Superboy v1 198
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The Fatal Five Who Twisted Time
In the 1950s, Clark Kent and Lana Lang visit a traveling carnival outside of Smallville, but Clark can’t get his mind off of a mysterious globe that recently appeared in Smallville’s sky. The globe, which x-rayed every person and object in town but caused no harm, vanished before he could switch to Superboy and investigate. At the carnival, after Clark rescues Lana from a runaway carnival ape while preserving his secret identity, Lana visits a fortune teller. Clark’s x-ray vision, however, reveals that the fortune teller’s crystal ball is actually the Emerald Eye of Ekron! He switches to Superboy and confronts the fortune teller, who reveals herself to be the Emerald Empress. She is joined by the Persuader, who was disguised as a carnival worker. The two Fatal Five members fight Superboy, but when he grabs hold of the Persuader’s atomic axe, the Persuader controls it remotely and forces Superboy to strike himself in the head. On the Emerald Empress’s command, the Eye encases Superboy in an eerie, black force field. As Superboy collapses, Mano arrives, and the three villains celebrate their impending victory over the Legion.
Part 2: Prisoners of the Time Lock
In the nearby woods, four Legionnaires – Brainiac 5, Element Lad, Karate Kid, and Princess Projectra – arrive in a time bubble to search for the Persuader and Emerald Empress. Hearing shouts from the carnival, they investigate, but are too late to stop the Fatal trio from fleeing with Superboy’s body. A distraught Lana fills the Legionnaires in on what’s happened. Meanwhile, at Legion HQ in the 30th century, Mon-El and Colossal Boy learn that Tharok has escaped from prison. As they review a tape of Mon’s recent battle with Tharok and Validus (Superboy # 190), everything around them starts to shimmer and fade. Ultimately, the entire complex vanishes, along with every Legionnaire inside, leaving only a vacant lot. This is observed by Validus and Tharok, who declares that their teammates in the 20th century have succeeded in “wiping out the Legion.”
In the past, the Legionnaires are attacked by the Persuader, Mano, and Emerald Empress, who gloat that they have destroyed the Legion with a device called a “time sorter.” The time sorter, they explain, allows them to change history by erasing events that led up to the founding of the Legion. The Legionnaires escape from the fiends and consider the gravity of what they’ve been told.
Part 3: Countdown to Catastrophe
In the 30th century, a second Mano joins Tharok and Validus at the vacant Legion lot. This Mano explains that he was prevented from joining the Persuader and Empress in the past by the police. Meanwhile, in the 20th century, the other Mano seems anxious to make sure the Fatal Five’s plan will work. The Persuader and Emerald Empress try to put his mind at ease by showing him where they’ve hidden the time sorter: inside Smallville’s giant statue of Superboy – a location chosen by the Emerald Eye when it x-rayed the town earlier as the last place the Legionnaires would look. The villains also reveal that within a few minutes, the time sorter’s reconstruction of history will be permanent. Mano secretly signals the Legionnaires, but the other two villains soon realize that he is an imposter – actually Chameleon Boy. Cham escapes from the villains thanks to a clever illusion created by Projectra; he then orders Karate Kid to split open the statue of Superboy. As KK does so, both the time sorter and Superboy fall out. KK destroys the time sorter with only seconds to spare.
Superboy revives, but the Persuader and Emerald Empress escape when their “time bridgers” transport them elsewhere. But in the 30th century, the remaining villains are stunned when Legion HQ starts to reappear. Validus escapes, but Tharok and Mano have the misfortune to be standing inside the Legion jail when it materializes.
Critique
The Legion’s second offering as co-headliners of Superboy pits them against their most famous adversaries in a full-length story. “The Fatal Five Who Twisted Time” makes full use of the book-length format. It sets up the story gradually by showing Clark and Lana on a typical “date” and effectively works the two-fifths of Fatal Five into the story in a surprising manner (hiding out in a carnival). The villains’ formidability and ruthlessness is established as they defeat Superboy and make cryptic comments about their plan. Then a third villain shows up unexpectedly. All of this happens in just the first chapter.
“The Fatal Five Who Twisted Time” again features a small group of Legionnaires, but each is used effectively and their mission is shown to hold the highest stakes: If they do not figure out what the Fatal Five are up to, then all of history will be changed. Talk about performance pressure.
For this reviewer, the defining image of the story comes when the Persuader throws his atomic axe and destroys the Legion’s time bubble as Element Lad and Brainiac 5 barely leap out of the way. The sudden and vicious assault cuts the Legion off from their future. This is symbolic of the creators’ role in the Legion’s rebirth: Bates and Cockrum have effectively cut the Legion off from its Adventure-era past. This is a new era (represented symbolically by the new costumes most Legionnaires wear), and one in which heroes are far from omnipotent. In many 1960s stories, the Legion defeated villains and tossed around planets without batting an eye. Here they have to work for their victory, which comes with only seconds to spare. (Interestingly, the “beat-the-clock” device was also used in the previous issue’s Legion story.)
That the Legion does win is not as significant as the fact that Superboy, the titular star of the comic, plays almost no role in a story’s resolution for the second issue in a row. Superboy becomes the object the Legionnaires are searching for, but he remains unconscious and unable to affect the outcome. For new readers, this establishes the Legion as a formidable force for good in their own right and also shows how much Superboy needs them (and vice versa). Contrary to the theme song of a popular medical sitcom, even Superman (boy) can’t do it all on his own.
Logic problems always abound in Legion time-travel stories, such as why didn’t the Legionnaires simply climb back into their time bubble and go back five minutes earlier, when they could have saved Superboy from his Fatal Five whooping? Or why didn’t the Fatal Five go back to, say, the Victorian era – before Superboy would have been around to interfere with their plans to alter time? But if one accepts the unstated assumption that even time travel has limits, the story works quite well.
Roll Call
Legionnaires
Featured roles:
Supporting roles:
Cameos
Villains
Supporting Character
Other characters
- Gorpo (gorilla), his trainer, and a carnival barker
Planets and Settings
Technology, Gadgets, and Other Neat Stuff
- The time-sorter
- Time bridgers (personal time-traveling devices; used, but not seen)
Notes
First appearances
This issue marks the first appearance of the following characters and recurring key Legion story elements:
- Element Lad's blue and green costume with the arrow motif.
- Princess Projectra's red, pink and orange (later yellow) costume.
- The Legion's logo appears in the same size and font as Superboy's logo on the cover for the first time.
Reprints
This Legion story has been reprinted in the following:
- BlueRibbonDigest08.jpg
DC Special Blue Ribbon Digest #8 (January, 1981)
- LSHArchives10.jpg
See also
- Legion Publication History - Other issues published 1971-1978
- Legion Publication History - Other issues of Superboy
- Pre-Crisis Chronology
- Quick index of links to other Superboy v1 issues
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