Cover Cavalcade

 

July is Adventure Comics month. Here's a Curt Swan cover from 1958,

Great Darkness Saga--Part 5

 

Legion of Super-Heroes #294 (December 1982) brings the epic Great Darkness Saga to an appropriately epic conclusion. It really is one of the best written and dramatically satisfying endings to a comic book story arc ever produced. Both Paul Levitz' script and Keith Giffen's art mesh perfectly, bringing together the various elements of the story into perfect dramatic harmony.

It's actually difficult to do justice to this issue with a straightforward summary, since there are so many individual "Wow, that's cool!" moments within the story. Basically, the mysterious baby turns out to be the Highfather re-born, who quickly reaches adulthood this issue. Though without the same level of power he had back in the 20th Century, he is able to give Darkseid a hard time, with his best move being turning the Servant clone of Orion into a "real" Orion, who promptly battles the villain. 

 Superboy and Supergirl, protected from red sun radiation by Brainiac 5-built devices, also pummel Darkseid. None of this is enough to take him down and, in fact, he regains the upper hand in the fight. But it distracts him enough to lose control of the billions of Daxamites he's been using. Knowing he can't win, Darkseid takes his planet and goes home--disappearing with Apokolips from the cosmos.

As I said, within this basic story, there are many, many individual cool moments, even beyond the appearance of a restored Orion or the Kryptonians' surprise attack. For instance, to prevent the Daxamites from rampaging across the galaxy, the Legion calls in other superpowered beings. This gives us cameos from characters such as the Wanderers, the Heroes of Lallor, the Legion of Substitute Heroes and a survivor of Krypton named Dev-em. 

These cameos are presented in a series of vertical panels that effectively highlight the action, allow us to follow the complicated story without problem, and simply look cool. It's mentioned that the Daxamites, because they are being mind controlled and not used to superpowers, are fighting ineffectively. That allows those heroes on a lower power level (everyone except Dev-em and Lallor's Duplicate Boy) to be able to at least temporarily hold back the horde. It is, within the context of the rules of the DC Universe, reasonable. Though I will forever wonder what good Color Kid is doing shooting a beam of rainbow light at someone with Superboy-level powers. 

Other cool moments include Chameleon Boy, without access to his shape-changing power, outsmarting a Daxamite who is out to get him; Light Lass and Shadow Lass desperately trying to defend Baby Highfather against Darkseid; and Darkseid's takedown of most of the Legion with one brutal burst of nigh-omnipotent power.

But, as I said, the good guys win in the end.

The Great Darkness Saga is a high point in the stories of the Pre-Crisis Legion--a title that was already filled with awesome moments. It seamlessly melds the Superhero and Space Opera genres into one of the best stories ever. 

Next week, we return again to visit the Super Friends. 

The Great Darkness Saga, Part 4

 

Legion of Super-Heroes #293 (November 1982, w: Paul Levitz; a: Keith Giffen) brings us to the fourth part of The Great Darkness Saga and, boy, it's a dozy.

After the events of the last issue, The Legion has spread out across the galaxy in teams, trying to find a trace of the Masters or his Servants. In addition to this, we return to Legion HQ a few times, where Mon-el is still in a coma and the mysterious baby is being kept. On top of that, we see the Master carrying out the next (very important) part of his plan.  All this is weaved together throughout, with our point-of-view switching rapidly between characters. 

I mentioned in our look at Part 3 that the story as a whole is expertly constructed. This chapter is arguably the best representation of that. Despite the rapid changes of perspective (used to advance the story, remind us of important plot points and advance the plot as a whole), we never lose track of what's going on. 

For simplicity's sake, I'll talk about this issue one plot point at a time. At Legion HQ, we are reminded that Mon-el is out of action, but also that the mysterious baby--somehow meant to be who defeats the Master, The kid is getting rapidly older and, when no one is looking, there's a definite hint that he might have impressive powers.

In the meantime, one team of Legionaires is searching a devestated planet that is supposed to be Daxam. But the Master has alread used his enormous power to switch Daxam's position with his own, burnt-out home planet. Daxam is now revolving around a yellow sun. We'll get back to this in a moment.

On the not-Daxam world revolving around a red sun, the Legion team is ambushed by the Servants. More Legionairs show up and a battle royale ensues. And it's a great battle--well-choreographed and with the various characters using their powers in intelligent ways.

Remember that the Legion now knows the nature of two of the Servants. One of them is a clone of a Guardian, who are susceptable to the color yellow. Wildfire destroys this Servant with a burst of yellow radiation.

Another Servant is a clone of Superman. Superboy joins the fight, protected from the red sun by a Braniac Five-invented device. The Servant manages to destroy this and Superboy is soon in trouble. But Element Lad encases Superboy in a lead shield to protect him from Kryptonite radiation, then turns some of the surrounding landscape into gold Kryotonite, which strips the clone of its powers. Timber Wolf is then able to destroy it.

The remaining Servants flee. The Legion has won an important battle, but they haven't won the war.

The Master has mind-controlled the entire population of Daxam. And, since he's transferred their planet to an orbit around a yellow sun, they all have Superman-level powers.

If you don't know about Daxamites, then turn in your geek card. Daxamites are just like Kryptonians, gaining super powers under a yellow sun. But their weakness is lead, which affects them the way Kryptonite affects Krytonians. Since lead is a common substance throughout the universe, it means that Daxamites must stick to their lead-free planet. (Mon-el has a lead poisoning antidote provided to him by Braniac Five, which is why he can travel about as a Legionaire.)

The Master orders his army of three billion Daxamites to fry the surface of their own planet with their heat vision, obliterating his civilization. Then, before sending out his army (three billion Supermen, Superboys and Supergirls), he has them reshape the planet into the shape of his own head--a monument to himself. It's here we finally find out who the Master is:

It's the perfect dramatic moment for this reveal. To keep the mystery going longer might have gotten a little tiresome and its now more effective to raise tension for us to know who he is and what his plan is. 

There's still unsolved mysteries--most importantly the identify of the baby back at Legion HQ. And, as we've discussed in the past, at least a few attentive readers with a good knowledge of the DC Universe would have deduced Darkseid's identity already. But the final panel in this issue is still one of the best surprise reveals in the history of comics.

Next week, we'll stay in the DC Univese. Well, sort of. We'll visit a version of that Universe when we look in on the Super Friends. 

The Great Darkness Saga, Part 1

 

cover art by Keith Giffen

Though a few hints setting up "The Great Darkness Saga" had appeared in a few issues prior to this, it's in Legion of Super-Heroes #290 (August 1982) that the story really took off.

Writer Paul Levitz and artists Keith Giffen (breakdowns) & Larry Mahlstedt (finished art) jump right into the action. Something had attacked the Museum of Mystic Arts in Metropolis, but had not found what it was looking for. When a team of legionaires investigate, the something (a "Servant of Darkness" whose origin and purpose are as yet unknow) returns. There's a fight, but the creature proves able to take on even the uber-powerful heroes such as Superboy and Wildfire.

The powers the Servant uses--super-strength and a freezing breath--will eventually turn out to be a hint to its origin. But for the moment, the important thing is that it curb stomps the Legionaires and makes a getaway through a space warp with a powerful magic artifact.

In fact, we learn that a number of magic artifacts have been stolen. The most powerful item NOT yet stolen would be King Arthur's sword Excaliber, which is stored in the Tower of London.

Yet another Servant of Darkness does indeed go after the sword. The Legion puts up a better fight this time, with brand-new member Invisible Kid making his own contribution. But, in the end, the bad guy still gets away with the sword.

We the readers get to find out a little more than the Legionaires know at the moment, as the scene flashes to an apparently dead world, where we see the two Servants we've met plus three others gathered around their as-yet-unidentified boss. 

One of the fun elements of this issue is the effective way it drops in hints to whom the big boss might be and to the nature of his Servants. The main villain will, of course, turn out to be Darkseid. (Hey, it's been forty years! Spoiler bans have elapsed!) A reader nowadays who is familar with the DC Universe would probably guess this pretty quickly. This is especially true when (a few pages from now) we see one of the Servants using a flying devise just like Darkseid's son Orion and is even referred to as "My son" by the villain. Also, we do see Darkseid in silhouette a couple of times clearly enough to give it away.

A year or so before this story arc was published, Darkseid had been the bad guy in one of the JLA/JSA annual crossovers. He popped up in a few other places, but he had not yet racked up a lot of Frequent Villain Miles outside of Kirby's New Gods books. To quote a fellow member of the "DC Comics: When They Were Fun" Facebook group: Like his contemporary, Thanos, Darkseid was considered a pretty major threat, but did not have the comparative prominence that say, Dr. Doom or Luthor enjoyed. They were known, but not quite to the heights of apex level villainy that they later acheived. 

Another member of that group said: I guessed that it was Darkseid but it was not someone that many readers guessed. DC kept many villains compartmentalized then and the Legion really didn't utilize any 20th century villains/ characters outside Superboy and Supergirl. This was before company crossovers. Also this was before advance solicitations and the internet. So all in all, it was well done.

Perhaps this was the perfect time to make him a suprise villain, dropping a few hints first with confidence that it might not be too obvious.

More magic items are being stolen on the planet Talok VII, so the team heads there. 

A female Servant shows up to steal a magic orb. When she gets into trouble, the Orion-like Servant warps in to help out.

The female is captured, but the other Servant escapes with the orb. The prisoner is brought back to Legion HQ, where she gives the computer fits when it tries to analyze her. Meanwhile, the main villain absorbs the magic from the various stolen artifacts and prepares to move on with the next phase of his plan.

Because I want to concentrate on the main plot, I'm giving short shrift to the various subplots involving different characters that carry over from previous issues. I will say, though, that these subplots were largely a strength of Levitz's run as writer--relationships form, characters grow, etc. Occasionally, these character arcs dripped just a little too much into soap opera territory, but 95.3% of the time they helped make the heroes likeable and relatable.

The storytelling is exciting and the art work is strong. I've already mentioned the hints dropped throughout the story about Darkseid and his Servants, which I consider another plus. 

I always enjoy the casual way everyone accepts the existance of magic alongside all the super-science of the 30th Century. Of course, magic and science have always co-existed in the DC (and, for that matter, Marvel) universe. I always appreciate it when the characters who live in that universe simply accept this and move on with the story.

We'll discuss the second part of this story in two weeks. Next week, we'll look at another Scooby-Doo tale. 

Cover Cavalcade

A Curt Swan cover from 1961. I want one of these as a pet.

Space Canine Patrol Agents

Cover art by Curt Swan

 One of the strengths of the Silver Age of Comics was its willingness to get a little silly from time to time.

Well, actually, "Decoy of the Doom Statues," from Superboy #136 (March 1967), was more than a little silly. It was a lot silly. But the writer, Otto Binder, was really, really good at being silly. When he wrote a script, being silly was a strength and never a weakness. His Golden and Silver Age tales often drip with fun and charm generated by the silliness.

This story (with art by George Papp) is a perfect example of this.

This is the second of three stories featuring the Space Canine Patrol Agents, intelligent alien dogs with superpowers who fight evil. And, as you can see from the above panels, tend to be a bit harsh when rejected Patrol applicants who don't quite make the cut.

Krypto had become a member and is visiting their headquarters when Prophetic Pup, a potential applicant, is told that if his next three predictions come true, then he can join. Two relatively innocuous predictions do come true. The third is that Superboy will be placed in danger by a hound, but then rescued by another hound.

In the meantime, a planet of intelligent dogs is endangered by a swarm of giant fleas. The SCPA responds. This turns out to be a plan by the evil cats of Black Cat World.

This, of course, is one of the reasons I secretly believe that comic books are true histories rather than fantasies. In this story, the dogs are heroic and the cats are evil. JUST LIKE IN REAL LIFE! AHA!

Anyway, shenanigans ensue. The fleas are stopped and most of the cat gang is captured, though Krypto is briefly endangered by kryptonite and has to be rescued by Superboy.  But one cat escapes and, with the help of evil Kryptonian cats who are trapped in the Phantom Zone, lures Superboy and Krypto into a kryptonite trap.

So it turns out that Krypto is the hound that inadvertently lures Superboy into danger.

The villains dump the dying heroes outside Smallville because of... reasons. The cats are just plain mean. Other dogs from the Space Patrol are visiting, but they too busy goofing around to leave much chance of finding Clark and Krypto.

But remember that Prophesy Pup said a hound would rescue Superboy. In this case, it's an autograph hound, who was on his way to visit a nearby movie set.

A Comic Book Universe needs an occasional dose of silliness and whimsy. Otto Binder is the perfect writer for providing us with those qualities. I love knowing that the Space Canine Patrol is actually a thing. The universe would be a poorer place indeed without it.

Next week, we'll finish up the Hutec trilogy in Turok, Son of Stone.

Incompetent Alien Invaders and a Mom who Needs to be Put in a Home.

The above image is the first page of a Superboy story titled "The Stolen Identities," first published in Adventure Comics #270 (March 1960). I'm tempted to say that the story subtly represents any teenager who feels disconnected from his parents or feels they are ruining his life. You could also look at how the aliens do their jobs so poorly and call the story a condemnation of inefficient government bureaucracies.

But I'm not going to go there. It's not impossible that writer Jerry Siegel was consciously dealing with teenage angst, but I would guess that he was primarily just trying to have fun. And in that, he succeeds. This story is quirky, silly fun from start to finish.

By the way, I own this story as a reprint in a 1976 book titled Four Star Spectacular. The story there is credited to Otto Binder. This is apparently a mistake, as every other source I check--including the DC wiki and the Grand Comics Database, credit it to Siegel. I can understand the error, though. The quirkiness of the story does give it an Otto Binder feel.

It all begins with Ma and Pa Kent being teleported to an alien world. The assumption at first is that they are now in another solar system. But actually, they are on a sub-atomic world located somewhere on Earth.

A couple of aliens disguise themselves as the Kents and return to Earth. Their mission is to locate the atom on which their world exists and take it some place safe. It's a reasonable mission, but they don't trust us Earth people enough to ask us for help.

The aliens soon prove to be rather ineffectual. Despite having observed the Kents long enough to be able to create perfect disguises, including voices and mannerisms, they completely missed the fact that the Kents' son is the most powerful being in the world. Also, their teleporter breaks down, so they can't ask for reinforcements.

They finally give themselves away when "Pa Kent" mistakes the toaster for his breakfast and tries to eat it.





Sadly, us Earth people aren't looking that good either. Ma Kent blurts out of nowhere that Superboy is vulnerable to Kryptonite. Yes, Clark, it's time. Sad as it is, it's time to start looking into an assisted living home for your parents.

The aliens find some Red Kryptonite without knowing this isn't the deadly kind and load it into a ray gun. They repeatedly zap Superboy in hopes that they'll destroy him, but instead the Red K just does a series of bizarre things to the Boy of Steel. First he's turned fat, which costs him a date with Lana. (Gee whiz, Lana, a bit shallow there, aren't you?) Then he's turned tiny. Then he's turned into a giant.

I actually think there's a continuity error here concerning Superboy's mythology. A particular piece of Red K is only supposed to affect him once. But maybe the alien ray gun altered the radiation somehow, so what the heck.


While all this is happening, Superboy learns about the atomic world. Using his Super Vision, he locates the appropriate atom at the top of the Empire State Building and gives it a safe resting place at the bottom of the ocean. The aliens are grateful and, after finally repairing their teleporter, send the Kents back home.

I love this story. Yes, it's silly, but it unashamedly embraces its silliness and jumps wildly from one plot point to another--but does so without ever seriously violating its own internal logic.

Stories like "The Stolen Identities" are models for why I love comic books from this era. These are stories that knew a superhero universe could never truly be realistic and that it was wrong to even try to make it so. These are stories that will walk down whatever path Comic Book Logic leads them, holding their heads high, feeling neither shame nor embarrassment as Superboy gets turned into a fat kid by aliens pretending to be his parents.

A Legion-Full of Heroes

It took a little while to work out the continuity for the Legion of Super Heros. In their initial appearance in Adventure Comics #247 (April 1958), they were from the 30th Century. This story was written by Otto

Binder, in which several Legionnaires travel back in time to meet Superboy (their inspiration) and bring him into the future to join the Legion.

A few of their subsequent early appearances had them coming from the 21st Century, which is kind of annoying since we are now in the 21st Century in real life and we don't have a Legion of Super Heroes yet. Gosh darn it. But before long the writers settled on 1000 years in the future.

Their third appearance was in a Jerry Siegel-penned story from Action Comics #267 (August 1960), in which they invite Supergirl to join the Legion. Here's where continuity becomes weird. As with Superboy, the visiting Legionnaires were Lightning Lad, Saturn Girl and Cosmic Boy. But they claimed to be the children of the Legionnaires who met Superboy years before.

Well, eventually, the creative staff at DC realized that with time travel, there was no need for this generational shift. So the whole "children of the original Legion" thing was conveniently ignored, allowing Superboy and Supergirl to work together in the 30th Century despite living a generation apart in the 20th Century. Both heroes would occasionally travel forward in time to serve as concurrent members of the futuristic team. That's why Time Travel is awesome.

It also resulted in one of my favorite bits of comic book logic. If Superboy meets Supergirl when he's Superboy, why doesn't Superman remember Supergirl when he "firsts" meets her as Superman?

That's easily solved. Saturn Girl, whose powers involve telepathy and mental control, plants a post-hypnotic suggestion in Superboy to cause him to forget anything he learns about his own personal history whenever he returns to the 20th Century. Nothing could be simpler. Although that must have been annoying for Superboy whenever he got back to Smallville. He'd know why he couldn't remember everything, of course, but wouldn't it drive you kind of nuts wondering exactly what you can't remember about your own future?

The futuristic setting for the LSH stories had a major advantage for Mort Weisinger and his writers. With a full millenium separating the Legion from the rest of the DC Universe, it could progress according to its own continuity. That gave it a freedom the mainstream universe didn't have. Heroes could actually get killed and relationships between characters could progress without having to preserve a status qou. The Legion eventually become a rich and more malleable sub-universe, separate but still connected to the main DC Universe.

Eventually, Edmond Hamilton became the primary Legion writer. A master of comic book logic, he was key in developing the Legion's mythology and using it effectively to tell fun stories.

For instance, Adventure Comics #309 (June 1963) pits the Legion against the Legion of Super Monsters. A guy who can control animals is rejected by the Legion when he applies for membership. In a snit because of this, he uses his powers to recruit a squad of monsters with bizarre powers, then goes on a crime spree. The Legion confronts him, but he and his monsters put up a good fight. Chameleon Boy impersonates one of the monsters to infiltrate the enemy camp, but that plan goes awry. Bouncing Boy (despite his silly seeming

power) surprises everyone by taking out a powerful Earthquake Beast. The story ends with a nice bit of irony: the villain, embittered when rejected by the Legion, is done in by a monster he himself rejected earlier in the story.

Mixed in with these purely entertaining bits of escapism were a surprising number of more mature stories about death and self-sacrifice. For example, Adventure Comics #342 (March 1966) is a great story involving Star Boy, who is forced to kill a villain in self-defense. He's cleared by the cops, but the Legion has a code against ever killing. The presumption is that Legionnaires should be able to use their powers creatively and avoid deadly force. So Star Boy is placed on trial within the Legion to debate whether he should be thrown out. The story isn't perfect--Superboy is Star Boy's defense attorney and his attempts to get his client acquitted are laughably ineffectual. But some of the debate over whether a superhero should be allowed to kill is quite thoughtful.

It just goes to prove that if you mix together time travel with superhero shenanigans, drop in the proper amount of comic book logic, and add just a dollop or two of real emotion to the usual Silver Age innocence, then you really can't go wrong.

We're almost done with our look at the Weisinger-era Superman universe. I'm pretty sure we've covered nearly all the subjects I originally intended to cover. All that remains is a peek at Lois Lane and Turtle Boy... er, I mean Jimmy Olsen.. and we'll be done.

A Dark Knight and a Boy of Steel

 The Brave and the Bold #192 (November 1982): featuring Batman and Superboy.

Superboy? That's right. When evil scientist Ira Quimby (better known simply as I.Q.) tries to throw Superman back to prehistoric times and erect a "time shield" to keep him there, he misplaces a decimal point and tosses him back just 15 years. Because a person can't co-exist with himself in the same time, Superboy is thrown into present day.

So a veteran Batman and an inexperienced Superboy must team-up to figure out what is going on. The actual plot of this story is fine--written by Mike W. Barr and drawn by Jim Aparo, it progresses and climaxes quite satisfactorily.

Some thugs are robbing a Superman charity fund, so Batman calls in the Man of Steel to help round them up. But the time switch is made. Since Batman is, well, Batman, he quickly figures out what’s going on and begins tracking down whoever is responsible. This is Quimby, who got Superman out of the way while he generates solar flares that will “make my solar-powered brain the most brilliant in all creation.”  Working together, the Dark Knight and the Boy of Steel manage to foil Quimby’s plans.  With the bad guy’s time shield down, Superboy and Superman are able to return to their proper eras.

But what makes this story really fun is the interplay between Batman and Superboy. On several occasions, the Dark Knight has to deliver a stern lecture to young Clark about using his powers more effectively. For instance, he has to explain that it was a mistake to use heat vision on a thug's gun, since that detonated the gunpowder and tossed shrapnel about that might have hurt an innocent bystander. Instead, he should have just melted the bullets in mid-air. A chagrined Superboy replies "O-okay." Batman also has to give young Clark a “Is this how your parents trained you?” lecture to keep the Boy of Steel on track after he stumbles across the fact that the Kents have died. 

These are all wonderful little moments, charming and completely believable.

We also get a brief glimpse of Superman back in his bedroom in Smallville, listening to Pa Kent call out that breakfast was ready. Unable to face seeing his parents while knowing they will soon die, he immediately flies away. It's a brief scene, but sincerely emotional.

There might be one plot hole. Batman casually tells Superboy he won’t remember any of this. But I don’t think it works that way. When Superboy travels to the far future to work with the Legion of Super Heroes, he depends on a deliberately planted post-hypnotic suggestion to forget anything he’s learned about his personal future. It doesn’t happen automatically. But I think we can forgive this.

Besides, it’s comic book science, where you have a lot of leeway to make stuff up as you go along. Maybe the forgetting is something that happens when you get switched with your own future self. Yeah, that’s it.

By the early 1980s, the mythology of the DC universe had become quite complex. Within a few years, the editors at DC would decide it was too complex and we would be given the first of many DC Universe reboots with the Crisis on Infinite Earths mini-series. Many comic fans still sincerely argue about whether this was a good or bad idea, but the complexity of the original continuity did have its advantages. In the case of this issue of "The Brave and the Bold," it allowed writer Mike W. Barr to take a law of DC Comics physics (you can't co-exist with yourself during time travel) and combine it with an established part of the Superman mythos (his career as Superboy) to create an entertaining and rewarding short story.