Adventure Comics 494
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Background
Adventure Comics, one of DC's very oldest titles, was the series that saw the Legion's debut in April 1958 and was eventually home to its first real series, presenting Legion stories for eighty straight issues beginning in September 1962. However, by the early 1980s, long after the Legion had migrated through several other series to a self-titled one, sales for Adventure Comics were floundering and the title was put on hiatus. It was soon revived in a digest format, primarily with reprinted material from old Adventure issues and other forgotten DC stories. Featured each month was a chronological re-presentation of the Legion's earliest tales, two in each issue, beginning with their first appearance. This issue presents the fifth and sixth appearances in that chronology.
Reprinted material
Original publication source is noted for each.
- Part 2 of the Untold Origin of the Challengers of the Unknown - new material
- The first appearance of Mon-El in "Superboy's Big Brother" – Superboy v1 #89 (June, 1961)
- Aquaman continues his quest for Mera in "To Win Is To Lose" – Aquaman #43 (January/February, 1969)
- Shazam battles the World's greatest enemy in "Captain Marvel Faces Fear!" – Captain Marvel Adventures #89 (October, 1948)
- Superman confronts "The Legion of Super-Villains" – Superman v1 #147 (August, 1961)
- The Spectre pursues "The Sinister Lives of Captain Skull!" – The Spectre #1 (November/December, 1967)
The Story Behind the Stories
The two Legion reprints included in each issue of the digest-sized Adventure Comics were the feature attraction. As an added bonus to Legion fans, a running commentary about that issue's reprinted Legion stories was provided each month by Paul Levitz, who was the writer of the Legion's current series while the Adventure digests were being produced. Years later, these commentaries are the primary point of interest (other than the reprinted stories themselves), so the full text is provided below: