"-- You could have fallen off and gotten LOST in some forgotten century!
“Worse still, you DIDN"T!”
Polar Boy: “Take your time. Go to the FIFTIETH century, whatever.”
Take your time. 
Nope, nope, and nope. Originally, anyone who had been reading on since the debut in Adv. 247 (1958) would have sworn that Superboy preceded Supergirl, even preceding her first tryout. For that matter, Supergirl had not even appeared until the year (1959) after Superboy joined! After the mistake in #323, showing B-5 present when Superboy (in flashback) was inducted, it was considered established that, whatever the initial appearances, girl preceded boy as member by a bit, instead of about 3 years later. * Both Mark Waid’s chronological list, and that of the printed Legion Index continued the meme. Mon-El wasn’t inducted until #300. Ultra Boy was in Superboy (#88, IIRC) the same month.
The official reason is that the Legion pretty much had to recruit both because of their inspirational heroism. A later fanwank was that Kara came first because Kal-El intimidated them even more.
BUT I LIKE YOUR THEORY MUCH BETTER. Could Cos have had an early crush on her?
Some fans have theorized that U Boy has the greatest strength, because lack of (simultaneous) invulnerablity lets him develop those muscles.
I recall a letter column in which someone had praised the idea of U Boy’s immunity, saying that it cracked him up whenever twenty or so folks from nearly as many planets all were affected by something the same way. I had wondered if simply being from Rimbor had something to do with it in his case.
- I have a certain fondness for #323, because that was the first issue I bought and retained. I had already read a handful of Legion features at friends’ houses or the nearby barbershop.
Despite being from different planets, most of the Legionnaires were Earth-human in ancestry–just from colony worlds whose population s had been engineered, in some cases, to have powers. I’d say that was true of everyone but the obviously nonhuman Chameleon Boy, Blok, Tellus, and Quislet, along with Brainy, Mon, and the Kryptonians. And maybe Shady.
I could throw in that the Legionairres who invited Supergirl to join claimed to be the children of the first Cosmic Boy, Saturn Girl and Lightning Lad…but it’s really for the best if we forget that panel ever existed.
By the way Here is the panel showing Supergirl aged by Red Kryptonite. This keeps her out of the Legion because she is too old.
Also…so Saturn Girl is…eight? Cause she looks awfully tiny next to Super Woman.
Forgive the hijack, but it actually just occurred to me how ironic the thread title truly is; I don’t know who spoke the line or when (though I’m guessing it was early in the Legion history), but the Legion was just about the least diverse group of the 1960’s! Unless you count actual aliens from other planets (Brainiac, Shadow Lass, Chameleon Boy), there wasn’t a single non-caucasian in the 20+ group membership! Not even Karate Kid, whose abilities were derived from an ancient asian practice. And when the LSH finally did “admit blacks”, it was one of the most stereotypically offensive characters in DC’s history.
When the Chief of the Science Police is informed that the Legion of* Substitute* Heroes has brought in their Auxiliary “Not…ready … for… membership…in…the…**SUBSTITUTE **…heroes. Lord give me strength!”
Shadow Lass, 1968. Of course you can say “she’s an alien” but since almost every member of the Legion was a alien, then leaving out “actual aliens from other planets” is rather bogus.
But as I wrote upthread, most of the non-Terran-born Legionnaires were from Earth colony worlds. Cosmic Boy, Saturn Girl, Star Boy, Dream Girl, Element Lad, Lightning Lad & Lass, Polar Boy, and so on. And apparently no black people ever went a colonizing. Karate Kid was ostensibly Japanese but was almost always drawn to look white. Shady and Ferro Lad were both originally intended to be black but DC editorial was afraid of offending racist white folks in my neck of the woods, and Tyroc was both criminally underused and written so as to make it seem that racism was something only black people were guilty of. It wasn’t until the late 70s that a artistically non-white Legionnaire (Dawnstar) was used regularly, and not till the mid-80s that a black one was. For the Silver and Bronze Ages, 30th Century Earth was white enough to make Archie Bunker happy.
Half-Japanese, IIRC. (I figure him being named “Val” was kind of a clue.)
Karate Kid initially appeared quite whiteboy, but it was established early on (Dark Circle debut) that he had roots in Japan. Later (in a backup story in Superboy & LoSH he was shown as the son of Black Dragon and the clearly Caucasian Valentina Armorr. Buy then his features were definitely reflective of mixed ancestry.)
Just recently I had come across something to the effect that even Marvel comics showed only Caucasians as bystanders in street scenes until some point in the '60’s. There finally came a moment when they said, “Hey! What are we doing?” and started to mix in Blacks. It’s kind of strange how long it took because these streets scenes in Marvel would typically be in NYC. On the other side of the aisle, Metropolis and Gotham City were both clearly representative of NYC, and the other fictional communities certainly seemed both too large and too “coastal” to lack color diversity. (Smallish communities in the Midwest might have been realistic here.) But it was only abound the same turning point that we saw a racial diversity in TV commercials and extras in TV shows, plus a few major characters and even starring characters, such as the eponymously named Julia.
In that context it hardly seems odd that no one thought of making one of the early earthling Legionnaires non-white. That was regrettable, I’d say. But not surprising.
Tyroc was hated by many, and one later writer refused to use him. I’m curious what you thought about Invisible Kid II.
As per wiki, they did think about making Ferro Lad black, but decided against it because “we’ll lose our distribution in the South.”
Don’t know if that makes it more or less regrettable.
More alone the lines of my OP:
In Saturn Girl’s second appearance she apparently could mess up the perceptions of any foe with her telepathy. She stymied an armed crook by seeming to turn his gun into a snake, which turned on him.
Had she retained this aspect, Projectra would have had a hard time showing any new contribution to the Legion. For that matter, we would not have seen the entire membership present go gaga over Command Kid. We only saw a return of Imra’s illusion powers in the Unknown Boy story, wherein she remarked that the telepathic Proteans of Sua (suspected as such) would “see” an illusion of hers, “unreal though t is.”
Of course those familiar with the teevee show know that she there has this power.
But I don’t recall any appearance of Jeckie. That seems only logical.
One post mentions that having backup would be great, especially for the more powerful.
I can see that, in theory, it would have been great for Star Boy to have retained his Kryptonian-like powers (and plus) and for the reformed Dev-Em to have been willing to join, and for an exception to be made for him. And there would have likely been any number of folks with similar powers in the future millennium.
One thing overlooked is that it scarcely would have been necessary. Four members of the Legion of Super-Petters would have been able to fill in any absenteeisms, or any Gosh-we-sure-would-love-to-help-save-the-whole-galaxy-but-we’re-busy-in-another-dimension situations. Two of the were even immune to the big K! The Super-Horse was even shown unaffected by the red sun of Zerox. Probably the cute little kitty would have been too.
In fact, when Supergirl was willing to be the one to resign for tax purposes based on her absenteeism, Comet Cleanser (who could communicate independently with his extra power of telepathy) announced that he and Sneaky the Super-Pussy would have to return to their own time too. (Whatever.) On that basis Kara could no longer countenance resigning.
So, WHY THE HELL didn’t we see the four help battle the Sun-Eater?
(For that matter, Supes could have sent an army of his super-robots to pitch in. But at least in the latter case we could rationalize that their delicate circuits would have been scrambled just by getting near it, or near one of the segments.)
I’ve got an issue of Secret Origins that explains exactly why the headquarters looks like it does. It’s not a building. It’s not a rocket either. It’s actually Fortress Lad.
The Legion is holding tryouts in a park. Arm Fall Off Boy and a few others get rejected. Fortres Lad shows off his species power to change into shelters. He is rejected. I don’t remember why. I still don’t understand why. It seems like the ability to defend innocent bystanders would be useful to the legion. Anyhoo, he Mnemonic Kid tries out and is rejected as too mean and villainous. She decides to use her ability to erase memories to destroy the Legion. She gets them with a short blast. Then, heroic Fortress Lad surround the Legionnaires. They fight and defeat the Mnemonic Kid. They never do remember what happened in those lost minutes or where there new headquarters came from. Fortress Lad’s mind is totally gone except for the thought “Never give up!”
Now that sounds like the legion I grew up with, thanks!
“Arm Fall Off Boy” sounds awfully familiar. Maybe I’m thinking of Ear Fall Off Floyd.
I would favor accepting Captain Decaf. One wave of his hand and a whole army facing our heroes falls asleep.
I’m sure someone will correct me if I’m wrong, but I think that the first mention of “Earth colony worlds” was after the Invasion! crossover event in 1988. Throughout the '60s, '70s, and most of the '80s, the Legionnaires you mention were considered to be fully alien.
IIRC, Saturn Girl was never shown using her illusions on more than one person at a time. Jeckie’s, on the other hand, wasn’t that selective. Her illusions were holographic rather than psychic.
You kid, but the LSH’s Chemical King had the trick of slowing down a guy’s metabolism until he slumped to the ground – or speeding it up, and cue the diabetic coma.
Yet another example of how the Legion open tryouts ended up bringing the team nothing but grief. How many tryout applicants either 1) were rejected and tried to get revenge on the Legion or 2) joined under false pretenses and betrayed the team?
Oh right. I wonder if he could Have weakened a whole army at once. That would certainly have helped on Talok VIII. (Adv. #365, Feb. '68))