Category Archives: Reviews

Legion of Super-Heroes Re-Read: “Supergirl’s Three Super Girl-Friends” (Action Comics #276, May, 1961)

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So, wow, Jerry Siegel and Jim Mooney once again significantly expand the Legion mythos in this story, bringing them from eight members to double digits, and introducing three prospective Legionnaires to boot. One wonders if, as the editorial staff planned the story lineup for 1961, they made a conscious decision to bring the Legion up to a fighting strength where it might rightly be called a “legion.” Action #276 introduces, not one, not two, not even three but six new or potential Legionnaires! Okay, we had seen Brainiac 5 way back in Adventure #247, but he was never named. And I think it’s safe to say that the black-haired boy next to him in that issue was fellow-applicant Bouncing Boy. In Star Boy’s intro, there was an unnamed redheaded boy that I think can be safely considered to be Sun Boy and an unnamed blonde girl who, again, was probably Duo Damsel. So, as of this issue, I believe there are no more “shadow” Legionnaires (or Legion applicants) in the membership status below.

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Legion of Super-Heroes Re-Read: “Lana Lang and the Legion of Super-Heroes” (Adventure Comics #282, March, 1961)

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Legion creator Otto Binder returns with George Papp on art for another solo-Legionnaire guestappearance, this time introducing a new Legionnaire, Star Boy. The title is a misnomer, because, while we do see six other Legionnaires in this story, in cameo during a flashback, Lana only interacts with the new kid.

As she often does, Lana begins this issue bemoaning the fact that Superboy really doesn’t notice her. She, on the other hand, sleeps with pictures of him plastered all over her room, and wants only to know the joy of being his steady girlfriend. Trying to take her mind off her woes, she goes to the movies, only to see a picture in which the female lead is plotting to make her man jealous by seeing another man. Lana likes the idea, if only there were a boy in the world that could be a believable rival to her ideal, Superboy.

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Legion of Super-Heroes Re-Read: “The Army of Living Kryptonite Men” (Superboy #86, January, 1961)

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Another Jerry Siegel/George Papp adventure begins with Superboy discussing Lex Luthor with his parents, and reflecting how important the initials “L.L.” are in his life. We’re still at the point in history where every Legion story must begin with Superboy or Supergirl. They were still supporting characters only as they make their fourth appearance in four years.

Superboy points out that not only Lana Lang and Lex Luthor carry the initials “L.L.,” but that Lightning Lad does too. He shows Ma and Pa the Legion statuettes the team gave him after the (lamentable) affair on the Superboy planet. From here on out, if the Legion statues who up, you know there’s going to be an actual Legionnaire somewhere in the story. This was the device for reminding readers that the Legion existed. (Actually, I believe there was one time when the statues did not herald a Legion appearance, and that was when they were instrumental in the creation of the Composite Superman in World’s Finest Comics #164.)

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Legion of Super-Heroes Re-Read: “The Three Super-Heroes” (Action Comics #267)

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Nine months passed between the second and third appearances of the Legion, and this outing was again scripted by the legendary Jerry Siegel, who did so poorly by the team in December of 1959. He does better this time, though largely by adapting Otto Binder’s original script for “The Legion of Super-Heroes” in Adventure Comics #247, and placing Supergirl in Superboy’s place.

Supergirl / Linda Lee experiences the same meet-ups with Lightning Lad, Saturn Girl and Cosmic Boy as Superboy did, with the Legionnaires making it clear that they know her secret identity. At this time in history, Linda’s secret identity had the added wrinkle that the public was not allowed to know Supergirl existed. So, while she switched into costume to go on adventures, she was never allowed to be seen. The Legionnaires aid her on three occasions in which acting as a super-hero would reveal her existence to the world. So at least they’re more benevolent this time out. Perhaps that’s because Linda is a girl?

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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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I Just Finished – Thor Ragnarok

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I saw this opening weekend, and didn’t really think of commenting on my blog. But then it occurred to me that, the last time a Thor movie came out, I pretty much savaged it in this forum. So maybe a follow-up visit, albeit perhaps less expansive than my review of Thor: The Dark World, is deserved.

This was easily my favorite of the three Thor films to date. Although, sadly, it does not serve the supporting cast well—Jane Foster, Sif and Erik Selvig are all missing, and the Warriors Three appear, but only in cameos that their fans probably weren’t glad to see—it’s rooted firmly in the Thor comics mythology and showcases Chris Hemsworth and Tom Hiddleston amazingly well, to say nothing of newcomers Cate Blanchett, Jeff Goldblum, Karl Urban and Tessa Thompson, and welcome guest Mark Ruffalo. Idris Elba has a reduced, but important, role. I point out with irony that this is probably also the best Hulk film ever made—with irony because, obviously, it’s not a Hulk film, and the character did not fare well in his own title films. But here, he’s the best he’s been in a movie.

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I Just Finished – Murder on the Orient Express (2017)

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I wasn’t sure what to expect from this film, going in. I remembered the 1974 film coming out—probably from commercials and buzz on morning news programs. I remembered that one was an all-star “vehicle” (pardon the pun) of the type that was so popular in the 1970s. I never cared much for such films, when I was little. They seemed designed to appeal to boring people who drank martinis, talked about Nixon and watched too much football.

Kenneth Branagh’s film is, too, an all-star vehicle, with no less than the director himself, Michelle Pfeiffer, Willem Dafoe, Johnny Depp, Josh Gad, Derek Jacobi and Dame Judi Dench in its cast. And, admittedly, some of the crowd around me in the theater struck me as being martini drinkers who talked about Trump and watched too much football. But I found myself delighted with this film.

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I Just Finished – Twilight Zone “The Lonely”

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Jack Warden and Jean Marsh star in the sad tale of Jack Corey and Alicia. Corey is a convicted felon, although he claims that he killed in self-defense. He’s a decent enough guy, from what we see of him in thirty minutes, that you tend to believe him about that. But he’s been sentenced to solitary confinement on an asteroid which, Rod Serling’s narration tells us, is “nine million miles from Earth.”

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