THE LEGION OF SUPERHEROES ADVENT CALENDAR - DAY TWENTY-TWO

Adventure Comics vol.1 No.344 (May 1966)
“Right-o! They’re vanishing!”

Several Legionnaires and the heroes of even more worlds find themselves the prisoners of “Nardo”, a three-eyed, red-skinned alien tyrant who wields tremendous – practically unbelievable - power and a searing hatred for super-heroes and lawmen of any stripe. He interns the heroes in his private prison – boys in one wing, girls in the other – and starves, humiliates, toys with and generally abuses them nearly to madness.

The two-issue arc which saw the introduction - and death - of several ancillary characters was nonetheless not an atypical story for the Legion. Sure, it was a grim, hopeless adventure where the heroes were simply out-thought and overpowered for most of their imprisonment, but the Legion has a history of failure almost as long and impressive as its successes. Still, they eventually outfight Nardo and escape his prison.

The author of this story, Edmond Hamilton, is well-known for a similarly grim Superman story titled “Superman Under The Red Sun”