Adventure Comics #338
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeAdventure Comics #338 is the first appearance of Glorith of Baaldur, a character who debuted as a disposable Silver Age henchwoman but was resurrected 25 years later to become one of the most consequential figures in Legion of Super-Heroes history. In the 1990s Five-Year Later continuity, writers Keith Giffen and Tom and Mary Bierbaum elevated her into the Legion's primary arch-villain, having her essentially assume the structural role the Time Trapper had played for decades. Her continual manipulation of the timeline became a central engine of Legion storytelling and ultimately served as a major catalyst for the events leading into Zero Hour, the 1994 crossover that wiped the slate clean and fully rebooted Legion continuity. The issue also represents a recurring Silver Age editorial trope — de-aging heroes to helpless children — that editor Mort Weisinger directed his writers to deploy on multiple occasions across the Adventure Comics run.
In "The Menace of the Sinister Super-Babies! Part I," a chaotic twist on childhood sees the young Legionnaires wreaking havoc across time and space, forcing Superboy and Brainiac 5 to confront the Time Trapper himself—only to find him willing to undo the madness… if they’ll just leave him in peace. Written by Jerry Siegel and illustrated by John Forte, with lettering by Milton Snapinn, this 1965 Adventure Comics installment delivers a delightfully absurd sci-fi adventure, its cover by Curt Swan and George Klein capturing the oversized stakes of tiny, super-powered troublemakers.
In "The Menace of the Sinister Super-Babies! Part I," the Time Trapper unleashes a bizarre twist on the Legion of Super-Heroes, transforming the heroic team into children—chaotic, super-powered toddlers wreaking havoc across time and space. When even the Time Trapper can't contain the mayhem, Brainiac 5 and Superboy must cross his barrier to confront him, offering a desperate bargain: leave him in peace if he undoes the transformation.
When the child Legionnaires wreak havoc across time and space, Superboy and Brainiac 5 find themselves trapped in the Time Trapper’s domain—where the only way out might be agreeing to his impossible demand: leave him in peace, or face the consequences of his invincible infant-ry.
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The lead story was written by Jerry Siegel — co-creator of Superman and a regular Legion scripter during this era — and drawn by John Forte, the principal Legion artist of the early-to-mid Silver Age period. The issue was edited by Mort Weisinger, who maintained tight editorial control over all Superman-family titles at the time and habitually recycled plot formulas such as hero de-agings across the line. At least one Legion historian has observed that the story's opening hook feels more stylistically consistent with Edmond Hamilton's plotting sensibility than Siegel's scripting voice, raising a reasonable (if unresolvable) question about whether story conferences blended the two writers' contributions beyond what the published credit reflects.
Trivia · 8 facts
- First appearance of Glorith of Baaldur, henchwoman of the Time Trapper, who would later become a major Legion villain in her own right during the 1990s Five-Year Later era.
- Cover date: November 1965; on-sale date: September 30, 1965. Published by DC Comics (National Periodical Publications).
- Lead story title: 'The Menace of the Sinister Super-Babies!' — the Time Trapper deploys a devolutionary hourglass to reduce the Legionnaires to infants, only to be foiled by Superboy and Brainiac 5.
- Creative team: story by Jerry Siegel, interior art by John Forte, lettering by Milt Snapinn, cover art by Curt Swan and George Klein, editing by Mort Weisinger.
- Glorith is betrayed by the Time Trapper in her debut — he turns the devolutionary hourglass on her, reducing her to protoplasm — a fate that writers 25 years later retroactively reversed to make her a surviving, all-powerful figure.
- The issue also contains a reprint of a Superboy story ('The Game of Kriss-Kross Krypton') from Superboy #60, a standard practice for DC anthology books of the period.
- The lead story has been reprinted in at least three collected formats: Best of DC #67, Legion of Super-Heroes Archives Vol. 4, and Showcase Presents: Legion of Super-Heroes Vol. 2.
- Ten Legion members appear in the lead story: Superboy, Brainiac 5, Chameleon Boy, Element Lad, Invisible Kid, Light Lass, Matter-Eater Lad, Saturn Girl, Star Boy, and Ultra Boy.
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Reprints
↩ Reprints Superboy #60 (1957)
Reprinted in Superman Supacomic #94 (1967), Superboy #11 (1968), The Best of DC #67 (1985), The Legion of Super-Heroes Archives #4 (1994), Showcase Presents: Legion of Super-Heroes #2 (2008), Legion of Super-Heroes: The Silver Age Omnibus #2 (2018)
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