Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes (1978) #235

Paul Levitz (1), Gerry Conway (2) (script)

Mike Grell (1), George Tuska (2) (pencils)

Vince Colletta (inks)

Jerry Serpe (colors)

Milt Snapinn (1), Ben Oda (2) (letters)

Al Milgrom (editor)

Joe Orlando (managing editor)

Hang on, it’s Vince Colletta inking both stories? I knew he was on the strange backup from Gerry Conway and George Tuska (Tuska on Legion is fun). But Colletta also inks Grell on the feature. And I think it’s been my favorite Grell art on Superboy… probably ever? So, sometimes, stars align.

While it’s still not great art, and lots of the costume designs seem to be geared towards silliness over function, Grell takes advantage of the story to really showcase Superboy, which doesn’t happen often. The opportunity arises here because of the plot—the Legion is doing their annual brainwashing of the Boy of Steel when an alert comes in, and because Brainiac 5 doesn’t know how to keep circuits separate, the brainwashing gets interrupted. They have to go save a research station with Superboy, who is susceptible to dangerous future information because of that interruption.

The research station is the most important in the Federation, called “Life Sciences,” and all the scientists are very surprised Superboy has never heard of it. Writer Paul Levitz will pepper the story with Superboy’s suspicions based on (literal) intergalactic eavesdropping and good old twentieth-century critical thinking, but there’s not a mystery here. The reveal isn’t anything the reader could’ve really guessed (other than Superboy’s guess being suspiciously insipid). And the way Levitz writes around the reveal—potentially the most fascinating insight into the (at best) sociopathic Legion of Super-Heroes ever—needs a reread just to parse all the connotations. It retcons almost the entire series, but everyone’s blasé about it.

Despite all the accouterments—and not just the subplot about revolutionaries who want the Federation’s secrets (the ones Superboy also can’t know)—it’s got a very Silver Age vibe, just in terms of character development. Grell’s pencils don’t clash with that vibe, either. Maybe his ability to tell these Silver Age-y stories with Bronze Age futuristics is what Grell brings to Legion.

Contrasting the feature’s Silver Age story in Bronze Age fashion is the backup, which has Conway doing a complicated flashback-based trial story. The Legion’s in trouble for not helping some politician’s son. Both the politician and the Legion needed to get the magic blood of an alien beast; it brings you back from the… You know, I was going to contrast the backup with the Tuska pencils as the more “Bronze Age,” but no, these are both really very Silver Age-y takes. Conway brings a bit more confusion to it, which gives Tuska a lot of fodder, but the core story’s Silvery.

And it’s awesome to see Tuska do the Bronze Age costume designs for some of the Legion. The flashback stuff with the monster isn’t great—not bad, just not great—but the eventual Legion theatrics are a lot of fun, visually.

The issue’s got a big reveal in the feature and the protracted setup in the backup, but neither requires any Legion foreknowledge. Just general awareness. It’s a great onboarding issue, though maybe not the best art the book’s ever had or the best writing, but if readers are into the modern (and retro) takes, this issue’ll let them know Legion’s for them.

Superboy (1949) #222

Cary Bates, Jim Shooter (script)

Mike Grell, Michael Netzer (pencils)

Bob Wiacek, Bob Layton (inks)

Jack C. Harris (assistant editor)

Murray Boltinoff (editor)

Mike Grell gets an inker for his pencils on the feature, but Bob Wiacek doesn’t bring anything to improve on them. In fact, the figures might be worse. Some of the close-ups, from certain angles, are better than usual for Grell. Not so the rest.

Cary Bates contributes the script, which has Tyroc rampaging around Metropolis, angry the Legion doesn’t want to move its headquarters to his island. Even without the later clarifying details, it’s an incredibly thin setup. We get the science police complaining to the Legion, the Legion revealing Tyroc’s having a tantrum, and then the Legion going after him. They catch up to him at a park, where they capture him.

Not the end of the story by a long shot because then the Legionnaires show up at the jail with another suspect and a whole story about how Tyroc has been framed. If only it weren’t a way for Bates to kill two pages before wiping the stakes and loosing Tyroc back onto the unsuspecting populace. What could be causing the Legion’s latest member to break so badly? Just hang on for two more narrative feints, and Bates will explain everything!

The remainder of the story is then Bates backfilling on the reasoning for a bunch of other details throughout. The whole thing’s set up to have the reader, the public, and some of the Legionnaires convinced Tyroc isn’t Legion material (seriously, he was the first Black guy on the team, and they gave him this story). It’s unremarkably bad, except in the historical sense. And to see how an inker can somehow make Grell’s figures worse. Superboy goes from having a bulky torso and skinny legs to a skinny torso with skinny legs.

Jim Shooter, Mike Nasser, and Bob Layton contribute the backup. Superboy, Timber Wolf, and Lightning Lass are going to a faraway planet for some celebration. The president of Earth couldn’t be bothered to attend. On the way, they watch their favorite superhero movies starring Questar, who will also be at the ceremony.

I assume Shooter didn’t know he’d be following up a feature with a multiple narrative switchbacks, so when he does two of his own… well, it rounds out the issue overall, I guess.

The art’s not as good as the feature, which isn’t a particularly high bar, but either Nasser or Layton doesn’t understand how fingers look. There are other things they don’t understand, but not knowing how fingers look….

It’s a particularly bad finish for Superboy, too. He comes off like a callous prick.

The feature’s tedious and unrewarding. The backup’s more of the same.

Superboy (1949) #214

Jim Shooter 1, Cary Bates 2 (script)

Mike Grell (artist 1, pencils 2)

Bill Draut (inks 2)

Ben Oda 1, Joe Letterese 2 (letters

Jack C. Harris (assistant editor)

Murray Boltinoff (editor)

Ah, yes, the valiant superheroes of the future… who are willing to sacrifice a little kid’s life because they don’t like him. Well, not all of them, but definitely Wildfire and maybe Karate Kid. Thank goodness Superboy (with his forty-five-year-old Grell features) is there to remind them they’re not supposed to let innocent people die just because they’re unpleasant.

The Legion’s on an automated factory planet. The planet’s been attacking ships trying to land, including one after the Legion arrives. Superboy saves the ship’s pilot before the planet’s lasers zap it. Turns out the pilot is an obnoxious little kid (who barely seems aware of the Legion, which ought to be interesting but isn’t), son of the planet’s owner.

Too bad the villain turns out to be a fired overseer who hates the planet’s owner and would kill the kid at the first opportunity. So Superboy does his best to try to keep the kid safe, even as the kid thinks the heroes are just trying to cramp his style. Wildfire takes a different approach—let the kid die so the Legion can escape.

Maybe if writer Jim Shooter had a better moral compass, the story would read better; as is, the reader’s supposed to identify with Wildfire but eventually agree with Superboy, who’s actually not showing all his cards. So… the needs of the few only outweigh the needs of the many when you’re playing with marked cards.

At the very least, there are a couple okay big action splashes from Mike Grell. They’re usually cushioned with some strangely distorted human faces or whatever’s going on with Wildfire’s helmet, but there are at least a couple okay visual moments.

The backup—Grell on pencils, Cary Bates writing, Bill Draut on inks—is about Brainiac-5 trying to help Shrinking Violet with a mental health issue. She’s just had a nasty near accident with another Legionnaire in the gym—she almost got stomped on—and now she can’t shrink any more. Brainy ignores Saturn Girl’s “professional” psychiatric advice on how to deal with it and pushes forward with an extreme treatment.

It’s a terribly plotted story—the first few pages are all talking heads about Violet’s problems (talking about her, she’s not conscious for it because she’s so near her mental breaking point), then there’s some setup of Brainy’s treatment idea. But then the actual action of the story is barely a page and a half, and it’s… about getting stuck in a big ball of wire.

Once again, Brainiac-5 doesn’t seem very smart at all.

Overall, however, the issue’s nowhere near as bad as its creators can get. Unless, of course, you want your superheroes helping people instead of pushing them under busses.

Superboy (1949) #213

Jim Shooter (script)

Mike Grell (artist 1, pencils 2)

Bill Draut (inks 2)

Jack C. Harris (assistant editor)

Murray Boltinoff (editor)

Despite a poor opening, the feature’s not terrible. I mean, Mike Grell’s mid-forties-looking Superboy is always a thing, but otherwise—besides the incessant bickering between the Legionnaires—it’s an okay story. Once you get past Superboy’s introduction to the story, which is thankfully the worst Jim Shooter exposition we get in the whole story.

The introduction promises Ultra Boy cracking under the pressures of being a superhero, but it’s actually something tied to a very specific trauma for Ultra Boy. The resolution to it entirely invalidates the introduction teaser, but whatever. It could be much worse.

The Legion’s hanging out at headquarters when someone breaks in, getting past all their advanced defenses. It’s the best thief in the galaxy; come to tell the Legion he’s going to steal their miracle machine. Brainiac-5 accuses the thief of being a liar because Brainy’s never heard of him.

The thief points out he’s never been arrested or caught because he’s the best, so how would Brainiac-5 have heard of him? Brainiac-5, being written by a Jim Shooter-level intelligence, has no rejoinder.

The thief transports out or whatever, promising to return, and the Legion has a fit about what to do next. They take a vote on destroying the machine, only to discover they can’t destroy it anyway; it’s too well-built. So they up the defenses and stand guard.

We still haven’t had Ultra Boy cracking under pressure, by the way. We’ve got to wait for them to try to track the thief down, running into a space dinosaur instead, and Ultra Boy hates space dinosaurs. Good thing the comic’s called Superboy and Superboy can see across the universe.

There’s nothing particularly good about the story, but there’s also nothing particularly bad—Shooter made it through a whole story without any sexism—and while Grell’s going to Grell, maybe it’s worn me down by now.

The backup’s similarly indistinctly “not terrible.” Also not at all good. Shooter scripts, Grell’s on art with Bill Draut. Is Grell better with someone else inking? Not really. Draut makes the lines bolder, which isn’t really Grell’s problem. None of the body work is improved.

On a solo mission, Timber Wolf answers a distress call, but something else may be going on. To survive, Timber Wolf will have to use his smarts and knowledge of the Legion policy and procedure handbook.

So many thought balloons from Timber Wolf. None of them thoughtful, but also none of them filled with the character’s usually sexism.

The comic’s not so much not bad as inoffensive. It’s still not anything good, but inoffensive is a good start.

Superboy (1949) #212

Jim Shooter (script)

Mike Grell (artist)

Ben Oda (letters)

Jack C. Harris (assistant editor)

Murray Boltinoff (editor)

Jim Shooter and Mike Grell contribute both stories this issue and offer little quarter. Grell’s art is slightly better than usual (or at least not as obviously deficient), and I guess Shooter could be worse.

The first story is about a bunch of Legion rejects busting into the Legion headquarters and kicking the Legion’s butt. Each of the rejects is from the same planet as their opponent and uses those same powers to overwhelm the Legionnaire. It’s not until Superboy shows up the fight ends.

Except then his teammates are mad at him for stopping them from getting their brains beat in. So they challenge the rejects to a rematch the next day. Little do the rejects realize the Legionnaires have a plan, and that plan is teamwork. You can beat the crap out of lots of people if you plan on how you’re going to do it.

Not really sure Superboy is a morally virtuous comic book.

Anyway, the rejects once again pair off against their opposites, with a different result this time.

There’s also a nonsense subplot about some cop coming to take away one of the Legionaries. He’s got a surprise (at least what Shooter considers a surprise) reason.

It’s a bad story about a bunch of teenagers trying to beat up a bunch of other teenagers.

The backup is about Legion of Substitute Heroes member Night Girl trying to take down a common criminal gang; only the common criminals know her weakness-she doesn’t have any powers in light. Thank goodness Shadow Lass comes along at the right time to save her, but they’re still not powerful enough together to take out the regular human criminals with guns.

I don’t think the crooks make any remarks about the heroes being girls and, therefore, lesser (though the first story does so), but Night Girl’s boyfriend, Cosmic Boy, will make fun of her for being a girl superhero. He dumps her for it only to discover his replacement date is wanting.

Too bad the crooks decided to start killing Legionnaires—him first so he doesn’t get mad at them for taking out Night Girl. Action, misogyny, and resolution ensue.

It’s another unpleasant issue. Even when Grell may have an interesting idea for the panel composition, his detail work is bad. Not as bad as some of his figure work, however; in Grell’s future, no one has rib cages when they fly. Or their rib cages are as high as their pectorals.

Doesn’t matter; bad comic.

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.

Announcing The Comix Section, a Stop Button zine

Today, a full month later than I’d hoped but a couple weeks before I feared, I’m dropping The Comix Section #1, an e-zine of comic book criticism. If you have a good color printer, lots of ink, legal-sized paper, and a powerful stapler, it can also be a paper zine. It was meant to be a paper zine and flipped when read, with one side containing a readthrough of the DC Comics Will Eisner’s The Spirit Archives and the other a wide variety of floppies starting in the mid-1970s.

There’s a story to the variety, but I’m approximately twenty-four hours behind when I actually thought I’d be making this post, and even last night, I didn’t have it in me.

I don’t even have a full listing of the contents in me at this point, but you can see the table of contents below.

There are a bevy of download versions, which took up much of the additional prep time and is hopefully something I can automate next time.

The issue is available as a PDF or a CBZ, both full quality–oh, forgot: The Comix Section is fully “illustrated” (photos of the issues and, more significantly, the Spirit)–and compressed. The compressed should be fine. Again, lots of versions if it’s not. Or you want to try printing it out.

Download PDF 142.6 MB

Download CBZ 142.6 MB

Download CBZ (full quality) 438.3 MB

Thirty-one Spirit stories reviewed, a full-page from each of them. Eighteen DC seventies books (maybe eighteen; I actually won’t get this posted if I stop and count): Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes and All-Star Comics Starring the Justice Society of America Featuring the Super Squad. Spoiler: the first year, Spirit is better, but even with the frequent, complicated, but unequivocal yikes of Ebony in Spirit, it’s often less creepy than the DC stuff.

I’ve got a fancy dedication planned for some point (at this rate, the project will take eleven years). Lanark took thirty, but it was fiction, so I feel like I’m solid. But for now, I want to shout out Vernon (who’s reading this) and Katie (who isn’t but will read the collected CS someday, all 500k words of it–again, extrapolating from this single issue). Invaluable assistance through the process, with Vernon actually making it possible. My thanks.

I hope you’ll check it out, though if you’re here for the movies or TV, I don’t think it’ll be for you unless you’re intellectually curious about comic books. Even if you’re into comics—well, the Venn diagram of Will Eisner and Jim Shooter—honestly, comics is the only reality where they can overlap so much.

Detective Comics (1937) #464

Dc464

I went into this issue expecting the back-up—Black Canary versus the Calculator, continuing writer Bob Rozakis’s back-up from last issue—to be better than the feature, which wraps up guest star vigilante the Black Spider’s first appearance. I was wrong. While the feature is not good at all, the back-up is even worse.

The feature starts with writer Gerry Conway resolving the last issue’s cliffhanger, which had Batman about to be run over by a passenger jet. Luckily, the jet didn’t run him over; tres exciting. After some quick fisticuffs with the Black Spider, ending with Black Spider beating Batman once again—without the “gunshot wound to the shoulder” excuse because Black Spider takes him out with a kick to the knee—Batman has to figure out where the vigilante will strike next.

Luckily, Batman has some streetwalkers he can ask. The story’s take on the informant is simultaneously objectifying and moralizing. Most amusing, when she tells Batman giving him information will result in her death, he’s okay with it, continuing Conway writing Batman as a dick. In his one scene with Alfred and two with Commissioner Gordon, Batman’s more concerned with the problem of vigilantism than being rude to them this issue, however. There’s lots of soapboxing from Bats about why vigilantes are dangerous, but deputy policemen like him are jim-dandy.

The thread is a strange attempt from Conway to give the comic some heft. Apparently, the editors and Conway didn’t realize they could just as well not address it, but the reveals on Black Spider aren’t enough to fill pages. Frank Castle Jr., he ain’t. Black Spider is, as predicted, a Black man; he had a friend who got hooked on junk and went from one tragedy to another.

There’s a moment where Batman’s confused at junkies having other qualities to hammer in more moralizing. Again, Conway could’ve skipped the moment—he had that ability—but instead, he just reinforces the problems with the story.

Ernie Chan and Frank McLaughlin’s art isn’t as bad as last time, but only because Batman doesn’t have as many action sequences. Conway’s finale for the issue seems more appropriate for a Spider-Man, though Black Spider doesn’t have any webs. It’s a slight, severely undercooked story.

And leagues better than the back-up, which is six pages of atrocious dialogue and storytelling. It starts with Black Canary blowing off the Atom reporting on last issue’s adventures because she’s got better things to do. Except then, the Calculator immediately ambushes her, and she realizes she should’ve paid attention.

The Rozakises (Bob got an assist from wife Laurie) write Black Canary like an asshole but then have Calculator be a sexist piece of shit to her. His supervillain plan for this story’s goofy but also barely explained. Instead, there’s just fighting and misogyny.

The art, from Mike Grell and Terry Austin, is good… way better than the script deserves. It ends, like last time, with Calculator plotting his next move from a jail cell; presumably, they won’t explain the prison escape next time either.

Besides the Grell and Austin art, the issue’s the pits.

Detective Comics (1937) #463

Dc463

The feature has art by Ernie Chan and Frank McLaughlin. Chan’s figure drawing is rough. Batman looks silly and uncomfortable, contorting his way through the story. Gerry Conway’s got the script credit, so when the mystery villain turns out to be a Punisher clone called the Black Spider… well, at least they got Conway to write it?

I’m assuming the Black Spider turns out to be a Black guy. Not because of the name, or at least not entirely because of the name; Black Spider rants about the superfly drug dealers who need a Black Spider to eat them up. He doesn’t want to fight Batman, who’s already injured, and can escape their first encounter.

The story starts with Batman interrupting a drug deal and getting shot in the shoulder. The injury will plague him the rest of the story—the fight with Black Spider and against other assorted thugs—and maybe it’s why he’s such a dick to his friends. When Commissioner Gordon shows up at the scene of the drug bust, after saving Batman from a pissed-off city official who wants to arrest him, Batman’s condescending to his old pal. Who even gets a thought balloon thinking about how shitty Batman’s being to him.

When Batman’s similarly shitty to Alfred, a few pages later, Alfred gets no thought balloon.

Not sure why Batman’s got to be a prick, but Conway’s fully invested in it.

After the big fight with Black Spider, Batman gets in more trouble with Gordon and the city official (Arthur Reeves, who I’m pretty sure recurs), then heads off to the cliffhanger.

If the art were good, it’d probably be fine. But the art’s not good, so it’s tiring. And it’s tiring at eleven pages.

The backup has good art—Mike Grell pencils, Terry Austin inks—and it’s better. Bob Rozakis scripts: it’s the Calculator out to get a college professor during a lecture. Luckily for that college professor, his good friend the Atom is in the audience and able to protect him from the Calculator. Except the Calculator knows the Atom’s weaknesses.

Just as writing, Rozakis’s exposition is only slightly better than Conway’s, but Rozakis isn’t writing a dick Batman and jive-talking thugs. Instead, he’s just doing an action bit about the Atom trying to save his friend, who gives a boring lecture. And the art’s real good; superior superhero action in only six pages.

The backup’s cliffhanger reveals next time the Calculator will be fighting Black Canary, so it’s a villain backup. Novel enough for the seventies.