I picked the Legion because I judged it to be the worst comic book National Published, and therefore, it seemed, the one where they needed me most. I waited, alternating between confidence and despair. Months passed. Finally an encouraging letter came! Essentially it said “send us another one.”

In almost no time, I sent them two more. I waited. Months passed. On February 10, 1966, the suspense ended with a phone call from Mort Weisinger, Vice President of National Comics and editor of the Superman family of titles, which included Adventure Comics. He was a little worried over my age, fourteen by then, but, nonetheless bought the first three stories I’d sent him and commissioned others. The money from those stories couldn’t have come at a better time for my family.

I’d like to thank Stan Lee who wrote those Marvel comics in which I found the inspiration to write as well as a how-to course. Also I’d like to thank my mother, who believed in her son (as mothers are wont to do) enough to encourage me to try.

I’d also like to apologize to the people who wrote the Legion of Super-Heroes in Adventure Comics back in the early sixties, Otto Binder and Edmond Hamilton. I say I chose Adventure Comics as my target because I felt it was National’s worst comic. Perhaps it was in some ways, but since then I have learned to appreciate those works. The writers were talented, skillful gentlemen, indeed, though perhaps not quite fully in touch with the desires of the audience at that point...

People don't believe how nasty Mort was. They think I'm exaggerating. Nah. It had nothing to do with "strictness" or "professionalism." He was nasty. Ask Roy Thomas, who worked for him for a couple of weeks and quit. Ask Carey Bates.

I suspect he was especially tough on me. Nelson said so. Our theory was that he was "grooming" me (with a bullwhip) for a staff position. Supporting that theory: he spent a lot of time explaining publishing; distribution; international publication, product and media licensing; merchandising; art production; printing production and all other phases of the business to me.

Everyone else was nice, civil...

1. I started reading Marvels around '63 and I picked up the Gold Key comics as well. And DC Comics here and there, especially if Gil Kane was drawing Star Sapphire.

2. The first thing was that John Forte's art was so stiff and awkward and the Legion's club house was as big as a phone booth but twenty of them would go in there. And the club house had an old fashioned keyhole on the door a thousand years in the future. The stories were absurd… Lightning Lad was missing once and his sister posed as him. And the way they figured out that she was a girl is that they noticed she didn't have an Adam's apple.

Perhaps readers will notice in my first Legion story I made the club house big. Like skyscraper big. (I did layouts for all of my stories.)

With Mort’s blessing I struggled to find raison d’etre for a character called Bouncing Boy, who previously had been offered up at face value, and played straight and serious. I found my Bouncing Boy among my Bethel Park Senior High classmates, in the person of a friend whose initials, T.K., and slightly rotund body had earned him the nickname “Teakettle.” Going through high school coping with a weight problem and the name Teakettle is not a whole lot different, I think, than being Bouncing Boy in the Legion of Super-Heroes. Thus, in my mind, they became one, and BB grew into a bright-but-insecure, self-effacing, lovable guy who was resigned to the role of comic relief and once described himself as the Legion’s “…self-appointed chief of morale.” I found similar models for the other Legionnaires. It was easy. Everyone is a character in high school, because no one has learned to hide it yet...

Just like the classmate she was modeled after, Duo Damsel went on to discover that just as her love had gone unnoticed by Superboy, someone else’s love for her had gone unnoticed. He was a bright-but-insecure, self-effacing, lovable guy, more than a bit on the plump side, but that was okay. She had learned, and grown, and was able to find in Bouncing Boy things that mattered, things that made him special to her. Their relationship blossomed…they were seniors at the Sweethearts Ball, truly in love.

I’ve been thinking about Duo Damsel and Bouncing Boy being married now. For a time, I didn’t like the idea, but I’ve changed my mind. I figure Teakettle would like it that way.