Superboy 202 Starring the Legion of Super-Heroes "The Wrath of the Devil-Fish!"

"The Wrath of the Devil-Fish!" Story: Cary Bates, Art: Dave Cockrum.
 In the headquarters of the Legion of Super-Heroes, ERG-1 the newest sworn in member of the team uses his Powers to display his new code name " WILDFIRE". The assembled members congratulates him and notes that Superboy, Mon-El, Light Lass, and Element Lad could not be there because they are investigating and alarm that went off in their automated Sea-Station in the pacific. We switch to the scene several hours ago to one of the Legion cruisers docking on the futuristic ocean bound base. The alarm going off means only one thing to the assembled team that there is an intruder on board. While starting the search Mon-El explains that the automated base is run by computers powered by energy drawn from pollutants in the ocean. A second alarm sounds notifying a power shut down. Mon-El orders his squad to the power plant deck. When they get there they find no sign of the intruder but  all of the equipment is covered in bubbles gumming up the power plant's pollutant converter. Element Lad uses his power of altering the molecular structure of any element to analyze the composition of the bubbles but they burst open and stun Element Lad with an explosion. Element lad deduces that the bubbles were composed of strange unknown elements. Superboy finds large inhuman footprints in the bubbles and just as the team were about to follow them the lights go out. Mon-El tells the team that they will have to act quickly with the pollutant converter out of action the area will soon become poisonous again. Superboy using his infra-red vision to see the tracks in the dark leads the team to the end of the deck that leads to the water. They decided that they must be tracking a water being, Element Lad and Light lass don Oxy breathers and the four dive into the ocean. Using telepathic plugs to communicate the team soon catches up with their quarry. A being who is half man half fish.

They surround the creature and it unleashes its deadly bubbles onto our heroes. The man-fish leaves the team to finish what it started the destruction of sea-base. The team awaken covered in bubbles which is sapping their strength. Discussing their predicament over their telepathic link they call the creature a Devil-Fish.
  On the base the Devil-Fish find alien invaders planning to poison the earth's atmosphere by exploding the bases pollutant converters, so that the blame will fall on the legionnaires. At that same moments hundreds of feet below, Element lad is using his powers to transform the bubbles to oxygen to free himself and his teammates. Mon-El splits the team up to search for the Devil-Fish. The creature who was on its way to free the Legionnaires runs into Mon-E' who quickly ties it up with seaweed he plucked from the ocean floor. Mon-El not being able to communicate with the creature removes one of his telepathic plugs. Moments later the other three members are racing to the sea-station answering Mon-El's telepathic summons. At the station Mon-El and the Devil-Fish are making short work of all but one invaders . The last alien takes his weapon and fires it at a nearby hydro cruiser, knowing that Mon-El cannot capture him and stop the beam at the same time. But out of the ocean bursts the Boy of steel stopping the beam from hitting the cruiser. Element lad uses his powers to make the rifle into H2O. And a very wet Light lass makes the invader weightless. The legion dumps the invaders into the aliens space craft. Mon-El and Superboy uses their combined super strength to throw the ship into the sun, er I mean far far into space. Mon-El tells the team what he learned from the so called Devil-fish, that the creature was a mutant that lived on the pollutants in the water and that the sea-station was cutting off his food supply. He told them to look around that even through the converter had been off for hours the sea life in the area was still healthy. They decide that they need to adapt the sea-station to run on a different energy source. The Devil-Fish returns to the see and the Legion wonders if they will ever run into their strange amphibious ally again?

Bits of Legionarrie Buisness
Roll Call:

• Mon-El (Leader)
• Superboy
• Light Lass
• Element Lad
• Brainiac-5
• Saturn Girl
• Shadow Lass
• Timber Wolf
• Matter-Eater Lad
• Wildfire

Legion Equipment used:

• Oxy Breathers
• Flight Rings
• Telepathic Ear Plugs
• Sea-Station
• Legion cruiser

Notes:
 The story opens up with Wildfire showing his new name to Brainiac-5, Saturn Girl, Shadow Lass, Matter-Eater Lad, and Timber Wolf. and the six heroes are not seen in the issue again. Bates must of not of had enough pages to show us this at the end of last issues main story. We see the Legion's Sea-Station for the first and last time. Besides converting pollutants to energy we are not shown what the stations purpose is. The team uses a Space cruiser to fly from Metropolis to the pacific. That is like taking a  Plane from Boston Mass to Stoughton Mass. (a small town about 20 miles from Boston). Superboy and Mon-El could of flown there in less time it would take to warm up the cruisers engines. Superboy and Mon-El can swim at great speeds, how is the normal strength Light Lass and Element lad keeping up with them? Flight rings allow the wearers to fly, but do they propel them through water? Probably but I am not sure. We are introduced to an interesting character of the Devil-Fish and at the time I first read this I could not wait until we would see this character again. 38 years later I am still waiting. All in all this is a good story, you start out thinking the Devil-Fish is the villain and you are pleased that he is really a hero. The alien invaders were goofy looking but a good design by Cockrum, this story was a good note for the artist to leave the title on for a while.

This issue was one of the 100 page issues that DC published in the early to mid 70's. I like the 100 page issues, you got at least one new story and several reprints stories, at the time these helped me learn about DC vast history. Each title gave you stories from the past that at the time were not available elsewhere. Trade paperbacks did not exist and back issue stores were hard to find.
Next Time: Member Profile Colossal Boy.