Legion of Super-Heroes v2 #260 (1980)
by Gerry Conway & Joe Staton
cover by Dick Giordano
Now that Superboy has left the team, the Legion can do anything it wants… and it decides to join the circus.
The team is split into two groups: one will help R.J.Brande recreate his fortune. We will catch up with the rest in #262.
Previous stories made it sound like the Legion couldn’t possibly rebuild its headquarters without Brande, but now they’ve finally decided to do it themselves.
The team we’re following in this story, however, will have other problems to deal with.
Notice Lightning Lad already diminishing his role as leader; he basically hasn’t had the chance to do much of anything in that position, mostly due to the shenanigans with the changing writers.
The Legion saves the life of the delegate from an assassination, and that’s how they get involved in the circus. It’s a bit weird, but its given context and it’s probably the most we have seen so far of the politics of the United Planets.
I particularly enjoyed the fact that Projectra being a princess is used as an excuse to explain the current situation.
And so we have the Legion disguising themselves as circus performers!
Mon-El plays the strongman, Star Boy plays the fat man thanks to Projectra’s illusions, and Saturn Girl wears a bikini.
It’s a cute idea, although having Projectra play the fortune teller is a wasted opportunity: shouldn’t this be Dream Girl?
Brainiac 5 plays the magician (must’ve been a decision by his friends to make fun of him), and Phantom Girl plays his assistant “Cyndirilla”.
She gets to play the hero as well, saving the performers from a Jovian tentacle monster.
There are three possible suspects of all these shenanigans. We’ve seen them in the background, but we haven’t any real clues so far.
Lastly an attempt is made on Timber Wolf, who is playing the gymnast, but he survives.
And it SEEMS to be the solution of the mystery.
Legion of Super-Heroes v2 #261 (1980)
by Gerry Conway & Ric Estrada
cover by Dick Giordano
I’m not a huge Joe Staton fan, but unfortunately we have to exchange him with Ric “Karate Kid” Estrada.
Of course things couldn’t be as simple as it looked.
The murderer was killed with a modified brain scanner, leading Brainiac 5 to piece together a possible clue.
So that leaves with two suspects. Well… maybe one suspect.
Timber Wolf has really faded into the background lately, but sometimes we are reminder that he’s still as much as an awesome character as his more flashy teammates.
Still, sometimes you DO need more flashy superpowers.
Phantom Girl saves him with the old trick of materializing partially inside an enemy’s body.
That’s the signature move of Marvel’s Vision, but it’s a staple of pretty much all characters with intangibility powers.
Understandably, all these attempted murders (and actual ones) are not great for either business or diplomacy.
The circus’ owner even has a computer that predicts war is inevitable. SOMEHOW.
But why are we still chasing possibilities when we were left with just one suspect?
(also: Princess Projectra seems to have dyed her hair blond for this issue. Perhaps she didn’t take well my remark about Dream Girl being a better fit?)
The fact that he’s a shapeshifter makes him even more suspect. I wonder why they didn’t make him a member of Chameleon Boy’s species.
Aaaand he gets exploded. So we’re back to square one on the suspects.
Then the Legion follows the ship that caused the explosion BY GRABBING IT!!!
Yeah sure, visual disorientation is the greatest danger here, not FLYING FASTER THAN LIGHT WITHOUT PROTECTION!!!! WTF!?!?
And the actual culprit turns out to be… the last named character still alive, what did you expect?
The guy turns out to be completely bonkers…
…and we finish the story with him fleeing into hyperspace.
Legion significance: 0/10
You can skip this one.
Silver Age-ness
First issue: 3/10
Second issue: 10/10 
Does it stand the test of time? 6/10
It’s a step in the right direction, giving SOME of the Legionnaires something to do and trying for some worldbuilding. Unfortunately the results are quite lackluster, and again: WTF was that ending!?
We are legion
22 Legionnaires
6 reserve members
1 on sick leave (Matter-Eater Lad)
Interesting letters: all of these sound like much better solutions to the “Brainiac 5 is insane” plot than the one we actually got.
There’s also an understandable backlash against Tyroc. He will get his own story in this era and then fade into obscurity for years.
The letters page are rather brutal in these two issues, but I can’t fault the readers.
The editor is pretty salty about the situation too.
This is a FASCINATING look behind the scenes of what happens with the letters page.
“Who rebuilds our headquarters, with the UP broke, and Brande filing for bankruptcy?”
Uh, Mon-El could. He’s basically Superman. Presumably, the Legion still owns the land the old HQ sat on, so I can’t really see the problem.
With that said, this was pretty good for a Conway story. Not the plot – that was a bit silly, but I did like the creative uses of some of the LSH’s powers in this one, particularly Projectra. When “making illusions” is your entire deal and everyone knows it, you gotta be subtle in its use. Lots of bad guys are just going to ignore a sudden monster that appears in front of Jeckie. Levitz realised this when he reworked her into (40 year old SPOILERS) Sensor Girl.
Bacaro Barley Interstellar Travelling Carnival and Sideshow is my favorite untapped potential thing in the LSH universe. So much so that I based a potential series for it as my “dream submission” to break into the business on it. All the reboots since sorta kinda ruins the idea though.