As if the Legion wasn’t confusing enough, with all of its retcons and reboots, there’s also yet another hiccup: the numbering of their regular series.
See, at this point of the retrospective, the Legion appears in Superboy.
The series will later change its title to “Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes”, and then to simply “Legion of Super-Heroes” in 1980.
That will be “Legion of Super-Heroes vol.2 #259”.
Why that “volume 2”, you may ask?
Because there were four issues of “Legion of Super-Heroes vol.1” that reprinted earlier stories from Adventure Comics.
Even worse, for some reason the first story they chose to reprint was Adventure Comics #328, one of the worst Legion stories ever.
Obviously I’m not going to review that dumpster fire a second time, so why am I bringing this up?
Because there is some new material. Specifically:
There are some parts of interest here. First of all Superboy is said to be from the 50s and to be a honorary member.
This would’ve made 70s Superman to be in his mid-thirties, but the honorary status contradicts Action Comics #387 and later stories (some of which written by Cary Bates!), which identified him as being a reserve member.
Supergirl is also identified as a honorary member, and this is incorrect as well: at this point she was a regular member. In her next appearance in the Superboy era she will resign to the reserve.
Also: why “born Kara” and not “born Kara Zor-El”, since Superboy got his full Kryptonian name?
Poor Chemical King can’t keep his powers straight for even a single paragraph: we’ve been told that he can accelerate or slow down chemical reactions, not that he can “create chemical processes involving any elements”… whatever THAT means!
Bizarrely, Element Lad gets his origin story screwed up. His people had powers before they were slaughtered!
We also have an uncredited excerpt from the Legion Constitution, presumably by Cary Bates as well.
The format isn’t very suitable for scans, so I’ll have to transcribe the points of interest.
“To qualify for membership in the Legion of Super-Heroes, a candidate must be under the age of 18; must have at least one genuine super-power, which he or she can fully control”
Note that the above passage would technically exclude Karate Kid and possibly Brainiac 5.
“Having qualified by passing such tests as may be determined by the Membership Board, the candidate shall then be voted upon. For such voting, a quorum, consisting of 3/4 of the acting membership, must be present. A vote of 2/3 of those present shall be required for acceptance.”
This seemingly integrates the Legion Academy with the earlier traditional auditions; that’s fine by me. The quorum thing is pretty messy: there are 25 maximum active members, so at least 16 Legionnaires should be present during any audition. That’s WAY more than we typically see in those scenes, so nearly any future audition would technically be invalid!
“All Legionnaires are required to continue their scientific education. Special classes shall be set up for this purpose. While off duty, all Legionnaires must attend classes regularly, unless prevented by illness. Failing marks shall be grounds for suspension from the Legion.”.
This is hilarious. Does it mean that Brainiac 5 must get to school regularly? Also note that the Constitution specifically refers to scientific education, not education in general. I guess this rule might have been written by Brainy himself?
“Absolute loyalty is required of all members. In the presence of the Legion Flag, Legionnaires must salute. The Legion’s duly-elected leader is supreme commander of the Legion, answerable only to the Commissioner of the Science Police. Members must obey all orders of the leader. Failure to do so shall be grounds for court-martial and possible expulsion from the Legion.”
As interesting to see that the Legion now answers to the Science Police… HOLY CRAP the rest of that paragraph!
“Failure of any member to live up to the requirements of the Legion membership (such as loss of super-powers, cowardice while performing a mission, etc.) shall be grounds for expulsion, as shall be making false charges against a fellow Legionnaire. Worthy members losing their powers may, however, be retained in the Legion Reserve.”
That’s not such a bad rule, but did they have to state it so aggressively?
“The Legion Reserve, consisting of worthy former members, rejected members, honorary members and the Legion of Substitute Heroes, shall be prepared to go into action in the event of an emergency when all active members are away on missions or otherwise unable to respond.”.
Great to finally see the Subs get some recognition! According to this they are effectively drafted into the Reserve.
However including “rejected members” in the Reserve makes no sense whatsoever. What’s the point of rejecting anyone at this point!?
“Any Legionnaire expelled from the Legion, but not retained as a Reservist, must submit to being hypnotically brainwashed to remove al memory of Legion secrets.”
This is a rather weird rule to spell out. Especially since, as far as I know, this rule was never enforced.