ADVENTURE COMICS 361 (1967)
by Jim Shooter & Jim Mooney
“Featuring the villains who never lose”. That’s going to be hilarious once you know their real identity.
Nice cover, though.
Apparently the United Planets have been at war with the Dominion for the past 20 years and we never noticed!
The United Planets and the Dominators are ready for peace talks, even if the general population is still calling for war.
The President calls the Legion to help the peace talks. Not even the Legion can meet the President without going through some pretty high security.
Specifically, the Legion is supposed to escort the Dominators to a neutral world.
Meanwhile, the Unkillables brainwash some guy to become their assassin.
First appearance by the Dominators, who will become a HUGE player both in the Legion time and in DC in general. And while they’re not exactly cute here, they’ll become FAR uglier.
Jim Shooter is definitely having fun exploring some sci-fi ideas. It’s not on the same level of the Lee&Kirby Fantastic Four, but it has a similar vibe.
The Dominators are almost unrecognizable from what they will become. In addition to a different look, they are more diplomatic and they are also a physical threat.
The delegation is ambushed, leading to a rare Legion version of the X-Men’s Fastball Special (roughly ten years before that was a thing).
Also: we’re supposed to believe that Karate Kid doesn’t have super-strenght?
As usual with Shooter everybody gets a chance to shine, and not just with action.
We also get a little downtime. Surprisingly considering how different they are here, the ranking of Dominators is already established.
It’s also nice to see a break from the “everyone from the evil empire is evil” cliché.
The Unkillables take advantage of the situation to create another action sequence.
The Legion is able to push them to retreat, and Star Boy thinks that the nice Dominator was actually working with the Unkillables.
After a few false alarms, the Legion reaches the portal that will take them back to their universe when they are ambushed by the Unkillables who launch themselves out of volcanos. (!!!)
It was all just a trick to be able to use the Ultimate Weapon ™ !!!
Which is, uhm, kind of what Dynamo Boy was using!?
Except THIS time the Legionnaires aren’t written like complete idiots, so they actually take advantage of this random situation!
The leader of the Unkillables turns out to be the former Dominator who started the war, until he was deposed by the current leader!
And the Unkillables turns out to be… uhm… remember how the cover called them “the villains who never lose”? It’s actually kind of the opposite.
But wait, there’s more! These aren’t actually Oswald & co. No, these are their descendants altered by alien drugs! (WTF?)
And so we reach the end, with the Legion ready to take the Dominators to Earth… except they are already there: they have been protecting solid holograms this whole time.
Like I said, these Dominators are VERY different from future incarnations. But the fact that they are five steps ahead of the Legion at every turn will remain.
Legion significance: 3/10
The Dominators are pretty important, but you can basically dismiss most of this story.
Silver Age-ness: 7/10
You just HAD to throw the altered descendants, didn’t you, Shooter?
Does it stand the test of time? 7/10
Despite the lunacy of the truth behind the Unkillables, this a rather well-crafted story that can be easily adapted today.
We are legion
23 Legionnaires
2 reserve member: Kid Psycho, Insect Queen
2 honorary members: Elastic Lad, Rond Vidar
1 resigned member: Command Kid
1 expelled member: Nemesis Kid
2 deceased members: Dynamo Boy, Ferro Lad
How much Legion is too much?
The total number of characters who have been members is 31.
Yeah that whole assassin descendents thing just. Did. Not. Make. Sense. For me, it was a good set up to the story, but the twist left me thinking “huh?” but I guess everything of that era had to relate back to Earth and reference points that made sense to readers of the day