DC Super Stars (1976) #3

Jim Shooter (script, layouts)

Curt Swan (pencils)

George Klein (inks)

Milt Snapinn (letters)

Mort Weisinger (original editor)

E. Nelson Bridwell (editor)

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.

Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes (1977) #238

This issue reprints a couple Adventure Comics from 1967, written by a sixteen-year-old Jim Shooter, proving he was better at writing comics in his teens than in his thirties. Though I’m sure there’s an abundance of evidence on that one.

Shooter also does the layouts, with Curt Swan penciling and George Klein inking. The art looks pretty much like every other competently produced Silver Age comic. The story’s about the new president of Earth declaring the Legion of Super-Heroes a youth gang and banning them; the Legion only finds out about it when they get back to Earth from missions in space, saving countless lives.

Some Legionnaires get arrested quickly; others go on the run and become fugitives as they try to discover what’s gone wrong with their world in just a few days.

The plot’s amusingly similar to a recent one where time travel changed the future, and no one believed Superboy when he told them they were all acting differently. Maybe they should’ve remembered they’d had this similar adventure.

Though Superboy’s barely in this issue, and Supergirl makes far more of an impact. The sixties Legion didn’t have the scantily clad superhero wear (for boys or girls), but they also didn’t even pretend to count the female Legionnaires as regular members. It’s a boys club and feels very much like a teenage boy wrote it.

Because one did.

It’s a little belabored (this one double-sized issue collects two old issues), and the reveals aren’t surprising–except when Shooter apparently creates the “meddling kids” reveal from “Scooby-Doo” two years before the first cartoon aired—but it’s not terrible. On the contrary, it’s precisely what you’d expect from a Silver Age comic book.

Swan and Klein don’t do a lot with the future setting, but it looks enough like Flash Gordon (the 1930s serials but with the limitless comic budget) to amuse.

It’s also interesting to see how Shooter worked out solutions based on powers but without the thoughtfulness of current series writer Paul Levitz.

Not quite interesting enough to make me glad I read the issue instead of skipping ahead, but I also don’t regret it.

Showcase 12 (January-February 1958)

George Klein is far from Kirby’s worst inker, but he doesn’t bring much to the art either. Maybe the subject matter is just inherently less visual.

The Challengers track a criminal and his gang to an island–they’re lawfully deputized to work as a paramilitary vigilante organization, don’t you worry–and these ancient vials cause trouble. Giant thugs, a fire monster, a sea monster and duplicating criminals.

The narrative’s not bad, though Wood fails to even attempt cliffhangers. I don’t think any of the Challengers are in sustained danger. Maybe once. They also don’t have any personalities and are even less different from one another here since none of them have any solo missions. Wood even forgets Prof’s name… or maybe he finally remembers it. Last issue it was Harrison, now it’s Haley again.

Wood and Kirby’s approach seems to be to go big (literally); it works out reasonably well.

Superman (1939) #241

I guess Wonder Woman wasn’t much of a draw back in the early 1970s because her guest appearance is a surprise (there’s no mention on the cover) and she’s practically in the issue more than Superman.

Following up on Superman’s epiphany from the previous issue (he’d prefer to live a normal life), Wonder Woman’s Indian sidekick convinces him otherwise. It’s only a couple pages, but it’s effective, maybe because O’Neil’s dialogue for Superman is so desperate.

But then there’s the subsequent problem (where Wonder Woman takes over). Superman has super-brain damage and is acting like a (well-intentioned) goofball. It’s almost like they have him do Silver Age things, then deal with the “real world” consequences.

The sand double gets a solid explanation here, along with a goofy name: Pseudo-Superman.

The reprint back-ups are cute, but out of place for the serious–if humorously handled–feature story.