Author Archives: Steven Howell Wilson

Legion of Super-Heroes Re-Read: “Prisoner of the Super-Heroes” (Adventure Comics #267)

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(In which I attack a legend)

After their first appearance in Adventure #247, readers had to wait 20 months for the Legion to return, and, well… they were dicks. Dicks in a really bad story, to boot.

Short version: Three of Superboy’s missions are interrupted in turn by members of the Legion, who show him up and then snub him. The people of Smallville turn on him, including his own parents. Tearfully, he packs up to leave, and receives an invitation to come to a place called Superboy World, a planet where everyone loves him. But it’s a dodge—the planet is run by the Legion, who now despise him, and Superboy is locked up in a Kryptonite prison for life.

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Legion of Super-Heroes Re-Read: Adventure Comics #247

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Here it begins. The first-ever appearance of the Legion of Super-Heroes, from back in 1958. I wasn’t even born then, but this team became one of my favorites in comics. As far as my allowance would stretch as a kid, I would collect their Silver Age appearances. When the Archive Editions were released, beginning in the 1990s, I sought them out and read every story, both alone and out loud with my then-elementary school-aged son, Ethan. (He’s 25 now, and you can find the fruits of my labors to make him a full-blown geek on his own blog, The Figure in Question.)

Having had so much fun in recent days, recounting the first Legion stories I ever read as part of my Back in the Day-themed posts, I decided that I would start re-reading from the beginning, and share my thoughts here.

Short Version: Superboy is surprised to be recognized as Clark Kent, and Clark Kent is surprised to be recognized as Superboy, by two new boys and a new girl in town. The trio reveal themselves as members of a super-hero club from the 30th Century, and ask him if he’d like to join. They take him to the future and put him through three tests… all of which he fails. In the end, though, he learns that the circumstances of his “failure” prove that he’s the greatest hero of them all, and Superboy becomes a Legionnaire.

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A Thanksgiving Day Review – The Mutant Who Came to Dinner

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Actually, the story, published in issue #6 of 1985’s Vision and the Scarlet Witch maxi-series, is called “No Strings Attached.”

These were the days when Marvel Comics were consistently fun. Possibly the last of those days, as the onslaught of the 90s (Get it? Onslaught? Heh.) turned the Marvel Universe into a place of doom and gloom and dark despair. And epaulets. Jackets with epaulets. Yeah. ‘Cause that’s what super-heroes are about.

If you want to find comics that capture the spirit of fun and optimism that you find when you go to see a Marvel Studios movie, your best bet is to go pre-1987. That’s not to say that there aren’t some dark times for our heroes during those runs—the death of Gwen Stacy, the Secret Empire, the Dark Phoenix Saga—all angst-ridden and brooding, yes. But still the ultimate feel was fun and light and triumph.

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Back in the Day, I Liked – Superboy #208 – “Evil Hand of the Luck Lords”

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So this, my third “real” Legion story, was a reprint from Adventure Comics #343, cover-dated April, 1966. It’s written by the great Edmond Hamilton, then a science fiction author in the 40th year of his career. Hamilton was no stranger to stories about teams of do-gooders fighting evil in futuristic environments. His credits included the Captain Future series of pulp juveniles and space opera series Interstellar Patrol, The Star Kings and Starwolf. At DC Comics, where he began working in 1942, he also co-created Space Ranger and Batwoman.

For me, this story was both a glimpse into the Legion’s already well-documented past, and a revelation of more new Legionnaires. While I was familiar with the idea of Golden Age incarnations of characters vs. current (Bronze Age was “current” for me) ones, I think this was probably the first encounter I’d had with how characters were re-designed when the Silver Age morphed into the Bronze. I saw Shrinking Violet’s sleek bodysuit traded in for a mini-dress, and Saturn Girl’s very revealing swimsuit-style costume for a sensible tunic and tights. Much as I loved the Dave Cockrum re-designs of the costumes, and Mike Grell’s rendering of them, and much as I loved this costume as a boy, it really didn’t fit Imra’s personality. I can see why it was one of the first “new” costumes traded in a few years later.

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Back in the Day I Liked – More of Superboy #208

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Yesterday I wrote a long piece about the “new” story in this issue. Now I’ll turn to the reprints.

To begin with, there’s an info page titled, “The Legion of Substitute Heroes.” This introduces six people who don’t appear anywhere else in the issue, but are part of a splinter group. It’s explained that they’re rejected Legion applicants who have since proved themselves. I always loved the collection of powers. Some are so lame that one wonders why these kids didn’t just become accountants—I’m looking at you Stone Boy and Color Kid!—while one wonders why an applicant like Polar Boy would ever have been rejected in the first place. Of course, he did eventually become a Legionnaire. But Stone Boy, the feature tells us, was offered a slot first.

Really? Stone Boy. Huh.

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Back in the Day I Liked – Superboy Starring the Legion of Super-Heroes #208

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As soon as I posted yesterday’s review, WordPress kindly popped up “related posts” on my blog feed, and I realized that, in eulogizing the LSH back in 2013, I had covered a lot of the same territory I covered yesterday. Oh well, kids, old people tend to tell the same story over and over. Get used to it.

What was I saying? Oh, yeah, don’t you hate how old people tell the same story twice?

No, I was talking about Superboy #208, which I bought at a Highs—no, a 7-11—back in nineteen hundred and seventy five—on a Saturday, I’m pretty sure. Or a Wednesday. Okay, now I’ll stop sounding the way my kids tell me I sound, and get on with it.

Since I retold the same story yesterday, I’d like to expand today on my discovery of the super-heroic storytelling playground that was the Legion of Super-Heroes. First, I want to acknowledge that I’ve told conflicting stories. I said my first exposure to the Legion was in Superboy 207, and then I said it was seeing a house ad in my brother’s comics. It must have been the latter, but, as I recall buying that issue, I don’t remember having ever seen the group before. So I just don’t know. Anyway, issue 208…

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Back in the Day I Liked — Superboy Starring the Legion of Super-Heroes #207

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This comic came in a three-pack. I still occasionally see these, but, back in the 1970s, there were always some three-packs on the spinner rack at my local 7-11. The deal was that you got three comics for somewhere around the price of two. I seem to remember they were priced at 99 cents, but they must have been less when I first bought them, since three comics in those days would only have cost 75 cents.

I don’t recall what else was in the pack. Usually there was a Superman title or a Batman title, an issue of something offbeat like Plop! or a war comic, and another superhero title. You didn’t know what the third book was. It was in the middle. Continue reading →

Back in the Day… I Hated Age Restrictions

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Going to buy breakfast this morning, I saw this sign on the wall by the grocery store door. It made me recall an incident from my childhood. I must have been twelve or thirteen. I had walked with a couple of others to a convenience store on a hot day, and we were waiting in line to buy drinks. The young man at the counter told me I needed to leave the store. In disbelief, I asked why. He pointed to a sign on the door, saying that no more than two minors could be in the store at one time. I was the third kid in line, so I had to leave.

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Back in the Day I Liked – The Super Sons

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Early in my comics-buying career, I was aware of a title called World’s Finest. I’m not sure how I was aware, but I was. I guess I’d seen it on the spinner rack, and maybe I’d seen ads for its 1960s issues in the pages of my brother’s war comics. Was it called World’s Finest Comics on the cover when I bought my first issue? Or just World’s Finest? If you look closely, it was called “WORLD’S FINEST!” but with a little whisper of ‘comics’ under it.

Either way, I knew it was a book co-starring Superman and Batman. It had been since its first publication in 1941, although, in the early days, co-starring meant there was a Superman story and a Batman story in each issue, not that the two teamed up. Their first team-up story came in 1954, 71 issues into the title.

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El Goes to Elle

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Okay, I guess I’m really back, because I’m delving into morality, philosophy and politics. With the revelation of Harvey Weinstein’s staggering abuse of his phenomenal power to coerce his employees into undesired sexual situations, Hollywood’s floodgates have opened. It seems everyone being accused, from Louis C.K. to George Takei. And one question that keeps coming up for the public to munch on is, “Are these people, alone, to blame?” After all, along with the accusations almost always comes the statement, “And everybody knew all about it.”

So, when behavior that’s been accepted, even encouraged, for decades is suddenly revealed, and finally recognized as the problem it always was, who’s to blame?

Mara Wilson, former child star and current left-wing social activist (her Twitter presence is self-dubbed “Mara ‘Get Rid of Nazis’ Wilson”) has an answer:

We all are.

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