Adventure Comics 494
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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. This issue presents the 7th and 8th appearances in that chronology.
Reprinted material
Original publication source is noted for each.
- Part 2 of the Untold Origin of the Challengers of the Unknown - new material
- The first appearance of Mon-El in "Superboy's Big Brother" – Superboy v1 #89 (June, 1961)
- Aquaman continues his quest for Mera in "To Win Is To Lose" – Aquaman #43 (January/February, 1969)
- Captain Marvel battles the World's greatest enemy in "Captain Marvel Faces Fear!" – Captain Marvel Adventures #89 (October, 1948)
- Superman confronts "The Legion of Super-Villains" – Superman v1 #147 (August, 1961)
- The Spectre pursues "The Sinister Lives of Captain Skull!" – The Spectre #1 (November/December, 1967)
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:
- As we continue our chronological reprinting of the Legion of Super-Heroes stories, we come to the seventh and eighth adventures... neither from ADVENTURE COMICS as these still pre-date the start of the Legion's series of adventures in this title.
- "Superboy's Big Brother" (from SUPERBOY #89, June, 1961) has no internal evidence that it was planned as any part of the Legion saga. The character of Mon-El as featured in the story was an interesting addition to editor Mort Weisinger's concept of a "Superman family" of characters that appeared and reappeared in the various Superman-related titles, and it seems clear that that's the sole role the unknown author planned for him. Even the original end tag of the story plugged a future issue of SUPERMAN in which the Man of Steel would visit the Phantom Zone.
- Mon-El was not connected to the Legion until over a year later, when he joined the team in their very first series story in ADVENTURE COMICS #300. We include this story as part of the canons of the Legion, however, because it served to introduce him and set up other elements important to future Legion stories: Mon-El's presence in the Zone would be an important plot factor in at least two Legion solo stories, his acquaintenceship with Lana Lang would show up again, and finally, the planet Daxam itself would be pivotal to the current storyline in the Legion (which you're still in time to get in on the epic conclusion of, if you keep your eye's out for #294's sensational double-size issue!)
- More interesting to the Legion mythos is our second selection, "The Legion of Super-Villains" from SUPERMAN #147, August, 1961. Not only did this introduce one of the most important Legion villain teams, but it also began the long Adult Legion debate. This (and a series of subsequent stories culminating in ADVENTURE COMICS #354-355) established destinies for the Legionnaires unhinted at in the current stories.
- Luthor's belief in the existence of the Super-Villains harkens back to his meeting with Lightning Lad in "The Army of Living Kryptonite Men", which we reprinted two issues ago. This would be his only meeting with the Adult villains, but his descendent would play a critical role in defeating them years later.
- More interesting was the origin detail revealed in the story. This was the first place we learned of the Lightning Monsters of Korbal, or the fact that Lightning Lad had a brother. It would be another two years before it would be revealed that sister Ayla was present too. The unsimilarity between Cosmic King's origin and Cosmic Boy's has never made a lot of sense, but clearly it does foreshadow Element Lad's existence. Finally, the fact that Saturn's rings cancel out criminality and that its inhabitants are all mentalists of one sort or another has also become pivotal in the mythos.
- The peculiar costumes of the Adult Legionnaires are easier to explain than the fact that they still rely on the cumbersome jet-packs. This was one of the last times when the costumes were drawn wildly incorrectly (as opposed to typical small errors that creep into many stories), whereas the "stalled" technology of the future relates to the fact that neither the writers nor the artists could foresee the flying belts or flight rings which would change the whole look of the Legion.
- Finally, and most importantly, this story introduced a new artist to the Legion: Curt Swan, who would later draw their series for several years (coming in third on the list of all-time number of Legion stories pencilled after Forte and Grell), and who drew most of the Superman family covers featuring the Legion as well.
- – Paul Levitz
