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

So I’ve been largely absent on LW for the last few weeks because of an incredibly busy work schedule and then the last week and a half I was on vacation with my family and spent as little time online as possible (which was a nice break!). But I’m back and with a vengeance am ready to close out my reviews of the 9th Archive and the Legion’s run in Action Comics! From here, I plan to start bringing my 10th Archive in my briefcase on the train every few days to actively participate on each and every reread there (which is great since I only own 3 actual Archives: the 1st, 2nd and 9th).

Much kudos to all of you for keeping this thread going and providing such awesome commentary along the way. I just got through reading the last few pages from where I last left off and the thread remained as enjoyable as ever—sometimes more enjoyable than the stories. I think a lot of us fond some new appreciation for most these stories on this reread which is nice to see, especially in the ability of these creators to tell actual complete stories given their limited space.

Action Comics #387
The first thing I noticed upon returning to reading these Action back-ups is how much I was enjoying the E Nelson Bridwell / Win Mortimer combo, especially the way in which they seem to really have a great handle on the 10 or so page length in the back-ups. These stories just feel fresh and interesting to me and that’s because every panel is utilized well.

The story hits on something that just about everyone can relate to, and just about everyone hates: taxes and the red tape of bureaucracy. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve come to appreciate the importance and necessity of both things (certainly more taxes than the latter, but still…). I’ve also always enjoyed when superheroes have to conduct “business”, which was always done in interesting ways in the Avengers series throughout the decades. So essentially I think the premise is a good one—but I’m still not sold on the 25 members idea, which seems kind of shoehorned in. *Yet*, now having 12 years experience dealing with legally binding contracts, oddball statutes and obscure tax loopholes, this story feels a whole lot more realistic than it did when I first read it as a teen!

Various Legionnaires volunteering to be the one to bite the bullet and suffer is cliché, but its done with a lot of charm here. Bridwell really makes it succeed (and Mortimer makes it look interesting by having them tussle with each other as they do). They then go ahead and have a whole slew of Legionnaires showcase their powers in a way that just makes me smile. That’s a lot of bang for your buck if you’re getting a feel for the Legion for the first time!

At one point it looks like the story is coming down to what is going to eventually happen (largely off-panel): eliminate Supergirl from the active roster. Bridwell enhances it with the twist that it feels like Supergirl is doing it so Brainy doesn’t have to resign, and that provides the little extra “oomph” to make the scene work even better. Brainy then outright tells her he loves her—a really big show of emotion for him! Yet a few pages later I’m surprised she is also saved from having to resign.

From there, the twist of Superboy being the one to resign occurs, which always feels like a “little known fact” since he quickly rejoins chronologically (though in reality, it was longer given the gap between stories over the next 10 or so back-ups). Despite that, we get something that really does feel like it matters: Luornu’s kiss goodbye to Superboy. This moment feels like it really is a goodbye, as henceforth, Luornu’s crush on Superboy becomes a thing of the past and she refocuses on Bouncing Boy.

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Action Comics #389

I have to say—I don’t think I’ve EVER read this story before! What a cool feeling it is to find a story you didn’t even realize existed! And with Chemical King to boot!

Of course the big change here is Cary Bates steps up to become the new writer of the Legion for the first time, and he does a pretty decent job. The idea of Klim is an interesting one, and his origin is certainly unique with a bit of charm. For a back-up antagonist, he does the trick. The story structure is also interesting—perhaps a bit too much flashback time, but as a mystery for the readers, it has a nice little set-up and payoff. One complaint is the way Bates plays fast and loose with how the Legionnaires use their powers, but that stuff doesn’t bother me really.

Special mention has to be made by the lush, beautiful art in this story by Mortimer and Jack Abel (on inks). It really felt dynamic and exciting, with some really oddball panel layouts. I enjoyed it immensely.

Not the greatest Legion story ever, but I don’t seem to have minded it as much as everyone else did.

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Action Comics #390-391

I’ve always liked this story immensely from the first time I read it for a variety of reasons. I think the premise itself is really terrific, with the Legion having to handle both a fascist dictator and a rebel group that has obviously been infiltrated by subversive forces. It rings so true to much of human history, particularly in the last 150 years. It also is a story directly about the Legion’s espionage squad, which is a novelty in and of itself since we rarely have gotten to see the Espionage “officially” do anything (or as official as a group doing business off the books can be).

Brainiac 5 and Saturn Girl have always felt like good candidates to be “sorta” members of the Espionage Squad and I like their inclusion here. Element Lad certainly isn’t espionage-ish, but Cham’s inclusion of him here shows that Cham is calling the shots and what he says goes. And thus, his inclusion works in that sense.

From there, Bridwell does a good job showing the Legionnaires trying to maintain their cover yet use their abilities and knowledge to accomplish the mission. He does a good job keeping the tension high and the story interesting. In addition, he adds a bit of steaminess to the story by having Cham kiss Chavak’s girlfriend and Imra use her powers to get noticed. (It would have been unnecessary for me—if I ever see Imra walking around in a miniskirt and boots, I’d immediately offer for her to be my assistant any time she wanted).

The second half of the story picks up with the cliffhanger about someone recognizing Imra being addressed—and in a pretty interesting way, considering how obvious it is! Sure she knows Imra, but from before she was a Legionnaire. A nice twist, even if its too tidy. Imra then rolls with the punches and alerts Brainy “in code” once more showing why she’s the grooviest.

As you’d expect with a two-parter, the second part contains a ton of action, and Bridwell smartly gives the payoff of Jan using his powers to make the Legion’s deception work. The story wraps up most of the loose ends nicely as the rebels and the Legion dispatch the dictator (with Imra having to give her friend a quick right uppercut). They then use some ingenuity to make the rebel leader lose his credibility and thus his position. In that sense, they are doing true espionage work, as that is often the best and least complicated way in getting rid of someone.

All in all, this story remains a favorite. It also has whetted my appetite for full length stories again, since this was essentially that.

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Action Comics #392

The last story of the trade comes in the form of Action #392 and it would be a full six months before the Legion appeared again in Superboy. For some reason, I always feel like it’s a much larger gap between Action and Superboy, considering six months is kind of like nothing these days. This also marks the end of Win Mortimer’s time on the LSH. I started off being very apprehensive about his work, but I’ve grown to really enjoy it and appreciate it. His layout on page 9 in this story is indicative of how far he’s come—he positions a flashback of Val & Jeckie having a very romantic scene right in the middle of the page, and it starkly differs in both layout and tone from the top and bottom, making it “pop”. It’s really well done.

This issue is also a milestone in that it gives Saturn Girl her new costume! Much sexier, and more befitting of the sexy, swinging 70’s, it’s a taste of what’s to come once the rest of the Legion starts getting new costumes. So many Legion fans from the 70’s associate Imra’s bikini-costume with that era, that its kind of become iconic. It’s fitting that the last story of this Archive gives us that taste of what’s to come.

Besides all that, this story is one of the weaker ones of the entire Archive. It’s at first relatively straight-forward without too much to set it apart from a hundred other similar stories, and while Imra and Jeckie are both capable, neither gets really fantastic moments. As if the boringness isn’t bad enough, the story then has an awful and IMO mean twist that puts Jeckie through the ringer and makes the Legionnaires look like class-A jerks. As with a few stories at the tail end of the Adventure run, this kind of thing might have been okay in the 50’s when it was done with some charm, but it just doesn’t jive well at this point in comic book history. Really, the best part is the usage of the Legion flight ring which is a precursor to future uses by Cos and Dream Girl.

The issue also ends with the election of Mon-El as Leader and Element Lad as Deputy—his first in a long series of being Deputy to someone else’s leader. This is a little jarring too because it appears to be an artist mistake of depicting Ultra Boy when they meant to do Mon-El, which if that the case is yet one more jarring element to an already jarring story.

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All in all, while the Archive ended on a weak note, for the most part is exceeded my expectations and ended up impressing me quite a bit. I’m glad I got to read these stories, which I normally skip over most of the time when reading, thinking or talking about the Legion.

Onward to the next Archive and Dave Cockrum!

Glad you've managed to catch up, Cobie, and we look forward to your chiming in to the Volume 10 thread already in progress.

Cobie, you saw a lot more positives in these stories than I did--and that's a good thing! I appreciate your insights, in particular with regards to Mortimer's growth as an artist.

Thanks for the reviews Cobie.

From #387


I've always seen the Legion tax issue as EarthGov still having limitations on the right for groups to assemble. You can assemble as an organisation in larger numbers, but only if you're rich enough. No doubt there are various loopholes, but the Legion would be a little idealistic for those. It fits in well with all the sinister science implications going back to the Adventure stories for me.

From #390-391


Cham always gets the girls. No wonder he was fine in the Rimborian sauna in the 5YG, while Cos was less than keen.

From #392


That panel is supposed to be of the Legion advisor. He's in the next panel, hand still raised, along with Ultra Boy and Mon-El.

Cos probably couldn't figure who to slap around. (Yeah, I know, another cheap shot! Bad HWW!)

Yes, bad HWW >typed thoth who came very close to a similar cheap shot in the Cos as Trapper posts in the last couple of days <

^

The fun thing about re-reading these old stories is noticing a consistency in how certain characters are depicted. Cos certainly has anger management issues, judging by Superboy 173. Mon-El's insecurities manifest themselves in Action 384 and perhaps in Superboy 176.

It's hard to be believe the writers (especially multiple writers) imbued the characters with such traits intentionally, yet there they are!

Mon El kind of reasonable to figure but was the Cos stuff just random? Let's give magnet guy anger issues? Doesn't seem to add up stereotypically. I'm surprised they didn't make him clingy. Guess they were saving that for Velcro Boy.

At this point Mort was getting very close to retirement and all kinds of changes were already happening within the offices of DC. So I wonder if they experimented and took a page out of Julie Schwartz playbook here and had Neal Adams create that dramatic cover first and then had Shooter write the story around it? That would explain the illogical subplot with Invisible Kid and Shrinking Violet and the total lack of communication amongst the team during this crisis.


It's also possible that was done for the Adv 378 issue as well. I also wonder if Adv 378 was written by Shooter ST-TNG Best of Both Worlds style, where he crafted the cliffhanger and then would figure out how to finish the story another day.

I just took another look at this story, and the Seeron quisks the team away literally in just a few seconds after Ultra Boy gives the ok or as the caption reads "and so in the space of a breath". I didn't pick up on that until this read, but the Seeron gives them no time to leave a note or anything of that nature. But again I think all of that is just Shooter positioning things so that Lyle and Salu can stumble in all clueless and recreate the scene from the cover.

As already mentioned in another post, it's odd that Jo is so protective of Tinya in this issue when she can turn to phantom-form at the first sense of danger and be perfectly fine. But Tinya never seems to use her power here. An in-story reason would be that Tinya's power is not working 100% in the Seeron's world. A real world reason would be that Shooter wanted to milk the damsel in distress angle.



I agree. This was a very creative use of Condo's powers in this issue. And Shooter pulled another page from the Julie Schwartz playbook here by going all super scientific with the hero. I wonder if Condo were to have used this metabolism trick frequently, would it have caused permanent damage to his body?




Ultra Boy definitely shined here, and it's almost like since Val was indisposed Shooter jumped over to Jo to fill this issue's mary sue shoes. Another interesting note is how Star Boy was right there and being very vocal as Jo's #2. I don't remember Thom as being portrayed as the aggressive type very often. You would think that Timber Wolf would be filling that role, but I don't think he said two words this issue.




Doing a quick re-re-read of this issue, I got a geeks ganging up on the bullys vibe. Shooter liked to work in some of his school experiences and classmates into his stories, so perhaps this is his version of having seen some of the meek and mild switch gears and take down a bully at school?

I had no idea that this story mirrored the Odyssey. It just seemed like a very convoluted story. Perhaps I need to start reading the story titles and get a clue lol.

The thing that really bugs me about this story is that just two issues back B5 was all wound up on the space-time continuum collapsing if Superboy were to die. And yet here he dies (by being eaten alive by a beast with Kryptonite teeth. really?) and no one bats an eye over that condunrum? Lu (and the others) clearly know Superboy someday becomes Superman, and yet they are buying into his death here. This would have worked better if say Shooter subbed Mon-El here for Superboy.

Oh then there's the whole thing Superboy does this set up because the legionnaires would never believe the story directly from one of their own members who just happens to have premonitons of the future that always come true in some fashion. More eye rolling.

Also the use of the super pets here was another eye-rolling moment. I wonder if this was another Mort-required Super Pets appearance, and Shooter was at the point where he just said screw it and "phoned in" this story.

While the plot was a mess, Shooter came out strong on characterization - especially with Chuck and Lu. And I wonder how many other Legion ladies know how to smoke and salt space-rabbit? Also Jo gets the spotlight again in place of Val. And I do like that Shooter had B5 sit this one out and used Lyle instead as the smart Legionnaire (but not smart enough to see through the set up) who figures out how to get everyone off the planet.

One other noteworthy item - after hardly using Chuck at all for the first half of his run, Shooter apparently discovered the coolness of Bouncing Boy as he uses the character quite a bit in the last year of Adv stories.

I came across Jim Shooter discussing the Forbidden Fruit story on his blog. We started discussing it here.

Apparently, Shooter's original story was rejected by the comics code. In it, Brin would have resisted the Doctor as shown. But then Ayla would have given him some Lotus Fruit, after deactivating the bomb she had attached to herself (thankfully this was nowhere near the Khundian Asteroid mission, or it would have got messy). It would be a long, difficult road through rehab for Brin rather than him just beating the habit at the end of the published story.

It doesn't say whether that would have been off panel, with both characters going on extended leave of absence, or if it would have been a proper subplot. Considering the shorter nature of the stories at that point, probably the former. Jim Shooter's blog entry on it is here.

Thanks for sharing, thoth. I appreciated Shooter's comments on drugs on and his own two drug experiences.

The Comics Code rejecting stories for the most inane of reasons, or no reason at all, was a reality back then. The tragedy is two-fold: Their policies prevented comics from really taking on weighty subjects and having something meaningful to say about them, and they made getting over a drug addiction look easy. It's its own way, the CCA may have done more harm to young people than comics themselves ever did.

I just came back from a writer's conference, in which one of the presenters is the author of Mid-grade fiction (roughly 6th, 7th, and 8th graders) as well as a middle school teacher. His books deal with heavy subjects such as loss of a parent and bullying--in other words, stuff real kids go through. One thing he said resonated with me: Lectures and public service announcements will quickly be forgotten by kids, but a single story about suicide, for instance, can reach them. Comics, too, have that power, or at least they can.

I can only imagine that they couldn't be seen to show any kind of enabling behavior, such as Ayla supporting an addiction by providing the drug. The code wasn't equipped to deal with messy little things like... reality

Is the author's books mid grade fiction because that's where the education system feels they are placed within their curriculum? Or are the books written for what the author perceives is a mid grade level? Or does the former lead to authors tailoring their work accordingly? it's something that raises a little internal flag when I see things being pigeon holed. Partly for exactly the reason you mention. That certain works are deemed to mature for younger minds. So, they are kept away from them even though they contain a wealth of experience and life lessons.

Ayla: You will get better. I'll support you through your Lotus Fruit addiction.
Brin: Even through all the relapses and emotional stress?
Ayla: Even then... because ... I'm pregnant.
Brin: But Ayla... we're never going to get a teenage pregnancy subplot through the code either!
Ayla: So.. you're saying that I shouldn't keep the baby?
Brin: Gah! Not going there! This whole conversation will never reach the page!

The author, C. David Milles, self-published the books, so they are not part of any curriculum. However, he took real incidents and concerns in his students' lives and wrote stories based on them. One in particular deals a girl coming to terms with her father's death and questioning the existence of God. Here is the Amazon link.

I bought it and another book called "Redemption," but haven't read them yet.

The thing about Ayla giving Brin the lotus fruit made me squirm. I supposed the idea was to wean Brin off the drug gradually, but this would need to be carefully explained. However, I do think they could have (and should have) gone ahead and showed him recovering for months.

Pregnant Ayla? Leading perhaps to a drug-addicted baby? Oh, the horror!

A drug addicted Cub? Yikes! I was just going for an old fashioned abortion storyline. Oh HWW!

The Lotus Babies mini series will be coming out from Young Animal in a couple of months.

Cub was Jo and Tinya's baby . . . which makes me wonder who the father of Ayla's Cub's truly is. Drug addicted and with uncertain parentage . . . I sense a six-issue mini-series!

You'd think if the Comics Code was so moralistic, they would have wanted to show how difficult it is to break an addiction. That could have taken six issues and all the while, Ayla is coping with pregnancy. Without her Legion stipend and for some reason unsupported by her family (just for the drama), she turns to dealing Lotus fruit to make ends meet, then sells her newborn, unable to care for him as a result of postpartum depression. Might take more than six issues.... a dark romance comic....

^The Legion as written by Harlan Ellison.