Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes Re-Reading the Legion: Archives Vol. 8

I doubt it was within an editor's power to promote someone else to editorship. That likely would have come from higher in the chain of command.

Adventure #376

Well, I'm back, and apologies on the months long delay. My goal is to finish the Silver Age run, and I hope others are into the idea. At least the Adv stories, and possibly the Action backups.

I was certain I'd read Adv #376 before, but after finally getting to it on these reviews, I'm positive this was the very first time I'd actually read it! Therefore, I came to it with totally fresh eyes--or as fresh as any lifelong Legion fan can view an LSH story. My thoughts? I actually really loved it!

Count me in the group with Dave's daughter on this one. I found the story to be full of charm and adventure, and I absolutely loved the spotlight on Cham, who showed his clever Legionnaire side, but also a warm, tragic personal side that hints at the burden he carries regularly as a Durlan among humans. Cham came off as very much the leading man, and to me he was in the tradition of Odysseus, a thinking man's hero. This is probably Cham's best story throughout the Silver Age and a contender for best ever.

I thought this story was the perfect setting for Win Mortimor, and be focusing on a cool Middle Ages / sci-fi mashup, Mortimor could really strut his stuff. It was dynamic and fun, and I also get the feeling an assist from Shooter providing some layouts helped.

My one major complaint is I really don't like the ending. It feels out of left field and doesn't fit the story. I would have preferred Cham deciding he must leave rather than live in such a place (with people who don't trust him) or take the Princess with him. If the Princess and Cham both had some agency in the outcome, it would have been a terrific romantic tragedy. As it stands, the next 5 issues should have featured Cham becoming a villain and joining the LOSV to get revenge on his "pals" for their "save"; or SOMETHING to showcase his fury.

But I did enjoy it immensely.

Ps - even tbough it occurred over several weeks, I'm loving all the commentary in this thread! Lots of great insight.

Collosal Boy, please do keep the comments coming! And the great insight into DC history.

And to keep the ball rolling...

Adventure #377

At first glance, it’s easy to focus on all the flaws in Adventure #377, but after spending some time reading and thinking about it, you can see there is a real lot going on there, and for that alone, I think Shooter deserves some praise. The general structure of the story is a traditional 1950’s / early Silver Age one, where the good guy(s) are pretending to be mad in order to trick the criminals into thinking they’ve turned and are one of them. But Shooter does a great job at showing the other side of the equation which we never really have seen in the numerous Superboy stories its been done: the social ramifications for the Legion and the regular citizens of the United Planets. Typically we’d get a single panel showing this, but here we see the genuine fury and outrage expressed at the Legion—which is very topical for the late 1960’s.

So once again, Shooter is “ticking off a classic Superboy / LSH trope’ but giving it a “modern” twist (late 60’s modern that is). There is a lot of “youth rebellion” vibes going on, and a lot of the fear that the youth don’t want to work for anything but expect it nonetheless…hell, those things are more relevant than ever in 2015. Shooter also either very sutbly or accidently adds in other connected elements to this: the opening sequences involve would-be drug stealers / dealer and then a drug-addled Brainy experiencing what looks like an LSD trip (which a LOT of comic books in 1969-1970 were doing, as this was a major trend in the industry). We also see the Science Police using a robotic being called “the Interrogator” which forcefully reads the minds of criminals against their will, which is about as Big Brother as it gets. These are all heavy topics, and they all coalesce together to paint a picture of 2969 that is all too similar to the present.

A choice Shooter makes that I like is that he doesn’t trick the readers though. We quickly can tell this is an act and part of the plan, and its reinforced by Jeckie and Val having a tough time dealing with all the anti-Legion sentiment. That’s nicely done and shows there are high consequences for playing such a high stake charade. All the best undercover crime and spy dramas touch on this, and it adds the necessary weight to the story to make it dramatic.

Interestingly enough, Leland McCauley III doesn’t come off bad at all here, IMO. Sure, he’s super-rich, but that doesn’t automatically make him a bad guy. In fact, just about everything he does and says seems pretty reasonable to me, considering he’s being blackmailed. It’s interesting how the McCauley name—though obviously more because of his son, McCauley IV and the Reboot version—invokes thoughts of corporate villainy.

As had happened so many times though with late Silver Age single issue stories, the whole thing starts to fall apart with 4-5 pages left, because it feels like the story truly needs another 20. Instead of the outcome that should have happened-- the Legionnaires are invited onto Modo where they capture the criminals and discover the secret of Modolus, and clear their names--things happen at a rapid fire pace. Instead we get a convoluted solution involving the various currencies the Legion have collected which makes no sense, and probably would have resulted in the economic collapse of the UP for the next 20 years; and a one-off panel tells us Modulus is captured though we never really find out what it was, how it functioned or how exactly he was captured and imprisoned. This is probably the most disappointing crash & burn ending yet!

Oh and Chemical King shows up out of nowhere for one panel to do something…CLASSIC CHEM!

So, once again, so much potential built up but no ending to speak of. To quote a famous writer: the first chapter sells the book; the last chapter sells the next book. If I was a Legion fan I would be getting pretty freaking burned out on these endings by now. The sales numbers are included in the end though, and it looks like the series was averaging about 402,000 paid circulation copies at this point—meaning the Legion was still the best selling superhero team in comics.

Lastly, I’ve never liked this cover. The reason it is leads to so many jokes about Superboy being Jeckie’s pimp. An easy gag, sure, but a little too easy and a little too crude.

Going by the first post "Adventure 369-76" I thought we were done

Adventure 377 is in Archives #9.

Bah! I demand one of you start the new thread immediately! It should have been sitting there waiting for me weeks ago!

In the spirit of Adv. 377, maybe if you'd paid us to do it . . .

Well, I've already said that there's no more than one or two other pre-Cockrum stories that I like, so I'd be disappointed if we didn't get to the Cockrum/Grell era and the Levitz Mark One era. We can still take hiatuses, but I personally would love it if we got all the way through Archives Volume 13, and maybe even beyond that to cover Earthwar and Omega.

Gosh! I haven't been here anywhere near long enough to start one of the treasured rereading of archives threads... perhaps one day, but for now it's back to polishing the mission monitor board. Tricky, as they're holograms these days. I wonder if Jem can help...

Oh, my goal is to do the whole run! I just meant I at least plan to get that far without taking another break. And I actually have no plans to take a break either, btw, but you know how this bunch gets all tired and stuff .

Meanwhile, I've decided I will post all reviews in this thread until someone starts a new one. Because I know there are a few really anal retentive posters who won't be able to stand the idea of the Archive 9 stories going in an Archive 8 thread. It'll gnaw at their very soul--and I'll be laughing from my evil lair.

LOL

Good to know, Cobie.

I'd start the Archives 9 thread, but I'd feel like a hypocrite since I won't be participating again until Archives 10. I mean, what am I gonna say about Archives 9? "I don't own this volume, because I think the only good story in it is the one about Matter-Eater Lad's dysfunctional family life. But forget I said any of that. Gee, gosh, golly, this volume is swell."

It would seem that this is a Paladin/ EDE tradition, with it's roots firmly established way back in the hazy days of Legion World in ...2013.

popped in, souled out...

Okay, okay....I fell behind, alright?

Starting tonight, I'm gonna catch up where I left off (Adv. 373) in my Archives 8. After I polish it off, I'll read all the comments I missed, maybe add a few of my own and THEN I'll start the Archives 9 thread--probably by the end of the weekend.

If that ain't good enuff fer ya, ya kin start it yer OWN dam selves!!!

I hereby declare I shall post a review of Adventure #378 in this thread next Tuesday at 8:30 AM EST if there is no new thread ready for me to engage!

There is a 12% chance that I actually remember this and stick to it!

Okay, I caught up with all the last four stories that conclude Archives 8. Not a whole lot to add, but here goes:

1) On Win Mortimer....I honestly don't think his stuff was all that bad. Yes, it was a significant come-down from Swan--I mean how could it not be?--but it was competent. And I found some of his faces pretty attractive. I think overall his best issue of the four was his first, 373 with the Tornado Twins. The pencils were really tight and on-point. He probably had a better lead time on this one than any others, so I'm sure that helped, along with the continued strain of illustrating lots of characters. His designs were pretty boring overall, though, as evidenced particularly by the Taurus Gang and the cast of Elwinda's world. The Wanderers were slightly better, but emblematic of an overall lack of imagination.

2) The stories were overall some of the poorest of Shooter's run, perhaps indicating some writer's block or even a heavier editorial influence on what stories to do. If it was some form of writer's block, I can see him being deflated by Swan's departure because that was a huge loss.

3) It was good, and very unusual, to see such a focus on a solo Legionnaire as we saw in Cham's adventure. He got an even bigger spotlight than Gim got in the "School for Super Villains" 2-parter. It's too bad we never saw a sequel of any kind.

4) I guess I was the only one who caught a double entendre when Elwinda's attendant found her and Cham together and said, "but no man may enter the princess' garden!" I know, I know--it's just my dirty lil' mind!

New thread real soon....

This issue seems very much a mess to me and seems rushed, as if Shooter had these ideas he wanted to squeeze into the story but then did not have time to refine the plot past a first draft.

The Wanderers just seem to be there to give the Legionnaires someone to fight. They are given no in-story purpose for being a team, let alone why they call themselves the Wanderers. We are not even introduced to all of the members until the PowerPoint page. Also interestingly enough there are nine shadowed figures in the first panel they appear, when it should be seven. The Wanderers costumes are also rather weak designs. I wonder if Shooter left the designs this time to Mortimer? One interesting thing is that the Wanderers are multi-generational, with Celebrand appearing to be the oldest. Also at the least Quantum Queen is a contemporary of the Legionnaires as Shooter intended for her to join the Legion someday and there's that age-limit rule for membership.

It was lame how Supergirl was quickly written out of the competition, but then she turns around and gets all over protective of Brainiac 5 like he is all delicate. It evokes a Big Barda / Scott Free kind of feel to me. Also having started reading the Legion during the early Grell years, I had no idea that the Supergirl/B5 relationship went well beyond flirting. They read so much like an official couple in these late Adventure (and Action) issues.

It was nice to see Chemical King active here, but I so don't like how Mortimer draws his costume and that Eddie Munster hairdo he gave CK.

Also fun to see Element Lad suddenly realize how powerful he (this will get followed up a bit in the Action run) is and get a bit cocky taking on Mon-El. Also nice little rivalry between Ultra Boy and KK. And of course no surprise that Shooter's fave KK makes it to the Final Four, but I don't mind because KK has always been one of my favorite Legionnaires. Take that Giffen lol.

On the ending, Shooter tries to hard to make it a cliffhanger. With Cham disguised as Chuck while Proty disguised as an injured Cham just seems to needlessly complicate things.

This was a really off-the-wall issue and just seems almost like a fill-in issue to me. It's basically Chameleon Boy in King Arthur's Court meets Conan the Barbarian meets the kitchen sink. As usual with his stories from around this timeframe, Shooter puts too many balls into the air in his stories. And not that I don't like Cham, but I would have rather have seen a few more Legionnaires in the meat of the story to keep it from coming off like a solo Cham tale. (sidepoint this makes me wonder what a Legion/once upon a time/into the woods mashup story would be like.)

The major thing that bugs me is with Shooter building the story around a Medieval society, and never bringing up in-story that Jeckie is from a similar society, comparision to Orando, etc. I wonder why Shooter just didn't work his previously introduced concept of Orando into the story instead of creating a similar society from scratch.

And then you have the most alien looking of all the Legionnaires (at the time) mooning over a human girl and just wanting to be one of the guys. I'm sure the CCA kept that plot point from deviating much from that angle, but it's a bit tough to read without thinking of the work Levitz and Giffen did with the Durlans in the 80's.

At times I really like Mortimer's art but not here. The costume designs for the Medieval characters are lame. Between that and some of the dialogue and the knights showing off their powers, it's like Shooter and Mortimer were trying to ape a Lee/Kirby issue of Thor. Then there's the whole thing with the seven stones which makes me thinks of Marvel's Infinity Gems/Gauntlet.

And then the end just seems sketchy. I think all Shooter was wanting to convey was a scenario that the Legionnaires would misread and "rescue" Cham. But the whole ceremony scene reads more like a real execution and Cham being naive to what is going to happen to him.

I guess the most positive thing I can say about this issue is that its a quick read that's forgettable.

What would have been cool would be if Shooter was building some subplots in this story that he would touch on later. I will have more comments in that vein when we get to the appearance of Janice Warren in the next archive.

The last four stories of this Archives would have been written the summer leading into and then then the first few months of Shooter's senior year in high school if I have calculated correctly. So it's possible he got busy with typical senior year stuff and didn't have as much time as in the past to refine his stories before submitting.

Considering how totally obsessed with sex the adult Shooter would become, one can only assume that teenage Jim Shooter was about to experience the free love era in a way that we could scarcely imagine!

^And considering how creepy the adult Shooter's sexual politics would become, it's obvious that the free love thing completely warped his mind. Damn hippies.

Those damn hippies are responsible for Charles Manson, Shooter and Pov, the three greatest villains of the second half of the 20th century!

^Of those three, Pov is the most evil by far!