Very near the end of Edmond Hamilton’s run, and touching on a lot of the bad luck the Legionnaires have had over the past many months that he’s guided them, this is probably his best Legion story of all time. I had reviewed it just a few months ago, as part of the GIANT Superboy #208. So I’ll share that link here, plus the usual accouterments.

With Brainy wounded, Saturn Girl acts as leader again in this story, and is named as “former leader,” when she’s thought to be dead. I always took that to mean that she was, in fact, leader, (i.e. “former” only because they thought she was dead) )when this was the first story I ever read from the Hamilton era. Brainy was listed as “newly elected leader” in #337–an apparently off-panel election making that easy to miss. But the references and interactions were so confusing it’s hard to know if the writers remembered. Maybe Imra was just having trouble letting go of the office. It wouldn’t matter soon, as Invisible Kid was about to take over.

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

Roll Call: Sun Boy, Brainiac 5, Invisible Kid, Saturn Girl, Lighting Lad, Cosmic Boy, Chameleon Boy, Light Lass, Duo Damsel, Element Lad, Shrinking Violet, Matter-Eater Lad, Star Boy, Bouncing Boy

Here’s another story that proclaims readers didn’t believe DC would dare to print it. (What was the last one? Either one about renegades, or…?) Star Boy has killed, and the Legion wants to expel him.

It begins quietly enough, with Star Boy going to visit his parents at an observatory on a distant world. Before he leaves, he’s invited to join the other Legionnaires in a game—asking the big computer to pair the Legionnaires off to kiss each other. Invisible Kid, who never had an on-page romance until literally the day he died, observes that Star Boy has “no time for romance.” Romance? The girls involved in this game—Light Lass and Shrinking Violet—have declared their love for non-Legionnaires already. (And, as we know, would later declare their love for each other.) Seems more like just getting cheap thrills to me.

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The second part of the Computo crisis seems to be a tale in search of a marketing ploy. On the cover is depicted “Colossal Boy’s One-Man War!”—a scene of CB apparently killing Sun Boy and Star Boy, and declaring that the entire Legion will die next. On the inside splash, we’re told it’s the tale of “The Weirdo Legionnaire!” although “Colossal Boy’s One Man War!” is again referenced.

I can hear the conversation now:

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Element Lad and Star Boy stop by a top secret research facility to visit Brainiac 5, thinking how happy the reclusive young scientist will be to see his friends after what we presume must be weeks of hard work in the lab. Instead of being happy, however, Brainy is furious at the interruption. Wild-eyed, he tells his friends to go away and not come back. He’s not even moved that Proty II has disguised himself as a piece of lab equipment just because he likes being near Brainy. (I guess an ordered mind is soothing to a telepathic animal.) All Brainy cares about is his crucial project—an ambulatory super computer. Continue reading →

John Forte’s final Legion adventure, capping more than three years of faithful service to the team, evokes a story from early in writer Edmond Hamilton’s career. That story, “The Conquest of Two Worlds,” tells the tale of human colonization of Mars and Jupiter. That colonization is carried out much the way the colonizations of many lands on Earth were—by driving natives off their lands, killing them liberally to make room for humans. One of the three men who bravely explores and conquers these new worlds develops sympathy for the natives, and helps first the Martians, then the Jovians. He dies for his trouble.

Like that turncoat, Beast Boy of Lallor, a mutant hated and feared, like his mutant counterparts over at Marvel, turns on humanity and does his part to help exotic animals in space. The Legion is alerted that animals on a hunting preserve planet are displaying intelligence, using strategy and teamwork to battle hunters. It’s not a very nice planet. Humanity attempted to colonize it many times, failing each time. Now they keep one, small city going to host hunters who come to capture the beasts of the planet.

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At long last, the Time Trapper! This guy was set up months ago, but has only been teased thus far. Now we see him in all his glory, living in a post-nuclear holocaust world in the far future. He’s a tyrant who apparently rules with an iron fist. As one of his slave-vassals observes, “When the master laughs, the universe trembles.” He meets with a beautiful woman named Glorith of Balduur, who is set to do his bidding in the past and end the Legion of Super-Heroes forever.

It’s yet to be explained, in the course of all these stories where he’s been mentioned, how the Legion first encountered the Time Trapper, and why they, out of all the heroes of history, would be a target for him. It would not be explained for a long time to come. Readers presumably were to accept that he was the villain and they were the heroes, so of course they were after each other.

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