Credits | Characters | Plot Summary | Comments | Reprinted In Editor: Mort Weisinger Writer: Edmond Hamilton Artist: John Forte Roll Call: Bouncing Boy, Brainiac 5, Chameleon Boy, Cosmic Boy, Lightning Lad, Saturn Girl, Sun Boy, Superboy Villains: Alien glass looters, Sun Woman Other Characters: Law officers from all over the universe, the Legion of Substitute Heroes (Polar Boy, Night Girl, Chlorophyll Kid, Stone Boy, Fire Lad); Polar Boy's parents, Night Girl's father, Chlorophyll Kid's mother, a hydroponic gardner on Mardru, Stone Boy's parents and younger brother and sister (all appear in flashbacks), a scientist of a great laboratory, two scientists known as the "Human Guinea Pigs", citizens of the planet Vannar, inhabitants of the "rain asteroid", a rantak, inhabitants of the "rantak asteroid"
While the Legion is busy attending a law enforcement convention, alien raiders begin to plunder Metropolis for its glass and the Legion of Substitute Heroes flies into action to stop them. Learning for the first time of the existence of a Substitute Legion, and in gratitude for secretly helping them and the Earth on a number of occasions. the Super-Heroes decide to hold a contest for the Subs, the winner of which will become their newest member. Polar Boy's test is to thaw out two frozen scientists and he achieves this by flying them into a volcano, protecting them with his power after they thaw. For this he scores 121 points. Part II: "The Winner of the Super-Tests" (Part II: 8 pages) Next, Night Girl must vanquish the dictator of Vannar, Sun Woman, who draws her super-strength from the sunlit side of the one-sided world. To achieve this, Night Girl teaches the rebel population the secret of burning coal in order to create a dense black smoke to cut off the sun's rays, weakening Sun Woman and strengthening herself. Night Girl also scores 121 points for passing this test. Chlorophyll Kid is tested next and he is awarded 109 points for using his plant-growing ability to split a mountain and create a water supply for the region. Fire Lad makes 108 points for bringing fire to an asteroid deluged with eternal rain by locating and igniting an oil gusher. Finally, Stone Boy is required to capture a dangerous rantak that has been terrorizing an asteroid's population. After digging a large pit and attempting to lure the beast to it many times and failing, Stone Boy asks his sponsor, Saturn Girl, to end the test and repel the rantak as it is about to attack curious onlookers. Upset that he was the only Sub to fail his test, he is surprised to discover that his courage and spirit of self-sacrifice garnered him the highest score - 125 points - and the privilege of entering the Legion as a permanent member! As his friends depart, Stone Boy decides that he doesn't want to be a Legionnaire if it means breaking up his own team so he gratefully declines the Legion's honor and flies off with his fellow Subs.
The title of the story should probably be "The Legionnaires' [plural] Super-Contest". Either this is a lettering mistake or it is 1) a reference to it being the leader Saturn Girl's contest, or, 2) a reference to the fact that Stone Boy succeeds in winning the contest. Bouncing Boy is called Bouncing Girl on the "featuring" list on the splash page. Artist John Forte signs the splash page and the splash panel of Part II. This issue marks the first (and only) appearance of the universe-monitor, which was given to the Legion by the grateful scientists of Thar (the same world that has living paintings, as seen in Adventure Comics No. 308), probably because they arrested the super-hypnotic criminal Olen Jor (seen in the Science Police file in Adventure Comics No. 316). This board was sabotaged by Jan Jor, an applicant who joined in order to further a crime plot, and was replaced by the new emergency board in Adventure Comics No. 327. The Legionnaires are attending a "galactic law enforcement convention" of law officers, where they are the honored speakers. This event is most likely being held on the planet Anakar, where a law-enforcement officers' convention was held in Adventure Comics No. 357. It is probably an annual convention, held late in the calendar year. It is strange that the glass looters say they don't have glass on their planet. Since glass is made out of silica, it means that they don't have sand on their planet. Given the variety of planets in the Legion universe, it is possible that the looters planet does not have the element silicon on it, though it seems unlikely. This means that the windshields of their space-ship cockpits are either made out of some kind of plastic or transparent metal or that it is made out of glass that was stolen from another world. According to Saturn Girl's flashback to Night Girl's origin, her father reminded her that she wouldn't have super-powers (note the plural) in sunlight. This indicates that she new about her weakness before trying out for Legion membership. The Legion's motives are questionable in that, as a "reward" for the Subs' great teamwork, they are going to break up the team by taking away one of their members. It is ironic (though fitting) that Sun Boy should act as Polar Boy's sponsor, and a staunch supporter at that, since he was the one who rejected him back in Adventure Comics No. 306. When Polar Boy flies down through the volcano and into the Earth's core he says that it's "no hotter than the great heat-storms on my native world". While scientists don't know for sure, it is estimated that the Earth's core is a whopping 5000 to 7000ºC. Venus, with its dense atmosphere, has a surface temperature of 450ºC. Mercury can reach up to "just" 350ºC. For the planet Tharr to face such temperatures would be impossible without all the rock turning molten and all plant and animal life not protected by the "few people" with the power to create intense cold. What explains this otherwise impossible scenario is the fact that, while Brainiac 5 indicates that the volcano-fissure Polar Boy enters leads to the Earth's fiery core, and Polar Boy himself says "here inside the Earth's core", on page 7, panel 5 of Part I the caption reads that Polar Boy has only gone deep enough to reach a "super-hot cavern inside the Earth". The temperature inside such a place is relatively "cooler" at approximately 700-1300ºC, the melting point of rock. Still, that means that the heat-storms on Tharr are, on average, twice the temperature of Venus! Whew. In the Smallville Mailsack of Adventure Comics No. 318, a reader asked: "Of course Night Girl could fly in the darkness. But how could Superboy, when this was a world with a red sun?" To which the editor eplied: "Superboy was using an anti-gravity belt, standard equipment for all Legion members." The reader is incorrect in saying that Night Girl possesses the ability to fly in darkness; she is super-strong in the absence of natural light but cannot fly. While she can give herself a super-launch into space with her super-strong legs (as in Adventure Comics No. 311), for sustained flight, a flying-belt is in order and can clearly be seen around her waist in the panel in question. When Superboy tells Night Girl that he'd "be watching by telescopic vision from a distance", he probably meant that he and the others planned to take the Legion cruiser and wait in the orbit of a nearby yellow sun. Re-energized by the super-solar rays, the Boy of Steel would then have no trouble in keeping an eye on things. When Night Girl is tunneling underground with her super-stength, she seems to know where to come up into the cellar of that house, as well as exactly where to burst up through the ground right in front of Sun Woman. This does not mean she possesses "x-ray vision" of the type that a super-Kryptonian has. In Adventure Comics No. 319, page 8, panel 5 of Part II Night Girl indeed proves to have vision that can see into the x-ray portion of the electromagnetic spectrum. Coming from a sunless world, the inhabitants of Kathoon would no doubt have vision sensitive to wavelengths beyond the visible range as we know it. (Note: While she refers to it as "x-ray vision" in that story, it is not of the "see through walls" variety, merely as an aid to seeing in the dark or sensing the heat of bodies behind cold stone, though this too can not penetrate lead. Night Girl tends to think herself as possessing super-powers (plural) because of this natural ability, though it is never listed on any text profiles in the chronology - probably because it is a subtle ability common on her world. Night Girl's heroism seems diluted when you consider that, in order to defeat Sun Woman, she helped the inhabitants of Vannar pollute the skies of their planet with a thick smog, as London was back during the height of the Industrial Revolution. Similarly, Fire Lad ignites underground oil to give fire to the natives of an asteroid. We can only assume that the Legionnaires also gave the inhabitants the technology to clean up their air afterwards! Chlorophyll Kid does not yet carry a variety of seeds on him as he later does. Perhaps after this test he realized that carrying the seeds with him would be a great time-saver. The Legionnaires say that the tests are designed to see "which of you shows the greatest initiative, speed in action, teamwork, courage and ingenuity." Because the other Subs complete their tasks alone, without needing help, only Stone Boy - who asks Saturn Girl for help - can be awarded the extra points for teamwork. Of the eight times you see Lightning Lad in this story, six of those times his hair is colored blond. The other two of those times it has turned green. Perhaps he was experimenting with his hair color but in trying to get blond the dye turned his hair green when standing too close to Chlorophyll Kid! Legion of Super-Heroes Archives Vol. 2 |
"The Legionnaire's
Super-Contest" (16 pages; Part I: 8 pages)