Edmond Hamilton (1904–1977)

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Whenever I dip back into the pre-Great Darkness Saga adventures of the Legion of Super-Heroes, I'm like, this is what people look back on so fondly? Even by the standards of 1960s superhero comics, I would argue, most of these stories are dismal and dull and daft.

The dominant writers of the period, Edmond Hamilton and Jerry Siegel, are obsessed with plots where it seems like the Legionnaires have turned against one another: show more the stories collected in this volume include leader Sun Boy* going nuts from space fatigue and the Legion having to take him down, the Legion imprisoning Lightning Lad for revealing their secrets to their enemies, the female Legionnaires seducing and eliminating the men under the influence of evil women from the planet (I shit you not) Femnaz, five Legionnaires traveling back in time solely to screw over Superboy by revealing his secret identity, and short-lived member Command Kid turning the Legionnaires against each other. Each plot is more contrived than the previous, and the Femnaz one is ridiculously awful: the women of Femnaz destroy their planet's men because the men try to clamp down on violent arena games and won't let them shoot rockets at the moon. They see the error of their ways when they crack their moon in half with some of their rockets, and the male Legionnaires put it back together for them. Uh huh.

Almost without exception, these stories can only be liked for the potential they possess, rather than the actual ideas in them. A good case in point is the Time Trapper, a rare example of a genuine story arc in this series. He's mentioned in a couple stories as a contrived way to get the overly poweful Superboy and Mon-El out of the action, but he intrigues nevertheless: because of the "Iron Curtain of Time" he's created, the Legion can't pass beyond their own time period, no matter how hard the more powerful Legionnaires try. But the way this plot plays out is a bit silly. After a few mentions of this Iron Curtain of Time, the Legion considers using a never-before-mentioned superweapon, the Concentrator, against the Time Trapper. They decide not to do it, but having mentioned this device to the Science Police Chief, he decides they must be put through rigorous psychological evaluations to see if they'll break and reveal its existence and function to outsiders under pressure. The S.P. Chief turns out to be the Time Trapper in disguise, and they foil his plan using the Concentrator, but he escapes back into the future beyond the Iron Curtain of Time. The next story is all about the Legion making preparations to track the Time Trapper down... but they never actually do this, and he's not mentioned again in this volume. The Time Trapper's name intrigues, as does the idea of the futuristic Legion having an enemy from even further in the future, but the stories using him are dumb.

This is especially so of the story where the Legion is preparing to track him down. They're so desperate they call in the Legion of Super-Pets from the twentieth century: Krypto the Super-Dog, Comet the Super-Horse, Streaky the Super-Cat, and Beppo the Super-Monkey. Chameleon Boy's pet, Proty II, gets jealous and demands a position on the team, but because Proty doesn't have any superpowers, they make him do a try-out to demonstrate he can make the cut anyway. There are a lot of problems with this. The first is that Proty is seemingly as sentient as any Legionnaire; he seems to have been designated a "pet" solely because his natural form is of a small blob instead of a humanoid. The second is that any of the "pets" count as pets, since they all seem to be capable of reason and communication. The last is that being a shapeshifting telepath somehow isn't enough a superpower to qualify Proty for membership in the Legion of Super-Pets, even though his "master" Chameleon Boy gets to be in the Legion of Super-Heroes on virtue of just being a shapeshifter and not a telepath! In a later story, Proty sets up a puzzle to determine the Legion leader, one that only one member of the Legion can even solve, yet he's somehow still just a pet. Space racism at work, I guess.

You can see how many of the stories here had potential that was picked up by later writers: the Heroes of Lallor, four super-teens from a planet ruled by a dictatorship, would recur now and again, and their tale is one of the better here. (A villain manipulates the Heroes of Lallor and the Legion into seeing each other as enemies, but understanding and compassion win the day.) I was fascinated to see the debut of Lone Wolf, the hero later known as Timber Wolf; he eventually becomes something of a savage loner, but here he's as whitebread as all the other Legionnaires. And though his actual plan was dumb, I loved the idea of Lex Luthor travelling into the future and pretending to be a pre-evil Lex by wearing a wig to earn the trust of the Legion in order to kill them just because they're friends with Superboy/man. So there's some potential here, but most of it isn't delivered on.

Also: what's up with the Bouncing Boy subplot? He gets his powers removed by mistake in an aside in one issue, and they're temporarily restored for mere minutes in another. Like, I can't even work out what motivates these little snippets because he hadn't even done anything in the book before he showed up to have his powers eliminated.

* Continuity is never a strong point of the Legion: in Adventure Comics #318 (Mar. 1964) and #319 (Apr. 1964), Sun Boy is leader; in Adventure #323 (Aug. 1964), Saturn Girl is up for re-election as leader. Saturn Girl had previously been elected leader in Adventure #304 (Jan. 1963), so it seems like Jerry Siegel forgot about #318-19 when writing #323. We could assume, however, that there was an unseen election between #319 and #323-- after how disastrously Sun Boy's leadership went in #318 (and #319 wasn't exactly a shining hour, either), it would make sense for there to be an election and for an established safe hand like Saturn Girl to be reelected. What weirds me out is not the fault of this book though: none of the on-line lists I can find of Legion leaders include Sun Boy, which seems an odd thing for the detail-oriented Legion fans to miss. show less

Omnibus of three short novels that do belong together.

First third something I would never have chosen, as being about a pirate. But the thing is, he's also an outcast... so now it's more like a Bildungsroman. Gracefully written, interesting. And sometimes funny. "The hell with clever plans. Do it the Starwolf way." But also, "He despised all this prying about inside himself, trying to sort out emotions he had never been forced to feel before. So the devil with it." (for now)

Second third is show more more straightforward adventure, as it explores one of the insufficiently explored themes of SF with a Sense of Wonder and a What If that I'm loving. These may be warrior types, but they're intelligent & complex.

Last third a perfect wrap-up. Their biggest adventure yet, in some ways... but also some extra-interesting observations of human nature.

I like the idea that Earth specializes in mercenaries. Because: "We were soaked in conquest right up to ears for a long, long time and that's why we don't have much use for it anymore."

If this weren't about pirate/ soldier types, I'd probably give it four stars. I will look for others by the author... I hope he got a chance to write to his strengths, not just to the market.

I had a bit of trouble with the female representation but it's pretty much easily overlookable; there are very few women, but at least they are individual people, not clichés. The underrepresentation of women is the only thing that feels dated, to me. show less

One of the more focused entries in the series. 1940s pulp about the unnatural use of an illegal drug to circumvent the aging process. Could not stop thinking about Botox, silicon and duck mouth. This is no boring morality tale. Proton pistols blaze, comets get chased, and a pretty girl get rescued. The Future Men at some of their best.

Another rollicking, adventurous good time from the semi-pulp scifi era I hadn't previously read (or anything else by Hamilton for that matter). This omnibus was in the last of the books from my aunt, who loved this sort of thing.
It was a light, fast, fun action-y collection. Though nestled in there is some surprisingly astute self-reflection and great characterization, some nice thoughts on how you can't ever really 'go home again' for a whole host of reasons and causes.
Worth the read!