ADVENTURE COMICS 326 (1964)
by Jerry Siegel & John Forte
Something tells me this hasn’t aged particularly well.
We begin with Saturn Girl calling for a meeting. Light Lass is currently working out, 30th style.
Triplicate Girl and Shrinking Violet are signing autographs at the Space Police Academy (not the Science Police, this time).
Signing autographs is a major concern for the Legion; we saw the same invention in Adventure Comics #301 (with another name).
Supergirl also responds to the call, since she’s visiting from the 20th century.
I don’t want to hear about Supergirl experimenting with Proty II, please.
Phantom Girl is studying at the “Hall of Infinite Knowledge”, whatever that is.
In case it wasn’t obvious yes, Saturn Girl is gathering all the girl Legionnaires.
Okay, get this: Saturn Girl’s plan to defeat the male Legionnaires involves sending some of them away on a fake mission for a whole month.
Makes some level of sense: the girls are outnumbered and only Supergirl is among the strongest members of the Legion. So sending away Mon-El and Ultra Boy make sense, although it’s hard to imagine that Lightning Lad, Colossal Boy and especially Matter Eater Lad would be THAT hard to defeat.
Especially because she DOESN’T send Superboy away!!!
The rest of the plan involves flirting with the boys at the Interplanetary Fair, then ambush them.
Light Lass targets Element Lad, which is interesting from a historical point of view.
Why? The fandom (and even future writer Jim Shooter) would eventually consider Element Lad to be gay. Years later, Light Lass will be considered by the fans (and possibly by the writers of a couple of continuities) to be bisexual.
All of this makes that caption “mingle among the gay throngs” hilarious on many levels!
Not sure where the idea about Element Lad came from. Maybe it was the pink costume, maybe it was him thinking he’s “out of his element when it comes to romancing girls”?
At first I thought that kissing him was useless to the plan, but she did convince him to take off his flying belt first, so maybe that was the point.
This devolves into a silly tug-of-war between their powers.
Triplicate Girl’s plan is to date three guys at once.
Considering how many times she demonstrated her power by kissing people, it’s not a stretch.
Another interesting choice of targets: Invisible Kid will also be considered by the fandom to be gay, and Brainiac 5 is Brainiac 5.
In my headcanon, Brainy didn’t even fully realize it was a date.
Okay I MIGHT believe this works on Invisible Kid.
But Brainiac 5 has a lot of experience on shrinking rays because of his villainous ancestor, and even in this period Cosmic Boy’s magnetic powers would be WAY too powerful to prevent this from control some metal at a much greater distance.
Also: they still use matches in the 30th century?
All of this thanks to the spray that shrinks Violet’s costume, apparently.
So appropriately enough Shrinking Violet didn’t date anyone.
Which is interesting since Shrinking Violet will ALSO be considered bisexual by the fandom, confirmed in various continuities.
The Legion had a very strong LGBTQ support throughout most of its history.
The girls have been successful in taking out every target so far, which leads to a celebration in one of the goofiest panels of all time.
First thought: Supergirl really knows how to dance!
Second though: the others really, REALLY don’t.
But enough about that. Saturn Girl confesses her crush to Superboy!
“It would be ungallant of me to refuse”.
Uh.
I wonder if the fandom ever considered Superboy to be asexual.
That’s obviously a trap, though I fail to see how it required that almost-kiss.
Last target: Chameleon Boy, who is uncharacteristically pushy with Supergirl.
She has a rather… weird way to take out the shapeshifter. Hopefully he won’t be able to REALLY turn intangible, or that would make Phantom Girl kind of pointless for the team.
Oh thank God, with all this talk about the sexuality of the Legionnaires I’m relieved to discovered what kind of experiments she was carrying on Proty II.
Speaking of Phantom Girl, her plan is by far the goofiest.
Nice artwork on the second panel, with the explosion phasing through her body.
This calls for another dance panel!
This is HILARIOUS!!!
Supergirl continues to be the only one who can dance.
Shrinking Violet even gives us a panty shot.
The others are… stretching? Doing interpretative dance? Like I said, HILARIOUS.
Less hilarious? The Queen of Planet Femnaz.
Jerry Siegel is a writer from the 30s, but he was 50 years old when this was published.
(John Forte was 46, if you’re wondering).
I can’t imagine “Queen of Femnaz” NOT sounding juvenile even in 1964.
As you might imagine, Azura has brainwashed the girls.
But why does the queen hate all men? It’s REALLY CRAZY story.
I have no words.
And so Azura decides she doesn’t have to be a crazy man-hating tyrant because a couple of boys put her moon back together.
She leaves, the boys are rescued, and hopefully we can leave this embarrassment behind.
Legion significance: 0/10
Unsurprisingly, the Queen of Planet Femnaz never appears again in any continuity.
Silver Age-ness: 10/10
I don’t think this needs an explanation.
Does it stand the test of time? 0/10
Regardless of gender and sexual orientation, I think we can all agree that THIS STORY SUCKS.
We are legion
All 19 active Legionnaires appear in this story, amazingly (and unfortunately)
1 reserve member: Bouncing Boy
1 resigned member: Dream Girl
1 honorary member: Elastic Lad
How much Legion is too much?
The Legion has 19 active members. The total number of characters who have been members is 22.