Bass and Siskoid’s coverage of DC Comics Presents continues with issue #13 (September 1979) by Paul Levitz, Dick Dillin and Dick Giordano, starring Superman and the Legion of Super-Heroes! It’s “To Live in Peace–Nevermore!”.
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Relevant images and further credits at: FW Team-Up Supplemental
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The key Jon Ross story is Action Comics 457, with its memorable cover. I sort of thought there were others but the other appearances before this were very minor.
Looking forward to year two of dccp, by far the best issues of that book coming to you in the next three years.
Year 5 and 6 are my era, so I have a lot of affection for those, too.
Here’s my cross over idea I’m guessing where allowed. To use any four members of the legion of super heroes at least I’m going two because the ones . I know are different except lightning lad .
So I’m using gaint boy and bouncy boy along with duo damsel . As they go back in time to the home town Robby read the reason for this is giant boy found news pictures of him self saving people and dying (alternate time line ) 3 years before he joined the legion and he doesn’t remember any of this
So they go to check it out when they get there the town welcomes giant boy a returning hero and Robby reed is shocked to see on of alter egos walking about .
Robby heads to his shack and uses the H dial to
Become a lightning lad and Lone Ranger combo he dubs lone lightning and he gains a robotic horse
And he meets Giant boy and battles him with his lightning six shooters and laser Laso
While the other legionnaires are confused wondering who this fake lightning lad is .
And that’s the end of part one .
Part two would end the fight and Robby using the dial to help the legion fight the emerald empress
Who has enslaved the town as Robby joins the team as super don won .
Then after they defeat her giant boy learns that Robby was the other giant they long unuff so the town can honor giant boy and that’s the end
Call this story ; giant boy two 2nd power parts 1&2.
Ah, the most unpopular DCCP ever. Readers hated this story, and rightly so, what a way for Superman to treat his best friend and the kid who worshipped him. This was the height of his super-brain and he couldn’t see the logic flaws you pointed out in the Legion’s argument. And could the 30th Century’s Super Teens have been bigger dicks?
If faded memory serves, little Jon was also named after Jonathan Kent, Pete being a big friend of the family. And current continuity Pete has a son from his marriage to Lana, Clark, though he began referring to him as Buster when it seemed Lana had left him because she was still stuck on Clark and had settled for him. Which was true. The boy was seen at the wedding of Lana to John Henry Irons in last year’s Summer of Superman Special, though given how he was drawn I suspect Toyman had swapped him for a ventriloquist’s dummy.
Steve Lombard never had a moustache in the Bronze Age, it first popped up in All-Star Superman in 2005, then Geoff Johns and Gary Frank brought it into main continuity in 2008.
If anyone wants more on Pete Ross, Anthony Desiato and I did a deep dive into him, from his first appearance to the present day, in a recent edition of his show Digging For Kryptonite. If anyone wants to listen, and has got through the entire Fire and Water back catalogue, here’s the link.
https://player.captivate.fm/episode/05c65a69-02e5-4fb4-88d4-bb586be17d4e
Keeping Superboy’s secret is what got Pete Ross an honorary Legion membership.
Thank you for correctly saying LSH. I see so many idiots using “LOSH”, and I want to ship them all to Takron-Galtos.
As far as a choosing a team, I always like to see lower powered heroes finding new and creative ways to expand their abilities, so Princess Projectra, Shadow Lass, Light Lass and Phantom Girl would have made an interesting group.
I don’t remember reading this issue, except I clearly remember seeing that panel where Pete tears open Clark’s shirt in a comic when I was a kid, because it was the first time I’d seen Pete Ross ever. It must have been this issue that I borrowed from another kid, or from the library which occasionally had comics. But I have no recollection of anything else in this story. Very strange for me. Could that moment have repeated somehow? The funny idea is that I purged this awful story, but that’s never true. The bad stories are harder to forget!
I wish I had a suggestion for a Legion Team-up, but the perfect one for me was already done: IDW’s Star Trek/Legion mini-series. It did everything right in a team-up. New readers were introduced to familiar versions of both groups, and for long-time fans it produced a story greater than the sum of its parts. Just amazing.
Tim, I think you may have had DCCP #25, the final chapter of this story, which did represent some of the images/moments from this issue. Or perhaps Best of DC Blue Ribbon Digest #66, which reprinted this issue and the next? I had/have that, and I believe I had the next issue at one point. Either way, at some point, I had all the chapters of this story, even though I bought them out of order.
I think this is a decent story idea in search of logic to make it work, and I’m not sure it ever finds it. Pete Ross deserved better, and as Joe X mentioned, he was an honorary Legionnaire. Of course, Alan Moore did worse to Pete in “Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow” but that’s a slaughterhouse for Superman’s friends anyhow.
Most importantly, we get the recreation of the panel where Pete sees Clark change into Superboy in that tent! The most recurring image in Superman’s first 50 years this side of a shirt rip!
Fun show as always gents. Looking forward to your coverage of next issue’s follow-up.
My dream LSH team-up.
As Shag has mentioned on Justice Society Presents, there have been multiple occasions where DC didn’t know what to do with the JSA. Their solution has been everything from retconning them out of existence to trapping them in a never ending war.
My solution, Paul Levitz writes a good JSA and a great LSH. What if DC’s 1st super hero team became their last? Have the JSA move to the future where they become mentors for the LSH. I think Paul would have had a blast with this concept.
This will sound weird, but I’m glad you guys gave the comic a bad-to-lukewarm review and some of the comments have been negative. Since this issue and the second part from DCCP 14 were reprinted in a digest, and especially since DCCP 14 was in Superman in the 1970s, I thought the stories might be popular. I’ve never liked them. I read comics for escapism and seeing Superman not be able to come up with a solution to save Jon Ross and prevent the war was just depressing. The second part in DCCP 14 just made things worse.
I reread the other DCCPs with the Legion after listening to the show. I think DCCP 13 is a Superman, story although he doesn’t come off too well, with the Legion as minor characters. I think DCCP 43 and 80 are more Legion stories with Superman as a guest. Rereading DCCP 43, I was a bit put out when Jimmy Olsen made out like the Justice League wasn’t even in a league (excuse the repeat) with the Legion. Jimmy, you’re allowed to like both.
If the team-up books are to showcase the Legion to new readers, I think DCCP 14 failed. The Legion is so large, I don’t think it suits itself to short samples. The Legion’s appearance in Brave & the Bold was very convoluted and made my head hurt, so it wouldn’t have lured in new readers either. My first exposure to the Legion in their Tempo paperback didn’t draw me in either. Don’t you just really have to jump into the Legion comic itself to get their appeal?
Do you guys remember the old Whitman 3-packs? The Superman branded ones included Superman, Action, DC Comics Presents, Justice League of America, Super Friends and the Legion. Seeing SB&LSH 244 in one of those 3-packs lured me in, and I was fascinated by Dawnstar on the cover. A later three pack contained 246 with Shadow Lass very prominent on the cover. They are still my two favorite Legionnaires. Can you tell I started reading the Legion about the time I started to like girls?
I also got the first four issues of DC Comics Presents in those Whitman three packs. Even though Batman is my favorite character, I’m a huge Superman fan. What a thrill it was to a young collector in 1978 to be able to collect a Superman series starting at issue 1. Of course, that was when DC didn’t restart titles with a new number 1 every 15 minutes. My favorite run of DCCP is the first four issues, with their gorgeous Jose Luis Garcia Lopez art. Of course, since I got mine in three-packs, my copies of the first four issues all have “Whitman Comics Presents” on the covers. Oh, well.
I have never liked this storyline for the reasons mentioned above so I won’t repeat it. I was angry at Superman when I first read it off the stands, and kept hoping the 2nd part would fix it. It didn’t. You guys did a great job covering it, and filling in the plot holes. It is a little surprising, given how much I like 99% of Paul Levitz’s work, but everybody is entitled to a klunker, I guess.
Suggested Legion Team-Up? Tough because I agree the Legion/Trek was pretty darn good, and I LOVE James’s idea of JSA in the future mentoring the Legion. I think I will just go with a story that 20-something Paul would have dug: Legion members (pick your favorite 6 or so) somehow get trapped in Cynosure and need Grimjack’s help to find their way home. Deep cut.