Steven Howell Wilson's Blog, page 18

Legion of Super-Heroes Re-Read – “The Chemoids Are Coming!” (Adventure Comics #362, November, 1967)

The villain of this month’s piece looks mighty familiar, and for good reason. Dr. Mantis Morlo was co-created by Jim Shooter and Pete Costanza. As mentioned yesterday, Costanza was a longtime senior member of the Marvel Family creative team. He surely drew the Big Red Cheese’s (that’s the original Captain Marvel’s) arch-nemesis many times over. No doubt, when he was told that this issue called for an evil mad scientist, he thought of Dr. Sivana, consciously or non. If it was consciously, well...

Legion of Super-Heroes Re-Read – “The Lone Wolf Legionnaire Reporter!” (Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen #106, October, 1967)

An Unknown writer brings us this Legion tie-in story from the pages of Jimmy’s late, lamented comic. Regular Olsen artist Pete Costanza drew it, and would draw the next couple of outings of the Legion in Adventure Comics as well. Costanza was 54 when this story was released, and has been a regular penciller of Captain Marvel and The Marvel Family, and Marvel-creator C.C. Beck’s chief assistant, from the time Billy Batson and company were created, until they folded under the weight of the DC l...

The Colonel’s Plan – All Work and No Play

October 2, 2017

Dear Daddy—

The new grout worked a lot better. The shower is almost finished as of tonight. I expect to finish the sink base this week and be ready for the plumber to come back. Coincidentally, the kitchen, which I have not been talking about thus far, should also be ready for the plumbers next week. The countertops are supposed to be in on Wednesday.

The kitchen, prior to the installation of all cabinets and a floor. Note the sink upside down on the counter. The installers de...

Legion of Super-Heroes Re-Read – “The Unkillables!” (Adventure Comics #361, September, 1967)

This one’s a little offbeat. As the story opens, we’re informed that the war with the Dominion has been going on for 20 years.

As I’ve been saying all too often lately, “Wait… what?”

You mean to tell us, Master Shooter, that Earth and the United Planets (because, as far as we can see, Earth is the United Planets) have been at war the entire time we’ve been reading these Legion adventures, and we never knew it? So Lyle, Gim, Dirk, Chuck, and the late, lamented Andrew were all born on a planet...

Legion of Super-Heroes Re-Read – “The Legion Chain Gang!” (Adventure Comics #360, September, 1967)

Ironically, the group for whom this story is named barely appears within its pages. Superboy, Ultra Boy, Mon-El, Element Lad and Matter-Eater Lad, sentenced to ten years on the prison world of Takron-Galtos, appear only on the splash page and one other page before the story’s conclusion, when they return to Earth. One wonders if perhaps someone’s intention was to set an adventure on the prison planet, and the cover was drawn to illustrate that idea, but then the creative team realized that th...

Legion of Super-Heroes Re-Read – “The Outlawed Legionnaires” (Adventure Comics #359, August, 1967)

This is part one of one of the most memorable two-parters of a memorable run. The entire Legion is featured—even the oft-forgotten Supergirl!—we get more glimpses of the Legionnaires private lives, some Legionnaires go on the run and others wind up in prison on the hellish world of Takron-Galtos.

While all the Legionnaires are off Earth (with one team performing the impressive feat of slowing down the supernova death of a sun by pumping chemical compounds into its core), the President of Eart...

Legion of Super-Heroes Re-Read – “The Hunter” (Adventure Comics #358, July, 1967)

So I celebrated my birth month back in Adventure #335. This issue falls in the birth month of my lovely wife, Renee.

Of the two events—her birth and Otto Orion’s, I think I favor hers. She has, after all, been by my side for just about every step of this crazy journey into fandom I’ve made these last 34 years, and most of it wouldn’t have happened without her. But I might be biased. Anyway, on with “The Hunter!”

This month, Mort Weisinger’s assignment to his student writer (Jim Shooter) was...

Legion of Super-Heroes Re-Read – “The Ghost of Ferro Lad” (Adventure Comics #357, June, 1967)

Andrew Nolan was not out of Jim Shooter’s system, no matter how determined the young writer was to leave his creation dead. No soon was Ferro Lad’s empty burial urn safely landed on Shanghalla than Shooter told the tale of the Adult Legion, which was focused heavily on memorials to the dead heroes, amongst which naturally Ferro Lad was prominent. On top of that, the “villain” of the first adult Legion story was Andrew’s twin brother Doug, Ferro Man.

(And Ferro Man might have been to have a fu...

The Legionnaire Who Stole an Identity! (Or, Superboy’s Forgotten Bromance)

“The Five Legion Orphans” was only 12 pages long. To fill the rest of the book, one would expect that perhaps a new Superboy adventure would have been commissioned. Perhaps another outing by Otto Binder, who had given us “The Six-Legged Legionnaire” last issue. What we got, instead, was the closest Silver Age readers were going to get to an explanation of why Star Boy first appeared with powers identical to Superboy, and, when he showed up again after missing 19 Legion adventures, was suddenl...

The Colonel’s Plan – Grout

September 28, 2017

Dear Daddy—

I hate GROUT!!!!!!!

Well, I hate the grout I bought last week. I was going to use the grout you left me. It’s been sitting, under a table in Susan’s general purpose room, for almost 50 years now. But when I looked at all those bags, with the pretty pictures of Medusa on them, labeled “GROUT” in big letters, it turned out they weren’t actually grout. Not sure what that’s about, but, when you read the fine print, it says they’re thinset mortar for laying tile. So,...