[Legion Fan Club] Weekly Reader: Week 19, August 28 – September 3 The Last of the '60s Master Shooter

[Don-El]

Here on Week 19, this sad day in the Legion of Super-Heroes Fan Club storied-history heralds the final 1960’s Master Jim Shooter selection available on DCU! With both pride and a tear in my eye, I now note that our reading selection for this week is:

Adventure Comics #368, 369, 370 and (sniff) 374 (which includes one of the all-time great Legion stories, all time!).

Adventure Comics #268 5/1/1968 DC Universe After the arrival of the female ambassador from Taltar, the female Legionnaires experience great increases in their powers. The results of the first fan vote for Legion leader declare Ultra Boy the next leader and runner-up Mon-El his deputy.

Adventure Comics #269 (the BIG one, Part 1!): 6/5/1968 DC Universe First appearance of Mordu the Merciless! After the powerful Mordu the Merciless escapes his prison, the Legion must travel back in time to Smallville to formulate the mad magician.

Adventure Comics #269 (the BIG one, Part 2): 7/3/1968 DC Universe Mordu the Merciless has discovered the Legion of Super-Heroes hiding in Smallville’s past. Out in the open, the Legion must confront and defeat the powerful sorcerer!

Adventure Comics #374 The last of Master Jim Shooter in the ‘60s on DCU! 11/6/1968 DC Universe The Legion have to take down one gang of criminals to help another group of bad guys???

Here are questions (spoiler alert - if you want to wait to read the rest of this after you read the comics, you have now been warned) to use as a guide to your reflection on this story: (these could be spoilers, so maybe read this part after you are done with the 4 comics):

1. Issue 268: what did you think of this early Neal Adams cover?

2. Issue 268: if you have ever been in a family / couples counseling session, does the fight scene between the girls and the guys remind you at all of some parts of that process (apologies in advance to Princess Amethyst)? Answer quickly, your session time is almost up!

3. Issues 269-270: While admittedly this story is dated, having been written 50 years ago, what are the strongest parts of the plot and storyline? What are the super-dated cringe-worthy parts?

4. Issue 374: A sad way to end what is digitized by DCU, the next issue features the first appearance of the Wanderers…The big question here is: were you able to actually read this one in spite of the art? What’s your secret, lol?

Our “extra credit” reading this week: (just the stories about the Legion in each comic suggested)

Adventure Comics #310 7/63 DC Universe In the Legion back-up, things turn deadly when a mysterious masked man begins killing the Legionaries one by one! Also contains pages reproduced in black and white.

Adventure Comics #312 9/63 DC Universe The Super-Sacrifice of the Legionnaires!" The heroic Lightning Lad sacrificed his life back in ADVENTURE COMICS #304, but the other Legionnaires may have found a way to revive him—at the cost of another life! Also contains pages reproduced in black and white.

Let us all know your thoughts please in the thread below!

Next week we use the Time Bubble to go forward a handful of year for a light reading to go along with our monthly Watch a Long fun 9 pm EDT / 6 pm PDT the evening of Wednesday September 4th!

If you want to talk about the Legion Club and discuss what you want this Club to be, you can sure do it here or also many members are on this Discord channel: https://discord.gg/SUs87JP or https://discord.gg/zwh5KPE

To listen to the weekly DC Universe Fans podcast where all things Legion are usually part of the fun, go to: Google Play Music

[Don-El]

Wait, which one is original and which one is extra-crispy?

[Jay_Kay]

“Issue 268: what did you think of this early Neal Adams cover?”

Wow, it really must’ve been early, I didn’t recognize it as Adams until now – it felt like Adams was channeling a bit of the regular artist Curt Swan’s art in this.

“Issue 268: if you have ever been in a family / couples counseling session, does the fight scene between the girls and the guys remind you at all of some parts of that process (apologies in advance to Princess Amethyst)? Answer quickly, your session time is almost up!”

Family counseling? No. Gender Studies, class? …Maaaaybe.

Seriously, it was interesting to see the book deal with issues of the day like feminism. It at once felt kind of of it’s time, and yet still rather progressive – sort of like The Original Series of Star Trek going on around the same time. It plays on what I’m sure were the old guard’s worries and fears were of more feminist ideas, but the theme/moral of the story is the idea that ideas of superiority only create hate and misery no matter what gender is doing it.

[MissInkBlot]

Got rid of that duplicate thread for you, @Don-El.

[Don-El]

Thx MissInkBlot!

[Don-El]

Jay_Kay I agree, the issue does remind me of what was going on in Star trek episodes of the same time. Some wonderful choices for being diverse on Original Star Trek, but at the same time cringe-worthy parts for both series.

[Don-El]

I think I’ll read these a little closer this weekend.

[Don-El]

A week where all that came in for new comics are a handful of Annuals and a new Batgirl comic might be a great week for you to test out the Legion comics waters! Jump on in, the plotlines are fine!!!

[MisfitCMJ]

1. This Neal Adams cover has been making folks/kids want to make comics since the day it was published.

[MisfitCMJ]

2. I doubt Jim Shooter had gone to couples counseling by that point. This could have been a lot more high-handed than it was-- the boys never act like too big of idiots, and the scene of the girls being super girly doesn’t go too long, thankfully, Interestingly, even though Supergirl suffers a romance comic moment-- no! Not my Brainy! It’s her super-will that saves the day. A mix of emotion, intellect, and inner strength. This could have been horrible, but sufferin satellites it was quite good.

[MisfitCMJ]

3. Just about every moment of issue 269 is a lesson in story telling. If you saw this as a child-- original issues, reprints-- that Neal Adams cover drew a lot of back issue attention, and DC Limited Collector’s Editions were gifts from the reading Gods. And there’s always Legion Archives and Showcase Additions-- it made you want to tell comic book stories. The second issue, 270, as well-- though, on some readings, you wanted the Legionnaires to be a bit more proactive in Mordu’s downfall. But it is our heroes unending willingness to defend against evil that wins in the day-- not their skills, In modern comics, this story would be 10 to 12 issues, and never seem drawn-it. The characters are well used, if a little underwritten by modern standards. Jim Shooter kitchen-sinked his issues like a madman, and most genres are in here somewhere.

[MisfitCMJ]

I meant drawn out. And it is a little annoying the the last line is a snotty one about three girls saving the day after Duo Damsel, Shadow Lass, and in the latter half Insect Queen held their own on a much higher level than often happened in comics at the time-- and two issue after Invisible Kid proclaimed the sexes are treated equally in 30th Earth. Paul Levitz would be the most instrumental in eventually depicting things that way.

4. Yea, okay, Win Mortimer is no Curt Swan, or even Jack Abel, really. Mortimer seems caught off guard trying to fit all of Jim Shooter’s stuff into 24 pages, maybe even drawing over Jim Shooter’s roughs. There’s too much plot, here, really-- but Dream Girl winging it when Ultra Boy gets knocked out is a nice touch. The villain is left field, but again, JM overplots, There are worse things for a writer to do.

[Don-El]

MisfitH, your insights are deeply appreciated! Neal Adams at DC in the late '60s just doing covers was game-changing, and suddenly made buying DC magical again for many of us.

Shooter did indeed provide sketches at times, great point there too!

I just feel sad that his last late '60s “hurrah” on DCU digital is issue 374, when he did other very admirable stuff just a bit later.

[Jay_Kay]

“Issues 269-270: While admittedly this story is dated, having been written 50 years ago, what are the strongest parts of the plot and storyline? What are the super-dated cringe-worthy parts?”

The idea of the Legion having to go back in time and, briefly, forget about their adventurer pasts is a pretty good hook – especially when we got to the hypnosis part, I wondered if maybe Paul Cornell had this story in mind when he wrote the Human Nature novel for the New Doctor Who Adventures “Human Nature” (which would of course later be adapted for the revamped TV show).

The problem for me was Mordu himself – I felt he was almost too powerful, like he didn’t really have a fixed power set, outside of “whatever the plot demands.” Not only does it make it unsatisfying to see him fight, it makes his defeat even worse, because…I still don’t get entirely how he’s beaten? I guess he’s grown so big he causes the cave-in? It just made no sense why that was what beat him other than “we only got a few pages left.”

And yeah, the cringe-worthy stuff. Of course, the whole stuff with Duo Damsel and Shadow Lass vying for Superboy was kind of annoying, though honestly not that bad, I think, if there was some of that coming from Superboy and Mon El’s part as well – that way, it’s less of a “silly girls” thing and more of a “silly teens” thing.

The whole “Mordu got beat by three girls” thing was pretty bad too. Like, guys, did y’all forget the lesson of female empowerment from not even an issue before? Of course they could take down Mordu – they wouldn’t be in the Legion if they couldn’t.

[Jay_Kay]

“A sad way to end what is digitized by DCU, the next issue features the first appearance of the Wanderers…The big question here is: were you able to actually read this one in spite of the art? What’s your secret, lol?”

I didn’t really have a problem with the art in this – it’s no Curt Swan, but I’ve certainly read worse. I just didn’t really feel this story much at all – like Misfit said, there was just too much jammed here and nothing about it was really all that compelling. Kind of had to will myself to finish it, to be honest.

[Don-El]

Yep yep I totally agree Jay_Kay, like I say I sure wish some of those much better issues of Shooter that happened an issue or so later could be in here!

I also love the hook of them deliberately giving themselves amnesia.

As well this particular form will Mordru I admit is not really defined well. It’s interesting that a couple decades later he’s tied into the Amethyst Gemworld storyline. It’s also amusing that later writers have Mordru’s younger self develop a fear of being buried alive, I assume to try to explain this complex puzzling plot line of Shooter’s…

[Don-El]

Comics 375 is where they meet The Wanderers… currently not digitized. This is from my copy of Showcase Presents Legion of Superheroes volume 4 (b& w)

[Don-El]

Adventure Comics 378 featuring another early Neal Adams cover ( not available digitally)

[Don-El]

Then there’s the final Jim Shooter Adventure Comics / Legion of Super-Heroes story of the 60s, issue 380. I assume they were tempted to call this issue, “What’s eating at you, Superboy?”

[Jay_Kay]

I was wondering about how #374’s description on the site talked about the Wanderers and couldn’t get when they showed up. I guess that’s them? I seem to remember seeing them mentioned in the Great Darkness Saga, but honestly, any space group/adventurer in the 30th century outside of the Legion just feel like also-rans. Like, what is your purpose? Why should I care that you exist?