Best of DC 33

The Best of DC #33 Preboot » Pre-Crisis Reprint Cover by Keith Giffen and Mike DeCarlo Story title Various Publication date November 4, 1982 Cover date February 1983 Creators Editor(s) Paul Levitz and Nicola Cuti Cover artist(s) Keith Giffen and Mike DeCarlo

Background

This issue of the Best of DC digest reprint series focuses entirely on Legion stories, in particular, Secret Origins of some Legionnaires and villains. The "Secret Origins" theme was a common one in DC's line of digests, as were Legion reprints - the Adventure Comics series was already reprinting classic Legion tales on a monthly basis in a similar format. With the demise of Adventure half a year later, the Best of DC series would continue the chronological reprints on an occasional basis, beginning with The Best of DC #44.

Reprinted material

Original publication source is noted for each.

• "The Lone Wolf Legionnaire!" – Adventure Comics #327 (published October 29, 1964)
• "The One-Shot Hero!" – Superboy v1 #195 (published March 20, 1973)
• "Dawnstar Rising" – Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes #240 (published March 20, 1978)
• "Brotherly Hate!" – Superboy v1 #172 (published January 7, 1971)
• "The Trillion-Dollar Trophies" – Superboy v1 #221 (published August 23, 1976)
• "The Infinite Man Who Conquered Time the Legion!" – Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes #233 (published August 22, 1977)
• "The Origins and Powers of the Legionnaires" - All-New Collectors' Edition #C-55 (published December 12, 1977)
• "Secrets of the Legion" - All-New Collectors' Edition #C-55 (published December 12, 1977)

The Story Behind the Stories

As with the Legion tales reprinted in Adventure Comics, Paul Levitz provides some commentary here about the original issues in which the stories appeared. Years later, these commentaries are the primary point of interest for the digest (other than the reprinted stories themselves), so the full text is provided below:

As I've been doing a running commentary on the chronological reprints of the Legion for ADVENTURE COMICS, the editors of this digest asked me to tell you a little bit of the background of this issue's tales.

• "The Lone Wolf Legionnaire" has to stand as the record for the longest gap between a Legionnaire's first appearance and his joining the team. Lone Wolf became Timber Wolf and finally joined the team in #372, almost four years after this story from ADVENTURE COMICS #327 (December, 1964).

• "One-Shot Hero" from SUPERBOY #195 (June, 1973) was the last Legion story published before they took over the lead in SUPERBOY and gradually began to change the title to SUPERBOY/LEGION and finally LEGION. As loyal fans know, Erg-1 survived to be returned to his containment suit and joined the Legion as Wildfire a few months later in SUPERBOY #201.

• "Dawnstar Rising" (SUPERBOY/LEGION #240, June, 1978) appeared a couple of years after Dawnstar joined the Legion in SUPERBOY #226... and also has the distinction of being one of two stories actually showing the process of training Legionnaires go through. (The other one was reprinted in last year's Legion BEST OF DC issue.)

• "Brotherly Hate" tells perhaps the most re-told Legion origin, this time from SUPERBOY #172 (March, 1971)... the first in the series of Legion tales to appear in that title. When first revealed, Lightning Lad's origin included neither his brother nor sister... then Mekt snuck in and finally Ayla.

• "The Living Key" is from SUPERBOY #221 (November, 1976), one of Jim Shooter's last tales of the LSH from his second stint as writer of the series. Readers who have followed Grimbor since know that Charma died in prison, embittering him against the Legion and leading him to battle them several times again.

• "The Infinite Man Who Conquered the Legion" (SUPERBOY/LEGION #233, November, 1977) features a villain who has yet to return to challenge the LSH again, but you may rest assured that this will change in the next few months. Note that the Time Institute Jaxon Rugarth teaches at is the same one we saw in LSH #295 a few months ago, and Rond Vidar is Universo's son, awarded honorary membership in the Legion, despite his lack of powers, for saving them twice.

• Finally, our origin pages have shrunk from DC's largest format to our smallest, having made their debut in the ALL-NEW COLLECTORS' EDITION #C-55 (1978) which featured the Legion's longest story, a 64 pager that married Lightning Lad and Saturn Girl. We thought it would be a nice idea to give you at least the basics on the other Legionnaires to round out this collection.

If you've enjoyed this digest, may we earnestly suggest that you try the current issues of THE LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES by ye writer and Keith Giffen, and the ADVENTURE COMICS DIGEST issues which are reprinting the very early tales of the team. We think the 30th Century is a fascinating universe, and we'd be thrilled to have you join us there.

– Paul Levitz