ADVENTURE COMICS 325 (1964)
by Edmond Hamilton & John Forte
Cover by Curt Swan
Lex Luthor meets the Legion of Super-Heroes, despite the cover promising an appearance of “the Super-Hero Legion”.
We begin with planet Khann, inhabited ONLY by criminals.
So, yeah. Don’t expect a ton of nuance from this one.
I can’t get over the building with the demonic face.
To give this “evil planet” a SLIGHTLY more believable twist, it’s actually run by the Brain-Lords whose job is to provide advice for wannabe evildoers.
Eh, it’s a living.
Matter Eater Lad and Triplicate Girl infiltrate the planet and they kidnap their leader Atro.
Why does Triplicate Girl need help to carry around the brain-in-a-jar when her thing is being able to summon a copy of herself!?
They manage to leave the planet only thanks to the help of a mysterious ship that materialized out of nowhere.
Considering the cover you know where this is going: it’s Lex.
Except… it’s Lex before he turned bad!
Remember that in the Silver Age changing history was impossible, so this creates an interesting dynamic. They KNOW this Lex will become a criminal, but they can’t change the fact.
Lex is just a Legion fanboy (he discovered them through his time-scope, because of course he did); he’s only asking to document the Legionnaires using their powers, and they happily oblige.
Although the demonstration of Triplicate Girl’s power is… questionable.
So her idea to deal with the planet of evil brains was what, kiss them?
Mon-El is the only Legionnaire with some experience of young Luthor, and when he shows up the secret is out. Thanks a lot, Light Lass!
Luthor is shown his exceedingly lame origin: he turned bad… because Superboy caused him to go bald.
Brainiac 5 tries to help Luthor with some of the least convincing technobabble I’ve ever seen.
I’m pretty sure Brainy has no idea why this doesn’t work and is just bulls##tting Lex.
Sounds legit.
To ease Lex’s mind, Cosmic Boy shows him some of the most deadly weapons gathered by the Legion.
In case you were wondering “wait a minute, the cover promised me a bald Luthor”…
That’s actually kind of clever. It relies on the Legionnaires being idiots, but it’s clever.
But okay, so Lex has his hands on a disintegrator ray that can kill anyone.
Since the Legion currently trust him, he COULD simply use the ray on them and win easily.
OR he could do something unnecessarily stupid.
Well at least he manages to kill Mon-El like this.
But I get it, things are a little more personal with Mon-El than with the rest of the Legion.
I’m sure he won’t do anything stupid to get the others.
I’m joking about Lex, but the Legionnaires aren’t particularly impressive throughout the issue.
Lex is determined to kill every Legionnaire, so he checks on the ones off-planet.
I have so many questions.
First, why is Saturn Girl performic in a circus on Titan? Everyone is a telepath there, how is this impressive?
Second, is that Earth’s Atlantis? Or is it in space now?
Third, did you just use a parallel world in a throwaway panel that won’t be referenced again!?
Lex gathers the other Legionnaires and they IMMEDIATELY figure out his identity.
Good for them, but Mon-El has no excuse. And neither does Brainiac 5, who examined Luthor’s soul and didn’t notice he was wearing a wig.
(then again, the latter isn’t entirely out of character for Brainy)
Despite having three people with superspeed and a telepath, they get zapped by Luthor.
The rest of the Legion is participating at a galactic parade. Since this team includes people who turn invisible and can transmute elements, there’s no way they can stop someone with a raygun.
And since he has a flying belt, the Science Police can’t do anything to stop him either.
Except *shocker* the Legion hasn’t really been disintegrated.
Turns out it wasn’t a disintegrating ray at all: it was just a Phantom Zone projector.
WHY would Lex need to say it’s a disintegrator ray!?!?
Since we have previously seen that Phantom Girl can enter the Phantom Zone at will, you’d think she would be the one to escape. But no, Mon-El has an idea.
Specifically a stupid idea: “think really really hard and Lex will set us free”.
Luthor returns to his time, sure that the entire universe is now laughing at him.
I mean… you COULD laugh at this story, for how poorly written it is.
Legion significance: 0/10
Mercifully forgotten. I supposed this is when Lex learns about the existance of Supergirl: he’s from Superboy’s time so she hasn’t landed on Earth yet (sh was either a baby or she wasn’t born yet), but as you can imagine it’s never confirmed.
Silver Age-ness: 10/10
The evil planet alone would be enough, but Lex’s antics and the Legion’s idiocy take it to the maximum. I don’t see anyone using this kind of story points unless it’s a deliberate parody.
Does it stand the test of time? 0/10
This was awful. The moral implications of dealing with “good Lex” were extremely interesting, but they’re immediately thrown away. The planet where everyone is evil is way too goofy; you’d expect to get at least something funny out of it, but no, it’s wasted here.
We are legion
Amazingly, all 19 active Legionnaires appear in this story: Matter Eater Lad, Triplicate Girl, Lightning Lad, Phantom Girl, Brainiac 5, Shrinking Violet, Light Lass, Star Boy, Cosmic Boy, Mon-El, Invisible Kid, Saturn Girl, Ultra Boy, Chameleon Boy, Superboy, Supergirl, Colossal Boy, Sun Boy, Element Lad.
Only missing:
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.