Today, we put the "back" in Back Issue Diving. As in waaay back. We're actually breaking the barrier of the late 80's and journeying to DC's silver age for a look at Adventure Comics #282. More specifically the cover story, "Lana Lang and the Legion of Super-Heroes!"
March, 1961. The allies are on the move and those clowns in Washington just might be able to put there heads together and get a bead on . . . the Reds? I actually don't know what was going on in the world in 1961, but if the contents of this comic reflected the world at that time, I'm kind of bummed they started purifying our drinking water.
I kid, I kid. DC's silver age comics weren't really known across the board for being socially relevant. That was Marvel's bag at the time. Particularly in the Superman line, silver age stories were about a rigid square butting heads with psychedelia and self reflection at every turn. The youth-focused stories of Adventure Comics, namely those starring Superboy and/or the Legion of Super-Heroes, would break away from this tradition at times, but not in any way that would seem out of place in
Archie's hometown of Riverdale.
(Hmm . . . actually, that current Riverdale show is pretty racy, so that comparison is broken now.)
"Lana Lang and the Legion of Super-Heroes!" could be an Archie story, if not for the fact is features more than a few superpowered characters. The Curt Swan cover tells the entire story: Lana is trying use Star Boy's affection to make Superboy jealous, but he isn't taking the bait, instead intending to pipe some other 30th century hussie. Not only is Lana a one-dimensional character who is motivated solely to win the attention of a man, but her fucking plan doesn't work and Superboy is like, way smarter and better than her. It's a Silver Age classic!
The real shame is that Superboy's future love interest as Superman, Lois Lane, didn't fare much better in her portrayals.
The Legion itself was pretty new at the time; this story marks only their fifth appearance in comics and the roster was pretty small at the time. You had the core members Cosmic Boy, Lightning Lad, and Saturn Girl, plus Star Boy, Chameleon Boy, and maybe a few others? At least, that's all who appear in this story. Really, we're just focusing on Star Boy in this issue anyway.
The plot follows the usual formula of building up to the cover image in about six pages and then racing headlong to a denumot from there. Superboy overhears Lana's aloud scheming after interacting with Star Boy and allows the silly girl to tire herself out, battling a random Parakat along the way after it escapes from a zoo or somesuch. The parakat is probably the strongest part of this issue. The panel of the year is Superboy swinging the Parakat above his head by the tail. I'd post it here, but then I feel like I would need to charge you admission or something. It's next week's meme. It's that good.
30th century gal Zynthia plays the Jezebel in this story, bringing Lana to tears. If the family of the Parakat from earlier attacked the city after Superboy returned to his time, and the last three pages of this story were a series of nine panel grids where Zynthia is ripped limb from limb by angry Parakats, that would be neat. But alas, this one wraps up with Lana getting the cold shoulder from Clark, who claims to have "lots of super-jobs to catch up on!" Ho, ho.
It's for the best really. Lana Lang couldn't birth Superman's Super-Babies. They'd tear through her like a pack of Parakats.
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