Legion of Super-Heroes #306

Legion of Super-Heroes #306 (1983)
written by Paul Levitz
pencils by Keith Giffen & Curt Swam
cover by Keith Giffen

This is easily one of the most important Star Boy stories ever. In fact, there’s an argument to be made that 99% of the reasons why Legion readers like him can be traced back to this.
And that’s despite the fact that almost nothing happens!

The framing device is that it’s time once again to vote for the new Legion leader, and Star Boy will spend the entire issue chatting with Wildfire.
Things are… not looking great for Dream Girl’s re-election if her boyfriend is going to vote against her.

Surprisingly, Wildfire is going to vote for her. It might sound strange since he’s always complained about her leadership… but Wildfire constantly complains against ANY leader, so it hardly makes a difference.

Star Boy reasons that Dream Girl is going to win because she wouldn’t have run for re-election without knowing the results, which makes him very pessimistic about the outcome.
Also, throughout the coversation you can track how each Legionnaire has voted thanks to the symbols! How cool is that!?

While there have been minor hints here and there before, this is really the start of Star Boy’s characterization as a gloomy pessimist.

The way we’re shown this is a series of flashbacks, narrated by Star Boy and drawn by Curt Swan himself, revisiting his past stories and making sense of the whole mess.

You might remember from my look at the Legion pre-history that Star Boy’s history is all over the place. Levitz is doing some cleanup about that, all through the lens of working on Star Boy’s character development.First order of business: his ACTUAL origin story. When we first met him in Adventure Comics 282 he had as many powers as Superboy, but by the time he became a Legion regular (which felt like it took forever) he had JUST his gravity powers.
It was later explained that Star Boy was BORN with those, but this is the first time it’s fully addressed on-panel.

When you add dark details to the Silver Age’s silly shenanigans, there’s a fine line between trying to make the universe more realistic and disrespecting the original.
I think Levitz is able to find the right balance when he does stuff like this. If this was discussed in the Five Years Later era, I’m sure we would’ve gone into full dystopian territory.

But if Star Boy was only born with his classic powers, how DID he develop the others he had in his first story?

By flying into a comet, of course.

Sounds legit. In case you forgot, that’s straight from Star Boy’s first story.

Levitz is doing a respectable job in patching Star Boy’s history, but there’s potentially a minor hiccup: we’re shown him joining the team with Superboy, Triplicate Girl, Colossal Boy and Brainiac 5. The only ones who don’t raise continuity issues are Saturn Girl and Colossal Boy.

Superboy had no idea who Star Boy was when he first met him: he learns that Star Boy is a Legion member during the story.

I said that’s “potentially” a problem because you might argue the scene in the flashback takes place AFTER their first meeting.
But that doesn’t solve the rest of the problem: Star Boy debuts in March 1961. That’s BEFORE the first appearance of Triplicate Girl in Action Comics 276… but that can easily be excused since at this point it’s already been established that she joined before Superboy.
But that’s also the first appearance of Brainiac 5, and there’s NO WAY to place it earlier.
Couldn’t they just replicate the membership of the first Star Boy story?

Star Boy’s narration is interrupted by an update on the election: Element Lad is getting a lot of votes, and he’s not even running!

He’s currently tied with Ultra Boy, as we learn by this handy recap. If this was done later they would’ve used Interlac numbers, but this is much clearer.

Told you Star Boy got seriously gloomy.

Back to the confusion about membership: Star Boy calls himself the thirteenth Legionnaire, which is a bit baffling.
According to my count he’s actually the eighth, so… who is Levitz counting here?

We have the seven who had already appeared before Star Boy (the three founders, Superboy, Chameleon Boy, Colossal Boy and Invisible Kid). Phantom Girl and Triplicate Girl have been retroactively confirmed to have been members before Superboy, so that only gets us to nine members.

Is Levitz seriously placing Brainiac 5 joining before Star Boy? If so, he also has to add some of the others Legionnaires from Action Comics #276… but not everyone, because if in addition to Brainy we get all of them (Supergirl, Shrinking Violet, Bouncing Boy and Sun Boy) we get to 14 Legionnaires BEFORE Star Boy.
The idea of Star Boy being the thirteenth was neat, but it raises too many questions.

Leaving that aside, we discover the SECOND Star Boy mission: stopping a riot on Takron-Galtos before it became a planet-sized prison!
That’s neat. Later stories will introduce the idea that Takron-Galtos was already a prison planet in the 20th century, but I much prefer the idea that it’s tied to the United Planets.

There’s a couple of known faces between the Science Police officers being held hostage: Zendak, the future Chief of the Science Police, and junior officer Gigi Cusimano.
From earlier stories I was under the impression that Zendak was older than her, but I guess he rose through the ranks quickly.

Star Boy’s plan to single-handedly save the day didn’t exactly go as planned… because he loses his powers once he gets to the planet.

Election update: Dream Girl is catching up.

So how DID Star Boy survive the Takron-Galtos riot? He BARELY did!!!

So THAT’S why Star Boy was a no-show during the early Hamilton era! Despite my nitpicks about the membership shenanigans, that is a GREAT way to fix the inconsistencies on whether Star Boy was a member or not.

Election update: it’s still a tie! Also, quite interesting that there’s a tradition against voting for yourself. Ultra Boy is one of the ones I would’ve expected to do it.
(the other is obviously Wildfire)

The flashbacks goes through Star Boy’s most significant Silver Age stories: meeting Dream Girl and his trial.

But there’s also a spotlight into one of his most forgotten period: when Star Boy and Dream Girl were part of the Substitute Heroes!

I always forget this happened, and sadly I don’t think we ever got a proper flashback to this period.

DEFINITELY more worthy of further exploration than the idiotic story of Sir Prize and Miss Terious.

Interestingly, Star Boy thinks Dream Girl is the only reason why he’s in the Legion.
Leave it to Wildfire to spot the bulls##t, but it’s VERY clear Star Boy still has stuff to work through.

Election update: Element Lad sweeps the final votes needed to get the leadership!
You might also notice that Dream Girl has defied tradition herself: her vote goes to herself.

And that’s apparently Star Boy’s best day ever.

Spoiler alert: his luck has not turned around.

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Legion significance: 7/10
I’m not saying you can forget the Star Boy you’ve seen so far, buuuuut…

Silver Age-ness: 5/10
Not much in the present, but the flashbacks more than make up for it.

Does it stand the test of time? 10/10
This is definitely a breather episode, but a seriously good one. Star Boy gets some much-needed character development, and his chemistry with Wildfire is great.
The exploration of Star Boy’s past through the lens of his current cynicism is top notch; yes there are very minor nitpicks, but they’re just that. The flashbacks don’t throw away what we already knew, they just build upon it and don’t shy away from the sillier parts.
The artwork is also great: Giffen gets to work a lot with the shadows and with the reflections of Star Boy’s face on Wildfire’s helmet, and having Curt Swan back is always a treat. He manages to get nostalgic and modern at the same time, truly a legend.
The story is a bit light in the sense that not much of anything happens, but the pacing doesn’t make it too obvious. And for once Levitz shows restrain with the subplots, allowing the story to breathe.

We are legion
22 active Legionnaires
6 reserve members
1 honorary member (Rond Vidar)
41 people have been members

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Bonus: since this time we got to see HOW all Legionnaires voted, it’s worth analyzing to figure out WHY.

ULTRA BOY – 6 votes (27%)

• Himself
• Phantom Girl: obligatory girlfriend vote
• Star Boy: because he was voting against Dream Girl
• Element Lad: he was critical of Dream Girl’s leadership, plus if he didn’t break tradition during the earlier election he definitely voted for Ultra Boy before
• Colossal Boy: a bit of a mystery. He didn’t seem TOO critical of Dream Girl and I don’t picture him being particularly close to Ultra Boy.
• Timber Wolf: bros before precogs
  

DREAM GIRL – 7 votes (32%)

• Herself. Note that she DID get more votes than the guy who was supposed to be her only opponent… so perhaps she just dreamed “I’ll get more votes than Ultra Boy” and was still technically correct!
• White Witch: obligatory sister vote
• Blok: possibly convinced by White Witch?
• Wildfire: it’s perfectly in-character for him to incessantly complain against someone and then vote for her. But he’s also big on second chances.
• Dawnstar: I have no clue. I seriously doubt that being a woman is a factor since she doesn’t seem to get along with the girls. Perhaps Dream Girl’s bossy style of leadership resonated with Dawnstar no-nonsense personality.
• Mon-El: this was a bit of a surprise. He was far less critical than Ultra Boy, but that wasn’t hard. The Daxam mission definitely was a factor there.
• Superboy: the only time he got to see Dreamy’s leadership was the Great Darkness Saga, because he was absent from other adventures. Since it’s the only high point of her tenure, it makes sense to confirm her.

ELEMENT LAD – 9 votes (41%)

• Shrinking Violet: 100% due to spotting the Durlan impostor. Considering she’s recovering from her capture, this is probably her fist act as a Legionnaire after her rescue. So if given the option to confirm the then-current leader (who she had NEVER seen act in that role and didn’t spot the impostor), of course she’d vote the guy who helped free her!
• Chameleon Boy: 100% due to spotting the Durlan impostor
• Invisible Kid: 100% due to spotting the Durlan impostor
• Brainiac 5: 100% due to spotting the Durlan impostor
• Sun Boy: another welcome surprise. It would’ve been too obvious to make him vote for the hot girl, plus he was REALLY shaken when Earth was attacked by terrorists under the Legion’s nose… and it was technically under Dream Girl’s watch.
• Shadow Lass: no clue, although I’m glad they didn’t go the obvious route and make her vote the same as Mon-El. She might’ve been looking for an excuse to vote against Ultra Boy because can you imagine how insufferable Phantom Girl would’ve been if her boyfriend was the leader?
• Saturn Girl, Cosmic Boy and Lightning Lad: I find it fascinating that the founders voted last (almost: Sun Boy was the very last vote), because they ended up being what decided the winner. None of them was TOO vocal in their opinion of Dream Girl; perhaps they noticed the growing momentum for Element Lad and went for it?