Random comics I have owned. Part Six.

All students of history will know there've been many great endings over the centuries; and today, Steve Does Comics brings you an ending worthy of Tim Burton's Planet of the Apes itself - as its latest feature grinds to its final resting place.

The only issue of Shazam I ever owned.

Like the Metal Men comic I mentioned the other day, I got it from a newsagents in Heeley Green. I still don't have a clue why that makes it seem exciting but, somehow, it does.

Sadly, I remember little of the main story but remember that I found CC Beck's simple art style appealing.

The Legion of Super-Heroes find themselves entangled in a plan devised by their evil counterparts.

The only issue of E-Man I ever owned.

I believe this issue may have introduced me to the word, "Entropy."

I also suspect this issue featured John Byrne's Rog 2000 in the tale of a haunted hotel. This may have been the first time I ever encountered the work of John Byrne. At the time, I found the tale most droll.

Apart from the cover, I don't remember anything about this at all.

It does however remind me that I once had a comic that featured a reprint of a Lee/Kirby tale about a girl who can walk on air until it's pointed out to her that people can't walk on air, at which point she loses the ability to do so. If you know in which comic that reprint appeared, I'd be very glad to read your thoughts in the comments box below.

It's another issue of Prez - and another whose contents somehow elude my memory.

An evil bad guy has a formula that turns people into monsters. Needless to say, the Avenger soon sorts out his perfidious plans.

The only issue of the Champions I ever had.

You do wonder just who at Marvel thought it made sense to launch a comic that tried to team up the Black Widow, Hercules, Iceman, the Angel and Ghost Rider. Maybe it's just me but that doesn't seem the most natural combination of characters.

Sadly, I can recall nothing of what happened within this issue.

I think a shopping mall may have been involved.

I could be wrong.

My eyeballs detect a Neal Adams cover.

Arguably one of Atlas/Seaboard's stronger offerings. I particularly recall a tale of two samurai and a load of giant spiders - not to mention an article on the making of Towering Inferno.

Wulf the Barbarian has his third outing. I'm not sure if he had a fourth one, the Curse of Atlas being what it was.

Random comics I have owned. Part Four.

When it comes to the National Lottery, a wise man once said, "It could be you."

Sadly, he was wrong. It couldn't be me. Why? Because I've never entered it.

Happily, there's another lottery. A better lottery. One that brings far more joy into people's lives than winning ten million pounds could ever do.

And that's the lottery that is, "Random comics I have owned."

Just what magic will it fling at us tonight?

I don't know.

But one thing's for sure.

I'm not going to let it change my life.

At one point, I had every one of the Black Orchid's original Adventure Comics appearances. All three of them. Sadly, it wasn't long after her debut before she was booted off the book, to be replaced by the Spectre.

Happily, for fans of women with flower obsessions, she was soon back, in the pages of The Phantom Stranger.

As for this tale, I have no recall at all of what happened in it but I gather that sailors and boats were involved.

It's one of my childhood faves, as Superboy finds himself turned into a merboy.

And if that's not one of the greatest comic book covers of all time, I'm a seahorse.

The X-Men come up against the Hellfire Club who seem to be an awful bunch of bounders and not at all inspired by a notorious but celebrated episode of TV's Avengers.

Batroc and Mr Hyde come up with a plan to blow up New York, with a boat, unless they get zillions.

Needless to say, Captain America soon puts a stop to their devilish plans.

Is it my imagination or is, "Batroc," misspelled on that cover?

It's the only original issue of the Hulk comic that I ever owned as a kid but I loved it, as, now residing in Canada, the Mimic is in danger of draining all our hero's life energy from him

This was the firs time I ever encountered the blue furry version of the Beast and was initially most confused as to whether he was meant to be the same character as the one from the X-Men.

I got this from a newsagents in a place called Heeley Green. This fact will mean nothing to 99.9% of the people reading this post but, somehow, that memory adds a certain charm to it all.

I seem to recall that an alien robot tyrant takes a fancy to the female member of the Metal Men and decides to bombard Earth with loads of missile-shaped robots because of it. How this was supposed to win her heart, I have no idea.

With their sharply defined personalities, I did find the Metal Men quite charming at the time.

It's the comic that gave us America's first teenage president.

More to the point, thanks to its unfeasibly visaged bad guy, it was the first time I ever encountered the smiley-face symbol with which all internetters are now so familiar.

I also learned from it that Mussolini made the trains run on time.

Who says comics aren't educational?

Iron Fist comes to London and immediately gets into a punch-up with Radion the atomic man.

Sadly, it turns out to be curtains for the Post Office Tower, which meets an explosive fate.

Whisper it quietly but I do believe this strip featured John Byrne's finest artwork.

Random comics I have owned. Part Two.

Quiver, mortals! It's time to cower once more before the raging power of nostalgia - because it's time for Part Two of my random look back at various comics I used to own when I was barely more than knee-high to a Kurrgo.

It's one of my childhood faves, as Superboy re-encounters a child genius with a knack for landing him in trouble.

I recall nothing of this book's contents. I do however still dig that cover.

But just what is the way in which the Flash dies?

Purchased from an indoor market in Blackpool, in the summer of 1972, this was one of the first American comics I ever owned.

As you can guess, it has the Angel vs Red Raven, as they meet in the latter's city in the clouds.

Yet another of my very earliest American comics, as Cap and Falc come up against a scientist who turns himself into a talking gorilla.

The gorilla was fine but I remember being most taken at the time by the colour scheme of Cap's costume.

A comic strip artist inadvertently creates a winged bad guy who I seem to recollect has plans to conquer the world.

Exactly how it all plays out, I don't remember. Did the artist foil the villain's mighty plans by erasing him/redrawing him/spilling ink over the paper he'd originally been drawn on?

The Phantom Stranger meets Frankenstein's monster.

Despite my lack of enthusiasm for DC's take on the monster, I do remember enjoying this one.

I seem to recall there being some sort of demonic possession thing going on and some typically rugged artwork by Jim Aparo inside.

I believe the cover to be by Mike Kaluta.

I'm pretty sure this is the first colour Conan comic I ever owned, as our hero comes up against a gold statue of a scorpion that inconveniently comes to life.

The cover's always driven me up the wall. I'm convinced John Buscema borrowed Conan's pose from a Jack Kirby panel but I've never been able to work out in which comic that panel first appeared.

Hooray! Marvel's reprint mag gives us Kraa, who I seem to recall being surprisingly helpful in a crisis and coming to a sad end.

Poor old Kraa.

Supergirl - in, "Lena Thorul: Jungle Princess!"

Hooray! It's the return of the internet's favourite recurring feature.

It's Supergirl Sunday!

Many a moon has hung gibbous in the sky since last I perused the adventures of the Cupidacious Kandorian and, admittedly, it's not Sunday, it's Saturday.

If I had any class at all, I'd respond to that obstacle by doing Saturn Girl Saturday.

But I won't. One, because I can't be bothered. And, two, because Supergirl looks exactly like Saturn Girl, so who's going to notice the difference anyway?

But of course Saturn Girl isn't the only character Supergirl looks exactly like. Famously, she also happens to look exactly like Lesla-Lar, Kandorian criminal, and Luna Lynai, onetime girlfriend of Superman.

Most of all, she looks exactly like her friend Lena Thorul who's applied to join the FBI. As part of her "Audition" for the job, Lena's sent to interview her brother Lex Luthor in prison.

There're only two problems with this.

One is she doesn't know he's her brother.

The other is that Lena Thorul's psychic.

Needless to say, this means that, when she and he meet, it doesn't take her long to discover the truth.

Blimey! Break it to her gently, why don't you?

And, needless to say, Lena reacts as any of us would - by losing her memory and going to live in Africa, as an animal-controlling jungle queen.

Discovered by an entrepreneur, she comes back to America to perform in his big show but her memory has returned and, traumatised by her knowledge of who she is, she can't go on with the show, meaning her exact lookalike Supergirl has to stand in for her.

Fortunately it's all put right when Lex Luthor escapes from jail by the least likely means possible and uses a special flower to rob Lena of all memory of his true identity, so everyone's happy again.

I've always loved this tale because it's so nice. Lena Thorul's nice. Supergirl's nice. Even Lex Luthor's nice, showing more concern for his sister than for himself. He even escapes from prison nicely. It's winningly drawn by Gentlemen Jim Mooney and it gets through an insane amount of plot in just twelve pages.

There's a ludicrous charm to this tale that you simply couldn't imagine being replicated in the modern world. There's also something oddly engaging about the sight of Supergirl, in jungle queen gear, having her head chewed by a lion for the entertainment of others.

So there you have it. A classic feature returned and a classic tale - of sorts - covered. No wonder I couldn't wait for Sunday in order to post it.

Superboy #195.

Pink Floyd once claimed we don't need no education.

They were wrong.

We all need an education.

Why?

Because without one we wouldn't be able to read comics.

And you know what? It's a virtuous circle because, once we start to read comics, they become an education in themselves.

For instance, if there's one thing I've learned in life, it's that I should never change my name to Don Blake. Not only does Marvel's character of that name have a dodgy leg and no personality but when DC get round to giving us a character of that nomenclature, he turns out to be blind and wallowing in self-pity.

Thus it is that Superboy #195, finds DC's Don Blake feeling as unnecessary as Pink Floyd's education. But, thanks to his knowledge of electronics, his initiative - and his sheer stupidity in the face of danger - he helps Superboy foil a local DJ's plot to use his station's transmitters to create a series of devastating Thunderballs with which to vex Smallville.

It's all good stuff and delivers a message to us all about believing in ourselves, no matter how disadvantaged we may feel, but the real story of this issue's to be found in its second half as Cary Bates and Dave Cockrum bring us the classic tale of ERG, a wannabe derring-doer who applies to join the Legion of Super-Heroes but is turned down because all his powers simply replicate those of current members.

Now, if I ran a super-hero group and someone came along to me and said, "I can do all the things the current members of the Legion of Super-Heroes can," I'd bite his hand off. But no, not the Legion. The group that accepted Bouncing Boy and Triplicate Girl quickly decide his eight zillion powers aren't up to their exalted standards and send him packing. Bizarrely, it's Mon-El who tells him that every Legionnaire must have a power that's uniquely his or her own. Erm, that's Mon-El whose powers are exactly the same as Superboy's?

Fortunately for the sake of drama, ERG's not one to be put off, and he sneaks aboard the Legion's spaceship when they head off to tangle with a giant Henry the Hoover that's eating all the crops on some planet or other.

When the proper Legionnaires fail and Colossal Boy's about to be vacuumed to death, up pops ERG to save the day by using his one unique power - a power he can only dare use once.

With its slick, dynamic art and tragic pay-off, the tale far outshines the main Superboy story of the issue and it's easy to see why, within a few months, the young Kryptonian found himself having to share the billing with the Legion. It's also easy to understand how Dave Cockrum successfully rejuvenated another comic about a group of super-powerful teens.

So there, you see, Pink Floyd? Education, it's a wonderful thing.

Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes #199.

As anyone who ever sat though the Shari Lewis and Lamb Chop show way back in the 1970s can tell you, there's no sight more nightmarish than that of a human being talking to their own hand.

So it is that the Legion of Super-Heroes have plenty to worry about as issue #199 sees the return of Tyr, the big, red alien warlord with the talking metal gun-hand, who was last seen in issue #197.

When Tyr was captured at the end of that tale, his gun-hand flew off into outer space, vowing vengeance.

And now it's back, determined to rescue its master by trapping the Legion in their own HQ.

Unfortunately, when Superboy turns up to try and rescue them, it gets ideas above its station by taking control of him and deciding that, with Superboy under its spell, it doesn't need Tyr any more.

Happily, it's all sorted out by Princess Projectra and Chameleon Boy doing their thang, to trick it into giving itself up. It's all nicely drawn by Dave Cockrum, while Tyr, despite being a bit futile in this tale, does look good, with his bright red skin, gratuitous height and mohawk.

But of course what really makes this issue stand out from the pack is that its back-up strip gives us a wrong-doer of such unique awfulness that I once voted him the worst super-villain of all time.

Yes, strangely familiar....

Not only does he look like a refugee from Dr Hook's taken to rummaging through Kraven the Hunter's dustbins and stealing any clothes Kraven's thrown out for being too lame, but he has a great plan - to defeat Bouncing Boy.

Now, I don't like to teach my grandmother to suck eggs but my advice to any would-be super-villain would be that if your ambition's to defeat Bouncing Boy then you should probably give it up as a bad job.

Regardless, while he's flying back to Earth from some mission or other, Bouncing Boy's space shuttle's captured and taken to an asteroid where his abductor Otto Orion Jr declares he's going to set Bouncing Boy loose on the asteroid, hunt him down like a dog and kill him.

Is this the end for the man who convinced generations of children that obesity is a super power?

When the villain puts down his weapon and has his
hands occupied tying his boots, our hero bursts into action
by, erm, just standing there, watching.

Of course it isn't.

Why? Because Bouncing Boy saves himself by hiding in a puddle until he catches a cold, so he'll sneeze, causing him to ricochet off a wall and knock Orion out on the rebound.

Yes, that's how hopeless Otto Orion Jr is, that he can be defeated by a plan that pathetic.

Oh well, what can you do? As anyone who's ever tried talking to their hand could tell you, not everyone in life can be as sinister a presence as Shari Lewis. And, as anyone who's ever worn leopard-skin tights can tell you, not everyone can be Kraven the Hunter.

Jim Shooter. Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes #210.

Many are the legendary super-villains the world of the American comic has given us; from the senses-shattering menace of Dr Doom to the not so senses-shattering menace of Paste Pot Pete.

But above all other super-villains stands one so terrible, so ominous, the sun hides behind the clouds at the mere mention of his name, and one glance at his dread visage can reputedly reduce a man to dust.

I am of course referring to Jim Shooter.

Jim Shooter was, as we all know, for many years the Editor-in-Chief of Marvel Comics who, with his ideas on man-management and story-telling methodology, cut a swathe of controversy throughout the industry. Anyone who reads James's blog will know he can cut a wilful and sometimes contradictory figure, one moment warming all our cockles with his heart-melting tales of his totally reciprocated love for his underlings, and the next sticking the boot into everyone in sight. He can also turn up on the blogs of people who criticise him, meaning I may be dicing with death just by mentioning him.

But, before he was The Most Controversial Man In Comics TM, he was of course a humble comic book writer and I'm pretty sure that Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes #210 must've been the first comic I ever owned that was written by the man they probably don't know as Shooty.

Soljer - a man with feet.

In Shooty's first tale of the issue, a 28th Century soldier, who was buried after throwing himself on a gamma grenade is, two hundred years later, accidentally resurrected by Lightning Lad and decides to complete his mission of destroying Metropolis. He KOs Superboy and almost kills Phantom Girl before Chameleon Boy and Princess Projectra convince him to drop dead on the spot. The tale's drawn by Iron Mike Grell who goes against one of Jim's prime directives by at no point establishing that Phantom Girl has feet. Personally, I don't hold it against him.

In the issue's second tale, Grell instantly establishes that Karate Kid has feet, as the Legionnaire goes to Japan and discovers his late father was a notorious criminal. KK then protects his father's killer from the revenge attack of his own father's lackeys. The tale's probably most notable for the fact that Karate Kid - who's never born any resemblance to the man before - is suddenly a dead ringer for Bruce Lee; a frankly terrible idea that somewhat undermines the story. In fact the outing doesn't really feel like a Legion tale at all, being devoid of other Legionnaires and lacking any super-heroics, while not having anything happen in it that couldn't have happened in a tale set in the present day.

Karate Kid - a man with hands.

So, what do I make of my first exposure to the words of the Shooty Man?

It's OK. I have to admit that until I recently re-read this comic for the first time since I was a kid, I couldn't remember anything of the lead story. Things came rushing back to me as I re-read it though, especially the near-fatal stabbing of Phantom Girl. The Karate Kid tale'd stuck in my mind a little better but mostly because of the hero-looking-like-Bruce-Lee thing. So, while it's all solid enough and both tales end with the sort of moral that was clearly designed to lift the spirit and impress the young at heart, I have to say, on first exposure to Shooter's Legion, that I do prefer the more expansive and dynamic world of Cary Bates and Dave Cockrum.

Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes #198. Easter Eggs-citement for all the family.

Hooray! It's Easter - and that can only mean one thing.

Cheese rolling!

And that can only remind us of one thing.

The Big Blue Cheese.

And that can only remind us of one other thing.

The not-so-Big Blue Cheese.

And that can only mean Superboy.

And that can only mean the Legion of Super-Heroes.

Never let it be said that Steve Does Comics is the blog that doesn't know how to do Topical.

Someone probably not wishing Superboy a happy Easter - or a happy anything - are the Fatal Five who, having escaped the forces of good yet again, are out to destroy the Legion of Superheroes by travelling back to 1950s' Smallville, getting rid of Superboy and then setting up a device that'll prevent the sequence of events that first created the Legion.

Jeez, what a bunch of sad sacks!

With Superboy either killed or sent into a coma by the Five (it seems to change from page to page), the plan's going swimmingly and looks destined for nothing but success, except for one thing.

The Fatal Five keep telling the Legion their plans!

All they had to do was go back in time, plant the device, keep quiet about what they'd done and then stand there gloating as their arch-enemies are wiped permanently from the time-line.

But, oh, no, every single time a member of the Fatal Five encounters a Legionnaire in this tale, he/she has to start blabbing off about their scheme, enabling the Legion to stop them. With these kind of smarts, no wonder none of their schemes ever work.

That aside, it's a pleasant outing from Cary Bates and Dave Cockrum. It's not one of the best tales of their run but it passes the time painlessly. Cockrum's art looks fine, as always, and he clearly has fun with the scenes set in a funfair as he manages to sneak pictures of the Man-Thing, Swamp-Thing and Creature from the Black Lagoon into various panels.

Iron Man bursts into action!

I'm not an expert on the Fatal Five, so don't know how long they'd been in the Legion-verse before this issue.

I also don't know what the original thinking behind them was.

I do know that when I read this tale as a kid, The Persuader struck me as bearing more than a passing resemblance to Iron Man, and that Tharok looked suspiciously like the Hulk's Captain Cybor.

I suppose the unstoppable but stupid Validus could be seen as a Hulk-like figure.

Then again, when The Persuader and Emerald Empress are alone together, thanks to his battle axe they remind me of the Enchantress and the Executioner.

Just which Marvel character the disintegrator-handed Mano is based on (if any) is beyond me.

All of which brings me to my closing question.

The spider in the panel to the left is I suspect a nod to Steve Ditko but where did the multi-tentacled creature in the background originally appear? I'm sure I've seen it before in another book but have never been able to work out where.

If you know where it first appeared, I'd be delighted to hear from you and you could end a mystery that's haunted me for well over thirty years.

Superboy & the Legion of Super-Heroes #203. The death of Invisible Kid

Someone once told me Invisible Kid was transparently the greatest super-hero of all time.

Personally, I couldn't see it.

Maybe I was too busy wondering if Bouncing Boy had only married Duo Damsel on the rebound.

It seems I wasn't the only one not paying enough attention because, in Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes #203, it's Invisible Kid's turn to not be seeing things.

The Legion have decided to security-test their HQ by having some of their members fake a break-in, to see if the other members are alert enough to spot them. As the other members have  been warned in advance that the break-in's going to happen and even appear to know the rough time when it'll happen, you'd hope they'd spot they're being broken into.

Unfortunately, there's someone who doesn't spot it.

Invisible Kid doesn't have time to be foiling pointless fake break-ins. He's too busy canoodling with a girl he's met in a secret dimension that can only be seen while invisible. Cue remonstrations from his colleagues over his lack of professionalism at such a time of high alert.

But what can you do? When a boy's in love, a boy's in love and he can't wait to turn invisible again so he can propose to his beloved Myra. Myra, by the way, is his mystery girlfriend, not his shower. Even in the world of the 30th Century, marrying your shower would still seem a strange thing to do.

But, back in the visible world, there're other troubles awaiting the Legion because that titanic titan of terror Validus is on the rampage, seemingly being summoned towards the Legion HQ by the criminal Tharok's mental commands.

Except, when Superboy goes to see Tharok in prison, it's obvious that, with his robot-half severely damaged from his last run-in with justice, he's in no state to summon anything.

Back on Earth, Validus attacks the Legion HQ and makes short work of the Legionnaires until Invisible Kid puts two-and-two together and destroys a souvenir in the Legion museum. That souvenir's made of parts of Tharok's mechanical brain and was what lay behind Validus' rampage. With that gone, the monster loses interest in its fight with the Legion and heads off back into outer space.

But it's too late for Invisible Kid. He's been crushed by the huge hands of Validus.

This should be a tragedy. But then comes the twist that makes you feel like you've blundered into a Charlton Comic by mistake. It turns out his invisible girlfriend Myra's actually a ghost and, now that he's dead, they can be together through eternity, proving it really is an ill-wind that blows no one any good.

I do hope Invisible Kid was never seen again. Not because I have anything against him. If I'm honest, I'm not sure I'd even heard of him before this tale and so had hardly had the chance to build up resentment. Plus, from what we can see here, he seems a nice enough lad. But it's always depressing when dead comic book characters come back to life.

Speaking of people who weren't coming back, the issue features a surprisingly bitter mini-editorial about Dave Cockrum having left the strip. It seems fairly clear, reading between the lines, that DC noses were put well and truly out of joint by his departure.

Still, as great a loss as Dave Cockrum was, they were hardly left bereft. As this issue shows, they had Iron Mike Grell all ready to replace him, which was not a concept to be sneezed at. So, DC had Mike Grell,, Invisible Kid had Myra, and I had an issue of The Legion of Superheroes. It seems that some days you just can't help coming out on top.

Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes #204

When I was a kid, my dad wouldn't let me use his Time-Scanner in case its rays inadvertently changed the course of history.

Sadly, the father of the character we know only as Anti-Lad lacks that wisdom and so, while using the device in his 75th Century home, to view Superboy's audition to join the 30th Century Legion of Super-Heroes, Anti-Lad finds that something's gone wrong and, thanks to the malfunctioning scanner, Superboy's failed the try-out. Needless to say this potentially disastrous turn of events has to be put right before the whole universe is thrown into chaos.

Fortunately Anti-lad's dad's as irresponsible with his Time Machine as he is with his Time Scanner and so the youth goes back in time to make the Legion thinks he sabotaged Superboy's big break, so they'll give the kid from Krypton another chance. Strangest moment in the tale comes when Anti-Lad breaks the fourth wall, at its conclusion, and directly addresses the reader for purposes of exposition.

It's a nice, frothy, throw-away tale with zero drama, and totally avoids the obvious question as to whether it's now canon that Superboy failed his first attempt to join the Legion. It's also as slickly drawn as you'd expect by Mike Grell whose 75th Century costumes give a whole new meaning to the word camp.

But The Legionnaire Nobody Remembered is only the warm up to a genuinely strange tale in which Brainiac 5 builds himself a robot Supergirl to meet his romantic "needs." Unfortunately for him, one of his needs turns out to be protection against a deadly belt of radiation the genius has managed to fly his spaceship straight into. Fortunately for him, at that very moment, the real Supergirl turns up and saves him.

Having found out what he's done, Supergirl, instead of taking out an injunction, then plays eight rounds of tonsil tennis with him. Leaving aside the mind-boggling coincidence that, after years of being a Legionnaire no-show, Supergirl just happens to turn up in the 30th Century at the exact moment she's needed, her total lack of concern that Brainiac's built a robot replica of her to service his "needs" seems very odd and therefore makes the tale a worthy successor to all those older tales where Supergirl would fall in love with her horse or search the universe in an attempt to find Superman a girlfriend who looked exactly like herself. I can't say I like the story - even when I was a kid it seemed creepy - and the usually stylish Mike Grell really doesn't draw an attractive Supergirl, making her look like she's dressed entirely in nylon. Then again, she's from the 1970s in this tale, so maybe she is.

PS. Yet another Steve Does Comics No-Prize goes to the first person to point out the obvious blooper on the front cover.

Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes #200. Bouncing Boy marries Duo Damsel.

Were there ever two super-heroes more useless than Bouncing Boy and Duo Damsel? One had the power to bounce around a bit and the other had the power to split herself in two so there'd be two powerless women at each emergency instead of one. Presumably writer Cary Bates also had his doubts about the characters' utility because Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes' gala 200th issue kicks off with them losing what little power they have and deciding to quit the Legion.

But not before getting married.

Love and marriage. As we all know, they go together like brain and damage, and the words brain and damage bring us to the typical super-villain. If you're evil, weddings are the greatest thing ever. They give you a chance to go to a place where every super-hero in the world is and challenge them to a punch-up. The fact that every single person there could, on their own, beat you to a pulp is of course no obstacle to the determined megalomaniac.

And so Starfinger crashes the wedding of Bouncing Boy and Duo Damsel and does the Bwa-ha-ha thing in the faces of forty seven super-heroes. He must be relying on the fact that Mon-El and Shadow Lass are absent to even-up the odds.

But he's had a great idea. He's had his giant space reptile kidnap one half of Duo Damsel, and now he orders the Legion to hand over the other half so he can study her powers and learn how to split himself into more than one person, thus becoming unbeatable. Why he didn't just get his giant space reptile to kidnap both versions of the girl at the same time, like it could have done, rather than risk a confrontation with every hero in the known universe is anyone's guess but he's a super-villain and so can't be expected to do things the obvious way.

For some reason, only four Legionnaires bother to respond to the threat. The other forty three seemingly overwhelmed with apathy, it's left to Superboy, Brainiac-5, Saturn Girl and Cosmic Boy to deal with the villain. In the end, only Superboy actually does anything.

Although it's a landmark issue and gives us a landmark event, a wedding, it's an oddly slight-feeling tale, possibly because so much is crammed into so few pages and because Superboy gets most of the action, sidelining the Legion in their own book. But, despite their uselessness Bouncing Boy and Duo Damsel are an oddly endearing pair and it is a beautifully drawn thing. Apparently this is the issue that led Dave Cockrum to quit the title after DC refused to return his full page spread of the wedding. Oh well, the Legion's loss was the X-Men's gain and he did at least hang around long enough to make the Legion one of DC's stand-out series, after years in Reprint Hell.

Superboy #197. Timber Wolf is back from the dead

Much as I might like to, I really couldn't claim that when Timber Wolf returned from the dead I was delighted.

The main reason I couldn't claim it is because I'd never heard of him before he did it. Come to think of it, I don't remember him featuring at all in any of the subsequent issues I had either. So, I have to base my knowledge of Brin Londo purely on the strength of this one issue.

From that, he seems to have been some sort of precursor to Wolverine, which is appropriate given that the tale was drawn by Dave Cockrum before he jumped ship and took over on the all-new X-Men strip.

What the world of comics owes Dave Cockrum; in a surprisingly short space of time, completely reinventing the Legion of Super-Heroes and then doing the same for Marvel's not so merry band of mutants.

As a kid I always felt one thing was true; Marvel wiped the floor with DC when it came to super-heroes, and DC wiped the floor with Marvel when it came to horror and mystery comics. I still stick to that view. Granted, Tomb of Dracula was head and shoulders above any DC Horror/mystery series but that was an exception and, otherwise, the rule held true.

The inverse exception was Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes, the one DC super-hero mag that could hold its own in the company of the House of Ideas. With its lack of interest in the Legionnaires' private lives and its lack of a sense of ongoing continuity, it was still very much a DC-style comic but somehow it seemed less square than the typical DC antics.

Part of that, of course, would've been down to it being about teenagers but the majority of it was down to Dave Cockrum's artwork. Somehow, after years of the gang from the future looking painfully retro, he just made the Legion seem so modern.

Here we get Timber Wolf back from the dead. It turns out he's been brainwashed by an unknown abductor to kill the Earth's president.

He's cured of that brainwashing but then it turns out he's also been brainwashed to blow up the Legion HQ.

Happily, being psychic, Saturn Girl's onto it and Timber Wolf wraps it all up by polishing off his abductor, a giant alien warlord called Tyr. Why Tyr shows up at the tale's finalé is anyone's guess. He could just have stayed on his spaceship, safe and secure and watched as the Legion HQ went Ka-Boom but that's villains for you.

But, whoever was on the cover, this was still, nominally, Superboy's comic and so we get him in solo action in a brief back-up tale. In truth, that tale's a bit of fluff really about a plot to do something or other. With its more naive, less slick and more low-key feel than the the Legion tale, it clearly belongs more to the era of Superboy that's just been disposed of rather than the new one that's in the process of being created.