Adventure Comics 290
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Contents
The Secret of the Seventh Super-Hero
(14 pages/76 panels)
A Clark Kent lookalike on the lam from reform school rides the train, hobo-style, into Smallville. He soon finds that everyone mistakes him for Clark, and he's given a ride to the Kent house by Chief Parker.
Meanwhile, Superboy hears a radio report of a strange globe landing just outside of town. He tries to activate his robots, but they don't work, so he flies off to investigate on his own. In his absence, the lookalike is let inside the house by Ma Kent, who, not suspecting the difference, feeds the boy and sends him off to school.
Superboy arrives at the globe to find it is a Legion Time Bubble manned by a previously unknown member, to him at least, named Sun Boy. The Legionnaire says he was sent to recover a weapon the Legion hid in this time in six pieces (each in a lead box with the face of a Legionnaire on the end). Superboy offers to collect the parts.
While Superboy is collecting the boxes from all over the globe, he sees the Clark Lookalike fool ever-suspicious Lana Lang and, so unlike Clark, actually stand up to a bully. The lookalike finds he actually enjoys school, leading him to threaten blackmail to take over his new Clark Kent role premenatly when he discovers the real clark is Superboy.
Sun Boy, now also revealed to be an imposter, rebuilds the robot from the parts collected by Superboy, sending it and its good/evil personality reversal ray off to work on Clark. Unfortunatly, the robot finds the lookalike and turns him permenatly good, while also wiping his memory of Superboy's secret. The lookalike vows to serve out his time at reform school and then find a real home, leaving Superboy to melt down the robot and ship the fake Sun Boy through time to a meeting of the Legion of Super-Heroes.
He was on to the ruse the whole time, he says, because the fake Sun Boy did not use the secret Legion handshake.
First appearances
This issue marks the first appearance of the following characters and recurring key Legion story elements:
Notes of Interest
Other stories in this issue
There is an additional story that does not feature the Legion - "The Invasion of the Bizarro World"
Reprints
This Legion story has been reprinted in the following:
