Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes #250

Well folks, we are now at the top of 1979, with only nine issues left in Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes before it turns into simply, the Legion of Super-Heroes. Which means we are now on the home stretch!

Issue #250 is special indeed, because it is the long awaited follow up to Jim Starlin’s Murder Most Foul back in issue #239. This was at one point referred to as a Winter’s Special/Spectacular but that was apparently cancelled and instead the issue was moved to the actual line. Paul Levitz is back on scripting duties, but as you will see, the issue was obviously produced either before or during Earthwar and Levitz does manage to update the script to make it current, though it does feel a bit awkward. More on that later in the Creative Team section. 

So with that intro out of a way, put on your Sherlock Holmes hat, make sure you are sitting comfortably, because…

This is the Day the Universe Dies!

Months ago a mysterious figure framed Ultra Boy for murder as the first step in a master plan for destruction. Chameleon Boy sits in a chair brooding, knowing that one of their own has betrayed the Legion of Super-Heroes. Luckily, Chameleon Boy just finished reprogramming their entire computer complex, and he finally knows who the betrayer is. But as if the traitor could read his thoughts, the mysterious cloaked figure appears having monitored the program Chameleon Boy was running. Chameleon Boy cannot believe that this person would betray the Legion and how they could have hidden their madness for so long. Cham grabs the figures hood, but is quickly shot. The figure walks away and the echo of footfalls fade in the room, and for hours, all is still, quiet enough for a falling pin to be heard, yet not even the sound of breathing disturbs the silence until Wildfire arrives. 

He rushed over to Cham and somehow senses that he is still warm, which means he is alive. He takes off Chameleon Boy’s ring because they had arranged for Cham to put a duplicate tape in his flight ring in case something like this would happen. He then calls on all the Legionnaires to come home because they have a class one emergency. And so, hours later, after the Legionnaires closest to Earth have made the journey to their clubhouse citadel, the briefing gets into full swing. 

Standing before the Legionnaires, Wildfire recounts the story from issue #239, bringing them up to date. He informs them that Chameleon Boy checked everything and he was sure he knew who was behind the whole thing but he would not say who; he wanted to wait until he could absolutely prove it. Before Wildfire found Cham, Cham could only tell him that the person behind this was insane and is a Legionnaire. The room goes into a stunned silence (though if you look at the panel, you might be able to guess who it is at this point.)

Suddenly, a menacing laugh breaks the silence and the hooded figure appears right in the middle of the group. The hooded figure laughs at them all and tells them that Wildfire knows only a fraction of the truth. Tyroc (YAY!) immediately demands to tell them who he is, and he replies that he is a herald of death and he has come to pronounce their doom. Karate Kid and Timber Wolf have had enough of listening and immediately attack, but their punches go right through him. Brainy informs everyone that it is a hologram and that the hooded figure is not really there. 

With that out of the way Wildfire knows that the figure is here for a reason so he might as well just tell them what he wants. The hooded figure sneers and tells them they will play a game of universal proportions. They will face the ultimate evil and fall before it. And when they have fallen, the universe ends. Very simple. But it is quite humorous because they will lose either way. But before the Legionnaires can question the hologram, or its remote controller, any further, the massive mission monitor board sounds an alert. 

The monitor board detects something with a lot of power and Superboy quickly checks it out with his telescopic vision but cannot find anything. The hooded figure laughs and tells the Teen of Steel that would be too easy. Fortunately, Superboy finds the signal and knows where it is going. Wildfire acts as deputy leader in Lightning Lad’s absence (Levitz forgetting that the deputy leader is actually Element Lad) and directs Mon-El and Superboy to check it out and keeps Dawnstar behind in reserve. 

Mon-El and Superboy blast off into space at super-light speed. Superboy uses his telescopic vision and he notices a slight shimmering of energy. What is worse, he feels an overwhelming sense of hatred. They continue following the signal until they find its source; a massive being of pure energy and hate. The being calls itself Omega and tells them it is the sum total, the very living embodiment, of all the hate that ever has existed in the universe. In fact, the person who created him hates the Legionnaires more than any other who has ever lived. 

Mon-El simply ignores Omega, flies in, and delivers a massive bunch that shatters everything in its path. The creature still stands and Mon-El is shocked. That punch he just delivered was enough to destroy asteroids, but it did not even phase Omega. Omega smiles and swats Mon-El like a mere fly, launching him into the depths of space. With Superboy left, Omega tells him he will end all of eternity once and for all as soon as he reaches their beloved Legion HQ. Superboy now has a decision to make. He does not know enough about Omega, and if he was able to do that to Mon-El he probably does not stand a chance. Superboy decides to fly after Mon-El and regroup.

Reaching Mon-El, Superboy examines him and sees that he has a concussion. Meanwhile, the colossal figure of Omega has stepped off the surface of the asteroid and is striding at a speed that staggers the imagination; crossing light-years of space in seconds, with a measured menacing pace. 

Superboy arrives at Legion HQ who quickly hands Mon-El over to Brainy who examines him. Brainy confirms the concussion and that he will be out of action for a while. Superboy is troubled and wonders if anyone can stop Omega. Wildfire decides to deploy teams to various possible approaches to Earth and hopes that one of the teams can stop the monster. Still, he does not understand why Omega is coming to Legion HQ but perhaps he should ask the person who created it. And since Wildfire finished decoding the data Chameleon Boy hid in his ring, he turns and points to the traitor who is…

BRAINIAC FIVE!

The room is stunned and Brainy does not even bother denying it. After all the years of solving the universe’s problems, he is collecting his due reward, by taking the universe’s life in trade. Wildfire calls him nuttier than a Treselgonian Dementialist. Brainy’s whole demeanor has changed and his face is wrought with hatred and pain. It was this hatred that gave birth to Omega and Omega is coming to Legion HQ for his final gift, the last trump card that will end it all. And Brainiac Five will have his revenge. 

The Legionnaires look at their old friend with a stunned silence and shock. Wildfire breaks that silence by taking action. He commands Karate Kid and Princess Projectra to escort Brainy to a detention cell and they will have him psychoanalyzed later. The rest are to organize according to defense beta two. The Legionnaires take their places and Dream Girl asks to quickly speak to Wildfire. She tells him that she had one of her visions of the future, and it was him in Legion HQ facing Omega…alone. And then the world exploded. Wildfire thanks her for the information but he requests that she try to focus on why Brainy wants Omega to come to Legion HQ in the first place. He waves to the other Legionnaires who take off in a Legion Cruiser and knows there is only one thing left for him to do. And that is to have Brainy tell him his secret…or they are in a lot of trouble– without a prayer of getting out of it alive. 

Creative Team

What was promised as a Legion Winter Special, we finally receive the follow up to Jim Starlin’s story, Murder Most Foul. They have been promising this for a while, specifically stating Jim Starlin’s return, so to use a pen name such as Steve Apollo is a bit mind boggling.

Not only is this a follow up but it is a bombshell. Brainy has been the traitor the entire time and what is really neat is that there have been instances of Brainy acting very cold in previous issues to set this up. We saw it before Earthwar on occasion and definitely last issue, when he did not realize the predicament that Shadow Lass was in or why Mon-El would act the way he did. This is what really has defined this particular period in this book is the ability to continue threads and build upon what other writers are doing. I do credit Paul Levitz with this. As stated in the past, when Cary Bates and Jim Shooter were sharing writing duties, not once did they not credit each other’s stories but they also never attempted to build off or acknowledge what the other was doing. 

This is also a beautiful issue which is not a surprise because the layouts and designs were by Starlin himself, with a beautiful finishing job from Dave Hunt. I still think Starlin’s Superboy, in particular his face, still looks a bit odd but his figure work is absolutely superb and he definitely really excels at action. Also, when we meet Omega, that definitely did have that old sixties Marvel feel, which is what Starlin was bringing to the table.

Levitz does an apt job on scripting duties and you can easily tell that Starlin laid out the book while Wildfire was Team Leader. Levitz does manage to insert a few lines of dialogue to make sure the issue is in the current continuity as much as possible, but it is still quite obvious, especially with the absence of both Lightning Lad and Saturn Girl. But hey, that is not a bad thing because we were able to see Wildfire’s decisive action and leadership skills one more time. 

Despite the sharp layouts and figure work, during Brainy’s monologue you still do wonder what exactly his motivation is and why he is so angry. It is confusing and it seems to be a lot of inconcise rambling that does not make any sense. Perhaps that is intentional but I did feel that Starlin and Levitz lost the thread a bit. Also, how Omega was created with pure hate from the entire universe is also not explained very well, but I do wonder if this will be revealed next issue.My only speculation is that this could be something left over from Mordru or perhaps it is another last ditch effort on Mordru’s part.

Despite these rumblings, it is still a very beautiful issue and to make one of the Legionnaires the traitor, especially a prominent one, is a very bold move and quite a turning point in the series. This in itself is worthy of applause, especially after concluding an epic event like Earthwar and now slapping its fanbase with this reveal shortly after. 

To conclude, the jury is still out on some of the plot points but we have another issue to wrap this up. I do hope they give us some solid explanations for Brainy’s motivations as well as how he could create something like Omega, light years away, with pure hate from all the universe. Stay tuned and you can find it out with me next week! 

Legion Outpost

There is not that much in this issue’s outpost that reveals the future of the series. We do have four letters with overwhelming praise for Earthwar, so that is nice to see. The column is short because according to the rules back then, the US Post Office made it a requirement to reveal actual circulation numbers from the different comic book series, which of course is interesting. Do keep in mind, these numbers do reflect newsstand numbers because this period was before when the direct market actually existed (sales directly to comic book stores). Because news vendors could simply rip off the cover and mail it back to DC to get the issue refunded if it was not sold, the actual numbers might be hard to pin down. Regardless:

Sales through dealers and carriers, street vendors and counter sales, average for each issue in last 12 months: 138,740.

Mail subscriptions, average number of copies each issue in last 12 months: 2,537.

And there are a bunch of other numbers but there you go. It looks like the book was selling, on average, around 138,740 per issue plus had about 2,537 subscribers. This was DC’s best selling book at the time (apparently), so you do wonder what the numbers were for the other books at DC at the time.

Legion Medallion of Merit

As stated above, it is quite obvious that this was conceived during Wildfire’s tenure as leader even though Paul Levitz manage to script a few balloons to bring it into current continuity. So with that, I still have to give the Medallion to Wildfire. This guy just acts and he has that confidence that the Legionnaires can get behind. He acts decisively and he knows what he is up against. Even though he did pass the torch to Lightning Lad, it is still nice to have one last go as the man up front calling the shots.

Congratulations Wildfire! Let us hope you can use the Medallion as leverage in some way to convince Brainiac Five to tell you the secret in how to defeat Omega and what that monster is actually after at Legion HQ. 

That is it for this week’s issue of Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes! With only eight issues left now, we have the conclusion of Jim Starlin’s epic story and then the return of Gerry Conway in issue #252. Until then, please do not bottle up your hate otherwise you might accidentally create a being of epic proportions light years away, that just may come back and destroy the world. And if that happens, be sure to use that fateful battle cry as the last resort…

LONG LIVE THE LEGION!