Legion of Super-Heroes benefactor R. J. Brande lies in a coma, stricken by Yorrgian Fever. One of the Legionnaires holds the key to his recovery, and it is this plot narrative that leads us through the team’s history to learn the Secrets of the Legion of Super-Heroes.
by
Jim Ford
Secrets of the Legion of Super-Heroes was a three-issue miniseries published in late 1980 by DC Comics, cover-dated January through March 1981. The story was plotted by E. Nelson Bridwell, with scripting by Paul Kupperberg and art by Jim Janes and inker Frank Chiaramonte. Kupperberg had written a number of shorter Legion stories leading up to Secrets, sometimes working with another Legion writer, Paul Levitz, as plotter. “What drew me as a professional to the Legion was the editor asking, ‘Want to write a Legion story?’” Kupperberg tells BACK ISSUE. “Unless a writer was regularly assigned to a title, that was the way a lot of assignments got handed out during that period. Often it was as simple as being the first writer or artist the editor saw when they stuck their head out their office door. “I was a LSH fan going into the assignment—I didn’t collect Adventure Comics as a kid, but Paul Levitz and I became friends in middle school, and I read the run in his collection, going all the way back to [the Legion’s first appearance in Adventure Comics #247, paul kupperberg Apr. 1958]—but I didn’t have the deep knowledge of the characters © Luigi Novi / Wikimedia Commons. and universe down the way Paul did. Still, I knew enough that I didn’t embarrass myself in the gig.” Bridwell knew the Legion well, as an assistant editor during their early days in Adventure Comics and as an occasional writer on the series. Bridwell wrote “The Origin of the Legion” in Superboy #147 (May–June 1968), as three teenagers combined their powers to save R. J. Brande, the richest man in the universe. The three teenagers founded the Legion as Cosmic Boy, Lightning Lad and Saturn Girl. “Any research I could have done would have been superfluous to the knowledge Nelson carried around in his head,” Kupperberg adds. “Nelson provided the research and the continuity, and I wove it into what little plot was necessary to give the illusion of movement to what was essentially a Legion of Super-Heroes encyclopedia.” Most of what we know of the early Legionnaires’ origins and planets of birth come to us from “The Origin and Powers of the Legion of Super-Heroes” feature in Superman Annual #4 (1961). Many of the early Legionnaires were given little more than a descriptive name and a costume, and never had their origins told in the panels of a comic story before Secrets.
Clubhouse of Secrets Secrets of the Legion of Super-Heroes #1 (Jan. 1981). Cover art by Jim Janes and Dick Giordano. TM & © DC Comics.
1980s DC Miniseries Issue • BACK ISSUE • 3
