Adventure Comics 495

Adventure Comics #495 Preboot » Pre-Crisis Reprint Cover artwork by Ross Andru and Dick Giordano Story title Various Previous story Adventure Comics #494 (previous chronological reprints) Next story Adventure Comics #496 (next chronological reprints) Publication date October 7, 1982 Cover date January 1983 Creators Writer(s) Robert Bernstein, Jerry Siegel Penciller(s) George Papp, Curt Swan Inker(s) George Klein, George Papp Letterer(s) Joe Letterese, Milton Snapinn Colourist(s) Unknown Editor(s) Carl Gafford (reprint), Mort Weisinger (original material) Cover artist(s) Ross Andru, Dick Giordano

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 9th and 10th appearances in that chronology.

Reprinted Legion stories

	2nd reprint of The Secret of the Seventh Super-Hero! – Adventure Comics #290 - September 28, 1961
	2nd reprint of The Legion of Super-Traitors! – Adventure Comics #293 - December 28, 1961

Other Stories in this Issue

This digest also contains additional stories with no Legion content, including:

• The Challengers of the Unknown in "Yesterdays Clues!" - New material
• Aquaman in "Underworld Reward!" (Part 1) – Aquaman #44 (March/April, 1969)
• Captain Marvel in "The Man Without a World!" – Captain Marvel Adventures #141 (February, 1953)
• The Spectre in "Die, Spectre -- Again!" – The Spectre #2 (January/February, 1968)

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:

The chronological reprinting of the early adventures of the Legion of Super-Heroes picks up steam this issue, as we begin the period which neatly seques into their own series. The first eight canonical Legion stories have already been featured in ADVENTURE COMICS DIGEST #491-494, and now we're already at the point where the Legion is an established part of the "Superman Family" of characters used by then editor Mort Weisinger to liven up the various Superman titles by occassional appearances. The plus side of this for the early Legion fans was the regular appearances of their heroes - the negative was the heavy burden of having fallen into a bit of a formula before their first series story.

"The Secret of the Seventh Super-Hero" (originally from ADVENTURE COMICS #290, November, 1961) is representative of that formula... as to a lesser degree is our second story. This early formula basically consisted of a new Legionnaire being introduced (or in Sun Boy's case in this tale, being featured prominently for the first time) and journeying to Superboy's time on some mission or another. The rest of the team stayed way in the background, if they appeared at all, and no use was made of the thirtieth century's potential for science fiction and fantastic adventure. The formula was used before with Star Boy and would return with Ultra Boy in a tale we'll reprint next issue.

As we mentioned before, there's another important oddity to this issue's first Legion reprint - when it was first published, it was almost a reprint. Almost exactly a hundred issues earlier, in ADVENTURE COMICS #191 (August, 1953), a story called "The Two Clark Kents" had featured the exact same plotline about the juvenile delinquent who looked like Clark - except that instead of the Sun Boy/Legion plot, there was a tale about hostages and armored cars woven in. Even some of the dialogue was reproduced exactly. Weisinger did this from time to time, and no one is sure just why.

Otherwise, the story is rather unexceptional as Legion lore - even the idea of a secret Legion handshake serving as a deus ex machina to resolve the mystery helps rather than hinders the excitement. Our other selection is the more interesting.

In "The Legion of Super-Traitors" (ADVENTURE COMICS #293, February, 1962 - the closeness of the two appearances showing how the popularity of the characters was building) features the usual small errors in continuity common in the Legion's early years - a Time "Cabinet" instead of Time Bubble - but is one of the first stories to tie together diverse elements of the Weisinger version of Superman's universe.

Here for the first time, the Legionnaires meet Mon-El, who steps from the Phantom Zone to try to aid Superboy - and who would next reappear as a member of the LSH. Krypto, Beppo, Streaky, Supergirl, the Phantom Zone, and even Comet - the super-horse who had not yet been introduced in Supergirl's series - all came together. The Legionnaires would meet this "Legion of Super-Pets" again a couple of times in their own series, but it obviously was not an idea with a lot of life to it.

More long lasting was a problem poised in this issue - what information could Superboy be given about his own future (in this case, about the future existence of a Supergirl who was his cousin) and what would have to be withheld. As long time Legion fans know, this was resolved by the use of a "post-hypnotic command given Superboy by Saturn Girl ordering him to forget information about his own future when he returned to his own time." But that is still part of the Legion's future... a future we shall return to, next issue, for two Legion-Supergirl stories.

– Paul Levitz

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Reprint
Adventure Comics #494  By continuity Adventure Comics #496
Adventure Comics #494  By series Adventure Comics #496
Legion of Super-Heroes v2 #294  By publication Legion of Super-Heroes v2 #295