Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes Re-Reading the Legion: Archives Vol. 9

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.

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.

As Paladin pointed out....

Its seems like everyone's immediate reaction at the end of the story is going to be "...uh, so what the hell was Modulus?" I also pictured him as a Mogo type sentient, which could have ended up being an awesome Legion villain to return to.

PS - glad to see the Archives 9 thread . I'll probably end up posting a review of the first Archives 10 story at the tail end of it. Ain't got no time to keep track of all that.

Sorry I won't be participating in the Archives 9 re-read, Lardy. But if I can get myself to do it, I might post something about the story that deals with Matter-Eater Lad's family life.

I'm glad Fanfie is on board.

I'm glad Fanfie is on board.

This story is another of those in which a series of complicated, bizarre, out-of-character actions is used for the sake of plot/drama, when a much simpler solution would have worked. I mean, couldn't the Legion have just borrowed or exchanged for the various currencies they needed, rather than disrupting people's lives and livelihoods while earning a mercenary reputation for themselves in the process? Couldn't they have found another way to bait the thieves and get their spaceship onto Modulus? Couldn't a few Legionnaires have disguised themselves and landed the ship? That 2960s Brainy sure came up with some kooky ideas...perhaps they all really were affected by the mind-expanding gas.

--The opening psychedelic scene is well designed, but it has absolutely nothing to do with the rest of the story. Like Lardy (I think), I was primed to expect it to be a contributor to the Legion's aberrant behavior, but this doesn't happen. It's not the first Legion story to begin with a non sequitur, and it's well done for what it is, but I found it distracting.

Good point. It didn't even dawn on me until reading your post, but couldn't they have simply went behind the scenes and borrowed whatever they needed through Brande? Also something else I just realized - Brainy's plan is very much a Rube Goldberg device.

The Legion needed a plausible reason for criminals to attack their cruiser and take their loot back to Modo. If they had simply borrowed the money, they wouldn't have had enough reason to "turn greedy" and abandon earth. Their scheme rested on the loot sitting out there in space and waiting for thieves to snatch it.