The Stop Button

This issue of Super Stars reprints an eight-year-old Adventure Comics two-parter about Superman visiting the Legion a little further in the future, so they’re all adults. The script is one of those infamous teenage Jim Shooter scripts, and, you know, it’s not bad. I mean, it’s heavy on exposition, but the story’s mostly a tour of the future for Superman.

Eventually, after the rest of the Legion assembles, we find out someone is wrecking Legion property, and Brainiac-5 can’t figure out how it could be happening. Thank goodness Superman’s there to remember a factoid to reveal the whole story, something Brainiac-5 presumably should’ve known.

Superman’s tour is all quite genial and pleasant. The art from Curt Swan and George Klein is charming and energetic. Swan’s always at least solid, with some fantastic panels on occasion.

The second part of the story reveals the returning villains who engineered all the drama the first time around. Superman, however, doesn’t get to participate. Instead, various adult Legionnaires go to remote destinations to fight supervillains in order to free a fellow Legionnaire. Shooter does all the math on the hero and villain’s superpowers, somehow canceling one another, or maybe something in the environment. It’s thoughtful and thorough without being particularly entertaining or creative.

But there’s also the Swan artwork to keep things moving smoothly. Shooter doesn’t have a single bump in the issue. Not even the bewildering finish, which features the adult Legionnaires needing help and getting it from an unlikely pair of guest stars. Presumably, there’s a story behind the cameos.

Overall, it’s an entertaining read. It gets a little long at times—even if you’re curious about adult Legionnaires, they’re rarely in it for more than a panel or two. Those cameos never add up; at least in the second half, the story’s got some urgency. Despite part one’s villain being more dangerous than anyone in the second half, the future tour sets a relaxed pace. Superman solving the mystery is very relaxed, too. Shooter keeps multiple details from the reader in these stories, just to surprise in a couple of pages. It’s lazy, but… Swan mostly covers it. And at least those abbreviated scenes move a little faster.

The stories are decent enough Silver Age DC Comics. Not Swan’s best work (and I’ll never know on Shooter’s) but it’s a successful enough, engaging enough two-parter.