story. Maybe we’re meant to feel sorry for him because, following his rejection from the Legion, he has nowhere to go. Or maybe Supeboy is meant to identify with KP since his world, too, was destroyed. But neither possibility is developed; instead, we’re given a pointless excuse to feel sorry for KP.

I say “pointless” because what follows really should give us an excuse to empathize with him, except it doesn’t. He tells Superboy that he tried out for the Legion and, though he impressed them with his force field power, they rejected him without explanation. Showing another glimmer of personality, KP reveals that he came back in time to ask Superboy to sponsor his next bid for Legion membership.

Good for KP! Instead of becoming a villain, he tries again. More, he takes the initiative of approaching the one Legionnaire every other member admires. This shows that the super-intelligence in that large cranium is not wasted.

However, when Superboy and KP (who can even travel through time on his own!) arrive in the 30th century, the Legionnaires reveal the medical diagnosis which prevents him from ever becoming one of them.

What could have been a heart-wrenching scene falls so flat even Bouncing Boy’s super-plastic formula couldn’t inflate it. KP is so detached from these proceedings he evokes the Progenitor of reboot fame.

The Legionnaires, however, admire his positive attitude and offer him a second consolation prize (the first was a Legion flight ring): membership in the Legion Reserve and the designation of “Secret Weapon No. 1”—to be called upon when needed.

Of course, the Legion never does call on Kid Psycho—not when Mordru or Omega or even Darkseid threatens the universe. He has no major appearances after this, and only one or two minor ones. (He’s in the crowd at Bouncing Boy and Duo Damsel’s wedding, for instance.) And then he’s killed off in Crisis, just one of many super-hero casualties during that series.

Putting aside the character’s wasted potential, it’s hard to ignore the wasted potential of this story. It could have taught readers that powers sometimes do come with a cost, and that sometimes our dreams don’t come true. It could also have taught them that the true measure of a hero is how one faces loss, defeat, and even one’s own death.

Perhaps Mort and writer Otto Binder felt these themes were too heavy for their audience (though, oddly, this story comes just as the Legion series itself is growing up and embracing themes of death and loss via Beast Boy, Triplicate Girl, and Star Boy's expulsion). Perhaps this is why they dialed back the emotional impact of the story.

And that’s a shame. This story, perhaps even more than “The Menace of the Sinister Super-Babies,” talks down to its readers when it could have uplifted them.

It might not have fit the era, but if using his powers caused him visible pain and injury, and we learned after the fact that 'using your powers puts such a strain on your body that it could kill you!' it might have felt a little more powerful.

I think it would have made his choices seem more heroic and noble and self-sacrificing if the danger and painwas visible in the scene, every time he used his powers, that it was traumatic and dangerous, instead of 'Oh, I used my powers, and I'll have to pay for that many years from now...'

(These days, it's more common to show someone using a 'risky' psychic power suffering a nose bleed, or bleeding from the ears or eyes, suggestive of some sort of brain hemorrhage happening every time, like with the father character in Firestarter. That sort of thing, hinting that using the power is risking a brain aneurysm or something, is perhaps more subtle than Kid Psycho's 'tell' should be, and might have been out of the question in a time period when you couldn't show blood in comic books.)

There are so many silly things about Adv. 338.

The Time Trapper has to whisper instructions to Glorith. Why? Is it a secret to all those henchmen? Does he think one of them's a spy for the good guys?

Oh, Lyle! This must be the time when he finally realizes he's gay. It makes me so happy.

It would be so funny if one of Tenzil's relatives accidentally ate his mom's gift.

Cham as an actor! That actually makes sense, and it's nice to see what some of the Legionnaires do on their down time. And who woulda thought Tenz had a bit of artist in him?

Superboy just wades into the dinosaurs. But! But! Doesn't the Legion have any rules about meddling with time in the future? What if they mess with the natural order of things?

Wait, the Trapper already has the Legionnaires stuck as kids. Why transport them off-world so they can regress fully? Why not do them in now? Someone THIS powerful is this stupid?

For that matter, the Legionnaires didn't do much better. We have two teams walking right into traps!

"Infant-ry" attack? Groan. You're not only not clever, Trapper; you're also not witty.

Ultra Baby thinks those jewels are jellybeans. If he grows up into a toothless adult, we know what happened.

And Glorith fell for it too. Oh well, that's that.

Wait, Tenzil wants candy even though he can eat the jewels. I guess candy still tastes better.

So the kids are eating pieces of candy which are the debris of Tenzil's eating. I hope his acid spit doesn't burn their tongues (assuming he does have acid spit in this version).

And the great Time Trapper cowers in front of Superboy. Oh, okay! So this story still doesn't make clear to me just what the Trapper's powers are. Are they all mechanical? Does he even really have control of time?

Like some others above, I ended this story liking Glorith much more than the Trapper. Oh well, she gets to come back in another 30 years or so!

RE: ADV 388. I thought it clever of Levitz to explain the inconsistencies in the Time Trapper's early portayals by retconning them as proxies rather than the real Trapper.