Superboy and the LSH #229 (1977)
by Paul Levitz & Jim Sherman
cover by Mike Grell
Don’t be fooled by the cover: this is not the Time Trapper.
We begin with the Legion mourning Chemical King, killed last issue. It’s a return to Shanghalla, the planet where all galactic heroes are buried, which we first saw in Adventure Comics #341.
The Legion decides to hunt Deregon, the Australian governor and Dark Circle operative responsible for the death of CK. Wildfire decides to send only 5 Legionnaires, because it would be tiresome to draw all 23 of them more “would just be in the way”.
I would’ve gone with “we still have a galaxy to protect”, but whatever.
He also decides to select five members randomly, and we even get a reference to the real life science phenomenon of Brownian motion. Pretty cool!
Although personally I would’ve opted for the Planetary Chance Machine.
The plan seems to have worked, as the machine selected some of the most powerful Legionnaires and Dawnstar, whose tracking powers would be perfect for this mission.
If you’re wondering why Saturn Girl is against this decision, it’s soon revealed that Wildfire tricked the supposedly random process to select who he wanted on the mission.
Pretty scummy for Wildfire, although not really out of character for him. What I don’t understand is WHY bring up the machine in the first place… he’s the current leader, couldn’t he just handpick the Legionnaires he wanted in the mission?
Especially since he actually DID pick up an effective group.
While this is going on, the Legion founders enjoy a double date that gets us the chance to have a look at the glorious 30th century civilian fashion.
But it turns out that Deregon is actually still on Earth, so they’ll have to pick up the slack to fix the mess left by Wildfire.
No, seriously, this is NOT the Time Trapper.
Meanwhile the founders have a nice talk with the Science Police officer that failed to warn them, and… yeesh, you really don’t want to be on Saturn Girl’s bad side!
I don’t remember a single panel Night Girl shared with Chemical King, but then again I tend to forget CK existed. Poor dolt.
Using her mental powers, Saturn Girl finds Deregon hiding inside an amusement park with animatronic monsters, of all places.
Despite the goofiness of the location, the final hunt is quite engaging. Considering how inconsequential Chemical King was, it’s very satisfactory to see the founders get so motivated by his death.
I do question how you can possible call Saturn Girl “scarlet-clad” in her 70s costume, though.
In the end, Deregon is cared by Lightning Lad into jumping the wrong fence…
…causing the murderer of Chemical King to die in a vat of chemical waste.
The irony.
We get 2 named epilogues, but it’s really more like 3.
First, we find out that the Wildfire Legionnaires were teleported back to HQ with a device the team received in Action Comics #387, which is utterly unnecessary for the story.
The second named epilogue is the revelation that Deregon wasn’t actually killed, because at this point “the Legion never kills” is a well-established rule.
But it’s really more 3 epilogues, because Saturn Girl hints at something major coming up.
Historical significance: 0/10
It’s the epilogue of Chemical King’s death, but…
Silver Age-ness: 4/10
The 30th century animatronic amusement park, plus the return of Shanghalla.
Does it stand the test of time?: 7/10
Pretty forgettable, but that doesn’t mean it’s not well done. We slowly begin the trend of elevating the founders among the others, plus it’s getting clear that Wildfire is just a terrible leader… but it’s done on purpose. Personally I found the narration about the founders wanted to avenge Chemical King in order to give purpose to his death to be quite engaging.
We are legion
23 Legionnaires
6 reserve members