Superboy (1949) #209

Jim Shooter 1, Cary Bates 2 (script)

Mike Grell (artist)

Ben Oda 1, Joe Letterese 2 (letters)

Murray Boltinoff (editor)

The first story, from Jim Shooter and Mike Grell, opens with Princess Projectra’s shuttle crashing as she attempts to land at Legion headquarters. Timber Wolf is there to save the day, complaining about “women drivers” the whole time. Karate Kid shows up in time for the Princess to stumble out of the shuttle and fall unconscious. They’re sweethearts, so he’s very concerned.

Turns out Projectra has a rare “pain plague,” which causes terrible pain for a number of hours then passes. It’s technically not fatal, except the pain kills you, so who cares if the disease doesn’t. The Legion comes up with a solution—each Legionnaire will take an hour of the pain so it doesn’t kill anyone, and Projectra will be spared.

They immediately find out the pain intensifies as the illness develops (so hour two’s pain is worse than hour one’s). They also discover the Legionnaire who takes the pain will lose control of their powers (and mind), attacking everyone around them. So it’s all very dangerous. Good thing Superboy is flying across the galaxy at warp speed to get there for the final hour.

Even if it weren’t poorly written and poorly illustrated, the story’s also poorly plotted. A deus ex machina resolves everything, with every page bringing some immediately resolved problem to keep the story going. Shooter’s sexism might be the move of a dick writer, but the rest of the story is just the moves of a bad one.

Cary Bates handles writing chores for the backup (with Grell returning and arguably much worse). Some tween has won a contest to spend the day with the Legion, complete with his own flight ring. Pay attention to the flight ring thing; it’ll be “important.”

First up on the tour is getting the mail, except this time someone has sent the Legion a “witch wolf,” the most dangerous animal in the solar system (our solar system?) because it emits poison radiation and mind controls people’s powers to backfire on them.

One by one, the Legion goes into the room with the witch wolf, and, one by one, it reverses their powers and knocks them out. Will the guest star tween somehow figure out what’s going on, something the professional superheroes just can’t intuit on their own? Most definitely.

And will he be rewarded at the end with the promise of sexual contact from the female Legionaries, their male colleagues cheering the lad on? Also, most definitely.

The comic starts and ends icky from the sexism. In between is bad writing from two different writers and tepid (and worse) art.

Superboy (1949) #204

Cary Bates (script)

Mike Grell (artist)

Ben Oda (letters)

Murray Boltinoff (editor)

What a strange comic book. Cary Bates and Mike Grell contribute both parts, feature and backup, though “feature” is a bit of a stretch.

The lead story is a retcon. In the farther-flung future than the Legion of Superheroes, future Earthlings are obsessed with watching the past through time travel television or something. Except then the kid’s time TV is broken and is changing history instead of just observing it. The device has somehow changed Superboy’s trials for Legion membership, and now he’s not a member anymore, and the fate of reality is at stake.

Oddly, however, the story doesn’t show how Superboy failed the trials. Neither is the future kid’s resolution—Anti-Lad is his only moniker, the one he takes when he travels back in time to join the Legion to get history back on track. Bates also doesn’t do anything with the future repercussions of Superboy not joining the Legion. It’s easier to identify all the things Bates doesn’t do with the story than the things he does.

So the comic promises the secret story of Anti-Lad, the Legionnaire no one remembers (because he wiped their memories). It delivers some time travel banter, lots of talking about Superboy but no real Superboy in his own book, Anti-Lad besting the Legionnaires during his membership trial, and Brainiac-5 deducing something’s off about the new prospect.

Not much of a story. Grell’s art also leaves a lot to be desired.

The backup, however, is incredible. Incredibly creepy and bad but still incredible.

It’s all about Brainiac-5 being really tired, and, wouldn’t you know it, he’s really tired because he’s made himself a fully functioning Supergirl android. He misses his 20th-century gal, you see, so he makes a new version of her.

Except he doesn’t know he’s made the android version, so there’s a bunch of bait and switch to get to the big reveal. It’s utter nonsense in terms of plotting—it’s hard to tell if Bates is trying to be inventive and not clearing the bar or if the comic thinks so little of its readership—and then Grell’s art… doesn’t help. There are even panels where Grell’s art goes from hot to cold as they’re read, drawing attention to the deficiencies.

The first story’s pointless and bad, and the second story’s pointless, bad, and icky.

Though I did just realize Bates doesn’t address whether Brainiac-5 admits to his teammates he’s using Legion resources for his sex toys.