Showcase Presents:Legion of Super-Heroes Vol. 3 TPB
Showcase Presents:Legion of Super-Heroes Vol. 3 TPB
Cover Credits
Penciller: Curt Swan
Inker: George Klein

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Title: "The Five Legion Orphans"
Pages: 13

Feature(s):
Legion of Super-Heroes (of Earth-1)

Writer: E. Nelson Bridwell
Penciller: Curt Swan
Inker: George Klein

Reprinted From:
Adventure Comics #356 (1967)

Feature Character(s)

Supporting Character(s)

Other Character(s)

  • The inhabitants of planet Baskh (Daq and Yag named; no further appearances)
  • The inhabitants of planet Zinth (no further appearances)
  • Unnamed descendants of Mon-El (no further appearances)

Cameo Appearance(s)

Comments:
First mention is made in this story of Rokyn, also known as New Krypton, the name of the planet on which Kandor would be enlarged.

The planet Colu, Brainiac 5's homeworld, is referred to as planet Yod in this story. It is later explained that this is the world's name in another language of the planet.

Synopsis:
While their comrades celebrate Parents' Day with a parade and a banquet, the five Legion orphans, Superboy, Mon-El, Brainiac 5, Element Lad, and Dream Girl, remain on guard at the Legion Clubhouse.

An alarm reaches them from the planet Zinth, and the five speed there to investigate a stolen power crystal, which the authorities claim raiders had dropped into a deep pond before escaping. As Superboy and Mon-El search for the raiders, the other Legionnaires don masks and dive into the pond to retrieve the crystal. As they attempt to bring it to the surface, however, they find themselves rapidly growing younger. Superboy and Mon-El return and get the crystal themselves, despite Dream Girl's warning. They too soon become younger, until all five are infants.

As they play at the pond's edge, authorities remove the crystal and take the Legion children to the Interstellar Orphanage, where various couples adopt them. Coincidentally, all their new parents live in the same neighborhood on the planet Baskh. Brainiac 5's twelfth-level-effector brain is still normal, and he searches his chemist dad's laboratory for a cure for himself and his comrades. He eventually develops pills and gives them to the Legionnaires, who quickly revert to normal.

Their "parents" explain that all the children of the neighborhood died of the fallout when their moon collided with a radioactive asteroid. They soon came upon the scheme of causing the Legion orphans to become children and adopting them as their own, knowing they'd be immune to the fallout. However, Dream Girl predicts that they will have children of their own within a year because the fallout is no longer dangerous.

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