From the Vault: Superboy #117

      The comic starts in a distant galaxy where Superboy works to move a planet before it is destroyedby a Sun going Supernova. He than suffers some blowback as he goes near the sun but is protected by his invulnerability.

       Soon Superboy returns to Earth and heads to his home town of Smallvillie. He than changes into mild mannered teenager Clark Kent. As he comes out of the alley he sees that some mebers of the Legion of Super-Heroes are appearing. Towns people are cheering and they have even put up a Legion flag. In the bubble are Legion members Invisible Kid, Chameleon Boy, Brainiac 5, Element Lad and Ultra Boy. Suddenly, there is a bank robbery nearby and they step into action. Ultra Boy overturns a car and Brainiac 6 gets Invisible Kid to turn invisible.
       He than trips them over and Chameleon Boy turns his hands into nets to catch them. Element Lad than turns the lead bullets in their guns to rubber. The police chief comes up and thanks them and asks if they would join the force. They state they want to roam the town. Clark than sees them as they fly and waves but notices that they are all smiling weirdly. The next morning the Legion members are at class and the teacher asks them to demonstrate their powers. Brainiac 5 does and adds up all the figures in a math book coming up with 13,895,642,811,439,117. The teacher is shocked and says it is correct as her brother wrote the book and took weeks using a adding machine to come to that total.
      The teacher than asks Invisible Kid to talk about the strangest cities in the 30th century. Using the power of his mentazo ring he shows a image of a city called Mechago on the living planet of Inanor where all inanimate objects are alive and intelligent. Next he shoes Necropolis in the volcanic crater of the planet sttzzl. Phantom people live their and no one can communicate with them. Last is Gothikter a city on Beztia where monsters live who take turns turning a globe to counteract evil in the galaxy. The teacher than asks Element Lad to talk about the most unusual element known to him. He state it is energite and it can cure any ailment no matter what. Last is Ultra boy and she asks him to demonstrate one of his powers. He says he will use his penetra-vision and reveal the identity of Superboy. Clark is shocked and has to think on how to protect his identity.

     


        He looks outside due to a lighting stike and sees that on a banner that Smallville and Metropolis are misspelled. He than realizes that Smallvillie is spelled everywhere missing one of the L's. He than clues in that the Legion members are not heroes but villains. The explosion has tossed him into another parallel world. He states many similar universes co-exist in a infinite number of different dimensions. Superboy than realizes the Legionnaires are out to expose Superboy of this world's identity. Using his power he sees that the other Superboy is coming back.
       Thinking fast he uses his super-breath to turn off the lights as due to a storm their is not light outside. He than melts the surface of a medal he got and writes on it with a hair pin. He than tosses it out the window to the other Superboy. The light comes back on and Ulrea Boy than states Clark Kent is Superboy. At this same time the other Superboy comes in through the window. They try to attack him but Superboy II uses a anti-gravity paralysis disk on them to place them in temporary suspended animation.
       Superboy II than begins the process to take the bad Legion members away. Superboy 1 notices that this worlds Lana Lang does not suspect him of being Superboy like his one. Soon he changes and meets the other Superboy. As they talk Superboy II asks how he knew they were not Legionnaires. Superboy 1 states that they did not salute the Legion flag when they came by it which in the constitution is required to happen. He adds they likely got tossed out of the Legion and hated saluting it as a result. He than grabs the time bubble their in and states he will take it to this times future. Superboy II wishes him will and asks him to visit again.

     

        In the future of the parallel world the Science Police thank him. He says my pleasure and flies back across the dimensional maze to his own time period. The comic ends with him back home and happy to be so but wondering about the other parallel worlds.

Comments

This comic was pretty fun and was done in a really neat way. The concept of the muitiverse is a great idea. The muliverse has always played a big role in the Legion of Super-Heroes. Crisis on Infinite Earths and Zero Hour being too very big examples on this. Not to mention the 2boot and three boot Legion would follow the path of being part of this. The series that just ended to uses this concept. The idea of evil legion members was also quite fun. I liked it better than the Legion of Super-Villains or at least their early appearances. Also for a silver age comic this has aged pretty well which is not always the case with other ones from this period. Lastly, I read and own this issue thanks to Showcase presents: Legion of Super-Heroes vol 2.