Story #4: “Star Light, Star Bright…Farthest Star I See Tonight!”
Writer: Paul Levitz
Artists: Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez and Dick Giordano
Letterer: Ben Oda
Colorist: Jerry Serpe
Editor: Len Wein
Originally Published In: DC Special Series #21 (1979)
Superboy heads to the 30th Century to pay a holiday visit to the Legion of Super-Heroes. After Saturn Girl show the Boy of Steel how Karate Kid, Chameleon Boy and Colossal Boy celebrate the holidays Superboy laments the lack of a good, old-fashioned Christmas. Suddenly Superboy is struck by inspiration; why don’t they try to find the star that blazed over Bethlehem that Christmas? Soon Saturn Girl, Lightning Lad, Wildfire, Phantom Girl and Superboy are in a ship heading to where the star should be but find that it isn’t there. Instead they find a lonely little planet with three different species that are in need of assistance. Superboy figures out that if the species work together they can hang on until assistance arrives and with the help of the Legion the aliens soon see this too. Back on the ship the Legionnaires trim a tree and wish us a happy holiday.
Before I started re-reading this anthology I had not read DC Special Series #21 outside of the two stories reprinted in Christmas With The Super-Heroes. The day after I started this series a copy of DC Special Series #21 arrived in the mail thanks to the eBay Fairy and after looking through it I realized for the first time that all of the stories were linked by what I am assuming is the Star of Bethlehem. So the star in the Batman story that I wrote about several days ago is the same star that Superboy is trying to find in this story. At least that is what it looked like from the cursory examination of the book that I did after taking it out of the envelope. After I am done covering the stories in Christmas With The Super-Heroes I am going to read DC Special Series #21 and will know more then, but I like the idea that all of those stories had something that connected them.
I must admit that I don’t have a whole lot to say about this Legion tale. Superboy heads to the future, wants to find the Star of Bethlehem, the Legion agrees and they end up helping a troubled planet until the United Planets can come and do a full evacuation. Simple but effective and best of all it feels like a Christmas special that I would watch on television when I was a kid. It was really hard to not poke fun at Superboy while writing the synopsis to this story because his entire motivation for wanting to find the star comes from the fact that he wants a fun, old-fashioned Christmas in the 30th Century. Why he doesn’t head back to Smallville and bask in the glory of Christmas in small town America is beyond me but that is beside the point. This story had a lot of heart and it has gorgeous Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez art so there is a lot to like.
And that’s pretty much it. I feel kind of bad because I had so much to say about the previous stories in this anthology and this one comes up short. That’s the way it works sometimes. Certain stories, whether for good or ill, garner more in the way of discussion than others.
Fun story though.
More to follow…
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