Legion of Super-Heroes Archives • Volume 1 Part 1

Continuing on from my previous post about the Legion of Super-Heroes, this is a closer look at the first half or so of Legion of Super-Heroes Archives Volume I.

The stories in this volume are a bit of a strange animal. There are 19 tales (plus some extras), the first dozen or so of which come from the various guest appearances the Legion made in stories starring Superboy, Supergirl, and Superman, prior to them getting their own series in Adventure Comics in 1962.  So a big part of this volume are more of a survey of the silver age zaniness of the Superman titles under editor Mort Weisinger than anything else.  In fact, the Legion feel surprisingly ineffective in many of these stories, and it took a while before we actually saw any of them effectively fight crime or save people.  Often, instead they seemed to be playing reckless or goofy pranks.  More and more in the last third of the book, it begins to tell tales of the Legion itself, and we get more of an idea of why the people of the 30th Century really consider these guys to be heroes.  And yet through it all there are lots of key elements of Legion mythology that are introduced.