Showcase: Legion of
Super-Heroes Volume 2 (reprinting stories from July 1964- September
1966 from Adventure Comics 322-348 and Superboy 117, 124 and 125 by
Edmond Hamilton, Jerry Siegel, Jim Shooter, John Forte, Curt Swan,
Jim Mooney and others)
I don’t usually
review ‘60s comics. Commander Benson is our resident expert on
the Silver Age. And Captain Comics mentions the Silver Age in his
columns often enough that I figured we’re covered. But, once
in a while, I actually read Silver Age comics. So I figured that,
once in a while, I could actually review Silver Age comics, too.
When I do, I’m not approaching them as someone who grew up with
them and loved them at the time. If that’s what you’re
looking for, the Commander is your man. I’m coming at them as
someone who came along after the fact. So, while I enjoy the
occasional Silver Age story, I can usually only take the silliness in
small doses.
This volume of the
Legion of Super-Heroes started out a little rough for me. There were
inconsistencies that pestered me from the first page. For example,
in the issue that introduced the Legion of Super-Pets, only two of
the pets were referred to by their given names. It seemed silly that
Krypto and Streaky were Krypto and Streaky while Beppo and Comet were
only Super-Monkey and Super-Horse. I know that you have to be able
to ignore some things like that if you’re going to enjoy Silver
Age comics, but the inattention to those kinds of details was
occasionally distracting. Another obvious inconsistency had to do
with the Legion of Super-Outlaws. In that story, a villain wanted to
get rid of the Legion of Super-Heroes so he convinced some other
heroes that the Legionnaires were really rogues and needed to be
replaced. So far, so good. But when the villain names his new team
the Legion of Super-Outlaws, the supposed heroes should have clued
into the fact that they were being played for dupes.
More importantly, the
stories were often redundant. This was a concern I had with the
first Showcase volume, and it’s still a concern with this one.
With the number of times that a new member joined the Legion only to
betray them at the first opportunity, you’d think that the
Legionnaires would never recruit another member again. There’s
“The Lone Wolf Legionnaire,” “The Lad Who Wrecked
the Legion,” “The Secret of the Mystery Legionnaire”
and “The Unknown Legionnaire” all within a span of eight
issues. The new member who turns out to be a traitor was not the
only example of treachery either. There were also plenty of stories
in which one or more of the current Legionnaires suddenly turned on
the rest of the team including “The Eight Impossible Missions,”
“Revolt of the Girl Legionnaires” and “Superboy and
the Five Traitors.” At a certain point, it seemed as if the
United Planets would be safe if only the Legion would disband as all
of their problems came from within.
Yet, as much as I may
complain about the inconsistencies and repetitiveness, there is an
element of fun to a lot of these stories. That’s the reason
why I came back for a second volume after reading the first, and kept
reading the second even if I took some breaks between stories. It
was fun seeing the super-pets in action. The recurring scenes of
losers trying out for the Legion were another way that the series was
kept light-hearted. And some of those failed applicants were worth
seeing again, either as members of the Legion of Substitutes such as
Color Kid or as future antagonists such as Spider Girl. Plus, there
were some great situations. I’ll admit that I enjoyed the
gender rivalry in “Revolt of the Girl Legionnaires.”
It’s hard to beat the all-out insanity of an entire Bizarro
Legion. And Lana Lang’s turn as Insect Queen was a blast-
making me actually interested in last year’s “Insect
Queen” story by Kurt Busiek.
Also, despite all of
the silliness, there were plenty of significant changes. Lightning
Lad lost an arm and received a mechanical replacement for it. Star
Boy was actually found guilty of breaking the Legion’s charter
and expelled from the team (though he did find a new place with the
Substitutes). And other changes carried over from the first volume,
including Bouncing Boy losing his powers and Lightning Lass’
new powers as Light Lass. The fact that these stories had
consequences- and sometimes dire consequences- brought much needed
tension and apprehension to even the silliest of stories. The heroes
could get hurt. They could even die. These stories had significance
in their lives, which helped them have significance for the reader as
well.
As I went along, I
found myself enjoying these stories more and more. Perhaps, I was
just getting used to them. And, while I admit that’s possible,
I think that the stories were improving in the second half of the
volume. For one thing, the stories were less repetitious. For
another, the Legion started facing some actual villains and not just
fending off the latest traitor to the team. The biggest threat was
probably Computo. The big boxy computer with all the dials and
lights looks pretty outdated now but when Computo started
mass-producing multiple bodies and encasing captured heroes in the
various heads, I started taking him seriously as an opponent. Time
Trapper was another outside threat, turning the Legionnaires into
little kids so that he could commit crimes without interference. And
Dr. Regulus was a third v
illain, one who nearly defeated the Legion
after giving Sun Boy amnesia.
Admittedly, some of the
villains still tried to beat the Legion by infiltrating the team.
And, admittedly, there were still some problematic inconsistencies
such as the villain who hated law and order so much that he devised a
prison for super-heroes and science police. So it’s not as if
there was a night and day difference between the first half of the
volume and the second- just a subtle shift as the stories slowly
improved.
And yet, there was one
dramatic shift upward in quality. Near the end of the volume, Jim
Shooter took over as writer for Edmond Hamilton and Jerry Siegel. I
had heard that Jim Shooter’s run on the Legion of Super-Heroes
was one of the best on the title. And at least with his first couple
of issues, that’s true.
Shooter started out with a two-part
story- still pretty rare at this point for the Legion. In it, he
actually revisited one of the old tropes- the new member who betrays
the team. However, Shooter brought several twists to the story that
made it refreshingly new- and significantly better than the earlier
versions. Shooter added not just one, but four new heroes to the
team. So when the Legionnaires started getting hints that someone
was working against the team, they actually had more than one
candidate to worry about. Indeed, most of the Legionnaires guessed
incorrectly and blamed Karate Kid for the betrayals. I wasn’t
fooled. After all, I knew that Karate Kid would be a long-time
member of the team and that Nemesis Kid would be a villain who would eventually reappear and lead the Legion of Super-Villains (see last
week’s review of Legion of Super-Heroes 1984-85). Still, I
appreciated that Shooter actually bothered to give us a couple of
candidates and some convincing red herrings.
Jim Shooter’s new
characters also had more personality than the previous traitors.
Karate Kid was so confident in his abilities that he was a bit of a
braggart. Ferro Kid was a little shy, unafraid during the
demonstrations but unwilling to put himself forward in actual
conflict. Nemesis Kid appeared to be humble, wanting to impress the
Legion but warning them of his limitations.
Finally, Jim Shooter
did a much better job of setting up his twist at the end. Often,
Legion of Super-Heroes stories would have sudden endings. One
Legionnaire would tell you how they had figured out the villains plot
back at the beginning of the story and worked to prevent it behind
the scenes. But, as a reader, you never saw any of this actually
occur. You were simply told that it happened, and expected to take
it on faith. That wasn’t true of Shooter’s story. He
included a scene in which Superboy flew off in order to complete some
other business, leaving several characters scratching their heads.
This time, you as the reader, were also made to wonder what was going
on. When Superboy finally reveals that he had built a fourth tower
that the traitor wouldn’t know about it, his earlier
disappearance suddenly makes sense. That allows you to be more
emphatic and enthusiastic in your response. You see how it all fits
together. And you feel like you were in on the story in a way that
you weren’t for the earlier tales.
When I reviewed the
Legion stories from 1984-85, I expressed some concern that the good
times were almost at an end as the quality seemed to be waning. With
the Legion stories from 1964-66, I have no such reservations. When
the best stories come at the end of the volume, you can’t help
but feel that the best is yet ahead.
The End.
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