ADVENTURE COMICS #290 (1961)
by Robert Bernstein and George Papp
The cover promises a wild and kind of silly story:
But oddly enough we start with a relatively mundane scene in Smallville.
Well, as mundane as a random Clark Kent lookalike hitching a ride on a train in the most dangerous way possible.
In fact, he looks like Clark Kent so much that everybody mistakes him for the real one. And everybody instantly likes him.
Since he’s going to Clark’s house, you probably expect his parents will mistake him for Clark as well. There’s a convenient excuse for his mother: she has soap in her eyes.
Well, at least they didn’t let us believe that she wouldn’t recognize her son.
Not until two panels later, at least!
Now you might be thinking what does this have to do with the Legion.
This is his second appearance after Action Comics 276, the issue where Brainiac 5 joined the team.
During that issue, it was said that the Legion admits one guy and one girl each year; now Sun Boy says they admit one person each year. So either they changed the rule or the writers forgot about it.
Apparently he joined between the scenes, since this is happening a week “after being initiated into the Legion”:
The Legion had the good idea of dismantling the terrible weapon of some unnamed super-scientist, then the questionable idea of hiding the pieces in the 20th century, and the baffling idea of drawing their faces on the boxes that contain the parts.
And naturally, only AFTER all this trouble they thought “maybe we shouldn’t leave around the components of a super-weapon laying around”, and dispatched Sun Boy to get them back.
Notice that Sun Boy is apparently shining all the time.
You would think that Superboy would find it pretty silly that they only thought about this problem after hiding the components, or that they would only send Sun Boy.
Just silly Silver Age weirdness, right? Well, not quite: the plan is sketchy on purpose.
Speaking of ominous, Superboy finds out that someone is impersonating Clark Kent… and he doesn’t give a crap.
Unfortunately, the impostor is making quite an impression on Lana, even finding school interesting.
Also note that EVERYBODY mistakes him for Clark.
Meanwhile, Superboy is done recovering all the components and says goodbye to Sun Boy:
Superboy returns to Clark’s house, where his mother has just spilled the beans on his secret (promptly making the impostor go into full exposition mode):
And don’t let the cute “the bad boy is secretly good” scenes: he doesn’t hesitate to blackmail her.
While all of this is going on, Sun Boy returns and assembles a super-robot from the boxes.
It has a Kryptonite ray that changes evil people into good.
Wait, if they have that kind of technology in the 30th century, why do they still have criminals?
Sun Boy has apparently learned Superboy’s secret identity by “eavesdropping on conversations of the Super-Heroes”… even though the entire premise of Adventure Comics 247 was that this was common knowledge in the future.
So we have Evil Superboy for literally three panels before he reveals that the robot’s ray was actually used on the impostor.
Then Superboy takes Sun Boy back to the Legion to reveal that:
A) it wasn’t actually Superboy but a criminal impersonating him
B) he found out because the impostor didn’t know the “secret Legion handshake”!
In the end, the other impostor is now a good guy who conveniently forgot Superboy’s secret identity and disappears, never to be seen again ever.
And that’s all for the Superboy story. I usually don’t talk much about the secondary story, but…
How could I NOT talk about this!?
The problem is… what do you SAY to this?
Bizarro World needs its own words!
The story is about… uhm… Bizarro World exploding in reverse? I think?
Who cares? Bizarro doesn’t!
There’s no explaining Bizarro. You can only embrace the madness.
I mean REALLY embrace it.
It ends with… of all things… A MUSICAL NUMBER.
You can’t convince me the creators weren’t on drugs when making this.
Historical significance: 0/10
As you might imagine, Clark Kent meeting someone who looks 100% like him is never brought up again. Which is weird because there are multiple stories where adult Clark Kent meets other lookalikes.
Legion significance: 2/10
This is technically Sun Boy’s origin story. Even though it takes 1 balloon, it’s not narrated by him, and the real Sun Boy barely appears at all.
Silver Age-ness
Superboy story: 4/10
Surprisingly less than expected! The Legion’s idiotic plan was actually a cover story by the fake Sun Boy, who was actually kind of clever. Clark’s impostor blackmailing Ma Kent was also a surprise, I was waiting for him to become a good guy because he lived Clark’s life.
Of course, since he changes thanks to the mind-altering ray of a robot from the future, we’re still strictly in the Silver Age.
Bizarro story: 11/10
This goes BEYOND Silver-Age silliness. This is true and utter MADNESS.
Does it stand the test of time? 7/10
Far more than it should! I don’t think you would need to change much to adapt this in the modern era.
We are legion
If we go by the cover, there are currently 7 active members. Apparently Superboy isn’t considered one.
How much Legion is too much?
The Legion of Superheroes currently consists of 15 people.
There’s some strange mix-and-match for the current membership: Colossal Boy, Invisible Kid, Triplicate Girl and Bouncing Boy don’t return even though they were introduced in the exact same issues of Sun Boy, Chameleon Boy and Brainiac 5. Star Boy from Adventure Comics 282 remains the only member that has not been re-used.
Since this is a Superboy story, let’s look at the Superman categories:
The glasses, they do something!
Considering how much he learns about the real Clark, it takes a remarkably long time before the impostor learns his secret.
Kryptonite, baby
OF COURSE the future robot HAD to have Kryptonite in his mind-controlling ray.
During this time, apparently A LOT of people wrote letters.
