Comic Book Review: DC Special Blue Ribbon Digest #8: Legion of Super-Heroes edited by Jack C. Harris
We’re skipping quite a few stories of the Legion of Super-Heroes since the last digest I posted about. This collection reprints the Legion stories from Adventure Comics #355-357 plus stories from Superboy #198 and #202. By this point, we’re well into the Jim Shooter LSH era. Mr. Shooter was a teen prodigy who managed to get a job writing for DC Comics because he didn’t know he couldn’t and the publisher didn’t realize that he was underage until they’d already hired him. He brought a fresh, young perspective to the teenage characters of the Legion.
“Escape of the Fatal Five!” written by Jim Shooter, art by Curt Swan and George Klein, is one of those titles that you can tell was imposed by editorial fiat late in the creative process. The story itself is clearly trying to build a mystery with the actual villains being a surprise reveal towards the end.
We begin with the peaceful planet Talok VIII, which transforms into a warlike world over a period of mere months. Previously relying on trade for their prosperity, they now destroy any ship that comes within a million miles of their planet. Also, the Talokians are conducting tests of anti-tron bombs, antimatter weapons so horrific they’re banned by intergalactic treaty. This makes them a threat to other nearby worlds, and possibly further ones if they decide to expand.
The Legion is asked to investigate with their four currently available members, Superboy, Cosmic Boy, Brainiac Five, and Karate Kid (who has no innate superpowers, but is a master of all known martial arts and proved this by defeating Superboy by TKO in a hand-to-hand fight.) They will have a local guide, Shadow Lass, the Shadow Champion of Talok. She had been off-planet when the government changed, and they attempted to kill her when she returned. Naturally, she is anxious to find out what’s going on.
The United Planets military covertly inserts the five young heroes by space parachute into a remote desert area to avoid detection. What they don’t know is that the Talokian government has been told what to look for by a mysterious “Master” and knows exactly where they are. The Master orders that the Legionnaires not be molested, as a surprise is being arranged for them, but moves some troops around to reroute the infiltrators into a longer path so there’s more time to prepare.
The infiltration team is sorely missing the Espionage Squad’s presence as they cross the desert, facing various hardships. Superboy could just fly straight to the command citadel, but they have Kryptonite. At one point they are crossing the mountains, only to have Deathbirds attack. Shadow Lass notes that they’re not native to the area, being from much further south, but no time to question that. The Legionnaires acquit themselves well against the animal attack, and Shadow Lass finally demonstrates her own power of emitting fields of intense darkness that she can see through, but most other beings can’t.
As they head into the populated area near the citadel, Shadow Lass has her companions disguise themselves as members of the Yakka-Mahor, a despised minority mountain tribe who speak their own language that most Talokians think is gibberish. This allows them to avoid talking to anyone.
Of course, all this stealth is absolutely pointless as the Master and thus the Talokians know where the Legion is at all times. The team is decoyed into the “welcoming chamber” where teleportation beams put them into separate death traps. These traps are specially designed for each hero, forcing them to use their utmost efforts to escape. Because each cell was fitted with power converters that funnels their super-energy into a device that breaches a dimensional barrier.
At last the Fatal Five have escaped the dimensional warp they’d been trapped in at the end of their first appearance! The Fatal Five were the galaxy’s five Most Wanted criminals, recruited by the Legion to help fight the menace of the Sun-Eater in an absolute emergency. The five criminals discovered they worked well together, and formed their own team that became recurring foes of the LSH.
The members are: 1) Tharok, formerly a petty criminal who’d tried to steal a pocket nuclear device only to have it disintegrate his left side when it was hit by a police officer’s gunshot. His life was saved by replacing his entire left side with robotic parts, and somehow the synergy between his human and cybernetic brain parts turned him into an evil genius. 2) Emerald Empress, Sarya of Venegar, formerly a thief specializing in archaeological rarities, who’d stumbled across the Emerald Eye of Ekron, a powerful artifact that emits green energy and to which she’s psychically bonded. She used it to become Empress of Venegar before being booted off the planet by rebels. 3) Mano, a native of the now-gone planet of Angtu. He was born a mutant due to the heavy environmental pollution of his homeworld, able to disintegrate objects with his glowing right hand. He was mercilessly bullied by his peers as a mutant, and after the death of his parents, Mano charged up his power and destroyed the entire planet in revenge. He has to wear an environment suit at all times due to being unable to breathe in unpolluted atmospheres. 4) The Persuader, Nyeun Chun Ti of Earth, a mob enforcer who trained on heavy gravity worlds to increase his strength and endurance, and who wields the Atomic Axe, a device that can cut “anything” including abstract concepts. He has some mental control over the Axe, though it’s not clear if it’s a property of the weapon or him–unlike the Emerald Eye, the axe has never shown independent will. 5) Validus, a mysterious monster that looks like an oversized and heavily deformed humanoid. It’s a dozen times stronger than Superboy, and able to hurl bolts of “mental lightning” from its visible brain. It’s usually mentally controlled by Tharok, who uses it as a threat to keep the others in line.
After being trapped in the other dimension, Tharok had searched until he found a small breach, not big enough to get through, leading to Talok VIII. He was able to mind control enough people to build a mass mind control device that affected enough people to turn the Talokian government and military warlike and isolationist, specifically to lure the Legion there.
The Persuader wants to kill the Legion right away, but Tharok has other plans. They will allow the Talokian military to kill the Legionnaires while the Fatal Five head off to a new master plan. The heroes face an overwhelming number of soldiers, exhausted from the traps!
“The Fight for the Championship of the Universe!” written by Jim Shooter, art by Curt Swan & George Klein, picks up immediately after the last issue. The male Legionnaires are overconfident because the Talokian soldier have what look like primitive weapons, but they’re actually high-tech, including Kryptonite rays. But Superboy is accidentally slammed into the mass mind control device and breaks it. The shock of being released makes the soldiers stop, and the Legionnaires are able to put together what happened.
Meanwhile, on their escape ship, the Fatal Five bicker about what crimes they should commit next. Tharok uses Validus to trump everyone else. He has enormous plans.
Later, we see a Metropolis worker putting a coin in a robot’s mouth to have it print the latest news sheet. The Naltorian Dreamers have won the Galaxy Series. Too bad he bet on the Metros. His mood swings swiftly when Validus suddenly appears on the street and starts rampaging in Central Square.
Elsewhere in the great city, Mano destroys the Nine Planets monument, and the Emerald Empress attacks the elevated streets, tying up traffic. Each of these incidents pulls law enforcement to that location. This lessens security around the United Planets Presidential Palace and the “30th Century Equivalent of the Pentagon” so that Tharok and the Persuader respectively are able to raid those location and capture the U.P. President, Cabinet, and Chiefs of Staff.
This puts the Fatal Five effectively in control of Metropolis and thus Earth. They put the Science Police in jail (and presumably put toadies in charge of actually running the bureaucracy of government) but they realize this isn’t going to last too long before the rest of the United Planets send their own militaries in numbers even the Five aren’t going to be able to handle.
That’s when Tharok reveals the next part of his plan. The Presidential Palace has a secret Universal Weapons Control Panel which allows the UP to override control of all “defense” weapons in the coalition in an emergency. The Fatal Five have managed to capture the two keys necessary to–Mano points out there’s three keyholes, something Tharok had somehow not known. But it’s obvious who has the third key, the Legion of Super-Heroes!
The Legion headquarters looks deserted at first, and the Five initially still think the Talok mission was killed and the other Legionnaires are away, but nope! The heroes arrived just in time to raise the defenses. It’s a bit of a standoff–The Legion can keep out the Fatal Five, but the villains’ powers, especially Validus’, can damage the defenses and eventually they will fall or shake up the interior enough to kill the non-invulnerable members of the team.
During the siege, Brainiac Five and Shadow Lass have a moment during which he completely dismisses the notion that she’s flirting with him. She totally is.
Tharok finally resorts to threatening to kill everyone in Metropolis. Fifteen million people will die unless the Legion hands over three hundred billion souls to the Fatal Five’s control. Naturally, neither option is acceptable to our young heroes. Instead, they challenge the Fatal Five to a one-on-one combat, each Legionnaire versus one of the Five, winner take all. Overconfident and wanting to kill the Legionnaires personally, Tharok accepts.
Technically, the Legion is one short, but Shadow Lass insists on being sworn in so she can officially fight and possibly die as a Legionnaire.
At first, the Legion is losing badly in their matchups, but a darkness field manages to even the odds momentarily. The Five could still win, but our heroes have managed to stall the villains long enough for the first wave of United Planets military forces to arrive. The Fatal Five book it, but take the two keys with them.
Our heroes get presidential medals, but the clubhouse is wrecked.
“No Escape from the Circle of Death!” story by Jim Shooter, art by Curt Swan & George Klein, picks up a few weeks later. The United Planets have decided that rather than repairing the upside-down rocket headquarters of the Legion of Super-Heroes, they would instead bankroll the construction of an entirely new building which is larger, tougher, and more like an actual futuristic looking building. (It would stay pretty much the same until the Crisis.)
Karate Kid decides to take a tour of the not quite finished building before he takes leave to visit friends in Japan. He dodges a question about his parents. There’s a new armory with miniature weapons for Shrinking Violet and oversized ones for Colossal Boy. A memorial room for dead members, currently only Ferro Lad. And a meeting room with ejector chairs for when the Legion needs to be in the air fast.
Karate Kid starts his trip on tubecars that go right through the core of the Earth, described as “new” but we’ve seen them a couple of times before. A number of other Legionnaires have also taken leave.
Superboy arrives with a massive pallet of gifts from the various U.P. planets and other friends of the Legion. Replacements for destroyed trophies, New spacecraft, power jewels, scientific equipment, and a weird looking machine that’s labeled in a language none of the present Legionnaires can read. It’s all stuffed in a storage room for now.
Meanwhile, halfway across the galaxy, figures made identical by black robes and masks sit and observe footage of the once again peaceful Earth. The Dark Circle Alliance is a coalition of five worlds that have one thing in common; wanting to conquer the United Planets and rule in their stead. Their most aggressive member, Gorgoth, advocates that this is the time to strike. Two of the three keys to the U.P.’s defense system are missing and there hasn’t been time to change the codes. The Legion HQ is unfinished, and half the Legionnaires are away from Earth. The other representatives on the Dark Circle Council agree that at long last, it’s time to take over.
Karate Kid arrives in Japan, one of the few places on 30th Century Earth that still retains some local cultural flavor. We learn that KK is an orphan, raised as a foundling by the people of Tokyo. Then we meet the ancient martial arts master who trained the young hero in all known forms of unarmed combat. (There’s a lot more to Val Armorr’s backstory and that of his teacher, but that comes later.)
Suddenly, there’s an explosion. Outside, there is an invasion by troops that all look identical, marked with black circles, tanks, hover attackers, and other weapons. Karate Kid is able to take out small groups of the intruders and individual war machines, but there’s just too many soldiers. He radios for help, but Metropolis is having the same problems.
The Legionnaires are being taken out one by one, even Superboy thanks to a special gravity increase device. Only Brainiac Five is left, and he has no offensive weapons. He sees that the entry to the storehouse is open–if he can just find something there! Even with a mechanical crowbar assisting, Brainy can’t find anything useful before the Dark Circle troops arrive to investigate. He wishes Karate Kid was there.
And then suddenly, Karate Kid is there, baffled by the change in surroundings, but able to use the close quarters of the storeroom to take an advantage over the intruders. Brainiac Five realizes that one of the things in the storehouse must be responsible, and the most likely candidate is the mysterious device with the unreadable label.
Sure enough, once uncrated, Brainy is able to concentrate on the device and use it to toss all the Dark Circle troops and weapons off Earth and back to the worlds from whence they came. While he’s at it, he also finishes building the Legion headquarters.
The Miracle Machine is a gift from the Controllers for defeating the Sun Eater…but as a Controller appears to explain, it’s a double-edged weapon. It turns thoughts into reality, and a stray desire to die could kill anyone in the vicinity, or even destroy the universe. The Legion chooses to seal the Miracle Machine in a cube of inertron, which blocks mental wavelengths, until it is absolutely needed.
The Dark Circle would return several times as enemies of the LSH, and the old clubhouse would be refurbished and used by the Substitutes.
“Lost: A Million Miles from Home!” story by Cary Bates, pencils by Dave Cockrum, and inks by Mike Grell, takes place several years later. Colossal Boy and Shrinking Violet are returning from a successful mission to Alpha-4. They’ve just finished watching vid footage of Gim smashing the ships of the raiders with his gigantic limbs.
Just as they’re approaching a jump point, the power suddenly goes out. No engines, no communications, barely lights and life support. And no visible malfunction, either. When Colossal Boy goes outside the ship to check for external damage, the power suddenly comes back on. And then instantly drains the moment he’s on board.
Scans don’t show anything, so Colossal Boy decides to maroon himself on an asteroid so Vi can fly the ship for help. As soon as she’s out of range, though, it turns out the “asteroid” is a living creature that is absorbing Gim inside itself. It will either eat through his protective transparent spacesuit or if he expands enough to break free, he’ll burst the suit himself.
On the ship, Shrinking Violet decides to watch the mission tapes one more time just in case there’s something they missed. And yes, there is. She returns to the now empty asteroid, and as soon as she’s in telepathic earplug range, Colossal Boy contacts her. She takes the asteroid inside the ship, so that Gim can expand and break free while in atmosphere.
Then she shrinks and removes the secret device the raiders had planted on Colossal Boy, which shrank to microscopic size when he was “normal size” so it escaped attention.
It’s an okay story, but clearly just a filler here.
“The Fatal Five Who Twisted Time!” story by Cary Bates, art by Dave Cockrum starts in Smallville in the 1950s, as Lana Lang and Clark Kent visit a carnival. Lana is enjoying the cheap scares of the Horror Haven haunted house while Clark muses over some weird happenings in the recent past. Several people have reported a weird circular object in the sky that has been projecting what seem like x-ray beams.
Suddenly Lana is screaming for real as a gorilla has gotten loose in the haunted house. Gorpo escaped from his cage, and Clark has to clumsily pretend to stumble so he can knock the animal out.
After the ape trainer has corralled Gorpo, Lana drags Clark to a “gypsy” fortuneteller. That alleged psychic has a green glowing ball, which Clark realizes is actually the Emerald Eye of Ekron, and the fortuneteller is no Earth minority, but the Emerald Empress!
Clark fakes indigestion to duck out of sight, and comes back in as Superboy. Sarya drops her disguise, as does nearby “roustabout” Persuader. Superboy fights the two, initially holding his own and even taking away the Persuader’s Atomic Axe. This backfires when the Persuader uses his mental control over the axe to force Superboy to knock himself out. This is the result of something called the “Time-Sorter.” Sarya uses the Eye to put Superboy into a permanent state of suspended animation.
The next moment, Mano shimmers into view, apparently having just arrived from the future. He joins his evil comrades for the next step of the plan.
Not far away, a time bubble arrives with Element Lad, Princess Projectra, Karate Kid and Brainiac Five aboard. They know that Emerald Empress and Persuader came to this era, but don’t know the exact date. They’re just minutes too late to stop what we just saw. The three Fatal Five members have already absconded with Superboy’s body.
In the 30th Century, Colossal Boy and Mon-El are just learning that Validus broke Tharok out of prison when they abruptly start fading from existence, as well as the rest of Legion headquarters.
Nearby, Tharok gloats that his plan is working perfectly, having finally found the one weapon that can defeat the Legion–time! He’s rushed here straight from prison, and hasn’t even fixed up the melted parts of his robot half from the last fight he had with the Legion.
Back in the 1950s, Brainiac Five and Element Lad are attacked by Mano and the Persuader, the latter of whom wrecks the Time Bubble. Karate Kid and Princess Projectra must battle the Emerald Empress. Because the villains can’t resist monologuing about the Time Sorter and its ability to change history so the Legion never existed, the heroes are able to escape and regroup.
In the 30th Century, Tharok and Validus are joined by Mano, who explains that he didn’t go back in time as he had to escape from some inconvenient police. But that’s okay, because the plan is working, right?
In Smallville, Mano convinces his teammates that they should be close to the Time Sorter to guard it until the timestream is permanently damaged. It turns out to be concealed inside the statue of Superboy in the town square. Only 11 minutes to go when a light on Brainy’s belt lights up. KK and PP are resigning themselves that at least they’re together when their superintelligent friend alerts them that there’s still hope.
Six minutes to go, and Emerald Empress suddenly notices Mano’s hand isn’t disintegrating the trash can he’s touching. Mano is actually Chameleon Boy in disguise, with a disintegrator glove that’s run out of power. He’d been sent to arrive a couple of days earlier than the rest of the team and infiltrate the Five’s plan.
Validus suddenly appears, but it’s an illusion that gives Karate Kid time to split open the statue and destroy the Time Sorter, which revives Superboy.
In Metropolis, the Legion’s HQ starts reappearing around the villains in this time period. Validus flies off, leaving Tharok and Mano stuck. Especially as they just happened to be in the holding cell area.
The remaining members of the Five trigger their Time Bridge to a random time and place so that even they don’t know their destination (this was just in case Saturn Girl had been present.) Still, it’s a Legion victory.
There’s black and white illustrations of the three Adventure covers by Neal Adams.
That’s three strong stories, an okay one, and a moderately strong one. At least the first three have been reprinted in other collections, so check your local library.
Recommended to Legion completists.
