1962-1966: ADVENTURE era: pre-Shooter

With Adventure #300, "Tales of the Legion of Super-Heroes" became a regular backup feature. Within a year, the Legion had pushed solo Superboy stories out of Adventure Comics entirely (although the Boy of Steel still had his own magazine, Superboy.) From the beginning, it was clear that the Legion series was something different. These first regular stories set the tone for all Legion stories, introducing elements that defined a Legion story. A heavy science-fiction influence was obvious (writer Edmond Hamilton, who created many of these stories, was a well-known and successful sf writer). Continuity, while not the double-faced diety/demon it would become in later decades, was present from the beginning, with story elements continuing across many issues (Mon-El's Phantom Zone imprisonment, Lightning Lad's death, the Time Trapper's Iron Curtain of Time, etc.) The stories were painted on a broad canvas of many planets, races, and societies, and the super-hero cast-of-thousands became the hallmark of the Legion (To help readers keep track of all the costumed heroes, Edmond Hamilton toyed with various "floating-head" graphic scorecards, and finally settled on the popular "Legion Roll Call," which later creative teams ignored to their own peril.) Characters died , became rogues, and even married (although it turned out to be a hoax). Too, many of these stories involve secrets or mysteries, which the reader may be able to solve before the Legion does...a story element that continues to this day. From the very beginning, women (at the time, "girls") were well-represented on the Legion and among its readers. Long before any modern nation had done so, the Legion elected a woman (Saturn Girl) as their leader. Gender issues, from the battle of the sexes to marriage, were often addressed in the Legion's pages. Although many of the stories are dated and seem quaint or even silly to a modern audience, there were still some gems, including "The Legion of Substitute Heroes" in #306, "The Secret Power of the Mystery Super-Hero" (#307), "The Super-Sacrifice of the Legionnaires" (#312), "The Code of the Legion" (#312), "The Lone Wolf Legionnaire" (#327), "The Super Moby-Dick of Space" (#332), The Starfinger saga (#335/336), "The Sacrifice of Kid Psycho" (Superboy #125), The Computo saga (#340/341), "The Evil Hand of the Luck Lords (#343), and The Super-Stalag of Space saga (#344/345)