Adventure Comics #363

ADVENTURE COMICS 363 (1967)
by Jim Shooter & Pete Costanza

Second part of the Legion’s fight against Dr. Sivana Dr. Morlo.
The cover would actually be pretty good if the mad scientist wasn’t in his pajamas.

Last issue ended with the Chemoids cornering the Legion by adapting to their powers, but now the Legionnaires use their powers a little more creatively.

While this group of Legionnaires pursues Dr. Morlo, we catch up with another part of the team that is busy dealing with an emergency on Daxam (Mon-El’s planet).

Even Element Lad is helping, for a change!

Dr. Morlo has unleashed several natural disasters on Daxam, pushing the Legionnaires to their limits to deal with the situation.
There’s a real sense of dread and emergency.

This team also goes after Dr. Morlo, but they fail to catch him despite being able to keep up with the constant barrage of chemical traps.

Then we move to the third and final batch of Legionnaires, who are dealing with an emergency on Naltor, Dream Girl’s planet. At least it’s an emergency according to them.

Jim Shooter goes wild with the worldbuilding of a planet where everyone has precognitive planets and I absolutely love this.

The entire Naltor society is based on the fact that their predictions are NEVER wrong… so you can imagine the chaos caused by false predictions.

Well actually you don’t have to imagine.

The Naltorians know that the bad predictions have been caused by contaminated food… but since all their scientific research is based on prophetic dreams (!!!!) they need the Legion’s help.

But how is the Legion supposed to search for clues?
Simple: by having Ultra Boy literally LOOKING THROUGH THE ENTIRE PLANET.

Well, that’s ONE way to look for an underground base!

As for how Dr. Morlo is causing everyone on Naltor to have bad dreams:

Sounds legit.

The Legion finds Dr. Morlo, but he uses a hallucinogenic gas against them.

They are saved by Chameleon Boy being useful. (!!!)

Dr. Morlo escapes, but for some reason Chameleon Boy doesn’t want the team to pursue him.

He might regret it, since it turns out that Dr. Morlo has a bomb that can make Earth’s water burn. (???)

And with the help of his assistant Gorn, Dr. Morlo BLOWS UP EARTH.

Yep! In just a few minutes, Dr. Morlo has destroyed Earth!

Or not.

Yes, it turns out that:
A) The Legion was chasing chemical duplicates of Dr. Morlo
B) CHAMELEON BOY JUST SAVED THE DAY

C) Superboy, Mon-El and Element Lad built a fake Earth OFF-PANEL

And so Dr. Morlo will be indeed be famous… for being the guy who blew up the wrong Earth.

Nobody tell him about Crisis on Infinite Earths, please.

Legion significance: 2/10
Naltor isn’t really all that significant to the Legion lore.

Silver Age-ness: 10/10
Everything was relatively realistic until THEY BUILD A NEW EARTH OFF-PANEL.

Does it stand the test of time? 8/10
The ending is a bit silly, but this was really good. Splitting the team into smaller units, each with its own little adventure. Exploring both Orando in the previous issue and Naltor in this one. The real sense of emergency and dread. The only parts that don’t really work all that well are the frankly ridiculous way Dr.Morlo is tricked into blowing up the wrong planet and the fact that he’s immensely generic as a villain. Just give him a hint of a personality and scale down the fake planet, and everything else can easily be published today.

We are legion
23 Legionnaires
2 reserve members: 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.

Interesting letters: the push for racial diversity in Legion stories continues, even if it’s with 1960s terminology. I have no idea about what they’re talking about for “Unexpected”, but the next Legionnaire indeed won’t be white.