Giant-Size July: Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes 208

Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes #208 (April 1975)
"Vengeance of the Super-Villains!"
Writer: Cary Bates
Pencils: Mike Grell

Karen: Who's ready for some more Legion stories? Although my blog partner and I might have been Marvel-centric growing up, there was one DC series we followed regularly, and that was those teens from the future, the Legion. This issue came out shortly before I began following the book regularly. It was one of the giant size issues they put out sporadically, featuring a new story and a couple of reprints. We'll just be looking at the new material, which features some terrific Mike Grell art. 

Doug:  At some point I acquired Superboy #201, but #210 was my first in what I'd call my "regular Legion buying".  Later, I was able to get hold of several Silver Age Superboys.  As I've said, I always loved Superboy, but could never abide Superman.  Go figure.

Karen: You gotta love the splash page; purely symbolic (I think it is anyway), it features the evilly grinning members of the Legion of Super-Villains gathered around a scale model of the Super-Heroes HQ (we know this because they say so) as they detonate some small explosive that results in a tiny mushroom cloud! Incredibly goofy!

Doug:  That "gigantic gloating threat looming" motif is as old as comics, and yes -- it's a hoot, all the time.  Funny though -- DC regularly used their splash page as almost a second cover.  Karen mentioned we'd be covering the new material in this issue, which is a 20-page story.  Standard, until you figure it's really only 19 pages due to the splash page being just a teaser of what is to come.

Karen: The actual story begins on page two, in Smallville of the 20th century. Legionnaire Mon-El is spending some vacation time with Superboy and the Kents. Poor Ma Kent is making dozens of pancakes to feed the two super-teens. Mon-El is enjoying the cakes and everything else. Back in the 30th century, fellow Legionnaire Ultra Boy is also enjoying some down time, with his folks on his homeworld of Rimbor. But he's eating rather unappealing-looking vege-steaks. I can't go any further without commenting on the groovy 70s sideburns on the guys here. So a few of our Legionnaires are taking it easy. But back on Earth, at Legion HQ, Brainiac 5, Saturn Girl, and Timber Wolf are about to accept the delivery of the Universal Trophy, a sculpture they are going to guard

that symbolizes the signing of the Federated Planets Treaty. It's an important event, with automated cameras broadcasting the event live. The trophy is to be presented the next day to Dr. Larx Kenrik, who has worked tirelessly to bring the 12 planets together. Kenrik bears a strong resemblance to Henry Kissinger. This is the second comic we've reviewed with Kissinger in it! (The first was Captain America #193.) The teen trio scans the trophy and then takes it into Legion HQ. Sun Boy, who is acting as Legion leader in Mon-El's absence, is a bit nervous about things, wanting to make sure that their security is flawless. He thinks to himself that he doesn't know how Mon-El handles all the pressure -- and he hopes he gets back soon.

Doug:  You beat me to the sideburns, because it was on my agenda!  I agree -- even though set 1000 years in the future, both Dave Cockrum and Mike Grell (maybe Grell moreso) gave contemporary teens something to relate to.  And how about Clark's and Jo's parents?  Man, what swingers they must have been -- pretty good-looking 40-somethings!  Personally, I always loved the fantasy of the future,

whether here, in various TV shows or movies -- heck, even the Jetsons!  But it's funny after the passage of time, isn't it?  A lot of what Silver- and Bronze Age creators saw as "Whoa, wouldn't that be cooo-ooool?" has come to pass and we now take a lot of those ideas for granted!  Sun Boy comes off as a whiner, doesn't he?  Not exactly the sort of guy I'd want in charge -- shoot, Timber Wolf wouldn't take any crap from anyone.  

Karen: Back in Smallville, Mon-El and Superboy are about ready to make the trip to the 30th century (departing from the basement) when Ma and Pa Kent appear, Pa brandishing a bizarre pistol. He fires it and a ray flashes in the boys' eyes. Moments later, the two super-teens feel compelled to fight each other. Grell's style works well with the characters, as they look lean but muscular, sort of what you'd expect from these young heroes. The two go at it until they wind up simultaneously knocking each other out (how convenient.) The obviously-brainwashed Kents seem completely undisturbed. Back

on Rimbor, a similar scene unwinds as Ultra Boy's parents stand by as he collapses -it turns out they slipped a paralyzing drug in his food. He should have stayed away from those vege steaks!

Doug:  Time travel's just weird, isn't it?  My first thought, when Superboy said he and Mon were about to depart, and got some pushback from the Kents, was "what's the big deal?  Just come back one second after you left, and who would know any different?"  Couple of thoughts on the going's on:  first, the Superboy-Mon-el fight started like Taylor vs. Brent and ended like Rocky vs. Apollo!  On Rimbor, "don't trust anyone over 30" was never more apt.

 Karen: In the 30th century we get our first glimpse of the bad guys, the Legion of Super-Villains. Being that they are the evil counter-parts of the good guys, some of them bear a resemblance in powers, names, and looks to Legion members. There's Sun Emperor, who is the counter to Sun Boy; Lightning Lord, who is the brother of Lightning Lad and Light Lass. Then there're the odd balls -- Nemesis Kid, who was once an applicant to the Legion (briefly- he applied in Adventure Comics #346, along with Karate Kid, Princess Projectra, and Ferro Lad); Spider Girl, who's pretty much a copy of Medusa; and Radiation Roy, who has energy powers. Apparently Spider Girl and Radiation Roy were also Legion rejects (the Comic Book Database says they appeared in Adventure #323 and 320 respectively). So there's our cast of baddies...well, almost our full cast. One is missing: Chameleon Chief -- you can probably guess his powers. The baddies are gloating over their plan, saying that with Mon-El, Superboy, and Ultra-Boy out of the picture, nothing can stop them from succeeding. But Lightning Lord says that it all depends on Chameleon Chief now.

Doug:  Sometimes the names of not only the Legionnaires but really the entire cast require a groan.  "Chameleon Chief"?  Yeah...  I love the way Grell depicted Nemesis Kid in the "roll call" panel.  What a cocky gent!  He just looks smug and like he knows you're already beat!  Good legwork on that research -- I've read most of those stories, but it's been so long ago that I could not have come up with any of that data.

 Karen: At Legion HQ, Chameleon Boy relieves Chemical King from guard duty outside the room where the trophy is being held.  CK wonders if Sun Boy is being overly-cautious, but Chameleon Boy says he just isn't taking any chances since Mon-El isn't there. Sun Boy is fretting over the absence of their big guns, but Saturn Girl tries to reassure him that everything will be fine, they'll be there in time. Unfortunately she's wrong. All three have been stuck inside impenetrable energy bubbles. Mon-El recognizes it as the work of Radiation Roy. They realize that the Super-Villains must be planning something involving the trophy. They're right. Back in the Legion's HQ, a strange transformation occurs, as the base of the trophy changes into Chameleon Chief. We get a rather weak explanation as to how CC avoided detection -he states that the Legionnaires never thought to examine the base the statue was standing on! Uh, yeah, right. Once he assumes his normal form, he coats the statue with nitro-glyc, which will explode when anyone touches it. He then changes a box into a duplicate base -yes, he has more powers than Chameleon Boy - and gloats over how the Legion will be doomed when the trophy explodes.

Doug:  I have to confess that when I read the LoSV roster my mind saw "Radiation Boy", not "-Roy".  Now I can't get the Jim Croce song "Rapid Roy" out of my head!  The stealth attack by Chameleon Chief (man, that's just a bad name) was good -- nice bit of sabotage, dopey as it was.  Wasn't the base some sort of energy construct that gave the appearance that the trophy was floating?  OK...  It's never explained how CC, as a Durlan, has more or different powers than Chameleon Boy so I guess we just have to roll with it.  

Karen: At dawn the next day, boxes of garbage are shot out of the Legion HQ, but one is intercepted by a flying Lightning Lord. He takes the box to a rooftop nearby, where it turns into Chameleon Chief. He tells LL the plan is a go, and they head off to the villains' lair. Meanwhile, on Rimbor, Ultra Boy's parents release him from the energy bubble and snap out of their trance. Ultra Boy realizes there's no way he can get to Earth in time for the ceremony and knows something bad is about to go down. Back on Earth in the 20th century, Ma Kent releases the boys from the bubble while Pa Kent activates some strange device. There's no obvious effect from the instrument, and the boys need to get going, so they fly through the time barrier. This was depicted as a sort of rainbow tube with tiny labels bearing the years placed throughout. In retrospect, it's sort of silly, but it gets the idea across effectively. As the two heroes speed through, they suddenly strike a barrier. Now they understand what Pa's device was for. They struggle with the barrier, as it turns into rubbery strands that imprison them.

Doug:  I enjoyed the consistency of the depiction of time travel via the rainbow tube.  You're right, it is silly/weird, but effective at the same time.  And hey -- didn't Mon-el address the issue I'd raised above about charting their arrival time in the 30th Century?  Just arrive at a specific moment, and no one would be worse for the wear!  I liked the way the barrier seemed impenetrable, even to two super boys.  Sometimes, for as strong as Clark Kent was/is, it's nice to see him fail.  Granted, plot devices to create such a situation were sometimes a stretch for the reader, but drama has to be created somehow.  Good lord, the Henry Cavill Superman can do anything!

Karen: In front of the Legion HQ, the ceremony is about to begin. As the cameras record the details, Dr. Kenrik disembarks his space cruiser and walks across the red carpet towards the Legionnaires and the waiting trophy (which they have moved without touching, I guess). Sun Boy, Saturn Girl, and Brainiac 5 are there to greet the esteemed diplomat. All four gather around the trophy for photos. The villains watch from their base, just itching to see the trophy explode and in one fell swoop, kill the galaxy's greatest peace ambassador, wipe out a good chunk of the Legion, and discredit and shame the rest of them. The moment comes and...nothing. No explosion. The baddies are furious. They turn on Chameleon Chief, blaming him for the failure. Suddenly, he begins to transform -into what? Why, into Chameleon Boy! That's right, he caught his counter-part and took his place. Seconds later, the rest of the Legion comes crashing through the wall. Grell gives us a full page with an inset -the inset shows Colossal Boy tearing the wall apart, from the villains' view point, while the splash page gives us the Legionnaires' point of view. It's a cool trick. We see a few Legionnaires we hadn't seen earlier: besides Colossal Boy (in his groovy Cockrum harness suit), there's Projectra (in her Cockrum uniform), Karate Kid (still in his orange outfit), Lighting Lad (Cockrum-ified), and Star Boy (pre-beard, but in his starry outfit). They make rather quick work of the bad guys -- too quick honestly; I would have liked to see a couple of pages of this fight. With their enemies down, we get an explanation of how Chameleon Boy got to the villains HQ -- well, of course he posed as the trash box. Not sure why they felt the need to explain that.  The villains are hauled off by the police and Sun Boy says he realizes that the reason Mon-El, Superboy, and Utra Boy were detained was because they all have x-ray vision -- they would have been able to detect that the trophy was booby trapped. And who should show up right then but the three missing members?

Doug:  You're a stickler for details!  Ten-year old Doug wouldn't have questioned how that trophy got moved.  Man, I'm dense.  Good catch!  The entrance splash page was indeed grand, and the individual panels that followed showcasing each Legionnaire were fun but also as you said too short.  But hey -- a 20-pager has to be a 20-pager.  But here's a question for you -- how did Chameleon Boy know that Chameleon Chief's plan was to escape as a box of garbage?  I'm sure he didn't just give it up.  Did the Legion coerce a confession out of him?  Was he tortured or blackmailed in some way?  I'd sure be curious to know what went on behind the scenes there.  We've commented in past DC reviews that the writers seem to always feel the need for explanations of the way the stories played out.  Wouldn't it be better sometimes just to show how it's turning out?  I'll be honest -- when I read a comic I really just want to be entertained; I'm not much of a mystery fan.  Just give me my 20 minutes of mindless enjoyment.  But maybe that's just me (I'd be curious to know how much "thinking" others do when reading their funnybooks).

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Karen: This story was OK -the Grell art is what made it enjoyable. The story fell flat for me. I would really have liked to see the two teams go head to head but we didn't get that here. We did get to see a variety of Legionnaires, even if only in panel or two, so that was fun. But reading a story like this, in the early 70s, when I was also reading Avengers and Fantastic Four, there was really no comparison. There's no depth here. It looks cool and the sheer number of characters is fun, but the storytelling is still set at a much lower level. I probably had more fun coming up with Legion adventures in my own imagination.

Doug:  I couldn't agree more.  I think Marvel really embraced its new talent, and Stan Lee and Roy Thomas tried hard to keep their fingers on the pulse of their teenaged and young adult readers.  DC, on the other hand, seemed to squelch some of the literary creativity of their new blood, keeping that 1950's-era thumb on the creative process and mistakenly assuming that all comic book readers were still 10-year old boys.  So as you say, while we get some great visuals, they're just a peel on the outside of some less-than-tasty scripting.  I think this was generally the case for DC in the Bronze Age, with a few exceptions here and there -- but with no consistency across the board at all.

Karen: I will add one more thing: this giant has a fun one-page feature (that appears to be reprinted from the sixties) that shows the members of the Legion Subs and gives their vital statistics. I used to memorize all of these characters names and home worlds!

BAB Classic: Superboy 197: The All-New, All-Savage Timber Wolf

Superboy starring the Legion of Super-Heroes #197 (Sept 1973)
"Timber Wolf -Dead Hero, Live Executioner"
script: Cary Bates
art: Dave Cockrum

Note: This post was originally run on February 15, 2010.


Karen: We're back with another Legion review. This time we're stepping further back to the glory of the Legion rebirth at the hands of Dave Cockrum. As most of you probably know, when Cockrum started working on the Legion, he revamped their costumes, and gave the series a much more stylish, futuristic look. His work on the title brought renewed interest in the Legion.

Doug: I've always wondered why Julie Schwartz and Carmine Infantino got so much credit for the "New Look" Batman -- what Cockrum did in the Legion some eight years later was much more revolutionary!

Doug: I loved the scene early in the story where Lana tries to get Clark to kiss her -- funny stuff. And hey -- no one notices that Clark Kent wears a yellow belt, just like Superboy's??

Karen: This particular issue focuses on Timber Wolf, a character who always seemed almost unnecessary given the presence of not only Superboy, but Mon-El and Ultra-Boy as well. Timber Wolf was super-strong, fast, and agile, but not nearly as tough as any of those three. Like most early silver age DC characters, he had a personality that was interchangeable with anyone else in the Legion too.

Doug: Yeah, and I'm not a fan of the edgy, irritable characters -- Timber Wolf was essentially Wolverine before Wolverine was Wolverine (if that makes any sense)! I didn't care for Superboy's comment to Mon-el that Timber Wolf was almost as strong as they were. It always seemed to me, like you said, that Superboy, Mon-el, and Ultra Boy should be the muscle and that everyone else should rely on their specific powers.

Karen: Here, we not only get a hip update on his costume but on his facial features as well, to make him look more animalistic. The pointy-tip hairstyle is something we'd see again on Marvel's Beast and later Wolverine.

Karen: The plot revolves around Timber Wolf's re-appearance - he'd been thought killed in a planetary explosion months before. Just as he's about to receive a medal from the president of Earth, he goes nuts and tries to kill him. He's subdued but he's clearly out of his mind.

Doug: Almost like, I don't know -- a berserker rage?

Karen: The Legionnaires realize he's been brainwashed and Brainiac 5 begins treatments to cure him. But who has brainwashed him?

Karen: They soon find out, as the dreaded Tyr attacks Legion headquarters. This was the first appearance of the villain with a gun for a hand. However, Timber Wolf easily stops Tyr and all is right with the Legion again.

Doug: Tyr's hand deal was somewhat reminiscent of Marvel's Klaw. Wasn't there a Super Powers figure of Tyr? I'm thinking there was.

Karen: This was a fairly simple, and to be honest, uninteresting story. The saving grace is the fantastic Cockrum art. Although no inker is credited I think he might have inked himself; the art is similar to work he did on Giant-Size Avengers. I love the detail Cockrum puts into each scene. For instance, in Timber Wolf's quarters we see blueprints for the USS Enterprise, as well as a model of a Klingon cruiser! Tyr's spaceship looks something like a Klingon ship, come to think of it.
Doug: The space element of the Legion was often a pleaser. It just opened up a lot more story possibilities. And you are so right about Cockrum's art -- whereas John Forte and later Curt Swan certainly gave the Legion it's "look" at different stages of its life, it was Cockrum and shortly thereafter Mike Grell who typified my Legion. I can unashamedly say that as a young adolescent boy, the Legion was a fave title for several reasons.

Karen: These old Legion tales may not have much meat to them, but the framework for what was to come later is definitely being built here.

BAB Classic: Every Color But Black: Legion of Super-Heroes 216

Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes #216 (April 1976)
"The Hero Who Hated The Legion"
Cary Bates-Mike Grell

Note: This post was originally run on January 6, 2010.

Karen: Doug and I are both big Legion fans, and we've discussed a number of Legion stories we'd like to review. We have reviewed a few stories over in our old blog (Two Girls, A Guy, And Some Comics), but we only looked at Silver Age stories, not Bronze Age. And for us, Bronze Age is really our favorite era. Legion was the first DC comic I began reading regularly, shattering my former Marvel zombie existence. I loved the Legion and its fantastic, futuristic adventures. So it might seem odd that I'm inaugurating our Bronze Age Legion reviews with a comic I can't stand.

Doug: I'd echo your sentiments, Karen. Legion was probably the DC I was most committed to; I did pick up Teen Titans, Batman and Detective, and Secret Society of Super-Villains, but Superboy and the Legion was always the book I'd take over the others if and when I had to choose.

Karen: Legion #216 introduces us to Tyroc, the first black Legionnaire. Ordinarily, such integration is something I would applaud. But this issue is so incredibly myopic and insensitive, that it's all I can do to keep myself from throwing it across the room. Even when I first read it at the age of twelve, I knew something didn't smell right, even if I couldn't exactly explain why.

Doug: Being MUCH younger than you, Karen (I was only 10 when I read this), I also recall thinking this was a bit strange. I'd been brought up in the era of busing and instructed by my parents that a person was to be valued regardless of skin color, religious persuasion, etc. So this separatism was strange to me.

Karen: You see, dear readers, in the wonderful Earth of the 30th century, it seems that all black people have segregated themselves to an island, so they can avoid everyone else -whom they apparently hate. As a tour shuttle driver says, "Below is the island-city of Marzal, an independent, totally self-sufficient community...populated by a black race that wants nothing to do with the outside world!" Ooh, a black race! Wow! It makes them sound as if they aren't even human.

Doug: Say what you will about the Legion reboot in the 1990's, but they created Legionnaires who weren't humanoid. It seemed like back in the Silver Age the only thing they could do to differentiate sentient "races" was to alter skin color -- green, blue, orange, etc. This "effort", and it comes off that way, to "diversify" the Legion was so forced and flagrant... and it continued just several months later with the introduction of Dawnstar. So I guess then they had "red" skin, too. Bro--ther...
Karen: The Legionnaires -Superboy, Karate Kid, Brainiac 5, and Shadow Lass - head to Marzal to recover a downed satellite, which actually contains stolen jewels. A group of thieves is also after the jewels. On the island the Legionnaires encounter only hostility from the residents. A native hero, Tyroc, who has strange (poorly defined) sound powers, crosses paths with both the Legion and the thieves. He makes it clear he wants nothing to do with the Legion, and feels the Legion has ignored the people of Marzal when they were in need, possibly because they are black.



Doug: I thought it was hilarious when Brainy interupted Cosmic Boy and offered "the plan", only to be shot down with a rebuke of "Not so simple, Brainy!" How often do you suppose that ever happened?? And Tyroc... I agree. We don't understand his powers and are given no background. He states that he is Marzal's champion, but do others among his "people" have similar powers? Is he a mutant? Does his costume somehow give him his voice abilities?

Doug: Additionally, I just really think that scribe Bates was pinning responsibility for the problems of blacks in America squarely on the blacks. The separatism, while at the same time blaming the Legion of all of Marzal's ills, seemed to fly in the face of LBJ's Great Society. I realize we were almost a decade removed from that by the time this saw the spinner racks, but still.

Karen: Tyroc infiltrates the thieves. They find the satellite only to discover it has become lethally radioactive. Exposed to the deadly radiation, a struggling Tyroc signals Superboy with an ultrasonic whistle. He seems surprised that the Legion would help him. We then get an unbelievably lame statement from Superboy about how the Legion is "color blind! Blue skin, yellow skin, green skin [pointing to Shadow Lass, Karate Kid(!), Brainiac 5]...we're brothers and sisters...united in the name of justice everywhere!" Tyroc decides he's been wrong about the Legion and will take them up on their offer to try-out for the team.

Doug: Pretty quick change of heart, don't you think? Didn't it seem to say that no matter how screwed up you think we've made you, we can still make you better -- hey, you need us! It was almost like the Legion was the ticket out of the ghetto.

Karen: I guess Tyroc could be "validated" by joining the right-thinking Legion! Just how in the world did anybody at DC think this was a good story? It's interesting to note the comments of artist Grell in a recent issue of Back Issue magazine (#33), where he says of this story, "Every couple of months I would pester them: when are we going to do this black Legionnaire? Finally they came up with one of the sillier powers I ever saw: Tyroc's. I'm surprised they didn't name him Tyrone, because the ultimate explanation for why there were no black people ever in the Legion of Super-Heroes...all the black people had gone to live on an island. I wonder what Martin Luther King would have to say about this? Weren't these people alive in the 1960s? Were they completely unaware of the civil rights movement?"

Doug: Grell tells similar stories in The Legion Companion from TwoMorrows, as well as Back Issue #14. He does contradict himself as to his original intent, which was to have a guy-gone-bad who happened to be black. In BI #14, Grell suggests that it was in Superboy #207; in The Legion Companion, he says it was in #210 ("Soljer's Private War"). Whichever it was, he was told by Murray Boltinoff that if they had a black character who was bad, they'd catch a ton of grief from their black readers. Grell contends that he protested, left the art the same, and the figure was merely colored pink instead of brown. According to Grell, anyone who looked closely could have told what was going on. Grell was assured that a black hero was in the works, and that he would be in the Legion. According to Grell, he was basically handed Tyroc and told to design the costume.
 
Karen: As you mention, there's this bizarre implication that the problem resides with the black people of Marzal alone - that they are the ones who are prejudiced and overly-sensitive. It sounds like the kind of argument you often hear from people who say racism and prejudice are over-exaggerated problems. You know, the same sort of people who claim they aren't racist by saying, "Some of my best friends are black (or Asian, or Hispanic, etc)". Or the Louisiana judge recently in the news who refused to marry inter-racial couples but said he wasn't a racist, that he even let black people use his bathroom! Gee, how open-minded of him.

Doug: But the thing about stereotypes is that at some point they're true -- do you think that's what Bates was after? But that should never be the focus -- labeling, classifying... And that's exactly what this book did. You and I have both stated that even as youngsters we felt something wasn't right. But how many other impressionable young minds didn't catch on? Did this book do damage in the era of busing and integration? Hey, the race riots in America's high schools (I recall my aunt being released early from school several days because it wasn't safe to be there) were only a couple of years old at this time.

Karen: I honestly don't know what Bates was going for here. I've never read much of his work, so I don't know if this is unusual for him or what. It just comes across as idiotic.

Karen: Grell's costume for Tyroc is a hoot, looking like nothing less than a odd mish-mash of Vegas Elvis and Isaac Hayes (with cute little elf booties thrown in for no apparent reason).

Doug: Yep, in one of the sources I read Grell likened it to a cross between a Vegas Elvis suit, a pimp, and Fred "the Hammer" Williamson!

Karen: Hey, I think we have another candidate for Fashion Disaster!


 
Karen: The back-up story in this ish involves former Legionnaires Bouncing Boy and Duo Damsel, and more than anything, it made me feel uncomfortable, as it sort of hints about what married life is like for a couple that can instantly become a threesome. I guess now I know why Duo Damsel was always showing up, despite her incredibly useless -for combat anyway -power. I heard that now she can make tons of duplicates. I don't even want to think where they could go with that idea.

Doug: Duo Damsel and Jamie Madrox -- there's a party! Ahem. Just kidding! But hey, despite my claim of enlightenment on racial separation, I have to admit that this one went right over my head. I just thought Chuck Taine was a big pansy! But, now that you mention it...