Adventure Comics 312
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Contents
The Super-Sacrifice of the Legionnaires!
Synopsis
Part I
Mon-El returns from his home world, Daxam, with the sad news that he has found no way to revive the deceased Lightning Lad, as he promised. However, Saturn Girl picks up a thought from him that he is lying. Before she can probe his mind further, Mon-El guards his thoughts.
The Legionnaires pledge to find some way to restore Lightning Lad to life, and head out to various worlds in search of clues. Superboy flies to a planet where its temporarily deceased inhabitants are revived by exposure to a blue sun; he fashions gases from the sun into a mini blue sun, but its radiation fails to restore Lightning Lad. Saturn Girl stays close to Mon-El so she can learn what he is concealing; together, they visit the planet of the fabled Taroc beast, which dies and comes back to life. But they observe that the Taroc is merely reborn in a new body from its old, which will not help Lightning Lad. As they visit Lightning Lad’s body on the lightning world, Saturn Girl picks up another alarming thought from Mon-El: that he knows how to revive Lightning Lad but doesn’t want to.
Part II: The Bravest Legionnaire
Sun Boy, Lightning Lass, and Chameleon Boy, who is accompanied by his pet, Proty, are diverted from their quest by a distress call from the Interplanetary Post Office. Lightning Lass initially wants to ignore the distress call, as it will mean delaying their quest to revive her brother, but Sun Boy reminds her that their oath as Legionnaires comes first. The Legionnaires save the Interplanetary Post Office from being attacked by space-serpents, but two postal workers have already died. The Legionnaires take the corpses with them to the advanced planet Skor, where a scientist revives the postal workers by placing them inside a radium-capsule; however, the same technique fails to work on Lightning Lad, whose atoms have been damaged.
Saturn Girl tricks Mon-El into taking her to Daxam, where she overhears a doctor ask Mon-El if he has tried the method he recommended to revive Lightning Lad. When Saturn Girl confronts Mon-El, he admits to lying. Returning to the lightning world, he uses androids to demonstrate the technique he has learned: using a metal wand as a lightning rod to transfer the essence of one person into another. Unfortunately, the first android or person dies. In order to revive Lightning Lad, Mon-El states, one of the Legionnaires must use this method to sacrifice himself or herself. Mon-El had planned to do so in secret, but couldn’t get away from Saturn Girl.
The Legionnaires decide to gather around Lightning Lad’s coffin, each holding a metal wand so that one of them will randomly sacrifice himself or herself. However, Saturn Girl secretly makes her wand out of duralim, a super-conductor, in order to increase her odds of being sacrificed. But her plan is interrupted when she sees Proty wander into a cave and goes to retrieve the pet.
The Legionnaires – Superboy, Mon-El, Saturn Girl, Lightning Lass, Sun Boy, and Chameleon Boy – gather around Lightning Lad’s coffin and hold their wands to the sky. A lightning bolt strikes Saturn Girl’s wand and transfers her essence into Lightning Lad, which revives him. But when the Legionnaires turn to Saturn Girl, they see Proty’s body instead of hers. The real Saturn Girl emerges from the cave and reveals that Proty, who could read her thoughts, tricked her into getting lost so it could sacrifice itself instead.
Lightning Lad pledges to try to be worthy of the sacrifice his comrades were willing to make on his behalf.
Key Quotes and Catchphrases
Critique
Roll Call
Legionnaires
- Chameleon Boy
- Lightning Lad (restored to life in this story)
- Lightning Lass
- Mon-El
- Saturn Girl
- Sun Boy
- Superboy
Villains
None
Supporting characters
- Proty (dies in this story; but see Reboot Reference Kit, below)
Other characters
- An unnamed Daxamite doctor
- An unnamed Skor scientist
- Inhabitants of the unnamed world in galactic sector AB-213
- Employees of the Interplanetary Post Office
Planets and Settings
- Korbal (unnamed; referred to only as Lightning World)
- Unnamed planet in galactic sector AB-213 (“the farthest end of the galaxy”)
- Skor and its Science Foundation
- Interplanetary Post Office
- Worlds listed on the interplanetary clock at Legion Headquarters
- Aarok
- Brocz
- Kando
- Nobla (?; printing in reprint unclear)
- Yar
- Zanno
Technology, Gadgets and Other Neat Stuff
- Duralim (super-conductor metal)
- ”Mechanical-librarian” computer
- Radium-capsules from Skor
Alien Wildlife
- Taroc
- Space-serpents
Notes
Errors and Oddities
- This won’t be the last story in which Superboy endangers his life – and all of history. If he succeeds in sacrificing himself to revive Lightning Lad, he won’t grow up to become Superman. (See also Reboot Reference Kit, below.)
- Chameleon Boy once again has almost nothing to do in this story. As with Adventure 308, he is here mainly so his pet, Proty, can play a significant role.
- Aarok, a planet listed on the Interplanetary Clock at Legion HQ, was the name of XS's home planet in the Post-Zero Hour continuity.
First appearances
This issue marks the first appearance of the following characters and recurring key Legion story elements:
Powers and abilities
Reboot Reference Kit
Pre Crisis-derived continuities
- Post-Crisis: Superboy really hails from a pocket dimension created by the Time Trapper; therefore, he never grows up to become Superman. (But, of course, the Legionnaires don’t know this at the time of this story.)
- 5YL/Glorithverse: Per Legion of Super-Heroes Annual v4 #3, Proty survives this story after all, when his consciousness is transferred along with his life essence into Lightning Lad’s body. In other words, the Lightning Lad who lives from this point forward is really Proty! Laurel Gand replaces Superboy, Mon-El becomes Valor.
- Retroboot: During the Lightning Saga, Superman and the Legion refer to Lightning Lad's resurrection from this issue.
Adaptations in non-Pre-Crisis-derived continuities
- Reboot/Post-Zero Hour: While it does not require a sacrifice, the apparatus used to revive the just-deceased Spark and restore her lightning powers in Legion of Super-Heroes v4 #102 after she gets herself killed trying to reverse her power change on Korbal bears a distinct resemblance to the chamber from this issue.
Other
Other stories in this issue
There is an additional story that does not feature the Legion - "Clark Kent, He-Man"
Reprints
This Legion story has been reprinted in the following:
Adventure Comics #403 (March/April 1971)
Adventure Comics #500 ( June 1983)
See also
- Legion Publication History - Other issues published 1950-1964
- Legion Publication History - Other issues of Adventure Comics
- Pre-Crisis Chronology
- Quick index of links to other Adventure Comics issues
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