WE HAVE ARRIVED! Superboy Starring the Legion of Super-Heroes is now Superboy AND the Legion of Super-Heroes, as it always should have been. Even way back in issue #195, Paul Levitz slipped up and included the word and. But as we were able to put together, they kept using Starring so they could keep the discounted postal rate they were getting until the official change of title could be used and approved.

And what better way to celebrate this momentous occasion than with Tyroc who makes a triumphant return courtesy of Cary Bates, who also does the classic Bates’ bait and switch. Pun intended.

Jim Shooter takes care of the backstory and boy is there a lot of story in just a short amount of pages. But another way we can commemorate this special occasion is a fine welcome to Mike Nasser who handles the pencils and to future comic book legend, the one and only, Bob Layton! Welcome Mike and Bob to Legion HQ!

So crack those knuckles, bust out your own physical copy (but be sure to wash your hands first), and turn the first page to jump into the wonderful world that is the Legion of Super-Heroes!

This Legionnaire is Condemned 

All is calm this serene Sunday morning in 30th Century Metropolis when the silence is suddenly disrupted by a strange sound that causes future modes of transportation to be hurled through the air. Some hours later in Legion Headquarters a group of Science Police inform Superboy, Mon-El and Brainiac 5 that incidents like these have been happening quite frequently in the last twelve hours. Witnesses have never heard anything like it before and they know it could only have come from one source, and that from one of their members!

At that moment, at an outdoor shopping plaza elsewhere in the city, hundreds of patrons suddenly hear a strange shout followed by a sudden downfall of rain. But it is not just any rain, but something else because the strange liquid sticks on everyone and everything. 

We return to the scene with the Science Police and our three Legionnaires who are taking them through the Legion of Super-Heroes Hall of Fame. They agree that it cannot be any Legionnaire except for Tyroc and they should not have made him a member. Mon-El then explains that it started yesterday when Tyroc stormed out in a fit of anger because they refused his suggestion to move the Legion headquarters from Metropolis to the island-city of Marzal, his home. 

He took off with rage and promised that everyone will be begging the Legion to leave Metropolis once he is finished. The Science Police look at each other with worry and tell the three heroes that this was no idle threat. When the public finds out a Legionnaire is responsible for the terrible things that have been happening it will not be good. Maybe the Science Police would have an opportunity to apprehend Tyroc before he carries out his threat. They do have every available man their force can spare out on the streets looking for him after all. Mon-El then asks Brainy if any of their Legion stake-outs have sent in word, and he answers no. 

At that same moment, the tranquility of metro-park is abruptly shattered by a new sound. Superboy rips off his disguise and tells his other Legionnaires, Ultra Boy, Princess Projectra, and Shadow Lass to do the same. It is time for Action! As the Legionnaires reveal themselves they observe that the sound made the trees sprout wildly growing tentacle-wings. Ultra Boy turns on his Ultra-Invulnerability and chops through a couple while Superboy does the same. 

Some moments later with all the tentacle-wings severed, Shadow Lass asks where Superboy flew off to. Ultra Boy points to a tree. Sure enough another strange sound emits from the tree, and out bursts Tyroc with Superboy in pursuit. However, Superboy puts his hands to his ears and he plummets down below. Shadow Lass quickly envelopes everything in darkness and hopes that Tyroc will not be able to navigate between the cluster of sky-towers. Sure enough Tyroc rams into one and knocks himself out.

The Legion take him into custody and hand him off to the Science Police. Shortly thereafter the main stream media picks up the story and informs the public that Mon-El, the acting Legion Leader confirmed the arrest of Tyroc and that he was responsible for all the havoc that occurred around Metropolis. Tyroc is now in solitary confinement and his devastating voice is stilled by a special trans-sonic muzzle provided by the Legion.

Indeed, it is a sad day in Legion history that is not quite over yet as a familiar cruiser touches down atop the Police building. Superboy, Brainiac-5 and Princess Projectra exit the Cruiser and announce to the Science Police that they have vital new evidence and need to see their captain at once.

Later in the Captain’s office, the Legion informs him that Tyroc has been framed and that their prisoner is the real culprit. The Captain cannot believe what he is hearing because he knows that only Tyroc could make the sounds that caused so much destruction in the city. Brainy pulls out a sonic-tape recorder and tells him he is wrong, because the voice was actually recorded on the tape recorder and simply replayed by the prisoner allowing it to have its undesirable effect. Brainy turns on the tape to demonstrate and sure enough the room shakes. Brainy finds another selection on the tape and turns it on to reveal the Captain’s plants sprouting monstrous vines, much like in the park from before. 

Brainy informs him that they found an extensive collection of taped Tyroc outcries in the prisoner’s home. They also remind the Captain that Tyroc was never actually seen emitting the sounds. The Captain has no choice but to agree and order the prisoner to be confined in a cell. Later, as Tyroc walks out a free man, the Captain tells him that all that is left is to question the prisoner in order to get a motive.  But at that moment two Science Police members check on the cell to find that the prisoner is gone and a lone tiny insect buzzes between the energi-bars.

As the Legion Cruiser revs its engines for take-off, Shadow Lass is having a heated conversation with her fellow Legionnaires inside. Brainy tries to explain to her that they did not have time to let her in on their plan. Tyroc explains that a tape recorder cannot mimic his voice to reproduce its powers, and the effects everyone saw were simply Princess Projectra creating an illusion. But what about the prisoner? The lone insect buzzes in and quickly transforms to Chameleon Boy. Tyroc reminds everyone that he better continue his rampage and jumps out of the Cruiser hatch.

Tyroc flies once more through the city, emitting the awesome power of his voice. When suddenly he changes course, and removes the ‘globe’ from the Trans-Global Travel Agency. The bomb was cleverly hidden inside the globe and if he can just detect any fingerprints he will know who the mad bomber is. 

Scarcely an hour later, Ultra Boy and Superboy arrive at Police Headquarters and approach a lone janitor who is mopping the floor. They name him as Fenton Pike and order him to stay still. He turns and tells them he does not know how they found out about him, and it does not matter because he still has time to detonate the bomb by remote control. That is what he thinks because Superboy and Ultra Boy blast him with super-breath, crashing him against the wall. 

That night, a broadcast explains the details and allows Tyroc to explain his recent actions. The city was held hostage due to the bomb hidden by Fenton Pike. Only Tyroc could detect the bomb’s wheareabouts using his voice like a sonar to bounce waves in all directions. But there was a caveat. Pike warned that he would set off the bomb if there was any attempt to find it. So Tyroc had to act as if he were rampaging the city on his own, and even had to fake a fight with his fellow Legionnaires to continue the ruse. But they found the bomb and the bomber. And that was a super-job indeed.

Death of a Legend

A sleek Legion Cruiser drills through the void at warp speed, switfter than light and guided by its automatic poilot. While in the living quarters, Superboy, Timber Wolf, and Light Lass watch a visi-tape displaying the heroic exploits of the King of Heroes, Questar. As the video stops, the three Legionnaires are in wonder of Questar and cannot wait to meet him when they arrive at Zentor.

Soon after landing, they three are greeted by Glad Hander who remarks that they talk funny. Superboy explains to Timber Wolf that their translation ear plugs are having trouble with Zentor’s weird language. And to point out other weird things, Timber Wolf notices the sun is actually orange, which unfortunately cuts Superboy’s powers in half. Hopefully there will not be any emergencies.

As if on cue, Questar arrives and welcomes the Legionnaires to Zentor. As Light Lass admires the fine specimen before her, suddenly the ground swells behind the landing platform and out emerges a large, ferocious monster. Glad Hander explains that it is the Every-Ten-Years Monster and it arrives every ten years. This is why they welcomed Questar who has sworn to defend them. 

The Legionnaires approach Questar and tell him they are the Legion of Super-Heroes. He asks if they will help him, because he needs it. He is not the hero everyone thinks he is but simply a writer, using a mentor-recorder to make up story tapes of all of his so-called exploits. One such tape the Legion watched just moments ago. 

They cannot believe what they are hearing and think it is the fault of the faulty ear plugs, when suddenly the monster attacks. Superboy quickly moves in and tries to punch it, but since he is weakened from the orange sun, it has no effect. Instead, the monster punches Superboy and Superboy flies to the ground. The orange sun that weakens Superboy must have the opposite effect for the monster, giving it enormous strength. 

Light Lass attempts to use her light powers but the monster is too big. Meanwhile Superboy rebounds and continues his assault, and tries to fly around the beast in order to find a weakness. The monster draws back one huge arm and delivers a mighty punch that sends Superboy flying once more. The gigantic beast slowly approaches Light Lass and Timber Wolf. It sees them below him and raises its foot to squash them. When suddenly a searing ray refracts from a gleaming bright metal structure. The brute swivels in response as a red-and blue blur streaks toward its neck, and the monster collapses. Timber Wolf thinks it is Questar who managed to gather enough courage to attack, when in fact it was Superboy.

Superboy used his heat vision to force the beast to turn and explode the pressure point on the back of his neck and he knocked it out. But what will happen when the monster awakes? As if to answer the question the monster suddenly vanishes and Questar runs in telling them all that he was the one that was able to do it. He does have powers and he managed to teleport the beast to a distant asteroid where he can do no harm.

Glad Hander returns and accuses Questar of being a phony but Superboy steps in. He tells him that no one is perfect and you have to judge a man by the good in him. The legend of Questar should be an inspiration for all. 

Glad apologizes and asks if they can complete the ceremony honoring Questar as “King of Heroes” and perhaps the Legionnaires could bear witness? The Legionnaires agree and tell Glad Hander they would be honored. 

Creative Team

As stated in the opening, this is very much a moment. The title officially changes to Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes. Also, another first is we have a completely different art team on the back issue.

This Legionnaire is Condemned is classic Cary Bates plotting. We are thrust into a ‘I can’t believe it’ event, characters and plot points are introduced, and then the trusty bait and switch is employed and everything is explained in the end. It is quite effective and I did enjoy seeing Tyroc soar through the city and use his powers. His powers are still a little wacky and it is very hard to determine what exactly he can do. But he is powerful.

Also Bates does play with your emotions a bit. When you first dive into the story you are shocked and angered at the Legionnaires for putting so much distrust in Tyroc. Also you were forced to question Bates’ logic because have we not done this before already? But of course it did not come true. The story does wrap up quite quickly and I do wonder if there was a lot of story that was cut out. We do not really get a good reasoning behind the motivation of the bomber, even if he is named. So it does feel like this was a bit chopped up. I cannot help but chalk this up to the fact that we have two stories instead of one and it does make everything feel quite rushed. Which is painfully obvious from the back story.

The back story from Jim Shooter, Mike Nass and Bob Layton is a bit of a mess. I do not understand the rationale behind it and the story itself feels like it was written from a discarded Legion story Shooter wrote during his Adventure Comics days. It is a far cry from what Shooter has been giving us before; mature, real world themes that resonated at the time. So why do we have something like this?

My guess is because when the book went monthly the scheduling became a mess. This one does feel quite rushed and it would not surprise me if Shooter had to produce something quite quick on a ridiculous deadline. This could be why he found something in a drawer and dressed it up to have something to turn in. That could also be the rationale behind the new art team. I was not a fan of Mike Nass here, in particular his depiction of Superboy. Perhaps I am so accustomed to Mike Grell’s depiction that it is difficult to see another take. But it is quite different and feels like something from Nicholas Cardy. Which is not a bad thing but the story and the art take us back to a place that I thought we were leaving for good. 

To conclude, this is basically just one big filler issue with a probably chopped up Tyroc story. The good news though is that the next issue will have a nice full lengther, from Jim Shooter with a welcome return of a very well known classic villain, as revealed in Super-Talk below. 

Super-Talk

We have some pretty basic stuff in the letters page this issue. One letter praises Tyroc and one also asks why Light Lass and Lightning Lad can be on the same time if the rule is that only one person with a particular power is allowed to be admitted?

And for those that do not know, Light Lass used to be called Lightning Lass when Lighting Lad was believed to be dead. When he came back to life, her powers changed, allowing her to be on the team. 

Then we have a complaint of not seeing Dream Girl, which, as we know, we did see her albeit for a tiny bit in #220. Though I did conclude that she was basically wasted in that story. 

Next, we get to the famous question of how does Cosmic Boy keep that skimpy costume up? Well they asked Mike Grell and Grell explained that there are metallic fibers in his costume and he uses his magnetic power to keep him out of his birthday suit. There you go. 

Finally, we get to the more interesting bits.

First, John McAdams demands the return of the Fatal Five and Time Trapper and also the two-part stories. This is something that I also have wanted for a while, and as we know they just did their first two-parter in Karate Kid (which will actually conclude a week after the release of this issue).

So in response, the editor not only confirms the return of The Fatal Five and Time Trapper, but also our buddy Trapper will return next issue and is the first of a two-parter by Jim Shooter. This will also mark the first time we will see a ‘to be continued’ line in the main book.

The Legion Medallion of Merit

During this final section, we look at the issue and choose one Legionnaire who is deserving of the Legion Medallion of Merit. In order to receive the medal a Legionnaire had to go above and beyond in the line of duty and also had to play a pivotal roll in the story.

So it is no surprise that the medallion for this week goes to Tyroc. Tyroc knew a lot of people just did not like him. And he still was ready and willing to be the decoy, knowing it could only be him that would be able to sell the ruse effectively so our villain would not activate the bomb. And he kept going and after many attempts he finally found it and managed to save a good chunk of Metropolis not to mention the lives of its civilians.

Enjoy Tyroc! You are collecting these medallions like baseball cards. But should you be surprised? Of course not, because you are that darn cool.

And that is it fellow heroes! As we part, may the all mighty Tyroc whisper your name softly that will give you the will and strength to return that whisper to a mighty yell, as we shout out the true calling of the universe…

LONG LIVE THE LEGION!