Legion of Super-Heroes vol.3 #39 (1987)
written by Paul Levitz
pencils by Greg LaRoque & Curt Swan
cover by Steve Lighle
Let us begin the last phase of Volume 3, which after the monumental events of #38 begins with a focus on Colossal Boy.
It’s also a focus on GiGi Cusimano, Science Police officer and love interest of a couple Legionnaires. We haven’t seen her much lately, and this issue is probably the most focus she will ever get.
Honestly I’ve never found her interesting: as a Science Police liaison with a crush on Legionnaires, she basically has the same exact role of Shvaughn Erin but with FAR less history.
She’s struggling whether to accept Sun Boy’s (undisclosed) offer or to “settle down”. We’ll learn what she means at the end of the story, because this is just the framing device…
…for an extended flashback dealing with her relationship with the future Colossal Boy.
Which, as has been hinted multiple times before, started when they were both Science Police cadets.
They are stationed on Mars, which both are basically treating like a giant vacation.
Which kind of makes sense: previous stories told us that crime is SO low on Earth there are like ten Science Police officers that actually work, so how much crime could Mars have?
Levitz is going all-out imagining what 30th century people do for fun.
Sand-skiing on Mars, anyone?
Which is when SUDDEN METEORITE!!!
A radioactive meteorite, even! Which I guess wouldn’t be surprising: Earth is hit by Kryptonite meteors all the time, why not Mars?
Well that was almost exciting. Let’s go back to these two lovebirds flirting.
But eventually they remember they should be doing SOME police work.
Our hero, ladies and gentlemen!
Crime is really, REALLY low if this qualifies as the potential for impressing your bosses.
Okay I get why she’s aiming for Weber’s World or Takron-Galtos: the former is the seat of the United Planets government and the latter a prison planet, so there’s tons of work for a police officer in both.
But Naltor? Dream Girl’s native planet where everyone has precognition? Do they REALLY need the Science Police there?
But eventually she spots the thief: a convict from the Mars Absurdly Low Security Prison that had escaped earlier.
Keep dreaming about that promotion, GiGi.
As the criminal tries to escape, the soon-to-be Legionnaire discovers his powers.
DC heroes that gain powers because they’re exposed to radiation are quite rare, it’s more of a Marvel thing. But this makes me wonder: if Colossal Boy was a more popular character, would we have gotten an Elseworld where SHE was the one to gain powers and become Colossal Girl?
His main worry is being separated from her, with the Science Police posting him on a planet where people are giants. That would actually be an interesting planet to visit for a story!
Also this is KIND OF what happens in the Threeboot, where Colossal Boy is from a city of giants and his actual power is shrinking down to human size.
But they’re also looking for the thief, because Colossal Boy was too distracted saving GiGi to actually catch him earlier.
They do catch him soon enough.
We’ve seen countless times that the Science Police is WILDLY ineffective. Case in point: they don’t even take advantage of people with superpowers!
Also, did we already know Colossal Boy’s father used to be Fleet Admiral? If so, we focused so much on his mother that I didn’t notice.
Speaking of his mother: she’s the one who suggests trying to join the Legion!
Surprise audition time!!!
Sadly we only get ONE new rejected member: Calcu-Lad. Who I guess was rejected because his power doesn’t sound very useful for super-heroing.
We see other people in line for the audition, but none of them get names or powers.
Which wouldn’t normally prevent me from listing them among the rejects, but we don’t even see them go into the audition itself… even I can’t honestly add them.
So the only other potential candidates we see are Colossal Boy and Chameleon Boy.
It’s also revealed that Colossal Boy is the one who indirectly inspired Chameleon Boy to take that name. Not really a necessary revelation, but it’s a nice interaction.
It also establishes them as close friends from the very beginning.
As you know, these two are the ones to join the Legion, which is now established to have 7 members.
This is explicitly confirmed to take place BEFORE the Legion recruited Superboy in its first story, so the first 7 Legionnaires are shown to be:
1) Cosmic Boy
2) Saturn Girl
3) Lightning Lad
4) Triplicate Girl
5) Phantom Girl
6) Colossal Boy
7) Chameleon Boy
But where is the original Invisible Kid? He was introduced as a member in the same issue of Colossal Boy and Chameleon Boy, Action Comics #267 from 1960.
You could make the argument that he’s just not shown, which might be appropriate given his power, but he’s not even on the cover that DOES show the others.
Earlier stories had already established that both Triplicate Girl and Phantom Girl were members before Superboy Even though their first appearance is Action Comics #276 from 1961, the direct sequel to the above story.
And in THAT story, both Shrinking Violet and Brainiac 5 are only now trying to join the Legion.
I’m bringing this up because, going back to the review, while the girl dressed in green attending the swearing-in ceremony MIGHT be Shrinking Violet, the one next to her is DEFINITELY Brainiac 5.
Who can’t possibly be a member or even an applicant this early!!! Is he just attending as a spectator? I know that after Crisis the Legion history is in flux at the moment, but that’s too much.
And it still doesn’t explain the lack of Invisible Kid.
The best explanation is that he’s just attending as a guest, because he’s namedropped as the one behind the use of the Time Bubble™ that will soon be used to recruit Superboy.
This is where the couple separates: he’s going to stay with the Legion, and she’s posted on Takron-Galtos. Which checks out with earlier stories, because she was there during an early Star Boy adventure.
And to close the story, GiGi refuses Sun Boy’s offer…
…because she just got a huge promotion.
She will appear again a few times, both at the end of this volume and during Volume 4, but this is basically the end of her being part of the regular supporting cast.
Legion significance: 1/10
Extremely minor addition to the lore.
Silver Age-ness: 7/10
Only in the Silver Age you could accept this random radioactive meteorite to show up and be never mentioned or explained. It’s not even any kind of Kryptonite.
Does it stand the test of time? 6/10
A nice throwback, especially with Curt Swan contributing to the artwork, but this felt a bit too empty. The entire story is narrated by GiGi, and yet I can’t help feeling we still don’t know enough about her. She wants to improve her career in the Science Police, she’s in love with Colossal Boy and… well that’s about it, isn’t it?
As mentioned this is the most focus she ever gets, and I’m still wondering: has anyone but Levitz REALLY cared about GiGi Cusimano?
We are legion
24 active Legionnaires
6 reserve members
12 deceased members
2 resigned members
1 honorary member
45 people have been members
49 people have been rejected
Interesting letters: one of the reasons why the Universo Project is endlessly debated among the Legion fandom is that Levitz left things a little too vague when selecting the team that defeated him, something that he acknowledges.
I agree with Steve, Blok hasn’t done ANYTHING in ages. He might not be glad about the kind of storyline he gets, though.
If Brainy had already been in the Legion, there’s no way Calcu-Lad’s power could have gotten him in.
While Reep’s original appereance had him introduce himself as “the one and only Chameleon Boy”, we later (earlier?) saw Superman dealing “Chameleon Men from Planet Durla”, who even wore Reep’s costume. There was even a Lois Lane issue with Chameleon Girls from Durla. The only way Gim could have coined the “Chameleon” epithet as if it were something original would be if all knowledge of previous Durlans was forgotten over the past millennium, or if it was erased by some crisis.
Considering that this story is told from GiGi’s perspective, she may have thought Gim had given Cham inspiration for his name. Perhaps Gim even told her that he had just to impress her.
As for Lyle not being present, I believe it was long established that only Gim and Cham joined the Legion at the same time, which means Lyle must have joined shortly after.
Given what’s later revealed about the thief in the flashback, I’d say the Legion significance score should be a bit higher.