Action Comics 267

ACTION COMICS #267 (1960)
by Jerry Siegel and Jim Mooney

 

This is the first Legion story which doesn’t have anything to do with the cover story.
Which is still about time travel, by the way.

We’re not talking about that story, which is a shame because it includes Lex Luthor building a time machine with an alarm clock, a shaving mirror, aspirine and the picture of an eclipse:

No, we’re focusing on the Supergirl story. Her orphanage is visiting a Superman exhibition, which has the brilliant idea of wasting billions of volts just to show he can’t be hurt:

As soon as Superman leaves, something goes wrong (because of course it does) and Supergirl wants to jump into action. But a boy looking surprisingly like Jimmy Olsen stops the cyclotron:

The boy, who isn’t Jimmy Olsen despite the bow tie, even knows her secret identity:

Then a lion breaks loose (why is there a Lion in the Superman exhibit!?), only to be stopped by a girl who also knows Supergirl’s identity:

This happens again at a ride… made to resemble Kryptonian rocket ships?
Holy crap, that’s dark! You DO realize those things were built to escape a dying world, right?

Anyway, as you can probably guess, Supergirl is useless again and she’s saved by a boy with powers who knows her secret. Again.

Back at her orphanage, she sees her robot double (of course she has one) leave the hollow tree where she stores it, and once there she finds the Legionnaires.

By the way, the same issue includes an amazing letter about how the tree thing works:

Which is right beneath the AMAZING letter about eating fish from another dimension:

I want to be a professional fish-eater now.

Anyway, Supergirl puts two and two together and suddenly understands that the Legion is doing the exact thing they did to Superboy in their first appearance:

Only they’re not the same Legion: they’re their children, continuing the tradition of being dicks to 20th century Kryptonians:

 

This will be retconned away in future stories. But Saturn Girl drops the rule that you must be under 18 to be a member, which surprisingly enough will take a long time to be retconned.
And Cosmic Boy asks Supergirl if she wants to join:

They reach the very old-fashioned 30^th century, complete with ice cream parlor of course, and the iconic looks-like-an-upside-down-rocket headquarters of the Legion:

And we get to meet new members of the Legion!

And the weird way to describe their powers.
Chameleon Boy has the power of “super-disguise”, which… isn’t inaccurate, but for a shape-shifter it’s a little reductive.
Colossal Boy has “super-growth”, which sounds more like being able to reach puberty faster.
And Invisible Kid has the power of “super-invisibility”.
Okay.
Leaving aside the question of what the heck is “super” invisibility… your name is Invisible Kid, WHY do you need a tag to describe your power!? It’s Invisible Kid!
I could understand it if he had a secondary power, like the Invisible Girl has her forcefield. But no, he turns invisible. That’s it.
Excuse me, he turns super-invisible.

But to join the Legion, Supergirl has to do something really impressive to show she has the stuff.

So she decides to CARVE A NEW TUNNEL THAT RUNS THROUGH THE EARTH to ease traffic!!!

This should earn her a spot on the team, but she’s rejected because she’s no longer a teenager: she’s Super Woman now!

Which happened because there was Red Kryptonite in the ground, and Silver Age Red Kryptonite transforms Kryptonians at random.

Good thing her costume stretched with her.

Poor innocent Supergirl. You know there’s a place on the Internet where your costume doesn’t stretch enough, right?
Sad Supergirl is sad, though, because she could be stuck as an adult woman for years.

Just kidding! Literally the next panel:

 

Historical significance: 6/10
If we’re talking about Supergirl, the only significant thing is that she meets the Legion, which won’t really be a big part of her life anyway.

Legion significance: 7/10
The Legionnaires being the children of the original ones won’t be used again, but the 18 year rule will apply for a while. It’s also established that becoming a member has special requirements.

Silver Age-ness: 8/10
Red Kryptonite alone would be enough, but the creation of the tunnel helps.

Does it stand the test of time? 6/10
A little formulaic, but there’s nothing particularly dated, aside from the Ice Cream Parlor (which might come back in style in a thousand years, you never know)

We are legion
6 active Legionnaires (the original 3 plus Chameleon Boy, Colossal Boy and Invisible Kid); assuming Superboy isn’t a member right now.

How much Legion is too much?
The Legion of Superheroes currently consists of 7 people.

 

Time travel doesn’t work like that
Nothing for the Legion story (the time bubble and Supergirl’s time travel abilities were already established), but the Superman story has a time machine that requires aspirin.

A thousand years in the future, you say?
The Ice Cream Parlor returns.

 

 

The letter page is quite something. Apparently there was serious discussion about who could sleep with Supergirl in 1960.
(yes, they talk about marriage, but you know what they were thinking)