Adventure Comics 310

Adventure Comics #310
Preboot » Pre-Crisis

Cover by Curt Swan, George Klein and Gaspar Saladino

Story title	The Doom of the Super-Heroes
Previous story	Adventure Comics #309: The Legion of Super-Monsters (Brainiac 5) Adventure Comics #309: The Fake Superboy from Krypton
Next story	Adventure Comics #311: The War Between the Substitute Heroes and the Legionnaires
Publication date	May 29,1963
Cover date	July 1963

Creators

Writer	Edmond Hamilton
Penciller	John Forte
Inker	John Forte
Letterer	Milton Snapinn
Colourist(s)	???
Editor	Mort Weisinger
Cover artist(s)	Curt Swan, George Klein, Gaspar Saladino

The Doom of the Super-Heroes

Synopsis

Part 1

The Legionnaires confront a mysterious villain in a lead mask who possesses each of their powers. But when Superboy destroys the stilts that the villain uses to make himself look taller, “Mask Man” is revealed to be a dwarf. As bystanders laugh at him, Mask Man vows to kill every Legionnaire in return, and starts by hitting Ultra Boy with a freeze ray. He then escapes before the Legionnaires can follow him.

After mourning the death of Ultra Boy, the Legionnaires believe that Mask Man must hail from Doll World, a planet of diminutive people. Every Legionnaire travels in two ships to Doll World, where Shrinking Violet, Chameleon Boy, and Invisible Kid use their powers for reconnaissance. However, Mask Man surprises and kills Shrinking Violet and Chameleon Boy. Before the villain flees, Superboy hits him with a radioactive rock; the Legionnaires use the radioactivity to track Mask Man through the Mount Rushmore of Space. But a large asteroid bearing Mask Man’s image collides with one of the ships, killing Triplicate Girl, Phantom Girl, Element Lad, and others on board.

Part 2: Last Stand of the Legion

The remaining Legionnaires travel to a nearby uninhabited planet and build a citadel to protect themselves until they can figure out how to fight Mask Man. But the villain pushes several giant Rushmore monuments toward the citadel. As the Legionnaires defend themselves, Colossal Boy, Cosmic Boy, and Invisible Kid are all killed. Later, Saturn Girl and Brainiac 5 die in an explosion while working on a “reverser-instrument.” The villain also turns Lightning Lass into stone and kills Mon-El with a radioactive element from another dimension, leaving only Superboy.

However, Mask Man’s use of an extra-dimensional element provides Superboy with a clue to his true identity. He finishes work on the reverser-instrument and follows Mask Man to a world where the villain has carved the letters MXYZPTLK on each of the world’s eight moons. As Superboy guessed, Mask Man is really a descendent of his impish enemy, Mr. Mxyzptlk. When Mask Man sees the reverser-instrument, he recognizes Superboy’s ploy to get him to say his name forwards so that it will come out backwards and send him back to the Fifth Dimension. Out of spite, Mxyzptlk says his name backwards, but just as he does so, Superboy uses his heat vision to burn out the reverser-instrument’s wiring so that it does not reverse his speech. As the villain vanishes, so, too, do the effects of his magic: The Legionnaires are restored to life with no memory of the adventure.

Critique

"The Doom of the Super-Heroes" tries hard to combine elements of mystery (Who is Mask Man?) with elements of horror (watching the Legionnaires get picked off one by one). It's not a very comfortable marriage, and also one that lacks substance, anyway. Once you know that the Legionnaires survive their deaths in this story, there's not much left to draw the reader in or to resonate decades later.

The use of Mxyzptlk's descendent is also problematic. Mxy is best used as a whimisical villain who plays practical jokes on Superman, not as a masked serial killer, a la Jason of "Friday the 13th," who kills people in horrific ways. Mxy is defeated in the usual manner -- by being tricked into saying his name backwards -- which always makes his ancestor looking like a boob and his victims even worse off.

To add insult to injury, the story ends with the reset button being pushed -- only Superboy remembers the adventure -- so the Legionnaires cannot learn from their humiliation.

This was the first story to feature the Legion's entire active membership set against a villain (though two characters disappear in the middle of the story, and others do not appear at all; see Errors and Oddities, below). One can sympathize with Hamilton and Forte for trying to manage so many characters in such a short story; to their credit, they include a few memorable bits, such as Colossal Boy sacrificing himself to save Lightning Lass and Brainiac 5 punching out (!) Saturn Girl to prevent her from reading Mask Man's deadly thoughts. While a case for sexism can be made in such scenes (the boys rescue the girls), they also show the Legionnaires covering each other's backs, which is always appealing in team comics.

Key Phrases and Quotations

Roll Call

Legionnaires

Supporting roles:

Cameos

Element Lad (face depicted on splash page and mentioned in story, but no other appearance)
Star Boy (face depicted on splash page, but no other appearance)
Triplicate Girl (face depicted on splash page and mentioned in story, but no other appearance)

Villains

Mask Man (Mxyzptlk; a descendent of Mr. Mxyzptlk)

Supporting characters

None

Other characters

Ak Aru (scientist of Doll World)

Planets and Settings

Technology, Gadgets, and Other Neat Stuff

The reverser-instrument

Notes

Errors and Oddities

Supergirl, Matter-Eater Lad, and Phantom Girl do not appear in this story (although Phantom Girl is mentioned), even though every Legionnaire is said to take part in the search for Mask Man.
Sun Boy and Bouncing Boy mysteriously disappear from the story. They are shown on Page 5 of Part 2, yet Mon-El says on the next page that only he, Superboy, Lightning Lass, and Invisible Kid are left alive. No mention is made of how Sun Boy and Bouncing Boy died.
It is never explained how Brainiac 5 is able to devise a machine that can reverse Mask Man’s powers without knowing the nature of those powers.

First appearances

Powers and Abilities

Reboot Reference Kit

Retcon Alert

Other

According to the text feature in Adventure Comics 500, this was the first Legion story young Paul Levitz read. Levitz, currently (in 2007) president and publisher of DC Comics, Inc., wrote the Legion's adventures from 1976-79 and from 1981-89.

Text features in the same issue

This issue also contains a text feature:

"Bits of Legionnaire Business"
- First mentions of Duplicate Boy and Spider-Girl (as Spider-Lass)

Reprints

This Legion story has been reprinted in the following:

Adventure Comics #500 (June 1983)
Legion of Super-Heroes Archives Volume 2 (1992)
Showcase Presents Legion of Super-Heroes Vol. 1 (2007)