Writers: E. Nelson Bridwell, Cary Bates
Artist: Dave Cockrum
Publisher: DC
The members of the Legion of Super-Heroes I was introduced to when I first started collecting comics in 1972 are featured in this DC Archives edition, which collects the Legion tales published in Superboy #s 172, 173, 176, 183, 184, 188, 190, 191, 193, 195 and Superboy Starring The Legion of Super-Heroes #s 197-202.
As a rotating back-up feature in Superboy, the exploits of the 30th Century superheroes (some 22 members plus) were tightly plotted by E. Nelson Bridwell and Cary Bates (who wrote the majority of the stories in this book), usually spotlighting a particular member. There are longtime Legion fans like myself who have placed a ‘priceless’ tag over the $49.95 price of this book and lost themselves in a string of stories that brought the Legion from a status of virtual has-beens to revitalized superstars. There are others who will wonder what all the fuss is about.
The fuss is artist Dave Cockrum. Cockrum took over the super-team from artist George Tuska (actually, there’s more to it than that, which is where Cockrum’s insightful, informative, and just plain fun foreword comes into play). He gave the Legion stature. They didn’t look like teens anymore, they looked like well-honed models; physically fit, sleek and vibrant in uniform. And sexy. Especially the ladies. I make no apologies; when I saw these women drawn and clothed the Cockrum way, I was smitten big time. Saturn Girl, Duo Damsel, Shrinking Violet; these girls were not only dressed to battle evil, they were dressed to look good.
The backup stories ranged from seven to eleven pages. They are all self-contained. The plot structure is pretty basic and consistent: the Legion is introduced, the threat is posed, the battle is fought, all obstacles are overcome, the Legion is victorious, and, for the most part, there are smiles all around at the end. In the space of these ten adventures, Lightning Lad and Lightning Lass (along with Timber Wolf) battle their evil brother, Lightning Lord; Cosmic Boy and Superboy confound the evil wizard Mordru; Invisible Kid and Chemical Kid take on a robber who has invisibility powers; Mon-El, Shadow Lass, Karate Kid and Princess Projectra undergo possession by extraterrestrials; Matter Eater Lad is poisoned by his own brother to betray the Legion; Chameleon Boy is exposed to Mordru’s crystals and travels back to the 20th Century to kill Superboy; Mon-El and Saturn Girl are transported to another planet where Tharok has ordered the giant Validus to kill them; Sun Boy is attacked by the man who created him, Dr. Regulus; Duo Damsel and Chameleon Boy venture to a distant world to prevent nuclear war; and rejected Legion applicant Erg-1 sacrifices himself to save Colossal Boy from a ravaging machine designed to destroy the crops of an agricultural planet.
During this time the Legion’s popularity was again rising, enough to graduate them to costar status with the Boy of Steel in Superboy #197. The page count for Legion stories increased, now ranging from thirteen to twenty pages. Bates was able to add more depth to his plots. While individual Legionnaires were still spotlighted, the Legion worked more as a team (though Bates preferred to work with smaller groups).
These are the Legion stories I recall the most fondly and have read at least a dozen times each. A brainwashed Timber Wolf attempts to assassinate the President of Earth, but that’s just a decoy; he’s also programmed by a new villain, Tyr, to annihilate the Legion! Brainiac 5, Element Lad, Princess Projectra and Karate Kid travel back to 20th Century Smallville to join Superboy in battle with three members of the Fatal Five: Emerald Empress, Persuader, and Mano. The villainous Tyr attempts to escape the Legion, and almost has Superboy destroy his friends. The extravagant wedding of Duo Damsel and Bouncing Boy (Chuck Taine got to marry two women!) receives an uninvited and deadly guest, Starfinger. Erg-1 returns from the dead (well, he didn’t really die to begin with) and joins the Legion as Wildfire after defeating Molecular Master, a rejected Legion applicant who turns out to be an android programmed to destroy the Legion. Superboy, Mon-El, Light Lass and Element Lad fall victim to a bizarre (and misunderstood) undersea creature called Devil-Fish.
The Legionnaires also continued to be featured in backup tales. Bouncing Boy is hunted by the son of Otto Orion, who plans to take down the Legion one by one, beginning with BB, who Orion feels is their weakest member. Dream Girl has a premonition that one of her fellow Legionnaires is going to die, but which one? Colossal Boy and Shrinking Violet are returning to Earth from deep space when their spaceship mysteriously conks out on them, leaving them stranded a million miles from home.
Cockrum notes little things he drew into the stories, including a scene that slipped past the Comics Code Authority: Dream Girl and Star Boy sleeping in the same bed together (you can see Star Boy’s head under the blanket in “The Silent Death” if you look real closely). I never noticed! Probably because I was too busy looking at Dream Girl.
There are also some humorous bits. The introduction of Legion applicants Porcupine Pete and Infectious Lass is hilarious. On the other hand, there’s a rather disarming scene where Clark Kent uses his heat vision to break off a tree branch that knocks Lana Lang unconscious. He does this so he can sneak away as Superboy and time travel into the 30th Century to join the Legion. He just leaves Lana under the tree, without any thought of getting her medical aid. What if she slipped into a coma?
The Legion of Super-Heroes were revamped in 1994, starting over from scratch in the aftermath of DC’s Zero Hour miniseries. As far as current DC continuity is concerned, the tales in this book never happened. But to many of us, there was never a better Legion than the one reprinted in this and other Legion Archive editions. Whatever Legion incarnation you cherish, long live the Legion!
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