ADVENTURE COMICS 327 (1964)
by Jerry Siegel & John Forte
This is both the debut of a future Legion member and one of the first occasions where there’s an official roll call.
We begin on a prison world (possibly the first appearance of Takron-Galtos?), where a criminal is thrown into jail for trying to join the Legion under false pretense.
No idea if this is someone we’ve met before.
It seems this guy had good reason to try to sabotage the Legion’s Emergency Board, since they regularly receive calls for help from the entire galaxy.
In addition to the theft of Space Crystals, there’s also an emergency at the Interplanetary Circus.
I’m not entirely sure why this is a Legion job, but honestly, would you trust an officer with THAT silly helmet to take care of anything?
Obviously an Interplanetary Circus means that we get a good dose of John Forte aliens!
All humans in this story are unnaturally stiff, but John Forte is on fire with his alien designs.
The Legionnaires are helped by a “super-acrobat”, who identifies himself as “Karth Arn”.
They are so impressed that they offer him membership (he would be the first one after Mon-El to get into the Legion without an audition), but he refuses.
He’s strangely disturbed by the fact that there have been several robberies on planet Zoon.
This naturally makes him a suspect, so the Legion starts an investigation.
Light Lass vouches for him based on basically nothing, and Brainiac 5 comes up with the nickname Lone Wolf (which I’m thankful for, since it will turn out that “Karth Arn” is not his real name so I won’t have to remember it).
In a nice touch, Saturn Girl considers to leave Light Lass out of the investigation since she’s a little too fond of Lone Wolf, but she still includes her since they “shorthanded”.
I’m not sure why they need so many people to investigate one guy, but I like this little scene: it shows that Saturn Girl is able to recognize when one of her teammates shows bias, but she also trusts Light Lass enough to keep her in the team.
We get a glimpse of planet Zoon, which is pretty weird. Its buildings are designed to be drawn quickly by the artist, and it orbits 3 stars with different colors.
Planets orbiting multiple stars are a real thing, but unfortunately green stars don’t exist.
So we have three clues about the identity of the thief: he’s super-agile, super-strong, and doesn’t have any fingerprints.
Another interesting sight on Zoon: giant mushrooms!
The Legion is almost destroyed by a mysterious blue ray, and they’re saved only because Lone Wolf crashes his ship against theirs to get out of harm’s way.
Everyone is knocked out except Light Lass, who takes the opportunity to wake up Lone Wolf with a kiss.
She’s clearly crushing on Lone Wolf, but he tells her to stay away because he’s not human.
In fact, he’s an android.
An android with a mild case of angst.
This revelation would have more of an impact if EVERYONE wasn’t drawn like a lifeless android.
Behold the 1960s idea of “incredibly advanced computer from a thousand years in the future”:
Wow, it looks it may need only HALF a room. Isn’t future technology a miracle?
Jokes aside, the investigation leads the Legion to the man behind the super-robberies: Dr. Mar Londo.
His son, Brin Londo, reveals the story behind Lone Wolf.
Dr. Londo was using androids to mine Zuunium, but he forgot one thing: terrifying John Forte aliens.
Every android was destroyed in the caverns, except Lone Wolf.
That’s when Lone Wolf shows up, accusing Brin Londo of being the one who tried to kill the Legion with that energy ray.
Surprise: Lone Wolf isn’t the android. It’s Brin Londo!
This is a nice twist, but if feels extra rushed because we just met “fake Brin Londo” and had zero time to adjust to him. The fact that all of this is in the very last page doesn’t help.
No idea of what happens to the android, but at least for Lone Wolf it’s a happy ending!
He will eventually join the Legion, but it will take some time. And his codename will be Timber Wolf.
Legion significance: 4/10
Timber Wolf will turn out to be an important member of the team, but he’s almost unrecognizable here. There’s nothing of his fierce personality; his relationship with Light Lass will last a long time, but it’s not given enough time to breathe here. It’s also interesting that Timber Wolf’s struggles with his humanity will be a major theme of his character development, but the trauma of thinking he was an android will rarely be addressed.
Honestly you can easily miss this story, start reading Timber Wolf once he properly joins the team, and not miss much.
Silver Age-ness: 3/10
Relatively little silliness if you don’t count the weird planets and aliens.
Does it stand the test of time? 6/10
The extreme compression really hurts the story. There’s a lot of potential here… the crime investigation, the Legion dealing with two separate missions that turn out to be the same, a lone tormented hero with a tragic past, the machinations of the android… but it’s all extremely rushed. There’s enough material for at least a three-part story, but in 15 pages we rush through so much stuff so quickly that there’s little time to absorb anything.
The art is also pretty bad. As always John Forte has some breathtaking alien designs, but the worlds and especially all humans are very underwhelming.
We are legion
10 Legionnaires active in this story: Sun Boy, Lightning Lad, Light Lass, Chameleon Boy, Matter Eater Lad, Saturn Girl, Superman, Mon-El, Ultra Boy, Brainiac 5
9 not shown but officially members
1 reserve member: Bouncing Boy
1 resigned member: Dream Girl
1 honorary member: Elastic Lad
How much Legion is too much?
Lone Wolf doesn’t join the team immediately: we will have to wait Adventure Comics #372 before he officially becomes a member, being the first to graduate from the Legion Academy.
We are still with 19 active members. The total number of characters who have been members is 22.