Editor's Note: Here is another installment of what we call "Legion Cameos." These are stories where the Legion or certain Legionnaires play a small but usually significant role in the proceedings. This time Bits Boy looks at a few times his future pals stopped by Smallville to help him out....
As the Legion started to gain popularity after its first appearance in
Adventure Comics #247, editor Mort Weisinger cleverly promoted the group by featuring cameos of the team or individual Legionnaires within the Superman family titles that he was in charge of.
So it wouldn't be unusual to see them pop up in
Lois Lane, Jimmy Olsen, Superman, Action Comics, Adventure Comics, or
World's Finest, usually in one- or two-panel cameos that served little other than to alert unknowing fans of this band of super-powered teens from the future.
But sometimes the Legionnaires who appeared did more than merely guest-star. Often looking back through their time monitors, the Legion would spot either Superboy/Superman, Lois, or Jimmy in a spot of bother, and take it upon themselves to go back in time to lend a helping hand. Like they didn't already know how things would work out, as it would have been history to them!
One of the earliest issues in which a Legionnaire played a big role was
Superboy #86 (“The Army of Living Kryptonite Men!”), with Lightning Lad aiding Superboy after he was lured into a trap on an asteroid, fighting a group of Luthor's animated Kryptonite Men. After confronting the electric warrior, Luthor learns of the existence of the Legion of Super-Heroes.
This story has been reprinted many times over the years. It's always included in any set of chronological releases of Legion-related publications, whether it's the form of digests, Showcases, Archives, or Omnibuses. Yet, strangely enough, there have been many other stories in which the Legionnaires played similar roles that have are not reprinted in the same way; some have never been reprinted. We look at four of those today.
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