ADVENTURE COMICS #351 (one of the weirdest Legion stories ever)
Oh, now that was a great Legion story! You just can't go wrong with the Shooter/Swan Legion. My all time favorite moment was when they were trapped in a metal cage created by a robot's fingers, and Matter Eater Lad EATS his way out, saying "Those ROBOT FINGERS were just as tasty as ladyfingers!"
And of course, we have the "arm" puns with Lightning Lad. His artificial arm is melted, but he gets zapped in the other and says "No! I've been totally DISARMED!"
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA...get it? It's funny because he's handicapped!
The greatest line ever written was in that story: "That energizer has given me a special power!" "Jumping Jupiter, he's growing horns!" "Yes, and not ordinary horns, either! They can shoot out BLASTS OF DARKNESS!"
I did love the foreshortening about the upcoming death of Ferro Lad. My question is, though...we didn't get to see what the Hag predicted was going to be Cosmic Boy's fate, that was supposedly "so horrible it can never be seen!"
QUESTION: why do parents name their children "Evilo?" What, did the King and Queen of Tartarus already name their first born Hitler-Hussein?
This story also features the only occasions where Color Kid's astonishingly useless ability (even by the low, low standards of the Substitute Legion) comes in handy: he turns the earth's Green K to Red K.
Though surely Superboy's powers can be put to better use than surreptitiously erasing caricatures of his teacher. Someone drew a humorous drawing of a teacher? SUPERBOY MUST STOP THIS!
Also: is it just me, or is Night Girl the best looking chick in the 30th Century? Hotcha-cha!
SUPER FRIENDS # 21, 42, 43 (vastly underrated writer E. Nelson Bridwell keeping the spirit of the Silver Age JLA alive in the early 1980s)
Hear-hear! E. Nelson Bridwell was a talent, that's for sure. His greatest work, I think, was SUPERMAN SPECIAL #3 (1985), which features Superman battling against Amazo (perhaps the definitive Superman/Amazo fight), and the Elongated Man backup stories in DETECTIVE COMICS (much better than the John Jones backups, which felt like Superman tales...but the ones in JIMMY OLSEN or LOIS LANE instead of Edmond Hamilton's). Nelson Bridwell's Elongated Man stories had a mystery, AND they had things like Elongated Man stretching his finger around a villain several times, saying "I just caught this guy with ONE FINGER!" Unlike other girlfriends, Sue was a legitimate part of the Elongated Man story, sort of his sidekick, playing the "Doctor Watson" role when mysteries strike.
E. Nelson Bridwell's SUPER FRIENDS was a lot of fun. It feels strange to say this, but my favorite part were the Wonder Twins and their monkey. On the television show, they were nitwits whose general job was interfering with natural selection. On the other hand, in the cartoon, they were treated more like the less-powerful members of the Legion of Super-Heroes: as a surprising and undervalued part of the team, that unlikely circumstances make their otherwise limited powers the most valuable of all.
The space monkey, too, was treated more like an animal under E. Nelson Bridwell. It reminded me less of the cute talking animals from Disney films, more like the animal heroes from things like WHITE FANG and THE CALL OF THE WILD. There was one story where the monkey performed robberies for a superfoe, but even after the enemy was caught, he still demanded to be fed for stealing, because "he's just a monkey that's learned a trick...he doesn't know what he did was wrong."
Plus, it was worth reading these to hear Superman shout "STRIKE, SUPER FRIENDS!"
How'd Hitler do that? Guessing not with an Earth-1 Spear of Destiny (though that was a 70's-era revelation anyway)...
What was especially funny is that this isn't the first time Hitler's tried to put his brain in a member of the Superman family. There was a Legion story where Hitler was able to place his mind into Supergirl. Man, sometimes Supergirl's stories feel like a submarine, travelling into the unconscious mind of a sex deviant.
THink it depends on the Silver Age comics in question, but yes, they're getting more expensive (as it retreats further into the past). Though the 70's/80's stuff is often still fairly cheap (I got a lot of my "New Adventures of Superboy" run for $1-$1.50 per issue at a used bookstore downtown that sells old comics for cheap...).
Well, it all depends. I was able to complete my run on early-seventies gem SON OF SATAN for less than a dollar an issue. And most of my Silver Age Legion stuff barely set me back $2 or less a book, though I was willing to take them a little "loved" (e.g. beat up).
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