Adventure Comics 501

Adventure Comics #501 Preboot » Pre-Crisis Reprint Cover by Ed Hannigan and Charles Paris Story title Various Previous story Adventure Comics #500 (previous chronological reprints) Next story Adventure Comics #502 (next chronological reprints) Cover date July 1983 Creators Writer(s) n/a Penciller(s) n/a Inker(s) n/a Letterer(s) n/a Colourist(s) n/a Editor(s) Nicola Cuti Cover artist(s) Ed Hannigan and Charles Paris

Background

Adventure Comics was the birthplace of the Legion and its longtime home. After almost 500 issues of publication, it became primarily a series of reprints. Featured each month was a chronological re-presentation of the Legion's earliest tales, two in each issue, beginning with their first appearance.

Reprinted material

Original publication source is noted for each.

• Plastic Man in "Codename: Pinkeye!" - Adventure Comics #469 (March, 1980)
• The Legion in "The Super-Villains of All Ages!" – Adventure Comics #314 (November, 1963)
• Captain Marvel in "The Chameleon Stone!" – Captain Marvel Adventures #91 (December, 1948)
• The Spectre in "The Ghost That Haunted Money!" – The Spectre #7 (November/December, 1968)
• The Ray in "Music Hath Charm"- Smash #17 (December, 1940)
• Aquaman in "As the Seas Die" – Aquaman #49 (January/February, 1970)
• The Legion in "The Legionnaires' Super-Contest!" – Adventure Comics #315 (December, 1963)

The issue also includes two Legion related "mini-posters" - one-page pinups in this digest-sized format. They depict Ultra Boy and the Legion of Substitute Heroes.

The Story Behind the Stories

The two Legion reprints included in each issue of the digest-sized Adventure Comics were the feature attraction. As an added bonus to Legion fans, a running commentary about that issue's reprinted Legion stories was provided each month by Paul Levitz, who was the writer of the Legion's current series while the Adventure digests were being produced. Years later, these commentaries are the primary point of interest (other than the reprinted stories themselves), so the full text is provided below:

Now that our five hundredth issue special is over, we're returning to our usual two Legion stories per issue format to continue our chronological reprinting of the series. The episodes in this issue are typical of the Ed Hamilton-written period of the Legion, taking the characters rapidly from planet to planet and inventing whole new sections of the galaxy at a shot. Despite that, most of Hamilton's stories had fairly limited casts of characters and scope, as in general characterization was sacrificed for plot elements.

"The Super-Villains of All Ages", (ADVENTURE #314, November, 1963), is perhaps most interesting because it marks the first time that the Legion's "Big Three" emerged - Superboy, Mon-El and Ultra Boy clearly being identified as the three mightiest Legionnaires. It's the first major use of Ultra Boy since the series began, and the first time his non-vision powers are played up. Unfortunately, the mind-possession theme of the story prevents readers from getting any clues to Ultra Boy's personality, but that would be remedied (in spades) two issues later when he became the focal point of the Legion's first full-length story (coming in #502 next month!). One more interesting Ultra Boy fact emerges, which is the susceptibility to radiation that he demonstrates in some early stories. It's never been clearly established in LSH chronicles where that weakness comes from, or to what extent it affects him.

Other tid-bits of interest in this story are the emergence of the Time Bubble as a vehicle for moving the characters around, and the security of the clubhouse as pivotal to LSH effectiveness. Many stories since then have touched on those themes (notably the first Universo tale some three years later, which used both). Also worthy of note is the continuing chauvinism of the time, as the LSH asks the villains to "spare Saturn Girl"...a bit silly, especially since she was the elected leader of the team at that time.

A last curiosity is the debut of Ronn Kar of Neptune, whose unexciting ability to turn paper-thin is so aptly demonstrated by series artist John Forte. Clearly a throwaway character, Ronn Kar came back years later as a regular member of the Legion of Super-Villains, to everyone's surprise.

Our other tale, "The Legionnaires' Super-Contest" (ADVENTURE #315, December, 1963) by the same creative team, is more interesting. The third tale to feature the Substitutes, it more clearly defines the relationships between the two teams. Shooter and Swan's Adult Legion story of some years later postulated that the two teams would eventually merge, and part of the groundwork for that event is laid here...clearly there's a firm grounding of respect for the Subs. It's rather a shame that Night Girl's unrequited love for Cosmic Boy, established in the previous appearance of the Subs, isn't followed up on here.

There are two other interesting items in ADVENTURE #315 which we haven't reprinted, but are probably of interest to our LSH fans. The letter column for that issue featured a missive explaining an apparent discrepancy in the story in which Lightning Lad was resurrected, demonstrating that Superboy would not lose his powers under a blue sun. The interesting part? The letter writer was one E. Nelson Bridwell of Oklahoma City, Okla., later a LSH writer and still a sterling part of our DC team. The other was a cameo appearance by Colossal Boy in the Superboy back-up in that issue...a story in which Superboy is changed to giant size by Red Kryptonite and Colossal Boy goes back through time to help save his secret identity. We're not counting that as canonical LSH material because the appearance is so fleeting, but we thought we'd tell you about it.

– Paul Levitz