8. Tara & Travis Morgan

The second Mike Grell relationship on my list, this one has a lot of the same hallmarks. Is it a healthy relationship? Depends on how you look at it. It's perhaps as healthy as a relationship can be for a damaged person like Travis Morgan.

Essentially a riff on John Carter and Dejah Thoris, Tara and Travis get together, and have a kid. And then... the kid is kidnapped by their archenemy, and seemingly killed by Travis himself. This is the poison pill in their relationship. Wracked by guilt and grief, Travis leaves, and no matter how many times they get back together, it never lasts. He's always driven by his demons to leave and lose himself in violent adventure.

You always root for them to finally have a happy ending, but for a man like Travis, maybe that isn't possible.

This pairing was a late drop from my list for reasons I'll explain in the Near Misses thread. Glad to see it getting some love.

When Silver Age DC stories are roundly roasted for their stodginess, ridiculousness, and general old fartiness, I can't always disagree, no matter how soft the spot in my heart is for that halcyon era.

But that's one reason I find it easier to forgive much of it; I fell in love with comics during the Silver Age and DC comics were my way in. Hey, I was eight years old and it was all I knew.

But just because "everyone" says that DC's Silver Age stories were juvenile doesn't mean they all were. More than occasionally, despite the many restrictions and indifference writers had to deal with, they brought a craftsman's touch and a more sophisticated perspective to a story or two or three, and even a young sprat recognized that there were more than just "hero:good/villain:bad" stories to be told in comic books.

Such was the case with the handful of stories that featured the deep and surprising love between Ardora, a woman from another planet, and Luthor, the villain who saved that planet. Ardora's love for Luthor is blind, sudden, passionate, faithful, steadfast, but ultimately even their marriage is incapable of transforming him, coming oh so close, but no further.



I wish I could summarize the many twists and turns of the story, which today would have been an arc, an event, a maxi-series, whatever ... and deservedly so.

Edmond Hamilton rises to Kirbyesque levels of imagination with the concepts he introduces in these stories:

Rainbow crystals that have slowly drained the intellects of a drought-plagued planet under a red sun where Luthor and Superman had fought a boxing match to settle things once and for all;

Luthor and Superman, temporary allies, saving the planet from the killing drought when Luthor implores Superman to bring back a mountain of ice from another world;

Luthor taking on a costumed identity as the planet's hero (the Defender), complete with a beautiful woman -- Ardora -- who has fallen in love with Luthor and is trying to determine who the Defender really is;

Luthor and Ardora falling in love;

Luthor freeing Superman rather than extracting revenge on him because he feels compelled to continue helping the citizens of Lexor. (Yes, they've named their planet after their savior!);

Devices and gadgets galore: the Anti-Gravity Tornado; the Dark Force Ring Projector; a Broadcast-Interruptor; Gravity Shoes; the Lesson Machine, et al.

A time-travel chapter in which Luthor (in muttonchops) winds up in 1906 San Francisco as the editor of the Daily Planet with Superman as his ace reporter;

Superman on trial on Lexor for the murder of Luthor;

Brainiac, Luthor and the Legion of Super-Villains serving time on the Devil's Island of Space;

Ardora discovering Luthor's secret memory discs on which his evil deeds are recorded and realizing that the hero she loves so deeply is a universally known evildoer;

Superman ending the saga by doing this:



In these stories Edmond Hamilton shows us a Luthor we never knew existed: a man, not a monster, capable of loving another more than himself.

He also further illustrates the depth of Superman's decency, his belief in the idea that people can change, that we should never run out of chances for others, no matter how evil they may be at times.

And in Ardora, we see a woman too in love for her own good, perhaps. Because as heroic and good as Luthor had acted, as much as he enjoys being the object of adulation from the Lexorians and her unconditional love, it is not enough. He thrives on the contention between him and Superman, like Ahab, stubbornly refusing to accept reality or find comfort in anything less than the utter destruction of an enemy he can never hope to defeat. Unike Milton's Satan, who would rather rule in Hell than bend a knee in Heaven, Luthor would ratehr spend his life seeking revenge on Superman rather than spend it being worshipped and loved on Lexor.

For Luthor, we realize as the Ardora saga ends, anyone else's Heaven would be his Hell.

Pretty complex fro a Silver Age funny book.

#8 Saturn Girl and Lightning Lad   1960s

In the 1960s Saturn Girl was one of the smartest, toughest and no-nonsense comic book characters around, male or female. She was an LSH leader, both in official and unofficial capacities, mostly during the Edmond Hamilton era but also in some stories by Jim Shooter (and in hindsight, her take-charge attitude reminds me of Natasha's from around that same time). Saturn Girl appeared in a lot of those Adventure Legion stories and was shown to be consistently courageous and ingenious. She was never one to sit on the sidelines!  



As for her romance with Lightning Lad, I loved that she didn't act "girly" as was often the case with how female characters were usually written back then. She and Lighting Lad clearly enjoyed each other's company and he was secure enough in himself that he didn't mind that she in charge.