Superboy 183

SUPERBOY 183 (1972)
by Cary Bates & George Tuska

In the vacuum of space, only superheroes consistently bump into people.

In this story, the Legionnaires will wear costumes designed by fans.
Saturn Girl was the first one to do this, and she’ll keep her swimsuit costume for years.
The others won’t, LUCKILY.

Yeesh.
Not a fan of those. Princess Projectra’s costume in particular doesn’t seem to fit her character.

Thankfully Mon-El is invulnerable to bad fashion choices, so he keeps his original costume and actually pays attention to the plot.

And what’s the story? One energy being is possessing the bodies of Mon-El and Karate Kid, and the other one is possessing the bodies of Projectra and Shadow Lass.

Which isn’t a bad idea, but when one of them is Mon-El…

Too bad Shadow Lass’ new costume attracts the attention of a tentacle monster.

Then Shadow Lass is killed (!!!)

This frees the Legionnaires from mind control, so they fight the tentacle monster.

Which, again, is fine. But, again: Mon-El. No contest.

Also it turns out that Shadow Lass isn’t dead. Shocking, I know.

So, time to wrap this up. What’s going on? Why did those aliens possess the Legionnaires?

To f####, apparently.

And we’re still in the backup feature, so that’s already the end!

So, uhm… THAT happened.

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Historical significance: 0/10
Mercifully these costumes didn’t last.

 Silver Age-ness: 4/10
The Legion randomly comes across two space ghosts, then randomly get attacked by an extremely rare tentacle monster.

 Does it stand the test of time? 3/10
I’ll give the comic this much: George Tuska’s art has been much, MUCH worse.
I can’t fault him for the costumes since they were designed by the readers, and honestly he doesn’t draw them badly… it’s just their concept that doesn’t work well.
The story itself is pretty bland. The concept of a couple of energy aliens that routinely possess couples of other species has a lot of potential, but this comic doesn’t have the time to explore anything.

We are legion
25 Legionnaires
3 reserve members: Kid Psycho, Insect Queen, Superboy
3 honorary members: Elastic Lad, Pete Ross, 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 35.