Freedom, Friendship and Frunt

 If you bore with my last, review-centric post, you may have wondered why one of my regular titles was missing. More on that below. First, let's revisit the Silver Jubilee Year of 1977. This was going to be my 150th post but I, er, postponed it. Here are three Legion of Super-Heroes purchases from '77 that I recently added to my collection.

Superboy and The Legion of Super-Heroes is a b/w reprint pocketbook  published in NY by Tempo Books.It's the kind of paperback I'd associate with stores like Safeway, which used to stock Star Trek photonovels. The cover is a reworked Neal Adams illustration from the 1976 DC calendar. The contents comprise-

Adams again...

Superboy's Darkest Secret: a moody 1969 tale by Frank Robbins, Bob Brown and Wally Wood, which tells the tragic secret of Jor-El and Lara- slow death by Kryptonite poisoning. I've grown to admire Superboy as a vehicle to tell stories for boys (as opposed to those about the moody unattainable super-boyfriend of Smallville.)
The Six-Legged Legionnaire: one of the daffiest LSH back-ups from the late 60s and one published twice before. It tells how Lana Lang joined the Legion Reserve as Insect Queen.

The Curse of the Blood-Crystals: A Cary Bates/Dave Cockrum/Murphy Anderson back-up, which blends Silver and Bronze Age art styles. It's about the legacy of Mordru, the evil wizard who looks like a senile Thor.
The Legionnaires Who Never Were: A Win Mortimer/Cary Bates 1970 Action short, introducing the first version of Saturn Girl's hot pink bikini. Imra and Jeckie return from a mission and encounter Saturn Lad and Prince Projectur . It turns out to be a rather elaborate deception to test how the Princess would handle stress. Interestingly, back in 2008 or so, Jim Shooter's aborted storyline depicted an unbalanced Projectra as Spirit Queen of Orando and a major threat to the Legion.

A strange, makeweight collection where the longest story has no Legion content whatsoever.

 A rare cover for a recumbent regent

 War at World's End, from May, 1977, sees Gerry Conway and Joe Staton wrap up a plot concerning Pulsar Stargrave, a souped-up incarnation of the android Brainiac: 

It's pleasing to see Princess Projectra and Phantom Girl as active participants on this mission. Like Dream Girl, Light Lass, Star Boy, Sun Boy and Ultra Boy, they made few appearances in the late Seventies. As was often the case in those years, this is quite a Marvel-flavoured comic. Conway had returned to DC after a turbulent time at  the House of Ideas (ousting Englehart and Gerber from The Avengers and The Defenders, launching Ms.Marvel and Spectacular Spider-Man) I was disappointed in this creative team's later stint on s/LSH but here Conway splits the team up, JLA-style, to fight Stargrave and his aides, Holdur and Quicksand. I'm surprised Stargrave has never returned  in all his cosmic glory, loon pants and all.
All in all, it's a lightweight issue, tying up loose ends before Levitz engineers the long-fated death of Chemical King.

Five months later, we have The Disease That Wouldn't Die. The LSH celebrate the Klordny Festival (hence the ritual toast above!) but become victims of a plague spread by a new villain, The Immune.
The pre-Earthwar era of the Legion was an eclectic one, with its merry-go-round art teams: Mike Nasser, Walt Simonson, Mike Grell. This issue is one of the more tame efforts by Ric Estrada. Master manipulator and Iron Man-lookalike Dr. Regulus gets short shrift. The roster meanwhile is almost Avengers-sized and one that will dominate the team for the next three years: Supey, Brainy, Shady, Cham, Brin, Garth, Imra, Vi, Rokk and Gim.
Conway's story, while very Star Trek, is in some aspects better than a Bates script and he makes an effort to try to create a viable, sci-fi world with political prejudice toward Imskians.


While hardly ground-breaking, these comics indicate just how hot a property the Legion was in the Bronze Age. For a very long time, however, I haven't been able to enthuse about the team. But happily, in the New 52, that may finally be changing with Legion of Super-Heroes 9:

While investigating the timestream (as he's been doing for what feels like three years) Brainy has been kidnapped by the creepy Dominators, alongside Dream Girl. Star Boy quits the Legion to go after them ( and handily, fashionably-gay Science Police officer Gravity Kid's waiting in the wings if Thom is KIA). Meanwhile, the Academy has a couple of new recruits.

I have to admit Paul Levitz won me over this issue. We get to see more of the enigmatic Harmonia's powers, which are those of the Inhuman , Crystal. I still have concerns about the glacial 80s pace (and how, exactly, can Validus be around when we've seen both of Saturn Girl's twin sons?). But with a Lightle cover and Portela's cartooning, this was an entertaining, if somewhat thin, LSH comic. Still,  Jo Nah needs a florgin' haircut!


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