This is my first Legion "Fan of Bronze" piece so I'm a little nervous! And yes, I did read Marvel as a kid and am planning to cover some of those soon!
The Legion back-up in Superboy #195 (Ju'73) featured the first appearance of the first Bronze Age Legionnaire: Wildfire. In his design sketches by co-creator Dave Cockrum, he was named Starfire but that name was rejected. There was a previous Starfire, a Soviet super-hero from one issue of Teen Titans and future Starfires, one a futuristic sword and sorcery character, the other the princess Koriand'r of New Teen Titans fame. But it was probably changed because the Legion already had Star Boy. But none of that mattered anyway.
In #195, "The One-Shot Hero!" by Cary Bates and Dave Cockrum showed us the perennial favorite: the Legion tryout! This time, the applicant was ERG-1, which stood for Energy Release Generator. The Legion and the readers learn how young astro-engineer Drake Burroughs was accidently transformed into anti-energy and must remain in a containment suit. The containment suit was one of Cockrum's masterpieces of design or at least the scientists involved had a heroic flair and style. This origin was tweaked several times, with Drake being an orphan and a student.
The suit gave him form and substance. It also gave him powers similar to the other Legionnaires but unfortunately that was all he could demonstrate. He tried to explain that his powers were still developing and he had an unique power but he couldn't show it. Dejected, he was disqualified, though Phantom Girl showed him a surprising amount of sympathy. (This is the Legion, remember. They're not exactly warm and fuzzy to rejected applicants!) Interestingly we learn that the address of the Legion HQ is the same as Clark Kent's apartment building!
Immediately the Legion must send a team to the agricultural planet of Manna 5 to stop a huge "Devourer" machine from destroying their crops. They pick Colossal Boy (wearing a blue & tan costume for the first and last time!), Phantom Girl (in her new & soon-to-be-trademark white bell-bottom jumpsuit) and Chemical King (making a rare appearance and acting like Element Lad!). They are quickly, and I mean quickly (it's a nine-page story!), defeated with Colossal Boy about to be devoured by the Devourer when ERG-1, who stowed away, unleashes an incredibly powerful bolt of energy, destroying the machine, saving the Towering Teen and guaranteeing himself a flight ring but all the Legion trio find is his empty suit. To paraphrase a classic Bugs Bunny/Daffy Duck cartoon, "It's a great trick but he could only do it once!"
But that was not the case as we learn in Superboy and the Legion #201 (Ap'74), "The Betrayer From Beyond!", also by Bates and Cockrum. ERG survived by managing to reconstitute his energy though he is invisible and formless. There's a flashback to #195 with Colossal Boy wearing his new costume! It took ERG almost a year to travel to Earth and find his suit. The Legion have it in their memorial room next to a statue of Ferro Lad (Lest We Forget), surrounded by a forcefield! Talk about overkill! ERG can't penetrate it so he decides to take over Cosmic Boy's body!! Apparently he can possess people which would be a power no other Legionnaire has, though it was never mentioned again! Unfortunately the Legion flight rings give off a similar aura as the forcefield (??) so that plan is out the window or is it?
As this is going on, it's tryout time again. Our next contestants are obvious Have-No-Chancers and future Substitutes Porcupine Pete and Infectious Lass who are rejected with the tact that the Legion is known and loved for! A nice touch is that the quills Pete shoots all over the room are stll there throughout the story, in the walls, the floors and the chairs! Except for Superboy and Phantom Girl, OUCH!
The last applicant is the Molecular Master who is able to enlarge atoms with great power. ERG decides to possess him, only to his horror, to learn that he is an andoid. ERG is able to read its programming undetected (another non-duplicated power, BTW) and learns it was sent by its unknown creator to steal the Legion's deus ex machina, the Miracle Machine and has been exhaling an invisible poison gas potent enough to kill Superboy! Glad that never came up again!!
ERG then uses the Miracle Machine to save the Legion and free his suit so he can confront the Molecular Master who creates a super-atom to destroy ERG but he absorbs its power, becomes stronger and hopefully with greater control and procedes to blast the android to pieces. He then revives the Legion and has some 'splaining to do! Which he does in #202 (Ju'74) where he rechristians himself Wildfire! Brainiac 5 says they would need an addenum to their charter but why? Mystery Lad became Element Lad and Triplicate Girl became Duo Damsel. Some people just like to complicate things!
Wildfire appeared on and off in #205, 209 and 213. The pathos of his situation remained an untapped source of drama. He was an energy ghost, no longer human but with human memories and emotions. He could no longer eat, sleep, dream, touch, feel and was seperate from his team-mates, not getting close to any of them.
Other highlights were:
#214 (Ja'76)-his temper and his "feud" with Superboy are first seen.
#217 (Ju'76)- his involvement with Legion trainees is established.
#225 (Ma'77)- less than three years of joining, he is elected LEADER! It's not an all together popular decision!
#226 (Ap'77)- he inducts Dawnstar into the Legion. The beautiful, cool, winged girl will brighten up his existence and make him miserable, at the same time!
#234 (D'77)- in a really odd adventure, we see Drake Burroughs' human face as a photo!
Also in Justice League of America #147-148 (O-N'77), Wildfire plays an important part in JLA/JSA/ Legion team-up whereas Chameleon Boy and Ultra Boy have minor roles. Strangely, he's the leader at this time, though that's never mentioned even though Superboy and the Legion #225 is!
Also around this time over at Marvel, in X-Men #107 (O'77), the future Mutant Movie-Stars have a close encounter with the alien, Legion-inspired, Cockrum-designed Imperial Guard. One is called Impulse who has energy powers. Later in the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe #6 (My'86), in the entry for the IG, it is theorized that Impulse "may be a being of pure energy" given form by his costume, leaving little doubt that his Legion analogue is the Cockrum creation of four years prior: certainly one the most powerful and tragic Legionnaires Wildfire!
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However, one of the few Legion stories I read as a kid as one where Wildfire was somehow betrayed and someone managed to release him from his suit. Not knowing much about him, it looked to me as if he'd just been effectively killed, and I wasn't used to that happening...
Maybe it happened a lot. I don't remember much else about the story. Superboy was probably in it, as it was a UK reprint collection of Superman-related stories.
WIldfire looks fantastic, though, with the empty glass screen for a face...
The identity of the killer/mastermind behind all this was left for a later story. It appeared in ##250-251, where it was revealed SPOILER WARNING that it was Brainiac 5, who had gone insane. Internet sources tell me that Legion of Super-Heroes #273 retconned this so that Brainiac 5 didn't commit the murder, although he did frame Ultra Boy for it.
It had an effect on me because it seemed like the end of Wildfire, and it was a striking sequence! I'm guessing that regular readers knew that he would reconstitute his body given enough time?
The story seemed very glamorous to me, with all these niftily costumed super-people having adventures in outer space. They all looked great, especially Wildfire! Alas, I couldn't have got any more Legion of Superheroes comics even if I'd tried.
Just drawing on my hazy memory, I'm thinking Perez on art? Is that possible? Very clean hard lines anyway. I'm not sure Starlin fits the bill.
As for the framing of Ultra Boy and the madness of Brainiac 5, the culprit responsible was *SPOILER ALERT*
Pulsar Stargrave, a villain who deserves a thread of his own one day.
That sounds more like it. Was that number - 237 - a continuation of the Superboy numbering? Did Legion of Superheroes ever have their own comic with their own numbering before this?
I'm guessing that regular readers knew that he would reconstitute his body given enough time?
Ahem!
In #222 (D'76) the cover now stated Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes and in #231 (S'77) the indicia said the same as well. That's the way it remained until #259 (O'79) when the book's official title became Legion of Super-Heroes celebrated by Superboy leaving the team. But don't fret because he went to The New Adventures of Superboyand became a solo act for the 80s!
There was a brief 4-issue reprint series of The Legion of Super-Heroes. I wonder if the sales of that prompted the Legion taking over Superboy's book?
There was a brief 4-issue reprint series of The Legion of Super-Heroes. I wonder if the sales of that prompted the Legion taking over Superboy's book?
I believe it was more of every time the Legion did appear in Superboy his sales spiked, and it was suffering from low sales otherwise. I'm sure someone more hip to the history will come along.
WolverineTimber Wolf. Although I eventually acquired the original, I may not have read the first appearance of “ERG-1” until it was reprinted in Tales of the Legion of Super-Heroes #343.There! I said it! And I'm proud!
But Timber Wolf doesn't have those kewl claws, and he's not the best at what he does, and he's not even Canadian!
Okay, it wouldn't quite be Superman from outer space with heat vision, but I definitely think Logan ends up on the losing end if the two of them fought.
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