Unca Cheeks the Toy Wonder's Silver Age Comics Web Site!
(LONG LIVE THE LEGION)
A Highly Selective (and
Shamelessly Biased) Retrospective of the All-Time Coolest Moments in the
History of the Silver Age LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES.
(PART FOUR)
COOL MOMENT THE FOURTEENTH: "... Geez... This Guy's So Blamed Old, He Remembers When Paul McCartney Was In a Band Before Wings -- !" (a.k.a., "The Rogue Legionnaire"; ADVENTURE COMICS #349) [See cover reproduction, above]
This story detailed the Legion of Super-Heroes' landmark first encounter with the malevolent mesmerist known as Universo, whose initial Master Plan for World Domination involved inveigling his way into the ranks of the LSH as a member in good standing.
Upon being informed that he made even more unconvincing a teenager than did Henry Winkler, re: Happy Days -- drat, drat that pesky "male pattern baldness," anyway! -- the hairless hypnotist smoothly shifted strategical gears, and opted for Plan "B": sending the various Legionnaires careening helplessly through various past historical epochs, there to meet (presumably) various fates worse than death.
As an added "Cool Moment" bonus, the reader also makes the acquaintance of one Rond Vidar in the course of said story: a plucky teenager who utilizes his own expertise with the creation and utilization of time travel devices (he took "Advanced Metal Shop," you see) to rescue the various scattered Legionnaires, and earned himself a rarefied "Honorary Legionnaire" status, in so doing. Ironic, that...
... given that the aforementioned Mr. Vidar was -- in actuality -- Universo's own son.
COOL MOMENT THE FIFTEENTH was nothing less than a full-bore, honest-to-Stephen-King ghost story: "... Just Point Me In the Direction of Demi Moore, and I Am, Like, Outta Here... 'Kay?" (a.k.a. "The Ghost of Ferro Lad"; ADVENTURE COMICS #357).
The four Legionnaires who'd been present at the moment of Ferro Lad's (apparent) self-sacrifice during the "Sun-Eater" affair [see PAGE THREE of the Silver Age LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES History) -- Cosmic Boy; Princess Projectra; Sun Boy; and Superboy -- are being haunted by nightmarish visions of one seriously cheesed-off (ostensibly) deceased super-teen, who hectors the quartet for not preventing him from beating the holy living crap out of Superboy; feverishly clutching an anti-matter bomb to his chest; and flinging himself headlong through the gates of super-hero Valhalla. And when said "visions" fail to elicit the appropriately groveling response in his victims...
... said "ghost" really starts playing r-o-u-g-h. [See picture, below]
As it turns out, the afflicted
(and grief-stricken, anew) Legionnaires -- thanks, in no small part, to the
assistance of super-rational ubergenius Brainiac 5 and talented
telepath Saturn Girl -- discover that the true author of their Miskatonic
miseries is, in actuality, a member of the manipulative alien race known as
"The Controllers," who are good and torqued because the Legion managed to destroy
the Sun-Eater before they'd managed to come up with some way to
use the damned thing as a "doomsday weapon" of their own. (Boy... talk
about being passive-aggressive--!) 
The "O. Henry"-ish style "kicker" here, however, was this: the sextet of super-teens was rescued from said Controller's ingenious "death trap" by the agency of unseen hands...
... at least: "unseen" by the Legionnaires themselves...
OOOOOOooooooooo... ! )
I freely admit -- right here,
in front of God, Ferro Lad and everybody -- that COOL MOMENT THE (SWEET)
SIXTEENTH is just too danged silly for words... but: whatthehell...
I dug it.
Said "Cool Moment" -- which should have been entitled: "... And a Lard-Butt Shall Lead Them -- !," but was (instead) less imaginatively headlined as "The King of the Legion" (ADVENTURE COMICS #375) -- is best represented, I think, by the cover reproduction, accompanying.
Now, I want your solemn oaths, all of you, that you're not all going to collapse in shrill, derisive peals of hysterical laughter... okay?
I'm so very, very disappointed
in the lot of you.
[Parenthetical Observation: notice how -- when they rip their emblems from their chests -- the male
Legionnaires all end up showing a li'l... y'know... skin, in the process.
As opposed to Saturn Girl, on the other hand, who (apparently) uses old
"ColorForms" for her costume insignias. What a freakin' gyp,
maaaaannnnnn...]
Anyway: this wonderfully
lunatic LEGION offering entails our 30th Century teens being forced to track
down and capture their mind-controlled super-hero counterparts (a breathtakingly
dopey septet of heroes known as The Wanderers, whose membership
includes such surefire entries in The Comic Book Goobers Hall of Fame as Dartalg
[super dart-tossing "skills"] and Ornitho [can turn into any li'l
birdie... at will, even]), and utilizing said mission as a pretext to
ascertain -- once and for all -- which Legionnaire is, in fact, "the mightiest
of us all." And: yes... the scene on the cover really, truly does
happen. Dear God, but I love the Silver Age -- !!
(Okay; okay... so it turns out
that "Bouncing Boy," in this instance, is -- in actuality -- a shape-changed
Chameleon Boy, as opposed to the genuine, barrel-gutted article.
You still gotta love it.) )
COOL MOMENT THE SEVENTEENTH: "Yo! Word Up! I Be Comin' From the Streets, Bro' -- !" (a.k.a., "The Hapless Hero," ACTION COMICS #381) was yet another silly "Cool Moment": a wholly misguided (to say nothing of stupefyingly melodramatic) attempt to lend some trendy, Marvel Comics-style angst to that most conceptually moronic of all Legionnaires: the justly-defamed Matter-Eater Lad.
As written by ultimate LEGION
interpreter Jim Shooter -- who was, obviously, trying way, waaaayyy too
hard with this one, in retrospect -- noted Legionnaire laughingstock M-E Lad
hailed from the 30th Century equivalent of "the wrong side of the tracks," and
needed that monthly Legion "stipend" check to keep his mom in groceries, and
his drunken, stumblebum dad capable of blowing the rest on various and
assorted ponies. The end result was -- approximately -- as "realistic"
and heart-rending as any random episode of The Jetsons. I'm just
sayin', is all.
Our fifth (and final) page of
the Silver Age LEGION OF SUPER- HEROES History... comin' right up!
Legion of Super-Heroes (History): PAGE ONE
Legion of Super-Heroes (History): PAGE TWO
Legion of Super-Heroes (History): PAGE THREE
Legion of Super-Heroes (History): PAGE FIVE
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