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Some Words on Membership Order
PLEASE NOTE: The information presented on this website is ours, as are any conclusions or speculations derived from the facts published in the Silver Age lore. On the point of membership order, or anything else, Legion fans are free to make their own conclusions.
Cosmic
Boy, Saturn Girl, and Lightning Lad (then Lightning Boy)
were the first Legion members ever shown (Adventure
Comics No. 247). According to
origin text features in Adventure
Comics No. 352 and Adventure Comics No. 354, these three
were the charter and founding members of the Club.
According to the later Superboy No.
147's origin tale, 1) Cosmic Boy was the first to accept R.
J. Brande's offer, followed by 2) Saturn
Girl,
and then 3) Lightning Boy (called Lightning Lad in
the abbreviated story told by telepathic tape).
4) Triplicate Girl (later becoming Duo
Damsel) followed by 5) Phantom Girl were the next
Legionnaires to join according to Superboy No.
147's origin tale.
Based on the order we see them in Action Comics No. 267, 6) Chameleon Boy, 7) Colossal Boy, and 8) Invisible Kid were the next to join. We know from the text feature in Adventure Comics No. 350 that Chameleon Boy applied at the same time as Colossal Boy. We also know that Chameleon Boy joined before both Colossal Boy and Invisible Kid because the Legionnaires always supply figurines of new members to Superboy as they join. In Superboy No. 93, we can see figurines of Chameleon Boy, and then Colossal Boy, directly to the right of the three charter members.
9) Superboy was was made an honorary member in Adventure
Comic No. 247. In retrospect, we can assume that the unnamed
members seen in the background during his testing were
Colossal Boy, Invisible Kid, Chameleon Boy, and
Triplicate Girl. A third Earth-type male standing in the
far right of panel 3 of page 5 may have been either: a)
Chameleon Boy, having just demonstrated Superboy his
power of super-disguise; b) Marla, the Legion's senior
advisor, or c) another applicant. We have seen in
subsequent stories that applicants are indeed invited
into the clubhouse, sit at the briefing table, and are
given their own nameplates (as seen with Bouncing Boy, Sun Boy, and Shrinking Violet
in Action Comics No. 276).
In
Superboy No. 86, Superboy
indicates that the three Legion figurines he was given
were "some members of the
Legion of Super-Heroes," indicating that there were
more than three members during his visit.
Later
post-Silver Age lore professes that Brainiac 5 and Supergirl, among others, joined before Superboy. This erroneous and wholly unnecessary assumption was no-doubt
first based on the flashback panel that appeared in Adventure Comics No. 323 showing Saturn Girl thinking back to the day Superboy was sworned into the Legion. Brainiac 5, who we know joined at the same time as Supergirl, was seen in the background of that thought panel.
Aside from the fact that other flashbacks of memory
have been inaccurate (Cosmic
Boy seeing Garth Ranzz dressed as Lightning Lad before he acquired his
super-power, etc.), because the remembered scene marks
both the day Superboy "joined" and the first day of a new term year (election day), if Saturn Girl were remembering events following Superboy's
initiation in Adventure
Comics No. 247 (of which there is no proof), it suggests that
Superboy joined on the same day that Cosmic
Boy was
selected as leader by the clubhouse computer, which is
highly unlikely.
What
explains away both paradoxes is if
Saturn Girl is actually recalling the ceremony that took
place exactly one year previous - just before the
election and start of the second term
year (in Adventure
Comics No. 304) when Superboy was sworn in and
upgraded to a full regular member, and when Supergirl' and
Brainiac 5 were members of the team. This also explains,
and not ignores, why the costumes are the later designs
and not the early ones.
Furthermore, Adventure
Comics No. 267 showed
that the Legionnaires were willing to jail Superboy for
life because they mistakenly believed that he
would become a criminal in five years time. Despite their
previous boasts of knowing
Superboy's "life story" in Adventure
Comics No. 247, this new
evidence strongly indicates that the
Legion really only knew of Superboy's teenaged life until
time-travel and time-monitoring was recently made legal
(see Adventure
Comics No. 250 for
factual details on that). For if they already knew of his
long and heroic career as Superman, and all the times he
was destined to protect the Earth, it would be irrational
of them to even consider life imprisonment for him. It is
much more likelythat these young,
teenaged super-heroes would be boastful than irrational.
Not knowing of the details of Superman's life precludes
any knowledge of people he associated with, such as
Supergirl. Soon after this story, the Legion gained
knowledge of Supermanand Supergirl, which is why they
then went back to invite her into the team next.
The
telepathic tape that shows an abridged origin of the
Legion in Superboy No.
147,
glosses over all these previously published details for
simplicity's sake. To allow that recording - which was
meant to present the greatness of the Legion to visitors
- to supercede the logic of what came before it involves
choosing to ignore: 1) that Lightning Lad was first
called Lightning Boy, 2) that the charter members'
originally wore different costumes when they made
Superboy an honorary member, and 3) that Superboy was
visited by the Legion before Supergirl even appeared in
the lore.
Supergirl first applied for membership shortly after this time but was rejected due to red-k exposure that had made her
older than the constitutional age-limit. 10)
Star Boy was the next Legionnaire to be
seen (in Adventure Comics No. 282)
and so, logically, he had to have been the person chosen
in her stead.
11) Supergirl and
12) Brainiac 5 were shown joining next in Action
Comics No. 276. Supergirl is listed first
because the Legionnaires gave her her plaque, and reason
for acceptance, first during the induction ceremony.
Sun
Boy, Shrinking Violet, and Bouncing Boy were all first
seen together as applicants in the above story, but lost
out to Supergirl and Brainiac 5. 13)
Sun Boy was later shown to
have eventually joined in Adventure Comics No.
290, which came out in late September of 1961. The first
time we see that Shrinking Violet and Bouncing Boy later
made the grade, as well, is when the two were included in
the membership listing of "The Origin and Powers of
the Legion of Super-Heroes" feature in Superman
Annual No. 4, which came out about a month
later on November 9th, 1961. The reason we know that 14)
Shrinking Violet joined before 15) Bouncing Boy is because she was seen
standing alongside the other Legion members during
Bouncing Boy's induction ceremony in the flashback scene
of Adventure Comics No. 301. It is
more likely that Shrinking Violet joined at the same time
as Sun Boy because of the "one boy, one girl"
rule, and that Bouncing Boy was allowed to join later due
to special circumstances (as detailed in Adventure Comics No. 301.). His joining seemed to have
dissolved the new member limit rule completely.
16) Ultra Boy joined next in Superboy
No. 98. 17) Mon-El was made an honorary
member in Adventure Comics No. 300
(Superboy No. 100 "Smallville
Mailsack"), but after his release from the Phantom
Zone became permanent, in Adventure Comics No.
305, he was a made an active member. 18)
Matter-Eater Lad was seen joining in Adventure Comics No. 303, while
19) Element Lad joined in Adventure Comics No. 307, and 20)
Lightning Lass (who later became Light Lass)
in Adventure Comics No. 308.
21) Dream Girl joined in Adventure
Comics No. 317 but resigned later that same
issue. It is likely, however, that members who leave and
then rejoin also maintain their "seniority
standing" - as in the cases of Sun Boy, Lightning
Lad, Lightning Lass, Bouncing Boy, and Star Boy - since a
member's original induction date can never change,
regardless of changes in status afterwards.
22) Princess Projectra, 23)
Ferro Lad, and 24)
Karate Kid joined next, that being the
order in which they were seen being accepted in Adventure
Comics No. 346.
25) Shadow Lass joined after this,
in Adventure Comics No. 366. 26)
Timber Wolf and 27)
Chemical King graduated the Legion Academy
together and were both made members at the end of Adventure
Comics No. 372. Timber Wolf is listed first
because of his long-standing offer to join the team.
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