SUPERBOY 193 (1973)
by Cary Bates & Dave Cockrum
The 70s are now officially here: it’s time to let Dave Cockrum get loose on new costumes!
Brainiac 5 is the only one to keep his old look.
New costumes for Chameleon Boy (who has yellow skin for the entire issue for some reason), Shrinking Violet (who is almost unrecognizable!), Matter-Eater Lad (whose costume won’t last) and Karate Kid.
EDIT: that wasn’t supposed to be a new costume for M-E-L, see the comments.
I jumped ahead a bit: the mission is to save a planet that is evenly split between day and night.
Unfortunately they have nuclear weapons and they live on an incredibly delicate planet.
Sounds legit.
Duo Damsel shows up late to the party, but she has joined the costume craze.
She will soon ditch the cape, but the costume with different colors for separate bodies will become a regular thing. It kind of makes sense for this story, but I always thought it made her power even less useful.
Once on the planet, the half wearing orange is captured by a giant bird (???) that leads her to the leader of the day side.
She hypnotizes him with a visual effect that is really, REALLY hard to scan.
The purple Duo Damsel does the same on the night side.
Meanwhile Chameleon Boy ends nuclear war off-panel. (!!!)
Duo Damsel has brought the two kings in a desolate area so that they can fight each other, and naturally they cheat.
The two Duo Damsels try to prevent the detonator from going off…
…AND FAIL.
Or not! Turns out Chameleon Boy disabled the nuclear weapons by posing as both kings, and Duo Damsel was actually just trying to force a metaphor.
I guess “these colors once stopped nuclear war” is a good reason for Duo Damsel to keep her new color scheme.
Historical significance: 6/10
For any other team I wouldn’t give this much relevance to a costume change, but for the Legion is a big deal. Shrinking Violet and Karate Kid will last, as well as Chameleon Boy once he stops turning his skin yellow.
Silver Age-ness: 3/10
Planets with a hemisphere under the sun and the other one in eternal darkness are a real thing! The whole “balance in their solar system” thing, on the other hand…
Does it stand the test of time? 5/10
This one felt a little rushed. The first panels are there exclusively to show the new costumes of people who don’t do anything at all in the rest of the story!
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.
I’ve been going through the forewords for the Legion Archive collections, and Volume 10’s incredibly interesting foreward is by David Cockrum. He talks in specific about Superboy #193, and specifically that “Some readers insist to this day that Matter-Eater Lad was also wearing a new costume in that issue. He wasn’t. I liked his costume and had no intention of changing it. The colorist goofed, and made him red instead of green.” It’s an incredibly minor point of misinformation, but it’s still a good idea to correct it.
Cool detail! I’ll add a note in the review.