The year was 1958. The issue was Adventure Comics #247. The bastards were the Legion of Super-Heroes. Three teenagers from the future come back in time to recruit Superboy into their team. Lightning Boy, Saturn Girl, and Cosmic Boy were members of the "super-hero club," and they sure did know a lot about the past.

They decided, on first meeting, to fuck with Superboy. He was flying around as Superboy when one of them yelled out "Hey Clark!" Then when he changed to Clark Kent, one of them waved and greeted him as Superboy.

Finally they let him in on the fun.

Seriously, what the fuck? Imagine you wanted to go back in time to see one of your personal heroes. Would your very first move be to prank him? To show him how... how cool you were? Christ, kids.

So anyway they give Clarkypoo the pitch and drag his superbutt back... to the future (sans DeLorean) where he can then be tested. Huh? What? Didn't they revere him? Didn't they know his whole history as Superman, since they came from the future? And yet they felt the need to test him? Well. All right. Fine.

Since they each only had one power (Lightning Boy could make lightning bolts from his hands, Saturn Girl was telepathetic, and Cosmic Boy could shoot magnetic rays) they figured that Superboy, with his multitude of powers, should just compete against them to save lives and beat them one on one.

There's some responsibility for you! “Let's compete on saving human lives to show you what good people we are, Superboy!” Why does he go along with this? Why oh why?

Well, he does. And as he does, each time, something else happens. There is always another emergency happening, and so he loses his tests to go solve these other problems before they endanger lives. And then he doesn't tell the "super-club" that is why he fails because he worries it will sound like boasting.

So he loses and is crushed but shoulders his defeat stoically. Until he learns that those extra problems were all caused by the kids so that Superboy would fail and they could prank him again.

All right, now we're pranking Superboy a second (third and fourth) time, by endangering lives. Why does he still want in? Could these kids be more evil?

Yup. They could.

Witness their very next appearance in Adventure Comics #267 (at right). Now for the purposes heren we will ignore the fact that continuity is fluid, as it always was in those days. Lightning Boy is now Lightning Lad, and the Legion has its name at last. We will also ignore that the third appearance of the team is in the same issue and has its own continuity issues that are even bigger. We'll get there, we will just mention and ignore for now, however. So be prepared for it.

But back to Adventure Comics #267. The Legion is back, and this time they have an agenda. They drive Superboy off Earth and make everyone hate him. For reals, yo. They drive him off planet in sadness that everyone hates him and loves the Legion. So he leaves and lands, randomly, on a planet that is decked out to celebrate Superboy. Except! Oh, except...

The Legion show up and capture him in a prison with Kryptonite bars. Because, you see, they explain that they used their time viewer and saw that Superboy goes evil soon. So they captured him and made him hated to prevent it. Uhhh... yeah.

So anyway, Superboy escapes (off-panel, mind you, don't ask how just shut up) and explains that he did these destructive things the Legion showed him for the Government. The Legion laugh and figure their time viewer must be broken to have not shown them the whole story. They laugh and go home.

Now hold on here, campers. They get some info from the past, that doesn't jive with anything else they know of Superboy, or Superman, take it as truth, and try to lock him up FOR GOOD. How incredibly dumb is that? Just try and make that conversation work:

"Well, he's gonna do evil horrible things."

"But this shows that he also becomes the world's greatest super-hero and saves the universe more often than I masturbate into your soup, Cosmic Boy."

"That may be, Lightning Lad, but the fact remains that the time viewer shows us he goes bad in a few days!"

"Well then, I guess we should lock him up forever."

"Right you are, Saturn Girl, but how?"

"What? But wait, guys! If the time viewer shows us this one thing -- but we know that history is different, because, see, he is the greatest hero, right? So maybe the time viewer is just messed up?

"Shut up, Lightning Lad! N, it must be... uhm... the work of... well, see, it shows him to be evil."

"I agree, it shows it right here. See? Evil."

"But we know he isn't..."

"IT SHOWS IT HERE!"

They don't grow 'em smart in the future, do they?

So this brings us to the other story in Adventure Comics #267, the third appearance of the Legion. This time they meet Supergirl. And again, ignoring the continuity weirdness here, because this time the Legion claims to be the children of the Legion we have seen the other two times -- except they have the same looks, powers, names, and... well, they are the same people.

But anyway! Let's just move along! The Legion comes back in time to recruit Supergirl. They tease her about her secret identity and then... yeah it’s a rehash of the first story. Until they get her to the future.

See, then they have her do a Super-feat to prove how cool she is. She makes a big tunnel so that trains can run and solve the future’s problem with too much traffic in the skies (What? The future doesn't have TRAINS? WHAT? No trains?! Flying cars, but no trains? WHAT?), but along the way she digs past some Red Kryptonite.

Red Kryptonite always has a different effect, and it always wears off in 48 hours. This time it turned Supergirl into Superwoman. It aged her -- for 48 hours. But the Legion, proving what dickheads they are, told her she couldn't join because she was too old, knowing it would wear off in just 48 hours.

They also told her that they only take one new member a year, so if she came back next year and was young again, she could reapply. Uhm, since it's time travel and all, she could just come back the next day, right? And point and be all, "There's my tunnel, still, you fucks." And it would be a year later to the Legion but not to her and... oh my God why would they reject her? Why would they do that?

So yeah, you can see why I love these old comics, right? Total bastards, the lot of them. And though Superman was often pointed out to be pretty bad, the Legion is often worse. I love them so.