Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes #242

Welcome to the second part of our big epic storyline, Earthwar! The Legionnaires continue to unravel the mystery as the Khunds attack Earth, forcing our Legionnaires to protect Planet Earth at all costs. And once again we have a beaut from James Sherman and Bob McLeod who really bring that opera to space. Also we do have an announcement in the letter’s section that will affect our book not being so giant-size anymore. What does that mean exactly? Read on to find out!

Startarget: Earth

Wildfire ignores him and says he does not trust anyone and he will do everything in his power to make sure that the Dominators are able to safely reach the conference and engage in negotiations to sort out this mess. He then flies off with Ultra Boy, Mon-El, and Dawnstar.

As they fly they meet Ultra Boy who thinks Wildfire was too hard on them. Wildfire does not care and wishes he could be harder because they have not been on Weber’s World for that long and already there was an attempt on the U.P. Diplomats. Dawnstar reminds Ultra Boy that he does not have any right to question Wildfire because Wildfire is Legion leader. Ultra Boy notices something happening below, and commands everyone to follow him. They arrive at a bridge that is about to collapse and the group just barely manages to rescue its occupants right before it collapses. These bridge occupiers just so happen to be diplomats. Mon-El asks them why the used this route and they respond that Ontiir, the head of security suggested it. This sets off some alarm bells and they head to the sky to confront Ontiir, when they also see Relic. They halt and ask him what he is doing there, and he has been looking for them because something has happened on Earth. War has broken out!

But it is not the war that the Ambassador might have expected. For had he remained in front of the news monitor one additional minute, he would have learned that it is not a Dominator attack but the first eave of an invasion of Earth by the Warlords of Khund. An invasion that would have already overwhelmed Earth if not for the advance warning the Superboy and some Earth-based Legionnaires brought scant hours ago. Yet even with the valiant Legionnaires fighting alongside the U.P. Forces in the otherworld’s defense, it is a touch-and-go battle. And each ship’s survival may spell the difference between victory and defeat. 

Superboy swoops around a series of drones that have concentrated their fire power on a space station. The reason? Because Colossal Boy is there swatting a bunch of them away. Superboy grabs the station and hurls it out of range and Colossal Boy asks for a status update. The battle is not going well because the Khunds have superior numbers. And to make matters worse, if a Legionnaire appears, the Khunds immediately send an overwhelming force to attack, so Superboy does not know if they are helping or not.

Even those Legionnaires whose powers are perfect for space warfare, such as Element Lad and Sun Boy are to their limit because the Khunds are not giving up. Suddenly Brainiac Five orders the Legionnaires to return to the Cruiser. When they arrive, Element Lad reminds Brainy once again that he is acting Leader while Wildfire is off on Weber’s World. Brainy agrees but he needed to tell them his findings as he is one with the computer mind. Unfortunately, no matter how hard they fight, there is no longer a possibility that they will avoid a Khundish landing on Earth. Element Lad is furious and tells him he will not give up. Element Lad takes charge and orders Sun Boy to grab the helm because they are going to take this war right back to Khunds’ homeworld. He also asks Brainy to go to Weber’s World to get some help. 

We leave the scene, and return to Weber’s World. Wildfire cannot believe the Khunds will attack and although Relnic and Ontiir appear to be on their side, their connection to the incidents is extremely suspicious. Dawnstar alerts the group that the Dominiators have arrived and she senses their ship above them in orbit. Ontiir points to the ship that they are, in fact, landing. Mon-El is not taking any chances and flies to the ship to escort its landing himself. Ontiir offers him a spot on his security team but Mon-El politely declines. He just wants this wrapped up as soon as possible so they all can go back to Earth to help repel the Khund invasion. 

Meanwhile, in the center of the Khunds’ Capital City, Superboy, Element Lad, Sun Boy, and Colossal Boy teleport in and act quickly. Their mission is to find Garlak, the Warlord of Khund, and force him to stop the war. Their presence is already detected and the Legionnaires use their flight rings to lift them into the bright orange skies, while Element Lad uses his power to transmute the metallic atoms of the Khundish weapons into harmless hydrogen gas. But a thirty-ton airfare is too large to change quickly and Sun Boy quickly turns and blasts it with a big burst of sun energy. They descend on the large Citadel, where the Warlord is commanding his troops. Luckily no building has been designed that can withstand the full fighting fury of four members of the Legion of Super-Heroes. The four blast through its walls, and drill deep down into the command center and find Garlak. Element Lad rushes and grabs Garlak. He threatens that he will forget the Legion code and turn his blood into poison and watch him die if he does not make the fleet turn back. Space Pirates wiped out his homeworld when he was a child and he swears he will not let it happen again. 

Garlak refuses and Element Lad continues his threat and it looks like he will kill him. When suddenly Garlak’s eyes open wide and he stops talking. Element Lad states that he did not do anything to him and Superboy picks up a coded hyper-beam with his super-hearing. Element Lad  takes out two telepathic plugs and places them in Garlak’s ears and becomes an instant vegetable. Superboy lifts Garlak up and shows the surrounding Khunds that he was being used as a puppet by some alien force. The Khunds do not believe him and accuse the Legionnaires of tricking them. Superboy drops Garlak and suggests that since they are wasting their time trying to convince the Khunds of the obvious they should trace the hyper beam instead and he takes off.

After slipping into their transparent collapsible space suits, the Legionnaires follow Superboy into the void. He wishes Dawnstar was here because his super-hearing is not as precise as her tracking abilities. Element Lad reassures him that it will have to do because they have no time to detour. But, light years distant, we see five hooded figures watching their plan hit a minor set back. They are impressed by the Legionnaires and luckily they have foreseen this particular action and it can easily be averted. In fact, this could turn to their advantage.

Meanwhile, on Weber’s World, the Legionnaires await the emergence of the Dominators from their ships with a growing sense of frustration. Ultra Boy walks alone and cannot believe that now they are simply all on Weber’s World waiting for a spaceship to open so the Dominators can attend the peace conference. His thoughts are interrupted by a Cargoloader running wild and running straight at him. He just manages to switch his ultra-energy to invulnerability to stop from being crushed. 

Elsewhere, Ontiir asks Wildfire if he is satisfied with the security. Wildfire does not know who to trust on this crazy planet after everything that has happened. Relnic arrives and puts his arm around Wildfire and Ontiir and reminds them both that it is up to them now because the Dominator’s are about to emerge from the other airlock. Dawnstar looks off into the distance and almost does not hear Relnic asking her if she will be joining them. She thought she felt as though they were being watched.

We return to Superboy and the gang and he announces that the hyper-beam signal is getting stronger and they must be getting close. Element Lad is relieved because he thought they were headed in the wrong direction. Superboy solemnly replies that he was not wrong but something else is very wrong. The hyper-beam that was controlling Garlak and through him the whole Khundish war fleet, is coming from the artificial planet they now see before them…

Weber’s World!

Girls’ Night Out

They enter and are quickly recognized by the staff, who informs the four ladies that the Deputy Commander of the Science Police has asked to see them.

Princess Projectra is a little annoyed that they were spotted so soon because she was hoping to arrive incognito. Light Lass immediately recognizes the Deputy Commander and calls him by his name, Ilni Cerrel, and asks what he is doing at the restaurant. He replies that it is his usual duty to plan the alternating routes of the City Star and he had decided to see it first hand. He then invites the four of them to sit with him and the rest of the Science Police Command for an official dinner. Because they are off duty, they politely decline and Cerrel understands and wishes them a nice evening.

The City Star takes off as they are seated, and they are immediately impressed with the view as they fly high above Metropolis. They are quite happy with their good fortune, when it is rudely interrupted by a group of thugs who tells everyone not to panic, but that they all are hostages. The four of them smile and wonder if they should intervene. Petty thugs or not, they are breaking the law, and it is the law that the Legion of Super-Heroes have sworn to uphold. The four spring into action and Light Lass quickly makes two of the thugs weightless while Princess Projectra conjures up an image of a large Nuramian Maneater to startle the rest. Dream Girl and Shadow Lass move in and wack the distracted thugs, but they turn to their horror to see that one of the thugs has taken the Commander Cerrel hostage. The thug tells them he recognizes them but he will shoot this man if they do not do what he says. The first order of business? To allow his men to restrain and bind them. Seeing that a man’s life is in jeopardy they have no choice but to agree.

Once tied up, the thug tells them his plan and it is a simple one. Since the Commander and all the top brass of the Science Police are in this spot, flying above Metropolis, the rest of his men are on the ground, looting Metropolis. He adds that escape is indeed impossible. He leaves, but what happens is quite extraordinary for our heroines are not bound at all but are actually untied and walking around. It was the doing of Princess Projectra who was able to conjure projections of themselves tied up. Their next order of business is to stop the looting and the Princess suggests they split up so they can cover more territory. They exit the City Star and head down to Metropolis.

Light Lass decides to go to the Central Credit Office first because that is probably where they will start first. Sure enough she sees a group of Science Police standing around doing nothing and though they shout at her to halt, she swoops in and takes out the thugs using her powers and making them weightless. One is flabbergasted because he thought the Legionnaires were not supposed to interfere. She makes quick work of the rest and then inspects the main credit computer. To her dismay she discovers that they actually possessed the access code and only the President and the High Command of the Science Police have that information. She delivers the floating thugs to the Science Police who are relieved to see her but thought that if anyone would interfere then the Commander and High Command would be killed. She assures them that it is under control. As she moves on she looks up into the sky and sees the City Star just above her. 

We move to Shadow Lass who had made her way to the Jewelry Exchange and confronts more of the thugs by jumping right in the middle of them. Shadow Lass concentrates for but an instant and the entire room is plunged into pitch blackness. And in the ensuing confusion, the lithe Leigonnaire makes work of the felons. The final one attacks and tells her that her meddling may have caused the deaths of a whole lot of people, not to mention her own. She grabs the gun, lifts him up high, then hits him with the butt of the rifle, suggesting that he should not mention it then. She hands them off to the Science Police who inform her that they did receive the message from Light Lass and he does hope she knows what she is doing. She does too and she also wonders how the crooks knew that there was a recent delivery of gems to the exchange. 

Princess Projectra, meanwhile, has decide to check out the store that sells valuable furs. Sure enough, she sees more thugs trying to clean out the place. She moves into action and conjures up images of the Science Police, but one of the thugs is smart and knows that it is fake and alerts his co-conspirators to ignore it. The Princess is impressed and decides to use a more physical approach and takes them out with her fists. The Science Police arrive and she notices the City Star now directly above her.

And speaking of the City Star, the main thug compliments the Legionnaires for doing as he said and for behaving. They do not respond and he moves in closer to find out that they are simply illusions and he was tricked. Meanwhile, at the United Planets Headquarters, Dream Girl has arrived and jumps into the fray and knocks out the thugs with a series of powerful punches. With the lawmakers from within the building freed, they thank her because if it were not for her, the vital papers they had in their possession would be lost, papers that were just delivered by the Science Police. Dream Girl is suspicious and finds the others who swap stories. They all agree on a course of action and what they need to do next.

We return to the inside of the City Star, where the search for the Legionnaires are still ongoing. The main thug asks one of his men if he found them yet. He answers no but they seemed to have lost something else and to look out the window because all of Metropolis is gone. Startled they cannot believe tier eyes and when they turn around, the real Legionnaires are there. With Princess Projectra conjuring up an illusion and Shadow Lass using her powers to produce a shadow cone, they diverted their attention to allow them to clean up the rest of them. The main thug runs away and reminds them that he still has the hostages. Light Lass is not bothered and makes all the thugs weightless, taking them out of commission.

Later, with the thugs rounded up, Commander Cerrel thanks them because he was sure those thugs would not hesitate to kill them. Light Lass smiles and tells him that she was not worried because he was in on it. It was obvious once they found out that all the groups had very specific targets, targets that could only be identified as being important from the Science Police. And all the places also had a route along the City Star’s itinerary that only the Commander knew. Cerrel tries to get out of it, but Light Lass decks him and watches the Science Police take him away. It was too bad their girl’s night out did not last very long but Shadow Lass does mention that she is still hungry since they did not get a chance to eat. 

Creative Team

Earthwar is shaping up to be outstanding. Who am I kidding? It is already amazing! Paul Levitz has Wildfire down pat. The dialogue he employs is perfect for the character and you root for him to really stick it to the bureaucracy as he tries to uncover the mystery and do his job despite all the inefficiencies around him. It is interesting, because I always considered him to be a temporary leader, and his so called hot-head would get him into trouble and something would happen that would force him to give up the leadership position. But it has not happened yet and he has been Legion leader for a while now. I like him as leader. He is not afraid to jump into action, even though his actions might rub people the wrong way. If he is anything he definitely is effective. 

And I still like the mystery that Levitz is weaving here. We basically have an ongoing battle with the full blown invasion of the Khunds. With Superboy and the gang defending Earth, you can just feel how frustrating it must be for the other Legionnaires to be stuck on Weber’s World. And that is what makes this story stand out is the universe/galactic feel to it. Our playground is big and we can feel our heroes zipping around it, trying to solve problems and getting out of the situation. So far the pacing has been perfect and it does make you want to read the next issue.

And the art is absolutely amazing. Jim Sherman continues to deliver those big, beautiful faces that really give the book a strong space opera feel. He handles the various locations well, giving each place its distinct look. My only complaint was the Khund world. It looked too much like Metropolis that I could not get a good feeling for it. But other than that Sherman continues to thrive and his art really makes this storyline stand out from the rest. Another great chapter in the Earthwar saga.

So now for Girl’s Night Out. This was a hard story to think about, because I am definitely looking at it from today’s lense. If this book came out today, the backup story would somehow relate to the ongoing conflict. So to have a story that basically depicts our female Legionnaires trying to enjoy themselves while there is a full blown Khund invasion, disrupted the book for me. I mean come on, there is no way this story takes place during the events of Earthwar but still, the wise path would be to show a different aspect of the war and it was a wasted opportunity here.

Plus, Paul Kupperberg’s writing was dense, with a lot of words, exposition, and trying to clarify things as they were happening. I think, in a way, it really bogged down the art from Arvell Jones and Danny Bulandi. I believe this is the start of Kupperberg’s career and he did employ that Gardner Fox style by splitting the group up, with each one solving a piece of the mystery. But when you compare this story to the tight plot and visual story telling that was in Startarget: Earth, it just does not mesh well.

Also, it did feel like we went backward rather than forward. Yes, it was interesting to see our female Legionnaires hang out together during their free time, but the thing felt a bit forced. Its saving grace was definitely allowing the females to punch the crap out of the thugs and solving the mystery in the end, these are members of the Legion of Super-Heroes after all. And we can give credit where credit is due and acknowledge that Kupperberg actually delivered a female centric story that was not about pining for their boyfriends.

All in all, a strong issue that propels the Earthwar saga forward. We do have an announcement in the letter’s page so I think this is goodbye to the Giant Size Format as we have known it up to this point, so we need to see if they continue the two story format or only stick to one. See you next week to find out. 

Legion Outpost

Unfortunately there is not a lot in this issue’s Legion Outpost outside of an ominous announcement at the end:

…But there’s an even more important aspect to next issue, since that’s our first issue in a new, less expensive format. The full details of the format change are announced elsewhere in this issue, but we hope yo’ll stay with us through the change–because the best is yet to come. –Al and Paul

So what is this format? Are we leaving the Giant Size issues? Flipping through the book, they must have been referring to the advert for the DC Explosion. Which has been coyly termed the DC Implosion since a lot of books were cancelled, one being the Karate Kid, which I covered and wrote the full explanation for it being cancelled. And as we can see from the advertisement:

“44 pages for 50¢, 25 pages of all-new story!”

So it looks like we are indeed leaving the Giant Size format and are returning to what the Giant Size issues were when they first launched it around forty issues ago: part new story and part reprints. 

I will say, those Giant Sized stories made for some very long write-ups, which also made these contributions quite long. On the other hand, despite admitting to the difficulties they were having with getting the book out on time, in particular finding artists, these giant size issues were great. The format allowed the creative team to breathe and if they were a two story issue, like this one, the page count was enough to give the writer some room to allow the plot to run its natural course and not rush it to the end. But alas, we just cannot get everything we want and it looks like we will be returning to the ‘normal’ size of seventeen pages probably before the series ends. 

The Legion Medallion of Merit

We have two stories to choose one Legionnaires for the Legion Medallion of Merit–a medallion that is given to a Legionnaire who went above and beyond the call of duty. I think the choice is easy and I am giving it to Wildfire. Wildfire did not take no for an answer and he sure is not convinced by what the politicians are digging out. He is challenging everyone and if there is one logical conclusion to this, it is that he will figure out what the heck is going on. He proves once again why he is an effective leader and that he just wants to get the job done. 

Congratulations Wildfire! I hope this medallion does not erg your energy to cause your helmet to inflate even further. But if there is one thing we can conclude so far, is that you have made a wonderful Legion Leader and you deserve to stay for just a bit longer. 

And that is it fellow Legionnaires for this week’s entry. If you ever have to choose between a snaky looking head of security or a snaky acting politician, always remember to call forth assistance simply by uttering that one magical phrase known to the entire universe…

LONG LIVE THE LEGION!