Credits | Characters | Plot Summary | Comments | Reprinted In Editor: Mort Weisinger Writer: Edmond Hamilton Artist: John Forte (Curt Swan's Substitute Heroes from the cover appear again, reproduced and reduced in size, in a panel in the story itself on page 8, panel 4) Roll Call: Bouncing Boy, Brainiac 5, Chameleon Boy, Cosmic Boy, Saturn Girl, Sun Boy Villains: Six ore looters from the planet Zyzan (disguised as Cosmic Boy, Saturn Girl, Chameleon Boy, Brainiac 5, Sun Boy and Bouncing Boy) Other Characters: The Legion of Substitute Heroes (Polar Boy, Night Girl, Chlorophyll Kid, Stone Boy and Fire Lad) "The War Between the Substitute Heroes and the Legionnaires" (17 pages)
Part II: "The Duel of the Legions" Setting up a temporary HQ in an ancient underground alien city within the moon, the Subs prepare for war with the Legion. Night Girl secretly returns to Earth to try to smooth things over with Cosmic Boy, her idol and secret crush. Cosmic Boy betrays Night Girl's trust and the Legionnaires send a giant worm-like digging machine down into the lunar catacombs to destroy the Subs. Carving a statue into the image of Stone Boy, the Subs make the Legionnaires believe that they have destroyed them. Building a second spaceship, they send a decoy for the Legionnaires to pursue and destroy while they return to the Legion clubhouse on Earth. There they discover a number of resource-plundering machines proving that the Legion they were fighting was made up of alien impostors. The aliens from Zyzan return and turn off the illusion projectors and reveal their true forms. They reveal how they trapped the real Legionnaires in a space-warp and took their place. Polar Boy guesses that the heavily cloaked aliens are susceptible to the cold and uses his power to freeze them, then returns the raiders to their own world. The Subs free the Legion ship from the space-warp and return to their mountain base leaving the Legionnaires mystified by all that had happened in their absence. The time-mirror from Xalla - a gift that reveals what a person will look like in later life - shows that as a "senior", Saturn Woman will have darker hair, larger hips and wear glasses. Whether this device is real or a hoax is not known for sure but it doesn't keep Imra from enjoying it. The Legionnaires are called away to space sector Z-4437-3N, where they are imprisoned in a space-warp prison and held in stasis for most of this issue. Superboy and Mon-El are said to be in the past together. Mon-El is probably visiting him and the Kents in Smallville. The Legion rocket ship is colored red; in the last issue they were white because they were in the process of being repainted. Night Girl reveals for the first time her secret love for Cosmic Boy, saying her reason for applying for Legion membership was "to be near him". As revealed in Adventure Comics No. 354's adult Legion tale, Lydda will get her wish and marry Cosmic Man. The pink and white helmet that is part of Night Girl's "Cosmic Boy collection" is said to have been worn by the Legionnaire. While he has never been shown wearing that particular helmet in a story, it does match his costume's color scheme. It is possible that the Legionnaire lost this helmet on a mission and she picked it up or that he just gave it away as a gift to a fan in the crowd: her. This helmet does not look like the bubble helmet Cosmic Boy wore when the charters went back to visit Superboy for the first time, but it might have been the unseen successor to it. Triplicate Girl, Colossal Boy, Invisible Kid, Superboy, Star Boy, Shrinking Violet, Ultra Boy, Element Lad and Lightning Lass only appear as pictures on the monitor board screen. Legion of Super-Heroes Archives Vol. 2 |
After several
Legionnaires leave Earth for a space mission, the Legion
of Substitute Heroes secretly watch over the planet from
their mountain headquarters. Polar Boy correctly
perceives that Night Girl is romantically interested in
Cosmic Boy. Night Girl reminisces to herself of how she's
been in love with the Legion's co-founder for a long time
and that she tried to join the Legion just to be near
him; her locker is filled with pictures and momentoes
she'd collected of Cosmic Boy. Days pass without incident
but one night a strange, huge machine arrives from space
and begins to dig through the ground to steal rare metal
ores from Earth. The Subs manage to stop the machine,
determining that it was created by an alien race plotting
to rob Earth's resources. Sending a message to the Legion
of Super-Heroes, the team responds negatively to the
Subs' "meddling" and orders them to disband
immediately. The Legionnaires follow up their threat by
destroying the Subs' HQ and the smaller team barely
escapes in their spaceship in time.