Credits | Characters | Plot Summary | Comments | Reprinted In Editor: Mort Weisinger Writer: Edmond Hamilton Artist: John Forte Roll Call: Bouncing Boy, Brainiac 5, Chameleon Boy, Colossal Boy, Cosmic Boy, Element Lad (unseen but in cruiser, also pictured in splash panel), Invisible Kid, Lightning Lass, Matter-Eater Lad (unseen but in cruiser), Mon-El, Phantom Girl (unseen but in cruiser), Saturn Girl, Shrinking Violet, Star Boy (unseen but in cruiser, also pictured in splash panel), Sun Boy, Superboy, Triplicate Girl (unseen but in cruiser), Ultra Boy Villain: Mask Man (a descendant of the original Mxyzptlk, whom Superboy identifies as "V" or the fifth) Other Characters: A Science Police officer, citizens of Metropolis (heard but not seen), a red-haired female citizen of Doll World, Ak Aru (the scientist of Doll World) "The Doom of the Super-Heroes" (17 pages; Part I: 9 pages) Following the Legion's second annual Rededication Ceremony, the team is alerted to a mysterious lead-masked raider who is looting Metropolis using super-magnetic powers. Upon doing battle with the villain, who displays a variety of powers that mimic the Legionnaires', Superboy discovers that Mask Man is a midget wearing stilt-legs, which he then melts off with his heat-vision. Angered that his "secret" is out, Mask Man uses his super-freezing power on Ultra Boy, killing him! After Mask Man gets away, the Legionnaires perform a sad ceremony for Ultra Boy, the second Legionnaire to die in the line of duty. Brainiac 5 deduces that, given his diminutive size, Mask Man might come from Doll World so the entire Legion heads off in two cruisers to catch him. Disguising themselves as citizens of Doll World, both Shrinking Violet and Chameleon Boy are ambushed by Mask Man and killed! Superboy throws a radioactive rock at the invulnerable villain in order to cover him in a dust that the Legion can track. In their pursuit of Mask Man, the Legion cruisers pass through the asteroid belt known as the "Mount Rushmore of Space". Suddenly, one of the two ships crashes into an asteroid the villain materialized in front of them. Triplicate Girl, Element Lad, Phantom Girl, Star Boy and Matter-Eater Lad join the growing list of members murdered by Mask Man! Part II: "Last Stand of the Legion" (8 pages)
On the first splash panel, a picture of Star Boy's face can be seen, indicating that Star Boy is now back in action after his hiatus due to losing his comet-gained super-powers shortly following his first appearance as a member. No doubt he has resumed his membership after having perfected the mass-inducing power he was born with. The "annual rededication ceremony" that takes place in this story is a readministering of the Legion Oath as a reminder of the Legionnaires' solemn vow to use their super-powers for the good of all people. This is most likely the second time the Legionnaires have done this. The first time was a year ago, probably several months after the team was first formed. Cosmic Boy says "we've painted our space ships in the Legion colors" but the ships appear white! Obviously, he expected it to be done already but what he didn't know was that Sun Boy and Chameleon Boy got behind in schedule when they were working on checking and cleaning all the rocket-tube engines. The final, official, space ship color is red. Mon-El refers to the time-barrier as a time-dimension in this story. The fact that he spent over 1,000 years of his life in another phantom dimension may lead him to phrase it this way. Essentially he is correct, since time-travellers need to journey through a dimension outside of normal space-time. It is not, however, to be confused with the 4th dimension, where Phantom Girl is from; that is a fourth spacial dimension and has nothing to do with time. Invisible Kid has black hair and wears a yellow costume with a green headband in this story. When the second cruiser is destroyed (page 9, panel 2 of Part I) a Legion member says: "It's the end of our fellow Legionnaires in that ship! Triplicate Girl, Element Lad, Phantom Girl... They and the others in it are dead!" By "others", of course, they meant Matter-Eater Lad and Star Boy, the only other Legionnaires at the time (besides Supergirl, who couldn't have been killed by an exploding ship). In the letter column of Adventure Comics No. 313, Gary Arnold of Camarillo, CA asked: "When in the story were Bouncing Boy and Sun Boy killed?" Editor Mort Weisinger replied: "[They] were supposed to have joined their slain comrades on Page 5, panel 6 of Part II, but Mr. Mxyzptlk impishly deleted them from the script." They must have died between panels 3 and 4 of page 14, previous to the scene in which Mon-El and Superboy discover Saturn Girl and Brainiac 5 dead and proclaim themselves the last remaining Legionnaires. Mxyzptlk says his name is the same as his "great, great, great, great ancestor's". Superboy is assuming that this Mxyzptlk is the fifth in the line Superboy because outside the imp's home are four statues of previous Mxyzptlks. Mxyzptlk "V" has a (much better looking) brother also named Mxyzptlk, who one day joins the adult Legion to atone for his evil brother's behavior (Adventure Comics No. 355). It is important to note that he says that he doesn't want to also atone for the original Mxyzptlk's prankish behavior. That is because all his people on Zrfff are pranksters, it's a way of life for them. His brother was an abberation in that he was truly evil and murderous. The giant citadel the Legion built must have vanished when Mxyzptlk V went back to his own dimension. Although the Legionnaires built it non-magically, since time was also reset by the imp's disappearance, then the Legionnaires never needed to build it in the first place. Time was reset because the slain Legionnaires couldn't be in limbo. Superboy only remembered the events due to his time-traveling experience, invulnerability and power of super-recall. This issue probably went on sale the same day as Action Comics No. 302, which was Wednesday May 29th, 1963. Legion of Super-Heroes Archives Vol. 2 |
Defeated and desperate, the
surviving Legionnaires retreat to a nearby uninhabited
world on which to build a defensive citadel and plan
their last stand against Mask Man. One by one, the heroes
are eliminated until Superboy wanders alone in the mighty
citadel. Because Mask Man killed Mon-El with a powerful
element from another dimension deadly to a Daxamian,
Superboy begins to suspect that the villain's powers are
magical in nature. Assembling a reverser-instrument,
Superboy searches through space until he discovers a
world with eight moons orbiting it. Each moon has a
letter on it and together they spell "Mxyzptlk"
His suspicion that Mask Man is really Mxyzptlk is
confirmed when the villain unmasks and reveals himself to
be the 30th century descendant of the first Mxyzptlk.
Using the device, Superboy reverses the orbit of the
moons and the imp is so sure that it will also cause his
name to come out backwards that he speaks it backwards
thinking it will come out right. He is wrong as Superboy
tricked him by burning out the machine's wiring just as
he uttered "Kltpzyxm". Vanishing back into the
5th dimension, all the effects of his magic were undone
and everything becomes as it was before Mask Man ever
showed up. Only Superboy remembers the events of the
Legion's "last stand" and he vows never to tell
them of how they all "died".