Tag: Saturn Girl

We head deeper in the era of Mike Grell as he gives us his first two-story issue with Cary Bates. First we have The Legionnaire Nobody Remembered and Brainiac’s Secret Weakness. Which turns out is not so secret after all. To your stations fellow Legionnaires!

The Legionnaire Nobody Remembered

We’re welcomed back to the 30th Century and find ourselves snuggled into Legion HQ where Mon-El, Lightning Lad, Cosmic Boy, Saturn Girl, and Superboy are looking at a photo-grid with a very confused look on their faces. Why are they confused dear readers? Surely they recognize the figures in the photo because its of the founding members. But there’s one they do not recognize and that’s fellow Legionnaire Anti-Lad. But who was Anti-Lad?

We propell 4,500 years into the future and find ourselves in the 75th century, as a young lad is ‘time-peeping’ in order to gather information for his Superboy biography. He calls his father over because he’s discovered that something terrible has happened.

Peering into the time-scanner, they witness Superboy begging Saturn Girl, Cosmic Boy, and Electric Lad to reconsider. But it’s no use. They simply tell him that he’s not cut out to be a member of the Legion and that he has failed. Distraught the father knows this not to be true and that the time-scanner must be defective. Instead of observing the events of the past, the scanner instead must have warped it using some defective rays. Realizing they must do something and after bringing out the trusty game of dominoes to explain the dire consequences this event could have, the father rushes off to the Science Court. There he must plead their case and hope they can assign an authorized agent to return to Superboy’s time and ensure that he makes Legion membership thereby restoring order and making the likes of Rip Hunter proud.

Distraught, the lad feels a heavy degree of responsibility and feels that he must right the wrong. Plus the bureaucratic intricacies of the Science Court will prove to be too much and a decision might not be reached in time. Thus the teenager puts together a gadget of highly advanced technology, and finds their home timesmitter, which they’re allowed to have since his father is a member of the Science Court, and which is otherwise absolutely forbidden.

Placing himself int he timesmitter, the teen from the future puts in coordinates for the 20th century, for he has a stop to make before crashing the 30th Century party.

Meanwhile we are treated to a look of the older version of Legion HQ, the beautiful spaceship that acted as the Legion’s first club house. Inside they Legionnaires are meeting around a table, communicating the disappointment that was Superboy, and that they will need to find a new member. When suddenly, our Teen of Time appears right in the middle of the table, and offers to make a suggestion for a new member. Himself.

Now hold your horses buckaroo because Cosmic Boy did not enjoy the aggressive entrance. The teen brushes it to the side, and instead tells them that he, Anti-Lad, will easily live up to their standards and they’ll make him their new member. Guaranteed.

Cosmic Boy thinks him smug, and decides to take a little revenge out on Anti-Lad and decides his first trial will be combat.

Quickly Lightning Lad makes an appearance and attempts to stun him with one of his lightning bolts. Anti-Lad absorbs the energy and then fires it right back at LD, putting him out of commission.

Colossal Boy now jumps into the fray sporting his old green and yellow uniform. He puts Anti-Lad in his grasp and grows to giant-size. Suddenly, Colossal Boy weighs a literal ton and sinks to the ground, all caused by Anti-Lad who was able to calculate his weakness and increased his mass.

Finally, Cosmic Boy jumps in and the two taunt each other. Growing impatient Anti-Lad goads him further on, not knowing that CB already had begun his attack by attracting a small meteor swarm from space that was now hurtling right toward him.

Gloating Cosmic Boy watches as the tiny swarm near Anti-Lad when at the last second they boomerang back out to outer-space. Cosmic Boy then slams right into the metallic wall of the clubhouse and is stuck. Anti-Lad had turned his body into a super-magnet.

Releasing Cosmic Boy, Anti-Lad asks if he qualifies to be a Legionnaire. They decide to enter the clubhouse to discuss it. The automated photographer takes a picture of the group to be used as a memento for Anti-Lad in case he doesn’t pass the tests, and which served as the photograph from the beginning of the issue.

Anti-Lad then delves into his past, professing that his super-power is the ability to turn anyone’s strength into a weakness. Brainiac then asks about his visor and Anti-Lad cooly responds that it’s to amplify their sun’s light so that he can see, as the sun on his home world is about 1,000 times brighter.

They shake hands and decide to resume the tests for tomorrow. Brainiac expresses his doubts and believes his story is too perfect. Later that night, Brainy slowly takes the visor off the end-table while Anti-Lad is sleeping and turns on the light. Anti-Lad instantly shields his eyes exposing his back story to be a lie.

Brainy arouses the other Legionnaires and analyzes the visor in front of them. Seeing that it’s an extremely advanced piece of technology, he also finds traces of Kryptonite as well as soil from the 20th century. Anti-Lad then confesses that he followed Lightning Lad, Saturn Girl, and Cosmic Boy back to the 20th century and then used his visor to weaken Superboy. And that’s why he failed the test.

The other Legionnaires are convinced and quietly Anti-Lad presses a switch on his belt that transports him back back to the 75th Century. He also implanted a post-hypnotic command as he left ordering them to have no memory of him once he disappeared. In fact, the only evidence that remained was the picture they took of the meeting. And thus the mystery remains. Forever and ever.

Now for our second story Legionnaires!

Brainiac 5’s Secret Weakness

Star Boy paces in front of a revving cruiser and Saturn Girl tells him to cool up because he’s on furlough and commands him to relax. But how can he? It’s been two whole months since he was last off active duty and he can hardly wait for some R&R, giving us sad proof that America still hasn’t embraced mandatory vacation days.

Brainiac-5 finally arrives and apologizes for being late. Saturn Girl states that Brainy needs the rest probably more than Star Boy. He looks absolutely exhausted and has been pushing himself too hard. Brainy can’t argue with that and rest is indeed what he needs.

They take off with the Legion Cruiser and Brainiac is preoccupied with bittersweet memories of Supergirl. He pines for her because she is the only person he ever truly loved. Distraught he never had the courage to ask her if she felt the same.

Meanwhile a mysterious visitor visits Saturn Girl and Cosmic Boy at Legion HQ and states that she owes them all an explanation.

We return to Star Boy and Brainy who have just arrived on Metroid 7, a man-made paradise of fun and pleasure. Alighting the ship, Brainy decides to check them all in while Star Boy decides what to do. After checking in Brainy heads back out and is startled when he sees Supergirl waiting for him. She tells him that she finally realizes life without him is meaningless, and they kiss.

Star Boy arrives to the hotel and finds out that Brainy had already checked out. The receptionists mentions that he was with a very pretty blonde with an “S” emblem on her shirt. Despite being in disbelief and knowing the “S” stands for hope, Star Boy quickly leaves the hotel and runs after Brainy, finding him holding hands with none other than Supergirl. Brainy tells SB that he’s decided to quit the Legion and tosses his flight ring to him.

Star Boy can hardly believe his ears but Brainy instructs him to say goodbye to others for him. He will miss them dearly.

Star Boy watches the Legion Cruiser take off and stands in shock. He shakes it off and manages to find a trans-special radio and notifies his teammates of Brainy’s decision and they can hardly believe what he’s saying.

Meanwhile Supergirl and Brainiac-5 are jetting in outer space when Brainy detects a deadly Zotron belt of radiation that is so concentrated it will completely vaporize them into nothing.

Supergirl wraps Brainy in her indestructible cape as the particles blast into the ship. Once the rays run their course, Supergirl unwraps Brainy who is incredibly relieved that she was there with him. Confused, Supergirl tells him she was at the base when Star Boy called and she was just in time to save him

She points to a fallen android and tells him that’s what is left of the Supergirl he was running off with. The rays destroyed her clothing and her true appearance is what they see. That of an android.

Brainiac 5 is stunned but the android confirms the story. It tells Brainy how he was driven by such loneliness and yearning for Supergirl, that he had subconsciously constructed it in order to build his own Supergirl. This is why Brainy was so exhausted lately. But Brainy asks the android why did it agree to run off with him if it knew it wasn’t the real Supergirl. The android responds, because Brainy programmed it to love him and replace the void that Supergirl had left in his life. And with then processing its last chip, it shuts down.

Supergirl notices the ship is about to explode and quickly wraps Brainy in her indestructible cape again and brings him back to Legion Headquarters.

She tells him that she is not sure she wants to be a Supergirl anymore. She needs to sort her life out in the 1970’s first before she can become a part-time Legionnaire again like Superboy. And maybe someway, someday, they can be together.

And they kiss, perhaps for the last time.

Creative Team

Basically what we have here are two classic plot tropes that were used quite extensively during this period. You had a rehash of a classic origin story but slightly altered. Then of course you had the robot bait and switch. And we can throw a third one there because there’s hypnotism involved. It’s not to say that these were bad per se, but you do feel like we’ve been treading familiar territory.

Nevertheless, I did find both stories interesting, in particular the first one where only us, the readers, are in on the little secret that Anti-Lad was actually responsible for Superboy joining the Legion, even though he screwed it up. It was a solid story, improved immensely by Mike Grell’s art.

The second story I found more interesting, which had an emotional kick. Though I do wonder why they decided to re-introduce Supergirl while to simply take her off the table again. It was a bit confusing on this aspect, but it was still nice to have a reminder of Brainy’s affection for Supergirl. We could have easily made Brainiac-5 a heartless, emotionless being, so they wisely gave him a love interest. We’ll see more of Supergirl (I think) as we progress.

Though I do have to say, if you subconsciously build an android because you miss someone, and that someone reappears in your life and finds out about said android, I think they would have much more to say than what Supergirl said. Though he did get a kiss out of it. But these are teenagers and we need to have pining for your romantic love interest.

I only have one complaint about Grell’s art here. Brainiac in a couple of panels appears to be really jacked that it was a bit out of place. But that’s just a minor complaint. Mike Grell is still awesome and what’s cool here is that he handles his first two story issue. And he did great. I love Mike Grell.

Finally, we’re at the point I think that we want to see some movement in terms of a threat or a multiple part story. We’re getting interesting insights into certain events, characters and refreshers. But what’s lacking is direction. We’re not really going anywhere. I do hope we can get some galactic level stakes soon.

Super-Talk

We have a remarkable upgrade from the tiny quarter Letters’ page from last issue, and within it some actual very interesting nuggets of information that tells us where we are at this point and why things are the way they are.

First, we have a lot of continued praise for Cary Bates and our dear Dave Cockrum is not even mentioned once. Murray Boltinoff and DC decided to cut the cord. The Editor makes a note and said last time they promised a Mike Grell biography next issue but they couldn’t make it and promise it for next issue. Now come to think of it, they promised the same for Cockrum and kept delaying it. So I wonder if we’ll ever see this Mike Grell biography? I do hope so.

As for the neat tidbits.

Richard Foster asks why they still list the mag’s title as Superboy instead of AND the Legion. This is important because as the title was launched we remember Paul Levitz mentioning the title being Superboy AND the Legion of Super-Heroes and not Starring. So why is it now Starring? Well the answer seems to be simple. In the words of Boltinoff:

“Because it would take a couple of years for the post office to approve the new logo to gain second class entry, which reduces the cost of mailing our subs.”

So there we have one mystery solved. It all boiled down to U.S. Post Office regulation at the time. How about that.

And are we nearing the answer to another mystery? Let’s find out.

We have one comment from Z.B.D., who asserts “I know absence makes the heart grow fonder…but when I must wait two months for an issue of the best comic on the stands, I wonder if something’s amiss.” There are more sentiments to that effect and Boltinoff gives an answer.

According to Boltinoff moving to a monthly publication is risky because sales need to be there, and newsprint needs to become available during the present paper crunch.

So are we not up to par on sales or is it just because of the paper crunch? We continue to have the “Still only 20 cents” on the cover so perhaps when they raise the price this will move to a monthly book? Only time will tell.

Other than that, we have a calling to start selling some Legion costumes and flight rings and for any interested parties to reach out to D.C. directly and that’s about it. But either way it was nice to get a bit more insight into the current commercial challenges of the time and the reasons for the title itself and for it being a bi-monthly book.

Legion Medallion of Merit

This one was a bit difficult because no one really did anything noteworthy that wasn’t moved by plot. Anti-Lad caused the problem he decided to fix and Brainiac was saved by Supergirl who wanted to pop in to let everyone know that she was quitting her temporary Legion status.

So after doing some thinking and page turning, there is one admirable character who did something good. And that is none other than one of my favorite Legionnaires, Star Boy.

Look, Star Boy is a bro. He took Brainiac on vacation and he immediately went into action when he found the love of his life come back drastically to sweep him away. We all know that friend who disappears because they meet someone who is bad for them, and we know it’s a lose lose situation. And Star Boy knew that to. He didn’t say his mind or try to wedge himself between them. Instead, he asked for help from friends. This not only gave him the support he needed, but it allowed nature to run its course and he got his friend back.

So here’s your medal Star Boy. You’re a good bro and wingman. May this medal forever remind Brainiac-5 that it is indeed bros before…I don’t think you can say this anymore, so we’ll leave it at that.

Next issue will be a 100-page Super Spectacular! Our second one!

And as always…

LONG LIVE THE LEGION!