Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes Re-Reading the Legion: Archives #6

ADV 354

This was just fun for me though I guess it could also be called the "Can of Worms" issue.

I mean, how does someone NOT want to know about those Legionnaires that died. An amazing piece of understanding an audience.

And as for the Fatal Five/Sun-Eater story.....I wonder why the Heroes of Lallor were not shown or mentioned among those contacted? If they were looking far and wide for help, they would seem the logical ones to contact. I can't excuse it that they were forgotten because Duplicate Boy (Man) appears in the Adult Legion story!

And what about the Subs? The Super Pets? Kid Psycho?

And just what the hell was the mission to Dimension QK-51, anyway?!?! Sounds like an interesting, untold story!

The Lallors got some splaining to do!

I also love that not only is Timber Wolf officially joining the Legion foretold in this story, but he receives a prominent role in the action! Sure, he's injured, but we haven't seen "Lone Wolf" since his intro, which chronologically was a few years ago. Not only that, it foretells his and Ayla's continuing relationship from the attraction in that seeming one-shot appearance. Of course, there's no wedding bells to come and no little Brin and Bran...

Also, gotta love Polar Boy/Man as a Legionnaire, finally! Was there ever a Sub who wanted it more? Thankfully, that's something Paul Levitz will decide NOT to throw out with the rest of Adult legion continuity!

Is this the first he was called "Timber Wolf?"

I'd say it HAS to be, since this was only his second appearance!

I SEEM to recall reading his first appearance even though it came out before I started reading comics. Maybe I have that issue when I bought back issues. Which issues is it? So that's the only time he appeared or was mentioned before the Adult tale? I seem to recall someone mentioned him in the letters column but I don't remember if they said "lone wolf" or "timber wolf."

I guess Shooter named him?

He was called "Lone Wolf" in the story entitled "The Lone Wolf Legionnaire" in Adventure Comics #327 by Hamilton and Forte. He was offered membership but declined. It's the story where he believes he's an android, but the real android is revealed. He hadn't appeared again 'til this Adult Legion tale set in the future.

Wait, you mean your copy doesn't? Obviously, you got a printing error, and should return it for a refund

^

(Gotta love how Ord and Brin found their way to each other! )

Vi standing on the lift is a nice touch, uh, I mean good statue design.

Adv. 353

It is by now a well established trope that super-villains cannot be trusted (duh!). Get them in a room together and try to make them cooperate with each other, and they will jockey for who should be the leader, who is the mightiest, who has the loudest mouth, etc. The beginning of “The Doomed Legionnaire” epitomizes this trope.

Yet that’s what makes it so fun. While the plot may be unoriginal, Shooter clearly knows his villains well enough that their interactions come off as fresh. Tharok, for example, immediately proclaims himself leader of both the Fatal Five and the Legionnaires, and no one objects. Instead, Mano and the Persuader argue over who gets to go first in demonstrating their powers. Their argument turns into a brawl, which Tharok permits so he can “observe them under actual combat conditions.” Finally, the Emerald Empress puts a stop to the brawl, but an already pissed off Validus loses control, calming down only after Superboy blinds him by wrapping his indestructible cape around the monster’s cranium.

Shooter deftly portrays this powder keg situation, which makes an effective springboard into 353. This situation immediately creates a lot of tension that was lacking in 352. Shooter does not deviate much from the tropes he works with—there’s a certain familiarity, for example, in Mano coming on to the Empress in her quarters and to her rebuffing him—yet he uses these tropes to great effect by keeping the action moving. No sooner is Mano expelled from the Empress’s quarters than Superboy enters and she tries to seduce him. No sooner is Superboy felled by kryptonite than Cosmic Boy arrives to tell them of a meeting. Action, action, action.

Tharok devises a plan for stopping the Sun-Eater, and it’s a doozy. First it requires him to temporarily amp up the powers of each of his allies (and put Validus under his mental control while he’s at it.) Then the amped up Sun Boy lures the Sun Eater into a trap, the Persuader carves the cloud-like creature into smaller sections, and each member of the ad hoc team tackles a section. But complications arise, and the dismembered bits of the Sun-Eater easily counter the heroes and villains, even sensing and exploiting Superboy’s weakness to red solar radiation.

The delivery of this sequence is far more exciting than the set-up in 352, even though Shooter employs essentially the same structure of having the characters split up. Perhaps this sequence works because the Fatal Five are so much more unpredictable as allies than as potential recruits—consider Validus going back to rescue Projectra, for example. Perhaps there’s something inherently exciting about villains and heroes working together to stop a common threat. Whatever the cause, these scenes are very well done, and Shooter’s Marvelesque layouts heighten the tension.

(Shooter’s layouts, in general, are rougher than anything Swan or other DC artists were doing, but that’s a good thing. They create a much greater mood of danger than Swan’s pencils alone convey. Consider the two-page sequence on pp. 14-15, for example. The space background is in every panel, as is the Sun-Eater, bringing the actions of the other characters into sharp relief.)

The plan fails, of course, and this leads to Tharok building the absorbatron bomb and Ferro Lad delivering it. This sequence lives up to its hype, even after all these years. Ferro Lad doesn’t linger over his decision, and Shooter doesn’t linger over his fate. He keeps the story moving right up through those searing blasts.

I would have liked for the Legionnaires to express a bit more emotion, however. Even though they didn’t get to know Ferro Lad very well, they react with nothing more than platitudes.

The immediate crisis over and with it the reason for the alliance, the villains do what villains do and betray the Legion. But (time for another trope), Projectra is able to win over the heart of Validus, who saved her. This leads to a hasty resolution of the Fatal Five mysteriously vanishing, just as Nemesis Kid did back in 347. Then it’s memorial time, as the Legionnaires send a rocket for Ferro Lad off to Shanghalla (misspelled Shanghalia here).

Aside from a rushed ending, this is indeed a satisfying wrap-up and a fitting end to Ferro Lad. Shooter, like many writers, seems to prefer writing characters he’s created over those he hasn’t. He gives Ferro Lad, Projectra, and each of the Fatal Five far more interesting scenes than anything Superboy, Cosmic Boy, or Sun Boy do. But these characters keep the reader enthralled and keep the story moving through a tight plot with many twists and turns.

Grade: 96.1 (A)

^^^^

I learn so many new words reading his posts.

You know what was really, really great about that "fitting end" to Ferro Lad? It wasn't the end of Ferro Lad and Shooter knew it. He had to. He had this whole thing laid out from the second he introduced the character. Death, Douglass, Ghost, the whole thing I truly believe this.

I sit here shaking my head. Seriously, it's difficult to type, the keys all a blur. He was a prodigy whose outlet was writing comics. It's mind boggling.

Well, the Legion's constitution was amended after 342 to permit killing in self defense. I'd say this situation qualifies on a grand scale.

That was convenient.

Here's page one of 354's letter column:

Here's page 2, plus a Meet the Legionnaires feature:

Glad to be of educational service.

Which words did you learn in the 353 post?

Well, not really. In his closing argument in 342, Brainy says, "No change that may be made in the future alters the fact that Star Boy broke the code as we have it now!"

Well yeah really because it made the next story work. That's what I meant by "convenient."

In just the handful of stories he'd written to this point, Shooter ALREADY added SOOOOO much Legion lore! And there's LOTS more to come!!!!

I'm so amazed at how much talent he already had at such a young age! I guess he's now considered a huge jerk in the comics biz, but I'd REALLY love for him to write his autobiography or for some enterprising writer to take on a Shooter biography. I'd read the hell out of it!

IMO, Roger Stern would be a great choice to do a biography. Roger's an experienced novelist and his introduction to this Archives shows that he has had a lot of access to his subject. Some of the anecdotes Stern shared in it are more than I've ever heard about Shooter's early Legion assignments.

As is well known, it all began when the foursome went on a double date, got drunk, and confessed their true feeling to each other...

Close. What happened was that they both got bonded (i.e., got drunk) over getting dumped at the same time, but didn't date together to start with!

[I'm slightly shocked you didn't notice someone looking a lot like "Silver Age" KQ2 in the background ]


Well, she is Ayla's Little Woman.