Action 387 – Superman at the end of time, and the Legion vs tax laws

Bates, Swan and Roussos conclude Superman’s travel through time in Action 387 (April 1970).

He encounters some astronauts, frozen in suspended animation for centuries, and revives them in the year 801,970.

Travelling even further into the future, he reaches a time when the entire planet is dead and devoid of life.  If those are different.  Anyway, he cuts the planet open and terraforms it, and brings life forms, including humans, from other worlds to populate it and start the cycle again.

There is a very unexpected attack from Lex Luthor.  He had never believed Superman dead, and left behind a weapon, powered by his eternal hate, to kill him.  It fails.

Superman travels even further ahead, but Time Trapper loops him, and sends him back to the start. He blacks out, waking to find himself a baby in his parents arms on Krypton.  A few more blackout time jumps, and Superman is back to where he was at the start of the saga.

Which is a bit of a let-down finish, if you ask me.

Bridwell, Mortimer and Abel share one of the oddest Legion stories.  Every single member appears.  Even the Super-Pets appear.  And I’m tagging them ALL.

And the board is also worth noting, on the first page. The Legionnaires appear in the order they joined the team.  Supergirl is located between Star Boy and Brainiac 5, while Superboy is later, between Shrinking Violet and Sun Boy.

An evil tax man shows up, and the Legion discover that they have to get rid of one member, or have to pay taxes.  As they do not actually make money by being the Legion, I’m not sure what they would be taxed on, but it’s enough of a threat that they all start vying to be the one to leave.  Timber Wolf and Chemical King are the first to offer, being the most recent to join.

The team attempt to hold a random draw, but it gets rigged, and then everyone starts claiming responsibility for rigging it.

Supergirl insists that she should be the one to leave, as she attends the fewest meeting.  Brainiac 5 is not happy, and the Super-Pets all but revolt, insisting that they will disband if she leaves.

Brainiac 5 is selected by the computer as the hero who performed the fewest feats, but everyone insists his mind is worth more than just feats.

Finally, it is Superboy who chooses to leave.  His powers are duplicated by Mon-El, and he has no romance or clinging pets, as Supergirl does.  Notice that Krypto would resign if Supergirl left, but not Superboy.

Duo Damsel is the one most upset about his departure. Luornu’s unrequited love for Superboy would be touched on again in the future.

For many of the characters, this was the last appearance they have before the end of the Legion’s run in Action Comics.  Ironically, this is also the last appearance of the full line up of the Super-Pets, as Beppo does not appear again, aside from flashbacks in comprehensive Superman origin tales.

 

Action 380 – Superman’s crimes, and Duo Damsel vs Duo Damsel

Dorfman, Swan and Roussos bring back the Superman Revenge Squad in Action 380 (Sept. 69).

The pair who execute this plan actually have to win a competition first, on what appears to be a small planet full of Revenge Squad members.  It’s a popular club.  They come to Earth, and begin to mess with Superman, making him think he is performing destructive acts in his sleep.

In fact, it is the two Revenge Squad members who are doing this, while giving Clark red kryptonite induced nightmares.

The female member impersonates Supergirl, lying to Superman about a test he undergoes to see if he is being affected by red kryptonite.  Superman is left believing himself to be guilty of their crimes.

The story concludes in the next issue.

Duo Damsel is the focus of this month’s Legion of Suepr-Heroes story, by Shooter, Mortimer and Abel.

Luornu Durgo splits into her two selves, sending one on a mission, while the other hangs and relaxes with Bouncing Boy.  The one who left takes an awful long time coming back, and when she does, it is on the arms of Nam-Lor.

The second body starts using a different name, Leilith, and her behaviour has changed.  Luornu suspects something is wrong, and discusses this with Bouncing Boy.  The two wind up confronting Leilith and Nam-Lor, catching them in the middle of a theft.  Luornu finds she cannot even merge with Leilith.

The story comes to a genuinely surprising conclusion.  Leilith orders Nam-Lor to kill Bouncing Boy, but he refuses.  We discover that Nam-Lor has, among other powers, a “hyper-aura” that has driven Leilith to become a violent criminal.  he has reluctantly gone along with her, but hates the person he has turned her into. Nam-Lor leaves.

The story ends, just when it gets very interesting.  I want to see how the two Duo Damsels interact now, but it’s over.  In later years, more would be made of the “darker” body of Duo Damsel, and it’s not too long after this that she adopts a new costume, which gives each body a different colour.

Action 309 – the Superman family, and the secret of Supergirl’s parents

Edmond Hamilton gave Curt Swan and George Klein an awful lot of work in Action 309 (Feb. 64).

I’m including the splash page of this story to give you some idea of the amount of guest stars who appear.  But this is not just trivial packing, it’s also part of the suspense of the story.

JFK, looking awfully shadowy, tricks Superman into going to a location, which is where a “this is your life!” special about him is being broadcast.  It’s not that much of a surprise for Superman, Clark Kent received an invitation.

But who will Superman get to be Clark?  Lois and Lana have a robot detector, as they are using the special to try to prove Clark is Superman.  Lori Lemaris reads their minds, and alerts Superman to the danger.  Lex Luthor makes a cameo, watching the show from prison, but he is the only villain really featured in the tale.

The Super-Pets put on an impressive show under Supergirl’s command.

Superboy’s friend Pete Ross makes his first appearance as an adult, and we see a very aged Police Chief Parker from Smallville as well.  All the usual friends are there, Jimmy Olsen and Perry White, as well as representatives from Kandor.  Among them are the “Lookalike Squad”, the ones who are identical to people in Superman’s life.  This includes the Clark Kent lookalike, Van-Zee, and his Lois Lane lookalike wife, Sylvia. Even the Jimmy Olsen Fan Club show up, one of whom is dumb enough to bring a chunk of gold kryptonite as a gift.

But then the Legion of Super-Heroes show up, and Element Lad changes the rock and saves the day.  Chameleon Boy is part of the group, eliminating him as the phony Clark Kent.

Batman unmasks in front of Lois, but is wearing a Bizarro face.  A nice laugh on snoopy Lois, and a way to work the Bizarro image into the story.

So who is left that could possibly have been Clark Kent?

Why, JFK of course.

Very disturbingly, this issue was released only a couple of weeks after the assassination of JFK.

Dorfman and Mooney add yet another twist to the never-dull life of Supergirl.

Linda is being haunted by dreams of her dead parents, Zor-El and Alura, and can’t even enjoy her dates with Dick Malverne.   She wonders if her parents might be trapped in the Phantom Zone, because of their ghostly nature.  She checks with Comet, who can telepathically sense them somewhere.

Supergirl can find no trace of them, but does find a remorseful Kryptonian, Jer-Em.  He is willing to tell her of them, but Jax-Ur, Zod, Kru-El and Professor Vakox muddle his telepathy.

In Kandor, Supergirl uses a chronoscope to review the events of Argo City, her departure for Earth and the death of her parents.  She learns that Jer-Em altered the direction of Argo City’s flight, to take them away from an empowering yellow sun, believing it was evil.  But the change in course lead to the meteor shower that ruined the city.

She also discovers that her parents did survive, heading into a place like the Phantom Zone, but without all the yucky criminals, called the Survival Zone.

Supergirl vows to find and free her parents!

 

 

 

 

 

Action 287 – Superman’s bad dreams, and Supergirl kills

The second half of the Superman Revenge Squad story, in Action 287 (April 1962) never quite lives up to the joyous insanity of the first half, though Swan and Klein’s art remains superb.

Superman has one long dream, which sees him become a criminal against his will.  He is hunted by the police, and Perry White.

Finally the payoff comes, as the Revenge Squad attack Earth right in front of Superman, and hope that he will think it was just a dream.

Really?  That was the plan?

They deserved to lose.

Now, onto a story that I have so much to say about.  Siegel and Mooney’s deadly Supergirl tale.

Linda Danvers is invited to join a Superman fan club, and does. Lois Lane has been brought in to give a talk.  She proves more insightful than usual, as she pegs Linda as looking identical to Supergirl.

Returning home, Linda sees that her model of the Legion Clubhouse is ringing.  That alerts her to look at the Legion figures on her bookshelf, which are flashing, which means they want her to come to help them.  You’d think she could do without being alerted to look at the glowing figures on the bookshelf, but apparently not.

She gets to the 30th century just as Legion are performing live on 3D television.  It’s being watched in “millions of homes,” but for some reason they chose to show us this family, who cannot say anything interesting.

A positive energy being, who is a transformed scientist, is wreaking havoc in space, as is a negative energy bird.  That’s why the Legion called on her.  She sets them up to take each other out.  In other words, sets them up to kill each other.  Pretty much the same as just killing them herself.  And the story makes it clear that the positive being still has some degree of the scientist’s sentience in it.

But whatever. Moving on, we get introduced to Whizzy.  This super-powered cat wears a collar that proclaims him to be the descendant of Streaky, and he claims to have acquired his ancestor’s powers through evolution. Which is extremely unlikely, given that Streaky’s powers are a temporary effect from exposure to x-kryptonite.

Oh, and we see an android store, where a woman wants an android nanny who looks just like her, so her children will not be able to tell them apart.  Yes, because she is clearly as heartless as the android.

Oh, gosh, there’s more.  The Legionnaires lose their powers as a result of the positive/negative explosion, and Supergirl uses her powers to make it look like they have not.  But they aren’t really the Legionnaires, they are evil impostors, a chameleon race.  Which likely means they are also Durlans, from Chameleon Boy’s homeworld.

They reveal themselves to Supergirl, and send her and Whizzy into the Phantom Zone.

Darned unfriendly.

But everything works out in the end, as she gets Whizzy to telepathically order a chameleon android, and…

Can I just stop now?

No, because I must point out that this is the one and only appearance of Whizzy.

 

Action 276 – Supergirl vs the Superman Emergency Squad, and Supergirl joins the Legion of Super-Heroes

Action 276 (May 1961) does deliver on it’s cover, though not quite in the way one might expect.

Boring and Kaye do the art as Clark Kent shows himself far too trusting, revealing his identity to a dying philanthropist.

Of course, the man is not actually dying, and while he is a philanthropist, that is a front for his criminal activities.  He not believes Superman to be Clark Kent, though his doctor warns him that the drug he took to simulate his near-death condition did leave him prone to hallucinations.

So it’s obvious how they will “get out” of the revelation, but at least the doctor did set that up near the top of the story.

The man sets a kryptonite trap for Clark Kent, who calls on the Sueprman Emergency Squad to help him.  This is a small army of Kandorians, who dons Superman masks and costumes when they leave the bottle to help him.

After saving him, they join with Supergirl in all manner of bizarre behaviour, intended to convince the bad guy that he is having hallucinations, and Clark Kent is not Superman.

Not really a “war” between Supergirl and the Emergency Squad.

A lot of Legionnaires debut in the Siegel and Mooney Supergirl story in this issue, as she finally gets to join the team.

Saturn Girl arrives in Supergirl’s time, along with two other members making their debuts, Phantom Girl and Triplicate Girl.  Saturn Girl is wearing a lead mask in a really half-hearted attempt to conceal her identity, as part of the weird games they play with Supergirl.

They bring her to the 30th century, where she meets some other new applicants for membership, Shrinking Violet, Bouncing Boy, and Sun Boy.

But the far more important one for this story is Brainiac 5, the descendant of the original Brainiac, shown in flashback as he was in his first appearance, without the cool head things, and with Koko.  At this time, Brainiac was still believed to be an alien.  Brainiac 5’s relationship with him would change after his robotic state was revealed.

Supergirl completes her initiation, and Brainiac 5 gives her a force-field belt of his creation, based on his ancestor’s force field, which protects her from kryptonite.

And love blossoms between the temporally distanced couple.

The ending of the story is not as good.  Returning to Earth, Supergirl heads to Atlantis to retrieve some kryptonite from Lori Lemaris and Jerro, but runs into Krypto, who thinks its fake kryptonite…blah blah, event event which  winds up destroying the force field belt.

But at least Linda has another long-distance boyfriend.