TOS: Adventures Comics #311

Adventure Comics #311 (August 1963)
title: "The War Between the Substitute Heroes and the Legionnaires!"
writer: Edmond Hamilton
artist: John Forte
letterer:Joe Letterese & Milton Snapinn 
editor: Mort Weisinger
cover:Curt Swan & George Klein 
reviewer: Mike "Nostalgic Kid" Lane

Mission Monitor Board: 
Bouncing Boy, Brainiac 5, Cosmic Boy, Saturn Girl, and Sun Boy. Cameos by Chameleon Boy, Colossal Boy, Element Lad, Invisible Kid, Lightning Lass, Shrinking Violet, Star Boy, Superboy, and Ultra Boy.


Guest Starring:
Chlorophyll Kid, Fire Lad, Night Girl, Polar Boy, Stone Boy 


Synopsis
The Legion gets an emergency call for help that is also heard by the Legion of Substitute Heroes. The Substitutes stand guard in their absence and are confronted by a new menace. They try to warn the Legion but find themselves spurned and then attacked by their friends. The Substitutes have no choice but to battle the Legion!

The Legion are opening exotic gifts sent from throughout the universe, such as a plant that will grow a live animal when it blooms and a time mirror that shows people not as they are but as they will be when they age. And the mirror reveals that Saturn Girl is going to be needing glasses when she gets older. So glasses are still a thing in the 30th Century apparently?

Their early Christmas is interrupted by an emergency call for help and the team immediately departs Earth. The signal is also heard by the Legion of Substitute Heroes who pledge to guard the planet in their absence. Polar Boy also decides to call out and embarrass Night Girl for her crush on Cosmic Boy.

Poor Night Girl ponders her feelings for Cosmic Boy before a collection of mementos she has in her locker.  Unfortunately, her visit to her personal Comic Boy shrine is interrupted when a huge machine lands on Earth. The team finds it digging into the ground and suspects that it may be trying to steal rare ores.

Night Girl is able to hold the machine back so the others can investigate it until finally the sun rises, robbing her of her powers. Fire Lad's powers are unable to stop it and the machine pursues them into a forest. There, Chlorophyll Kid uses the trees to trap the robot long enough for Night Girl and Polar Boy to disable it.

Polar Boy concludes that the design of the machine is so unusual that it must be from an unknown part of the universe. They attempt to contact the Legion to warn them of the new threat but have difficulty reaching them. The team finally receives a response from Sun Boy who acts like a huge jerk, telling them that the Legion will deal with the situation and that they are forbidden to act. When the Legion returns to Earth, the Substitutes try to help but Sun Boy angrily sends the team away.

The team returns to their base confused. Sun Boy broadcasts a message warning Earth that distant alien machines are trying to loot the planet of rare metal orders, and that the Legion will be constructing defensive devices to guard against them. Polar Boy, still in denial over their rejection by the Legion, suggests that the Substitute build their own robots and offer them to the heroes.

The Substitutes try to present their robot invention to the Legion, but Sun Boy mocks them as amateurs. How the Substitutes do not loathe Sun Boy by this point I do not understand. Sun Boy presents the Legion's new Force Vortex, a tornado-like construct that he claims can destroy anything. He tells the Substitutes to disband and leave their clubhouse within 12 hours or the Legion will use force to make them. The Substitutes are hurt but refuse to disband. When the time limit expires, their clubhouse is attacked by the Force Vortex.

The team flees in their ship but receive one final warning from the Legion not to continue their "silly" club or they will be destroyed. Inside their ship, Polar Boy shares his suspicion that the Legion are trying to conquer Earth and he votes that the Substitutes battle them to a showdown.

The Subs go to the Moon and set up base at an ancient city built by an "unhuman" race (hmmm...something about that sounds very familiar.) While most of the team sets up equipment, Night Girl sneaks away to visit Cosmic Boy.

Confident that he is a fine and noble hero, she pleads with Cosmic Boy to talk the rest of the Legion out of their hatred of the Substitutes. She trusts his promise to do so, as well as his promise not to track her back to their base.  Of course, as soon as she departs, he promptly shares her visit with the Legion and they track her back to the Substitute's new base.

After tracking Night Girl to the Moon, the Legion adapt one of their many new machines to its terrain and take it to attack Substitutes. The group observes the Legion's arrival on their monitors and Night Girl sees that Cosmic Boy has betrayed her.

The monstrous machine attacks them and Night Girl tries to hold it at bay while the others flee. Stone Boy suggests turning himself to stone, which gives Polar Boy an idea. The machines breaks free from Night Girl and she notices Stone Boy nearby in his petrified form. She knows that will not save him but before she can react, the machine crushes Stone Boy. She watches in horror as the machine takes the remains of Stone Boy back to the Legion.

Fortunately, when Night Girl finds her teammates she learns that the statue of Stone Boy was not real. They created the fake Stone Boy to fool the Legion into thinking they had destroyed the Substitutes. Their plan works and the Legion return to Earth. But when the Substitutes' ship takes off from the Moon, the Legion realize that they were tricked, and they destroy the vessel.

The Substitutes view the attack on the monitor back at the base, having sent their ship out on automatic control as bait. The Legion's actions prove to Polar Boy that the "heroes" were not building defensive machines to protect Earth, but rather mining machines to loot the Earth of ore. He reveals to the Substitutes that the Legionnaires are actually imposters.

The Legion arrives and turns off their disguise projectors, showing themselves to be natives of Zyzan. They coveted Earth's rare ores but knew the Legion would stop them so they sent out a fake distress call and than trapped the heroes' ship in a space warp.

The Zyzans are about to destroy the Substitutes but Polar Boy lets loose his powers and freezes the group of aliens. The Substitutes free the Legion from the space warp. Thinking the distress call a false alarm, the heroes return to Earth unaware of what has occurred.

Despite the Legion's confusion at finding all of the new mining machines at their headquarters, the Substitutes do not tell them what happened, instead choosing to keep their existence a secret.

Commentary
This is the first follow-up adventure of the Substitutes following their initial appearance and it is a very enjoyable one. The team is portrayed as capable, and a valuable (if unknown) asset for the Legion.

Night Girl and Polar Boy are the definite stand outs in this story, although every Substitute gets a chance to participate. Night Girl in particular gets to save the team twice, although her visit to Cosmic Boy is admittendly far too risky, if not foolish. In the context of a Silver Age comic though, I enjoyed that moment. It was melodrama, but it was classic, Silver Age comic book melodrama, so I bought into it.  Even if the shrine in her locker was a bit...stalkerish....

This initial year of the Substitutes in which they are operating in secret is one I really like, although admittedly I cannot necessarily justify the logic of the secrecy. At first perhaps, but after an adventure like this it is hard to believe that the Legion would not investigate the machines left behind or not discover the broadcasts put out by the fake Legion warning of aliens trying to steal ore. There is no way they would not investigate. Yeah, it does not really make sense at all, but I still like the Substitutes' stories during this period.

Overall, this is a pretty suspenseful Silver Age story. Even if you suspect that the Stone Boy that gets destroyed is a fake that is still a disturbing moment to see for a book from this time. Moments like that had to make this title stand out to readers of the era.

This issue contains some of my favorite art by John Forte. I loved his designs for the mining machines, from the more generic clawed machine we first see, to the more bizarre and unique robots that come later, including the Force Vortex and the red and white worm.

Forte also did a good job portraying the Substitute heroes.  It is hard to express exactly what it is, but I just found myself enjoying his rendition of the Subs more than I often do his Legion. He did a particularly good job with Night Girl. He takes advantage of the focus on her character and her range of emotions here, whether it be her feelings for Cosmic Boy or her horror over Stone Boy's apparent fate.

And the Zyzans...yes, they are basically yellow monkeys, but that is a pretty original alien design for the time. That final moment of Polar Boy freezing them was a fun finale and a good example that he is potentially incredibly powerful.

Status: 
This story has been reprinted in The Legion of Super-Heroes Archives Vol. 2 and Showcase Presents: The Legion Vol 1.