Adventure Comics #346
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeAdventure Comics #346 is a watershed moment for the Legion of Super-Heroes: it marks the first appearances of four characters — Karate Kid, Princess Projectra, Ferro Lad, and Nemesis Kid — who would collectively reshape the Legion's roster and drive its most consequential Silver Age storylines for years to come. The issue simultaneously launched the career of Jim Shooter, who was only 14 years old when the story hit newsstands, making his debut one of the most remarkable in the medium's history and introducing a more character-driven, Marvel-inflected sensibility to DC's future-set superhero franchise. It also inaugurated the format of full-length Legion tales in Adventure Comics, ending the era of split-book storytelling and giving the team room to breathe narratively. The four characters introduced here — particularly Ferro Lad, whose death in Adventure Comics #353 became one of the Silver Age's first permanent hero deaths, and Karate Kid and Princess Projectra, whose romance and tragedy played out across decades — anchored Legion continuity well into the 1980s.
In "One of Us Is a Traitor!", the Legion of Super-Heroes faces a dire Khund invasion, but as tensions rise, Phantom Girl and Cosmic Boy grow uneasy—something about Karate Kid doesn’t add up. Written by Jim Shooter and illustrated by Shooter and Sheldon Moldoff, with inks by Moldoff and letters by Milton Snapinn, this 1966 adventure blends suspense and camaraderie. The cover, by Curt Swan and George Klein, captures the Legion’s urgency in bold, classic style.
In "Part II: Invasion from the Edge of Space!" from Adventure Comics #346, as the Legion of Super-Heroes fights off an alien assault from Khund, tensions rise among the team—Phantom Girl and Cosmic Boy grow uneasy, sensing something off about their teammate Karate Kid, whose true intentions begin to blur the line between ally and threat.
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In the summer of 1965, a 13-year-old Jim Shooter from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, wrote and laid out an unsolicited Legion of Super-Heroes script — complete with rough panel drawings, since he didn't know how professional scripts worked — and mailed it to DC editor Mort Weisinger. Weisinger, who had a well-documented philosophy of listening to young readers, responded with encouragement; Shooter then submitted a two-part follow-up, which Weisinger purchased in February 1966. Weisinger handed the penciling of the finished story to Sheldon Moldoff and had Curt Swan and George Klein handle the cover, while Shooter remained uncredited inside the issue itself. Shooter was unaware until he revealed his age during Weisinger's invitation to visit the New York offices that the editor had assumed his new writer was a college student.
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- First appearance of Karate Kid (Val Armorr), a 30th-century martial artist whose mastery of every known fighting style allows him to battle opponents with superhuman powers, including a near-draw against Superboy during his Legion tryout.
- First appearance of Princess Projectra of the planet Orando, an illusionist who can affect all five senses; she later gained enduring significance as Sensor Girl in Paul Levitz's 1985 storyline and as the character who executes Nemesis Kid in revenge for Karate Kid's death.
- First appearance of Ferro Lad (Andrew Nolan), a mutant who can transform his body into living iron; Jim Shooter intended him to be the Legion's first African-American Legionnaire, but editor Mort Weisinger vetoed the concept, reportedly citing fears about southern distribution — Ferro Lad therefore wore a mask throughout his short tenure.
- First appearance of Nemesis Kid, whose power is to spontaneously develop the one ability needed to defeat any single opponent — and who is the hidden Khundish spy at the heart of the story's cliffhanger, resolved in Adventure Comics #347.
- First appearance of the Khunds, a militaristic alien species led here by Warlord Garlak; they became one of the Legion's longest-running recurring antagonist races.
- This issue marks the debut of Jim Shooter as a professional writer-penciler, scripted and laid out when he was 13 years old and published when he was 14; he went uncredited in the issue, and his identity only became public when a reader wrote in to ask after the story in Adventure Comics #349.
- The issue also represents the shift to full-length Legion stories in Adventure Comics, ending the previous format of shorter split-book features and giving the Legion its first extended, serialized narrative structure.
- The story has been collected in The Legion of Super-Heroes Archives Vol. 5, Showcase Presents: The Legion of Super-Heroes Vol. 2, and the 2009 hardcover DC Comics Classics Library: The Legion of Super-Heroes — The Life and Death of Ferro Lad.
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Reprinted in Superboy #2/1967 (1967), Superman Supacomic #91 (1967), The Legion of Super-Heroes Archives #5 (1994), Showcase Presents: Legion of Super-Heroes #2 (2008), DC Comics Classics Library: The Legion of Super-Heroes - The Life and Death of Ferro Lad #[nn] (2009), Alter Ego #137 (2016), Legion of Super-Heroes: The Silver Age Omnibus #2 (2018)
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