Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes Re-Reading the Legion: Archives Volume 11

Good point about the character's need for a better visual. And I wonder whether giving him the penis-head was Grell's choice or Boltinoff's. I suspect the latter, finding it easy to picture the middle-aged editor with a pile of underground comix on his desk, misguidedly deciding that characters with penis-heads are just what the new, "edgy" DC needs.

Thankfully it wasn't Geoff Johns. Cuz you know that sucker would be severed in a second.

LOL

Good one, Cobie, although I think Johns is too paternalistic to support any kind of castration, symbolic or otherwise. I'm surprised Johns' alter-ego/stand-in Superboy-Prime didn't develop a penis-head.

Again, reaching back into more "innocent" times, I doubt Boltinoff or Grell intended for Anti-Lad's head to look like a penis. I think they were just playing off the stereotype that people in the future would have bald heads because they would be more intelligent that those of earlier generations.

I'm not sure why there had to be a "cleft" in the head. Perhaps it was indeed meant to suggest a larger cranium but not too large so the character wouldn't look alien.

Hermit's mention of the Outer Limits in the Star Trek: TOS thread reminded me that there was an episode I saw where David McCallum played a simple man who is artificially evolved into a man of tomorrow, and his cranium expands. Perhaps that's what Grell was going for?

Perhaps. I've never seen that episode, but the idea that people with super-intelligence or mental powers would have large craniums was a staple of science fiction. The Talosians in the original Star Trek pilot, "The Cage," were a good example.

Of course, there's tons of examples in the Legion as well, including Evolvo Lad!

Superboy 204

I think I got this one quite early on, as I knew who Anti Lad was when I used to see him appear in lists of members.

I remember seeing the lists, because I’d immediately tut and say “He *wasn’t actually a member. He had just got through some preliminary tests.” I had to tut, because it wasn’t until recently LASH showed me how to Space Huff. The talking out loud to no one is still the same.

It’s an interesting premise. A mystery from the Legion’s past solved in the far future! A key moment from the Legion’s past too: The induction of Superboy. Just think what would have happened to the team without him (cue someone creating a thread if it’s not already there).

Another question is why can no one remember Anti-Lad?

One thing is certain. It’s got to be done better than Triumph was when they reused (pinched) this idea for the JLA years later. Surely?

Well…

You’d really think that changing time ought not to have been an option with the Time Scanner. It’s really only going to end badly. I don’t see our TV’s creating alternate realities, or microscopes suddenly really enlarging things (That’s Molecule Master’s job.)

“We must do something! But first let’s spend half an hour setting up these ancient dominoes, I just happen to have, to explain a simple point to you.” Hmmm, someone isn’t too bothered about having reality rewritten. Could Anti-Lad’s dad be the Time Trapper? He dabbles in “Time Peeping” for sure. Perv!

Perhaps the Trapper is Anti-Lad. Having messed up with time once thanks to his device, he’s straight off on the forbidden time machine (kept securely, but not really, in the house) to mess with it again.

The story relies on Anti-Lad getting everything exactly right. It’s like one of those elaborate villain plots that Bates has provided us with. Brainy has to figure out that something is wrong. He has to figure out the visor is the source of the powers. He must be able to access the technology to make the Kryptonite link. Then Cos has to make the link between that and the test that Superboy failed? Oh, the visor must also be able to do lots of neat things, including mind wiping and hypnotic suggesting, because the Plot Trapper demands it.

*And* he knew how long he would have to stay, because he’s been mind wiping the Legionnaires not in the room, such as Tinya and Gim so they won’t remember him either. That would have looked odd if Anti-Lad had to stay a bit longer and half the team kept forgetting who he was.

While I can moan about Anti-Lad not being on the team, one after effect of this story is that Superboy’s introduction to the team has been meddled with.

Superboy was supposed to have failed his tests away back in #247. It’s was all part of the Legion pulling Clark’s leg. Perhaps we would have got a better story seeing Anti-Lad misinterpret the failure. Instead, we get genuine disappointment from the Legionnaires regarding Superboy’s testing. It seems that this is a different test to the one in #247. Possibly due to Anti-Lad’s device.

So, Superboy ends up having to be tested twice, invalidating #247? A shame if that’s the case.

Visually, Anti-Lad is distinctive and I wonder if he could defeat Nemesis Kid. Nemesis Kid is just one of the villains who can look at their photo grid with the Legion up on the wall before the cell lights go off at night. They all passed the preliminaries too.

I thought the art was a step back this issue, and the story took some of the poorer elements of this run and sunk a decent premise with them.

Backup Feature:-

Brainy goes off the deep end, not least in part because the Legion don’t get weekends off in the future to relax.

The big plot hole in this one is that having been absent for “years” Supergirl pops up to tell people she’s not staying and will be absent for years. Um…why bother? Oh yes, because she had to save Brainy at just the right moment.

This story would obviously be part of the set up for Brainy’s later actions. Actions that would shape and haunt him for the rest of the Legion comics. Occasionally it would feature more prominently, such as during the Who is Sensor Girl? Arc. I’m sure someone quipped about Brainy having built another android or having a clone?

Grell’s depiction of the android is great though, and it was nice seeing Brainy and Kara together. It also gave some panel time to Star Boy.

http://www.legionworld.net/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=64608#Post64608



LOL I'd never thought of the JLA/Triumph connection, but it's true!

SLOSH 204

1) Anti-Lad story

This one felt like a big throwback to the early Silver Age style of Legion storytelling. (In my mind, at least, the Bronze Age for the Legion began with Cockrum and his costumes arriving.) This isn't just because of the flashback to the early Legion and the old costumes but because of the simplistic and kind of nonsensical/flawed story--with many of its fallacies already mentioned here. Certainly, Cary wasn't one of the more innovative Legion writers, but this one particularly stands out as regressive. By comparison, Paul Levitz's flashback stories which revisited the Silver Age seemed more well-done and less clunky.

There's just not much to enjoy here, other than some decent Grell artwork. Cary's script is flawed from the get-go considering he seems to misremember Superboy's induction story and how the Legionnaires basically pranked him into thinking he hadn't done well. So just a poorly considered story all around with just too many flaws to overlook. Really, my initial statement of this being a early Silver Age throwback is an insult to Siegel, Hamilton and the like. Their veraion may have been hokey but would have made more internal sense.

BTW, Anti-Lad's head, to me, is much more evocative of a butt than a penis. This from a guy who sees penises in everything!


2) Brainy + Supergirl + Supergirl android

This is generally the less popular of the two stories among the consensus so far, but count me among the ones who prefer this story. It's not anything close to perfect, but it feels more like a Bronze Age story than its throwback lead-in. And it doesn't hurt at all that Grell draws a remarkably beautiful and sexy Kara, whether she's the robot or the real deal. And she appears in the costume that I most associate pre-Crisis Kara with as a bonus.

One thing I really like about this story is that it at least addresses the Brainy/Kara pairing for the first time in forever. And I'm a big fan of the two together. Something else else about those two together just feels right, and I'm sure that much of this has to do with the fact that we know they are doomed by her death in Crisis. That scene of Brainy and the real Kara kissing at the end is depicted magnificently and tenderly by Grell. It can't be mistaken for a platonic kiss. There's some real attraction and feeling between the two that goes beyond puppy love or a simple flirtation. These two are star-crossed, and who can't help but feel some longing for them never really getting together?

The creep factor that some here mention is there, but I think the explanation we get mostly redeems that feeling. It makes since that a being with Brainy's particular intelligence may work on something like this subconsciously when thoughts of her weigh so deeply on his thoughts. A brain like his is probably built better for purely intellectual pursuits and may approach emotional problems in inappropriate ways.

The bigger problem for me is the real Kara's entirely coincidental appearance. I'd have preferred that something more story-appropriate had been cooked up to have her enter. Something else else as simple as one of the Legionnaires becoming suspicious and checking in the past to see if it's really her.

Overall, I like the story as a placeholder/update on Kara and Brainy's relationship. We can check it off in their history and place it in a timeline of stories addressing their relationship. Something else else to read over and lament what might have been.

Good point well taken, Lardy. It makes me wish more than ever that Sensor Girl had been Kara instead of Projectra.




Yep, same here.



Now that you mention it...

LOL

I don't know if anyone here remembers "In Living Color", the multi-racial sketch comedy show from the early 90s. Early on, they had a recurring sketch called "The Buttmans", about a family with butts growing out of their heads. That was one of my favorite sketches, but the censors forced the creators to stop making it.

You know, as contrary as it may sound, I wouldn't change a thing about how the Sensor Girl mystery played out. I like what it did for Projectra's story. And as painful as it is, I'm glad we have the sad outcome for Kara and Brainy because sometimes "what might have beens" can be so much more powerful than if things had actually played out. Compare this, for example, to if Jean Grey had never been brought back and how much better that would have been compared to where writers took her and Scott Summers. Gwen Stacy has benefited mostly from this as well if you don't count that awful Norman Osborn ret-con.

You know, I never thought of Anti-Lad's head looking like a penis or a butt until I joined this board.

I'm sure I have no memory of any such show, and neither would any one else here. Because Lardy don't play dat!

SLSH 204

Not much more for me to add than has already been said. I read of Anti-Lad and his shenanigans in the ICG Index titles and was intrigued, but the actual story was fairly meh. As Thoth pointed out everything had to work just right or history would be more screwed. Oh and it was so handy that there just happened to be an ancient set of dominoes on the table.

As for his head, at first I thought it was just poor perspective but then I realised about the brain bit , particularly since it reminded me of the Talosians in Star Trek "The Cage", as He Who mentioned, often referred to as those guys with bottoms on their head.

The Brainy-Kara story was another one that I had read when I was young in a B&W aussie reprint. I guess when I was young I just accepted it. Looking at it now, yeah it does feel a bit like Brainy could use some counselling, but it still feels kinda nice to have the tale of their love revisited and reinforced.

Funnily enough the thing that bothered me when I was young was what the android must have felt like - I mean iron boobs?! Ah the fascinations of the male teenage mind.

LOL

Good times, good times.

It's worth noting that this was a time of immense change for the Superman books. Not only was 1974-1975 the lowest ebb for DC superheroes since 1953, but even the stalwart king of superhero franchises was seeing contraction.

Supergirl had spun out of Adventure Comics into her own series (for the first time) a little less than a year earlier, as Adventure Comics became a non-Super related title for the first time since 1944. Coincidently Supergirl's new series was written by Cary Bates. Exactly one week after the Supergirl robot backup we've been discussing, Supergirl #10 would be the final issue as the series was cancelled.

Also cancelled this month (and prior) were Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen, which would have been unthinkable 15 years earlier. All three franchises would be consolidated into the anthology title Superman Family, which continued with Jimmy Olsen's numbering (this was one month after Superboy #204). Soon enough, both Superman & Lois of Earth-2 and Superboy (now relegated to co-star in his own series) would get features in the Superman Family anthology.

It was certainly a transitionary time for DC Comics. And this was good for the Legion, as even though Superboy stayed on the team, it really allowed the series to grow and thrive as a separate entity from the Superman franchise.

Thanks for the historical perspective, Cobie. I was unaware that all of those cancellations happened at roughly the same time.

I do recall that DC started to lose ground to Marvel around 1972. That was the rationale given for Crisis a decade later. In addition to the cancellations you mention, Green Lantern, The Atom, Hawkman, and Aquaman all lost their titles. GL wound up as a backup feature in The Flash, while Atom & Hawkman were combined into a single title before cancellation.

In hindsight, it seems that the company truly had fallen on hard times and perhaps needed this comeuppance after having ruled the comics roost for so long. When a company becomes Number One, it tends to become staid and boring, and can't keep pace with the radical changes in society--changes to which Marvel readily adapted. A few years before this, Marvel had greatly expanded its line, giving Iron Man, Captain America, the Hulk, and the Submariner their own tiles, for example.

As a child, I knew very little of all this. I was just discovering the world of comics; however, I soon discovered I had already missed out on so much. An older friend owned an issue of Atom & Hawkman and a couple of GL's, so there was a sense that the "good old days" had already passed. Such are the beginnings of nostalgia.

Nostalgia and the "good ol days" are definitely part of any hobby, especially those involving serial drama. My father, who came into his own as a comic book reader when the Marvel Age of Comics really took off in 1963, was often told how he missed out on the explosive beginnings of the DC Silver Age in the late 50's. And those kids often waxed nostalgic about missing the legendary EC Comics boom of the early to mid 50's, which by my father's time was something spoken in hushed voices, as if it an era too incredible to even think about.

I enjoy hearing about your discovery of comics, HWW (and everyone else for that matter). I can easily see how you might think that. What you had, and so many others for decades had, was several publications of reprints too--something missing today. That must have allowed for a confusing but wonderful reading experience.

1968 was the year Marvel split the anthology titles and gave Iron Man, Cap, Namor, Hulk, Dr. Strange and Nick Fury their own titles, not to mention Captain Marvel and the Silver Surfer for good measure. By then, DC was already in free fall, with many series cancelled or on the way out, as they were already looking to other genres, like horror, to expand into.

By late 1971, Marvel began expanding its line at a rapid pace, while DC continued cancelling once stalwart parts of the Silver Age. In addition to the series you mentioned above, DC cancelled within just a few years Challengers of the Unknown, Blackhawk, Metal Men, Metamorpho, Tomahawk, and numerous others. The last hold-outs were Green Lantern / Green Arrow, Aquaman and Teen Titans, who all held in there until about 1972. During 1973-1975, DC barely had any superhero comics at all, instead moving back to other genres. Meanwhile, Marvel's output was absolutely insane during this era.

1972 was the year Marvel overtook DC in total sales. I can't remember the exact year, but later in the decade, Spider-Man would outsell Superman and the Hulk would outsell Batman.

Circling back to the LOSH, one had to wonder if the major reason it not only survived but began to thrive again was because of how more sci-fi it was than superheroey. It definitely stood out. And for non-Bat / Supes superhero comics, if you weren't the Flash, Wonder Woman or the JLA, you basically had a snowball's chance in hell of making it during this era.

All very true.



I don't know why it would have been confusing. To me it wasn't.

Thanks again for the further historical perspective. I knew DC had launched horror titles (as had Marvel, with Tomb of Dracula and Werewolf by Night, not mention Ghost Rider), but I didn't know they were doing so at the expense of super-hero titles. If these horror titles had caught on, one wonders if they would have abandoned super-heroes altogether.

Marvel's growth truly was quite remarkable during that period.



Perhaps the science fiction elements did have something to do with the Legion's popularity. After all, they fit in nicely with the Star Trek reruns, from which Bates and Cockrum plagiarized borrowed liberally, as we've seen.

Speaking just for myself, the Legion's appeal was built on the fact that they were a team I wanted to belong to. I couldn't really imagine being Superman and having a secret identity and a job (ugh!), and I didn't want to be non-powered Batman or Green Arrow. But if you were a Legionnaire, you were truly special. You could do something no one else on the team could do. You got to wear a special costume but didn't have to hide your identity. You lived in a huge headquarters that had everything. You were idolized by people all over the galaxy. And you had lots of friends to play with and be heroic with.

There was nothing else like the Legion--before or since.

SUPERBOY AND THE LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES 205

While it's nice to see Lana Lang as Insect Queen (one of those increasingly rare flashbacks to the Silver Age), and she looks lovely as drawn by Grell, the story winds up going nowhere remotely satisfying, in my opinion. Having almost all the Legionnaires mind-controlled marks this as the missing link between Shooter's "Outlaw Legion" and Levitz's "Universo Project", but this story doesn't reach anywhere near the heights of its predecessor or its successor.

If the villain had been Universo, as it was in both of the aforementioned superior stories, there might have been some meat to the tale, with the continuity of him finding the way of controlling the "strongest" Legionnaires who had resisted him the last time. Instead, we get a goofy-looking casting-call reject for the Guardians of the Universe with the personality of a wet washcloth. And there's no explanation why the villain is not able to control Superboy or Ultra Boy, but IS able to control the equally mighty (if not mightier) Mon-El.

And in the nit-picking department, even though I like how Grell drew a lot of the Legionnaires, I've never liked the way he drew Shadow Lass, whose features seem to change panel after panel. This wasn't the last time this would happen. Also, Wildfire comes off as a cipher, whom just about any Legionnaire could have replaced and spoken the same bland dialogue.

A sure sign that Bates had peaked with the Legion, "The Legion of Super-Executioners" is depressingly by-the-numbers.

The villain did kind of go nowhere. No backstory, nothing to really make him interesting. And for an immortal, no other writer found him interesting enough to use so I suppose, still locked up. Immortality sucks.

There were bits I found nice. The hoax knot. Also connections to Jo Nah's backstory, which really hasn't been told yet. There were real reasons they "won." It was an any badguy can win given enough planning story, which I also appreciate. I shouldn't take a Mordru to take down Legion, for a bit.

I didn't have this one in my binders ;( But that's Okay, because I picked it up when I went through the issues I'd need for this thread. So, this could be the first time I've read this one >gasp<

... comments in the next day or so...

205:

I sometimes wonder about the genesis of certain stories--whether or not, for example, this one began with the cover (the Legion of Super-Excecutioners! What a concept) or with the need to rotate the cast to feature every Legionnaire at one point or another. Ultra Boy hadn't had much to do since 184, so this issue serves as a spotlight for him with Lana thrown in for good measure. I also wonder if Bates was doing his best to accommodate fan requests to see such-and-such character again. In any case, I get the feeling that, after the first few pages, Bates' heart wasn't in this story.

The first few pages are fine. We return to Smallville for Lana's birthday (her 18th, judging by the candles on the cake) and her secret wish that Superboy would pay her a visit. Being the super-mind reader he is, he does just that. In a scene that now seems like an unintentional (?) innuendo, he appears on the windowsill of her bedroom and tells her he's there to give her his present (!). After clearing it with her parents (proving his intentions are at least somewhat noble), he takes Lana into the future to attend a Legion meeting. Just what every girl wants, right?

The rest of the story is, as Fanfie said, by the numbers. Legion HQ has been attacked by a deranged lunatic who turns out to be Ultra Boy. But things are not what they seem (are they ever?). One deception leads to another until we get to the scene on the cover, with the Legionnaires executing poor Lana and Jo.

It's actually quite interesting to read the story with knowledge that Superboy has figured out the hoax knot clue and is playing along until he observes what's what. This foreknowledge adds a slight dimension to an otherwise very slight story.

But beyond that, the tale offers nothing new. Except for Ultra Boy, the Legionnaires go through the motions and are pretty much interchangeable. (One exception: Karate Kid demonstrating his master-of-martial-arts status by taking down the much more powerful Ultra Boy.) The villain, as Fanfie said, is a generic bad guy without anything to make him special. And the ending is, well . . . the heroes win, but we knew they would.

One wonders what Superboy gave Lana for her next birthday, or if they were even on speaking terms.

Superboy #205 was one of the last Legion books I picked up to fill holes in my collection. The reason: for over 30 years I thought the 100 pagers were reprint books, and so I never bothered looking for them. Once I finally did score a copy, the first thing I see is a reprint of the Adventure 378 cover, modified to make it into a contents page. Well, I guess I can't blame them for wanting to get as much mileage out of a Neal Adams cover as they can. Then I glance at the actual contents listing and am pleased to see that they red-haired girl being shot at on the cover is indeed Lana Lang. I've always liked her as Insect Queen, so I find myself looking forward to turning the page and actually getting this story underway.

DC, at this point, is still a bit stuck in the silver age, so we get a splash page taken from the middle of the story that pretty much duplicates the cover, so that's one page wasted right off the bat (unless you bought the book just to look at the pictures, of course, in which case you're someone's little brother and you'd better give that back before he catches you with it).

On to page two (which is really page one, but you knew that already, since I just told you). It's Lana's birthday. Already I'm distracted from the narrative by wondering how old she is. Grell makes her look at least 17, yet we know from a Superboy story that hasn't been published yet that her classmate Clark has yet to see his 16th birthday. Come to think of it, Superboy himself, who shows up at the bottom of the page, looks about 18. Maybe it's a time travel thing.

Anyway, we soon get to the 30th century, which is fine with me, since if I wanted to read a story set in 20th century Smallville I'd buy a book called Superboy, not...indicia says what? Ah, who reads that stuff anyway?

Now where was I? Oh, yeah, the 30th century. I probably should have noticed something wasn't quite right when the painfully shy Shrinking Violet is the first to speak, especially in a group with Wildfire in it. Still, I chalk it up to the expediency of exposition dialogue and read on. It seems like Ultra Boy has gone quite mad, but I figure it's some sort of ploy on his part (he's pulled stuff like this before, remember) and start to wonder if the other members are impostors or something. Next, Grell gets to draw several panels worth of fight scene, proving that DC is indeed moving into the bronze age after all.

The next thing we see is Superboy waking up to see Mon & Shady hovering over him (for some reason this panel reminds me of something Curt Swan did in the first Mordru story). After Bates does us the courtesy of dropping a clue about Superboy's cape (apparently you CAN tug on it if you're Ultra Boy), we see Kal sent off on a wild virus chase by the (at this point in my mind fake) legionnaires, who, like most popular kids, immediately turn against Lana as soon as Clark is out of the room.

It's time for a bit more exposition dialog, as Ultra Boy is now rational enough to clue us in to what is really going on. One short fight scene later we arrive at the cover/splash page scene. Since we've already been here twice, I'll just move on to the next page, where we see that Superboy had it figured out all along (he tends to do that), and that what I thought were impostors are actually the real legionnaires, but they are being controlled by the "mysterious Master". Better yet, we finally get to see Lana change into her Insect Queen costume. Unfortunately, being Lana, she immediately changes into a bee and impulsively rushes into danger and finds herself mind controlled before she can actually do anything.

We finally get to see the "mysterious Master" as he orders Lana to take on Ultra Boy, changing first into a Spider-Woman and finally a WASP (which is her natural form, isn't it? Well, maybe not the TV version, but that's decades away at this point). After she stings Jo, the "mysterious Master" seems to have Superboy in a stalemate, but Jo saves the day by not being as dead as the "mysterious Master" thought he was (but not until we get almost three pages of exposition monologue from the villain (yep, definitely bronze age, as "curses, foiled again" is replaced by "put me down, I say"). All in all, not all that bad a story for its time.

Next, we get a bio of Mike Grell. Keep in mind that by the time I got this book I had followed Grell's career through Green Lantern, Warlord, Starslayer and Jon Sable, so I knew a bit about him already. Nonetheless, there was stuff in here that was new to me. The story about joining the Air Force to avoid the draft hit close to home, as that had been my own plan if my lottery number turned out to be too high (as it turned out it was something like 340 out of 365, so I got to wait a couple years longer before enlisting).

The first reprint is from Superboy #88, from 1961. Interestingly, the tech is all depression era, meaning that if Clark was 13 at the time, he would be somewhere around 40 in 1961. Still, I enjoyed the story for what it was, an entertaining way of addressing a question that has existed in one form or another since Superman first appeared: if he is so powerful why doesn't he just __________. This time around it's the sporting world that gets the treatment, and the various stunts he pulls are quite a bit of fun, especially the classic baseball bit where he pitches, hits and catches the ball on the same play.

Following the Superboy reprint we have a two-page letter column. In typical Murray Boltinoff fashion, only excerpts from letters are used, along with one liner responses from the editor. Notably one of the excerpts is from a Dan Jurgens of Ortonville, Minnesota, who has high praise for Grell's work, as do pretty much all this months letterhacks (or at least the ones Boltinoff has chosen to print comments from).

From here we have the two-parter from Adventure 350-351 that managed to undo just about every change that the series had gone through up to that point (except the death of one of Luornu's bodies). Interestingly the story is interrupted by a three-page Lore Of The Legion feature that finishes what was started in the previous 100-pager. I'm not sure, but this might be the last pre-crisis appearance of Kid Psycho in a Legion book.

And so we arrive at the back cover, with an ad for the Junior Sales Club Of America (Win prizes, make friends or get cash by selling greeting cards) on the inside and a chance to win one of 250 prizes from Monogram's Big Wheel/Big Deal contest...it's a model builder's dream come true!