DC’s LEGION OF SUPERHEROES

This weekend’s escapist, lighthearted superhero post from Balladeer’s Blog will take a look at the 30th Century Legion of Superheroes. DC fans are still saying I don’t cover enough DC characters, so here we go.

LEGION OF SUPERHEROES (Superboy starring the …) Vol 1 #203 (August 1974)

Title: Massacre by Remote Control

Legion Roster: Sun Boy, Phantom Girl, Invisible Kid, Superboy, Saturn Girl, Lightning Lad, Mon-El, Brainiac 5, Dream Girl, Karate Kid and Element Lad

Villain: Validus

Synopsis: Mon-El, the current leader of the Legion, is outraged that Invisible Kid has been letting his relationship with a woman from the invisible dimension – Myla – interfere with his obligations to the team.

Eventually, Dream Girl has a dream foretelling an imminent attack by Validus – the huge, mindless monster who is strong enough to take on entire teams of Legionnaires at once. Because Validus is usually harmless unless controlled psychically by its fellow Fatal Five member Tharok, the Legion makes sure that the cyborg Tharok is still safely incarcerated at Space Prison Complex X33.

Not only is the villain still in custody, but he has been undergoing repairs to some of the cybernetic devices in his brain, meaning he cannot be mentally controlling Validus at all.

When Validus ultimately attacks Legion headquarters in future Metropolis, he is routing the heroes while withstanding all their counterattacks. Invisible Kid at first seems to have abandoned his post to dally with Myla but it turns out he actually solved the problem at hand.

In the Legion trophy room, the Kid has deduced that components of Tharok’s brain that are on display (These are the good guys, right?) have activated themselves and THEY have summoned Validus to attack them.

Sensing danger from the Kid, the components call Validus to their aid, and the monster crushes Invisible Kid to death but not before the Kid destroys the components.

Freed from control, the mindless Validus flies away from the Earth driven only by his animal instincts.

As the Legionnaires mourn the fallen Invisible Kid, Myla appears to them and reveals that she is not just a denizen of the invisible realm but is actually the spirit of a dead woman. She and the slain Kid can now be together forever.

LEGION OF SUPERHEROES Vol 1 #210 (August 1975)

Title: Soljer’s Private War

Legion Roster: Chameleon Boy, Princess Projectra, Lightning Lad, Superboy, Brainiac 5, Phantom Girl  

Villain: Soljer

Synopsis: One day Lightning Lad, Superboy and Phantom Girl are improvising some training exercises in the countryside around 30th Century Metropolis.

A powerful blast from Lightning Lad frees and reanimates a soldier from World War VI, which happened 200 years earlier. The not quite alive military man, who calls himself “Soljer”, fell during the enemy invasion of Metropolis.

He was simultaneously hit by a gamma grenade and lightning, both of which mingled with his anti-matter fusion weapons to put him in suspended animation for centuries. Soljer dimly remembers his mission: invade Metropolis.

The revived fighting man is able to generate anti-matter fusion blasts from his hands and when he rampages through Metropolis not even the Legion can stop him. Phantom Girl is nearly killed in the battle and Superboy is rendered unconscious for days from Soljer’s anti-matter fusion blasts.

Brainiac 5 researches the Invasion of Metropolis from World War VI and comes up with a plan. While Soljer continues devastating Metropolis, Princess Projectra creates an illusion of a completely destroyed city while Chameleon Boy impersonates the soldier’s former commander.

The Legionnaires convince Soljer that his unit’s mission has been accomplished. The revived warrior feels content and lets himself lapse into death.

LEGION OF SUPERHEROES Vol 1 #211 (September 1975)

Title: The Ultimate Revenge

Legion Roster: Element Lad, Star Boy, Light Lass, Chemical King, Superboy and Sun Boy

Villain: Roxxas

Synopsis: A half-dozen Legion members raid a remote, cloaked space station called the Haven, where some of the most wanted criminals in the universe hide out for an exorbitant fee. The Legionnaires strike a bonanza and in an action-packed raid they capture many, many fugitives.

Amid the chaos, Element Lad comes face to face with Roxxas the Space Pirate, the villain who killed everyone else on Element Lad’s home planet of Trom, leaving him the sole survivor. The hero had helped the Legion capture Roxxas years earlier and send him to the prison planet of Takron-Galtos.

The space pirate had escaped and became one of the Haven’s inhabitants. Element Lad is so shocked to once again encounter the man behind his people’s genocide that Roxxas manages to get away in a one-man spaceship.

Element Lad does not reveal to his fellow Legionnaires that Roxxas was at the Haven and managed to escape. Sun Boy, while reviewing all the camera footage seized in the raid sees the encounter between Element Lad and Roxxas.

When it turns out that Element Lad has signed out a spaceship but left no destination, the other Legion members fear he may be planning to find Roxxas and kill him for revenge, thus throwing away his law enforcement career.

Element Lad tracks down the space pirate to his brassy hiding place – the ruins of Trom. Sun Boy, Light Lass, Superboy, Chemical King and Star Boy arrive just as Element Lad has used his element powers to destroy all of Roxxas’ weapons and is about to kill him.

Chemical King uses his own powers to fake Roxxas’ death at Element Lad’s hands, instantly filling the hero with regret. After Chemical King reveals to the Legion that Roxxas is actually alive, they learn that Roxxas was hoping Element Lad would kill him because guilt over killing all the men, women and children on Trom torments him constantly.

LEGION OF SUPERHEROES Vol 1 #213 (December 1975)

Title: The Jaws of Fear

Legion Roster: Shrinking Violet, Ultra Boy, Wildfire, Saturn Girl, Chameleon Boy, Brainiac 5, Sun Boy, Lightning Lad, Cosmic Boy, Phantom Girl 

Villain: Benn Pares

Synopsis: The Legionnaires clash repeatedly with a new, superpowered master thief named Benn Pares, who outdoes them at every turn. Pares taunts the Legion that he will steal their Miracle Machine and use it to take over the universe.

When the heroes fail to destroy the device to keep it out of the thief’s hands, they wind up going in search of Benn Pares for his other crimes. At last, they trail the thief to his high-tech hideout inside the mouth of an enormous galactasaur.

The Legion members survive the creature’s attack and Pares is captured then sent to prison.

LEGION OF SUPERHEROES Vol 1 #216 (April 1976)

Title: The Hero Who Hated the Legion

Legion Roster: Tyroc, Shadow Lass, Superboy, Brainiac 5, Karate Kid, Cosmic Boy

Villains: The Beta Gang

Synopsis: The Legion learns that a recently downed satellite secretly contained the stolen Zigel Jewels from a heist decades earlier. The satellite has landed on a Mediterranean Sea island called Marzal, home to an all-black nation which has cut off all contact with the outside world and forbidden any visitors.

The Legionnaires fly to Marzal to recover the gems but wind up in a three-way clash with Marzal’s own superhero, the sonic-powered Tyroc, and the Beta Gang, “the deadliest gang in the galaxy.” The criminals also learned about the satellite containing the Zigel Jewels and came to the island to steal them.

Tyroc and the Marzalians are hostile to the Legion members but in the end, Tyroc and the Legion work together to defeat the Beta Gang and to save Marzal from deadly radiation that the jewels picked up in space. Tyroc becomes the first black member of the team.

LEGION OF SUPERHEROES Vol 1 #219 (September 1976)

Title: The Plunder Ploy of the Fatal Five

Legion Roster: Colossal Boy, Lightning Lad, Sun Boy, Brainiac 5, Superboy, Light Lass, Duplicate Boy, Saturn Girl, Ultra Boy, Shrinking Violet

Villains: The Fatal Five (Tharok, Validus, Emerald Empress, Mano and the Persuader)

NOTE: The Fatal Five are the Legion’s deadliest recurring foes.

Synopsis: When the Fatal Five are stealing micro-circuits from Imsk, the home planet of the superheroine Shrinking Violet, Duplicate Boy is left near death from the battle. While Saturn Girl tries to use her psionic powers to enter his unconscious mind and activate his healing powers the other Legionnaires resume their battle with the villains across the universe.

Near the planet Rerel, the Legion fails to stop the Fatal Five from stealing that world’s most up to date technology for making androids, complete with synthetic flesh. At the six-mooned planet Cyrem, the villains defeat the Legion when they try stopping the Fatal Five from literally breaking off half of that planet and escaping with it.

The quintet also succeed in stealing poison gases from the planet Zeffro, leaving our heroes to regroup and ponder why the Fatal Five have stolen such disparate items. Brainiac 5 eventually deduces where the Fatal Five are hiding and what their plan is.

He directs the Legionnaires in action as they find the moon-sized planetoid that the villains have sculpted the stolen half of Cyrem into, complete with the seas full of enormous subaquatic creatures from the now-depopulated planet.

Thousands of androids have been created by Tharok to serve as peasants and a new royal court for the Emerald Empress, the poison gasses have allowed Tharok to terraform part of this new planetoid into an area in which Mano can breathe without equipment, since that part of the planet’s atmosphere is now like the villain’s homeworld.

The enormous fish creatures serve numerous purposes, including letting the Persuader indulge his lust for hunting and killing. Validus, of course, is mindless without Tharok’s control and wants nothing, and Tharok himself tries to use synthetic skin to make a flawless disguise for himself.

In the final battle, Emerald Empress, Mano and the Persuader are defeated and captured, but Tharok and Validus escape. Saturn Girl’s efforts succeed in healing Duplicate Boy.

LEGION OF SUPERHEROES Vol 1 #226 (April 1977)

Title: The Dazzling Debut of Dawnstar

Legion Roster: Dawnstar, Wildfire, Superboy, Lightning Lad, Sun Boy, Saturn Girl, and Star Boy

Villains: The Resource Raiders

Synopsis: With the Legion at a loss to locate their recurring foes the Resource Raiders during their recent rampage, newly elected leader Wildfire turns to a Native American mutant called Dawnstar to track them with her psychic powers.

Despite some setbacks, Dawnstar proves crucial to finding and defeating the Resource Raiders. She is welcomed to the Legion and eventually develops a romance with Wildfire.

LEGION OF SUPERHEROES Vol 1 #228 (June 1977)

Title: That a World Might Live … a Legionnaire Must Die

Legion Roster: Timber Wolf, Colossal Boy, Wildfire, Superboy, Shadow Lass, Chameleon Boy, Saturn Girl, Chemical King and Light Lass

Villains: The Dark Circle and Deregon of Australia.

Synopsis: Australia, under its leader Deregon, declares war on the rest of 30th Century Earth and the Legion gets involved to prevent another World War from breaking out. Chameleon Boy, Shadow Lass and Light Lass get captured by Australian forces while spying on Deregon.

He parades the spies before his people as “proof” that the outside world wants to crush Australia. The other Legionnaires arrive to rescue their teammates before they can be executed. As Deregon begins fighting the Legion with a Cosmic Energy Sphere, a high-tech weapon that can destroy the entire Earth, he reveals that he is secretly working for our heroes’ old foes the Dark Circle.

The Circle bought off Deregon and planned on having him secretly use the superweapon to destroy Earth in the confusion of a new World War after escaping. Other races would think Earthlings simply wiped themselves out through warfare and never suspect the Dark Circle was behind it.

In the end, Deregon escapes and Chemical King sacrifices his life to save the world from the Cosmic Energy Sphere. He becomes the third Legionnaire to die in battle, with Invisible Kid and Ferro Lad the other two.

LEGION OF SUPERHEROES Vol 1 #229 (July 1977)

Title: Hunt for a Hero Killer

Legion Roster: Timber Wolf, Saturn Girl, Colossal Boy, Wildfire, Superboy, Lightning Lad, Chameleon Boy, Dawnstar, Mon-El, Light Lass and Cosmic Boy

Villains: Deregon and the Dark Circle

Synopsis: After ceremonies honoring Chemical King and laying him to rest on the cemetery planet called Shanghalla, the Legion of Superheroes devote themselves to getting revenge on Deregon and his employers in the Dark Circle.

The Legionnaires fly to the Dark Circle’s homeworld, where their Dark Citadel stands. Our heroes battle their way past the planet’s orbiting space fleet, then the Dark Circle’s armies on the surface.

After fighting their way into the citadel itself, they learn from the mocking Dark Circle members that Deregon isn’t there, he is hiding on Earth. The Legionnaires are lucky just to escape the Dark Citadel alive but do so thanks to quick thinking by Light Lass.

Back to Earth, where Saturn Girl traces Deregon to his hideout in the amusement park called Galaxyland. In a nice storytelling bit, the three original members of the Legion – Lightning Lad, Saturn Girl and Cosmic Boy – are the ones who finally catch up to the fleeing Deregon and capture him.

The original three took this adventure very personally and hope that no more of their fellow Legionnaires will die in action. (Fat chance.)

LEGION OF SUPERHEROES Vol 1 #231 (September 1977)

Title: A Day in the Death of a World

Legion Roster: Sun Boy, Mon-El, Shadow Lass, Superboy, Element Lad, Ultra Boy, Saturn Girl, Colossal Boy, Brainiac 5, Princess Projectra and Karate Kid

Villains: The Fatal Five

Synopsis: The Legion of Superheroes is working day and night to pull off an evacuation of all life on the planet Mordan before its sun goes nova. Princess Projectra and Karate Kid get captured by the Fatal Five, who for unknown reasons are apparently trying to prevent Mordan’s population from being taken to safety.

On that planet, Ultra Boy, Mon-El and Superboy are pushing their powers to the utmost to construct evacuation spaceships. Colossal Boy, Saturn Girl and Shadow Lass are rounding up Mordanites and transporting them to the departure zone.

In space, Sun Boy, Element Lad and Brainiac 5 are probing Mordan’s sun to see why it is prematurely going nova and hopefully delay that disaster as a minimum. Soon the Fatal Five are forced to come out into the open and try to stop the Legion’s evacuation efforts, leading to long, destructive battles on Mordan’s surface and around its dying sun. 

Around the sun, the Emerald Empress and her Emerald Eye of Ekron attack Sun Boy, Brainiac 5 and Element Lad. Tharok remains on his impregnable spaceship with the captive Karate Kid and Princess Projectra.

On Mordan’s surface, Validus, Mano and the Persuader, as always wielding his Atomic Axe, ambush Mon-El, Shadow Lass, Superboy, Ultra Boy, Saturn Girl and Colossal Boy. The battles rage on and on, losing precious time needed for the evacuation.

Tharok loses patience with his teammates’ ability to kill the Legionnaires and broadcasts holograms of himself to both battle locations, around the sun and on the surface. The cyborg does a Villain Rant, demanding that the Legion stop trying to evacuate the planet, or he will kill the two Legionnaires in his custody.

He also boasts about his team’s plan: Tharok planted a device in Mordan’s sun to accelerate its life cycle to make it go nova. The Fatal Five want this to happen with as many life forms as possible left on the planet.

The reason? Tharok discovered that the Mordanites and their world contain unique chemical properties which, when exposed to the energy of a sun going nova, will transform the planet and the populace into pure energite, the most valuable substance in the 30th Century’s universe.

The Fatal Five will quickly steal away with the entire planet and its transmuted life forms before they suffer destruction and will possess enough wealth in energite to buy whole solar systems for themselves. Naturally, the Legionnaires refuse to stop fighting just to spare the lives of the two hostages and they resume fighting the Fatal Five.

Eventually, the villains win and leave the Legion in a defeated heap on Mordan, then return to Tharok’s ship to subdue Karate Kid and Princess Projectra, who just escaped from their cells.

With our heroes tipped off about the details of the Fatal Five’s plan thanks to Tharok’s foolish Villain Rant, Brainiac 5 is able to devise a battle plan to defeat the villains. All the team members work together, and in the end they are able to free Tharok’s hostages, capture the Fatal Five and buy enough time to complete the evacuation of Mordan.

The Fatal Five seem to perish in the destruction of Tharok’s spaceship, but the Legionnaires aren’t counting on it.

NOTE: In my opinion, this may be the best Fatal Five story ever.

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