Subtlety, Invention, PTSD, Compassion & Forgiveness: Some Thoughts On Edmond Hamilton & John Forte's "The Mutiny Of The Legionnaires" from 1964's Adventure Comics #318
1 . I wonder if the facial expressions in John Forte's many Legion stories were ever as subtle and singular as they are here. On the surface, The Mutiny Of The Legionnaires is a typically charming early LSH sci-fi potboiler. For all of its spectacle and invention, Edmond Hamilton's story appears at first glance no more or less than a playfully overwrought melodrama aimed at pre-teen readers. So it is, and wonderfully so too. Overwhelmed by a catastrophic procession of emergencies, Sun Boy becomes obsessed with saving the people of a planet threatened by destruction. As his laudable intentions shade into mania, The Mutiny Of The Legionnaires tips its hat to Mutiny On The Bounty , the Reed/Milestone film which, with Marlon Brando in the role of Fletcher Christian, had debuted less than 18 months before. For a few pages, Sun Boy appears to distill the imperiously cruel excesses of the movie's Captain Bligh. In their turn, his fellow Legionnaires feel obliged t...