Sunday, December 16, 2012

From the Vault: Adventure Comics # 311




         The Comic starts at the Legion Clubhouse where the Legion is looking at gifts





from across the universe. Including a time mirror from Xalla that shows what one will look like when older an d a plant that will grow a live animal from it that came from the planet Hyranak. Suddenly they receive a call for help from space sector Z-4437-3N. Cosmic Boy at this is alarmed as Superboy and Mon-EL are both in the past. However, elsewhere the call has been heard by the Legion of Substitute Heroes. At their meeting they promise to be ready to protect Earth while the Legion is gone. As they watch the ship go Polar Boy to Night Girl says he see her always watching Cosmic Boy. She admits he is quite cute. At their clubhouse she shows that she has a lot of stuff to him and that she has been in love with him for awhile.
      Days soon pass and nothing happens when suddenly one day on their watch screen they see a strange, large machine coming to land on the Earth. They soon come to the machine and see it is a digger. Stone Boy from his knowledge about minerals says he is pretty sure it is digging for rare metal ores. Soon Night Girl thanks to the Night holds the machine up to help the group gain more info about it.



       However, soon the sun starts to come up and this forces Night Girl to drop it. This somehow causes it defense system to come on and to attack them. Because of its nature neither Fire Lad and Polar Boy are not able to do anything against the machine. Howerver, Chlorophyll Kid uses his powers and is able to hold the machine back until Night Girl and Polar Boy brake some cables on it.
       They then look over the digger and find it to be of unknown alien format. They decide to call the Legion and let them know what is happening. After trying for some time they get no reply from the Legion and begin to worry. However, soon Superboy soon contacts them saying they will handle it and forbidding the subs from acting(while sounding quiet angry about it). They soon arrive at the machine and Sunboy  calls them ridiculous, that their powers aren't Super enough and that incompetents like them should not meddle in such dangerous things. Polar Boy spots Brainiac 5 trying to put the cables back together. This causes him to send Brainiac off the ship. For this Sun Boy forces them to leave.
      Back at the Clubhouse they mop around for a bit until a message is sent out by the Legion of Super-heroes saying they plan to build machines to protect Earth from attack. The subs then decide to help him by building a robot and taking it to the Legion.


      The Legion calls them amateurs and their robot awful and shows them theirs/ That of the force vortex. The Legion then tells them to disband and leave their clubhouse in 12 hours. The Subs are surprised by this but decide not to follow what the Legion told them to do. However, 12 hours later the base is attack by Legion machines. The subs manage to get onto a ship and hear the Legion say they will destory their silly Legion if they go on. The group leaves Earth and head into space. They soon come to a barren moon that has great fissures and caverns in it and use it to hide.
      Inside they find a abandoned alien city and decide to use it as a base. Night Girl chooses


 
      to try and talk to Cosmic Boy and flies to Earth. She tries to talk to him but he only seems interested in learning were her base is. After she leaves the Legion spy on her despite a promise not too and learn where they are. Soon they are at the moon and send a machine down to attack the subs. Before the attack happens the subs are shocked that the Legion is here. The monster attacks them and soon comes upon Stone Boy and attacks him. It then breaks his legs off and takes him to the surface.
      The Legion thinking them have gotten them all soon leave. However, Stone Boy is in fact alive and well and that was a stone copy of him killed. The subs decide to send out a second ship to space sector Z-4437-3N and the Legion get's worried as it could run everything. The Legion take to their ship and destroy the Second Ship. This allows the sub to get to Earth and see that the Legion was not building defense robots but more mining machines to loot the ores of Earth.
      Polar Boy then announces the Legion are impostors from their behavior and actions. Suddenly, appear and turn off their disguise projectors and reveal themselves to be from the planet Zyzan and that they lured the Legion into a trap.They reveal that they had a satellite project a force that is keeping them in suspended animation. Polar Boy then deduces that Earth's climate is too cold for them by the cloaks they wear and hits them with a blast of his powers causing them to freeze up as they are from a hot world.

  

        The subs then take off into space and destroy the item causing the Legion to be put suspended animation. The comic ends with the real Legion waking up and returning to Earth and the subs watching deciding not to reveal themselves.

comments

This issue is not that bad for a silver age comic. The concept of the Legion turning evil or something happening to them was quite fun and shows the growing importance of the Legion and its place in the Universe is starting to be known.

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