Superboy 198 Cover dated Oct 1973. "The Fatal Five who Twisted Time!" Story Cary bates art by Dave Cockrum. Our Story opens up at an unspecified date in the 1950's. Lana Lang and Clark Kent are on a date at a carnival outside of Smallville. Inside the Horror Haven Clark and Lana see all sorts of scary creatures that are part of the exhibit, but all of a sudden Lana is attacked by a real life Gorilla, that is not a part of the Horror Haven. Trying to keep his identity a secret from Lana, Clark stumbles into the Gorilla and gives it the "Vulcan Neck pinch." With the Gorilla unconscious the trainer arrives to take him back to his cage. Afterwards the pair visits a Gypsy Fortune teller, while the Gypsy is telling Lana what she sees inside her crystal ball, Clark uses his x-ray vision and sees that the gypsy is really the Emerald Empress and the crystal ball is her deadly Emerald Eye. Faking a stomach cramp, Clark leaves to change into the Smallville Sentinel, SUPERBOY. Superboy attacks the Empress ands has the eye blast him. While he is fighting the eye Superboy is also attacked by the Empress's teammate the atomic axe wielding Persuader. After a struggle Superboy grabs the Axe, but the Persuader can control it even through he is not holding it and has the Axe slice Superboy. The Empress has her eye put Superboy into PERMANENT suspended animation just as a 3rd member of the Fatal five arrives in the 20th century, Mano. They chastise Mano for being late and tell him the TIME-Sorter is here and it has enabled them to conquer Superboy. "Today, Superboy tomorrow the Legion! Death to the Legion" the three cry.
While this is going on 4 members of the Legion of Super-Heroes arrive outside of Smallville in a Time bubble. From a distance they hear people screaming that Superboy is dead and three strangers vanished and took the body with them. Using there Flight Rings, Karate Kid, Princess Projectra, Element Lad and Brainiac-5 fly to the carnival where they find a sobbing Lana Lang. Lana tells them what happened and they deduce from her descriptions that it was three fiths of the Fatal Five. Note: during Lana's retelling of what happened Element Lad decides that this is a good time to get some cotton candy. In the 30th century Mon-el and Colossal boy are watching there last confrontation with the remaining Fatal Five members Tharok and Validus on the monitor and let us know that the other members of the Fatal Five stole a time-bridger to go 1,000 years back to Smallville. As they are talking they find themselves, their headquarters and other members vanishing into thin air.
Tharok and Validus arrive gleefully watching the work of the TIME-SORTER in wiping out the Legion as if it has never existed. Outside of smallville 1000 years earlier the legion members there find themselves attacked by the rest of the Fatal Five. Not being able to get the upper hand the Legion takes off. They regroup and tells each other of what they learned of the Fatal fives plans. Back in the 30th century Tharok is shocked to see Mano who is suppose to be back in time, Mano tells him he was detained by a posse of Police in the next galaxy. In the 20th century Persuader and the Empress tells the Mano that is with them where the time sorter is and that they have only 20 minutes of the adjustment period left until the changes that were made are permanent. Brainy gets a signal on his belt to let him know that his secret weapon has paid off. "Mano" is found out to be Chameleon Boy and he tells his pals to smash the giant Superboy statue, after Karate Kid does that they find Superboy unconscious next to the Time sorter, with seconds to spare Karate Kid smashes the Time Sorter and every thing returns to normal. The Empress and Persuader escape and the Legion headquarters Materializes around Tharok and Mano who find themselves standing in the Legion's jail. The End.
Okay remember I love the Legion but I hate time travel. Question why did they need the time sorter of remove the legion from existence? If you killed Superboy in the 20th century there would not be a Superman and he would never inspire the Legion. So why did you need the Time sorter and how did it work? Answer: "SCIENCE" to Quote podcaster Donavan Morgan Grant, of the Spider-Man crawlspace pod cast.www.spidermancrawlspace.com. I liked the story but did not love it. The best part of the story was that it introduced my favorite Legion costume of that time Princess Projectra's almost front less costume. While I liked the Fatal Five they never seemed to be very good at being villains, but do not judge them by this issue, My favorite Fatal five appearance is in Superboy 219, but that will be covered in a future post.
ROOMS IN THE CLUBHOUSE
Only a couple this time.
- Monitor Room (not named)
- Legion's Jail
Firsts
- Princess Projectra's new costume.
- Time-Sorter(I do not think this comes back)
- Time Bridger (This either)
Roll Call
Superboy
Mon-El (Leader)
Colossal Boy (not listed in roll call)
Element Lad
Brianiac-5
Karate Kid
Princess Projectra
Next time Member Profile Chameleon Boy
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