In Adventure Comics #313 we are treated to a Legion of Super-Heroes story entitled "The Condemned Legionnaires!"

THe story starts off with Lightning Lass helping out at a "super-power plant" when she suddenly collapses because she feels "strange" and "sick", elsewhere the same thing happens to Saturn Girl, and Shrinking Violet also claims to be "dizzy" and "weak"

I'm not sure if they did this in the story, because I'm using a black and white reprint as a reference, but the cover suggests that the

girls skin were turning red when they got ill, so just go with that, okay?

Anyway, Superboy arrives from the past (See back in the day Superman/boy used to be able to fly through the time barrier on a whim..... It would take a scientist to explain it if it actually made sense.) and meets with his pal Mon-El, who tells Superboy that there is a crisis going on. Entering their club house they see all the female member of the Legion has been infected with something called the Crimson Virus.

You heard that right. All the female members of the team have been struck down with a "virus" that makes them feel strange, dizzy, weak, gives them headaches and turns their skin red and it's called the Crimson Virus. And this isn't supposed to be a metaphor for anything?

Meanwhile at the headquarters of the Legion of Substitute Heroes -- a group of two bit losers who couldn't pass the Legions elitist tests for membership that banded together to hang out in a filthy cave and come to the rescue when the Legion is otherwise busy -- Night Girl decides to go and visit the Legion to see if there is anyway she can help them with their problem, only when she arrives she too is struck down with the Crimson Virus.

Okay, so all these girls are struck down with a Crimson Virus right? I mean, the guy members of the Legion are going to be understanding and caring and help them out the best way possible right? Right? Wrong. They load them up in a craft and send them to the Quarantine World while they go and try to find a cure for the Crimson Virus. Well except for Mon-El and Superboy who have better things to do apparently.

And how does the Legion start to solve this problem? Standing around and doing nothing apparently. Until someone named Satan Girl arrives and states that she's come to take the place of all the female Legion members because her combined super powers are more useful than all of theirs combined. Oh, Satan Girl by the way is decked out in a black leather costume complete with leather mask. If the writers opinion of women isn't fully articulated by this point, I don't know what else to tell you.

After showing off her powers and the group realizing she has similar powers to Superboy, Mon-El and Supergirl, she flies off without any further conversation. Just then Supergirl arrives, right on time as the Legion was apparently expecting her to arrive (plot point.)

Telling Supergirl of their problem with the Crimson Virus and Satan Girl, Supergirl agrees to help and flies with the Legion to the Quarantine planet. There we find the female Legion members are being taken care of

by robot nurses that seem to feel the need to assure them that they know their profession.

Satan Girl arrives and disables the robots, shuts off their curative rays, and using a device on her wrist makes the girls Crimson Virus worse. Just then Supergirl arrives, while she is about to attack she realizes that Satan Girl's mask is lead lined (see, her x-ray vision can't see through lead) and can't find out what her face looks like. So the two end up duking it out until Supergirl tries to burn off Satan Girls mask with her heat vision, prompting Satan Girl to flee.

Believing Satan Girl to be of Kryptonian origin (which by the way, for a planet that's exploded and it's species effectively deceased for centuries by 30th Century standard, the sure are a fuck of a lot of Kryptonian's kicking around considering they never mastered rocket flight before their planet went kaboom) she gets some Kryptonite dust in a lead box from a scientist and tries to use it on Satan Girl, but this ploy doesn't work and Satan Girl makes her escape.

Returning to the Quarantine planet, Supergirl has all the female Legion members transported to a planet hidden in a cosmic could she only she knows about. The planet is inhabited by a species of creatures that are big hairy balls. I'm not making this up. A planet who's dominant species look like giant testicles. However our intrepid heroes are not safe as Satan Girl finds them and attacks.

The Legion can't repel their attacker, and Supergirl's theory that Satan Girl is an android is also foiled. The group then sends the planets inhabitancies against Satan Girl while they make another escape. Satan Girl follows after knowing she only less than 48 hours to finish her mission (plot point.)

The Legion escape to a world of puppets. And yeah, if things aren't retarded enough already let me explain this one. It's a world that's full of giant marionettes, these marionettes are controlled by giant children that operate these puppets from another dimension. Don't ask me to explain it any further than that, I'm just going to have to drink more.

This still doesn't work because Satan Girl still shows up, this time with a hand full of Kryptonite meteors and dumps them in front of Supergirl. Quick thinking the Legion rallies up the Legion of Super-Pets.... Oh sweet fucking Christ, I have to explain this one too....

If you thought it was bad enough that there are all these Kryptonian's flying around and saving the day than this is going to beat that one out. The Legion of Super-Pet's my friends are all animals that have something to do with either Superman, Superboy or Supergirl. Yes, you see the Planet Krypton apparently had animals much like those of the planet Earth,

and a bunch of these Kryptonian animals managed to escape Krypton's destruction and got super powers as well. Which I know is a stretch of the imagination, and I suppose you can allow for one or two. But there are four of these fucking Super-Pets. FOUR. There's Krypto, Superman's super-dog. Streaky Supergirl's super-cat. But there is also Super-Monkey and Super-Horse. I'm not joking. And they ALL have Superman capes. All of them. Including the horse. What the fuck.

See their logic is that the Legion of Super-Pets would be their ace in the hole because apparently Satan Girl's powers can't effect animals (How the fuck did you figure that one out? Is that your assessment because she couldn't hurt the hairy balls? How are the hairy balls any less animals than humans?) Anyway, the Super-Pets manage to save the day, and Satan Girl surrenders as her time is almost up.

Now we get to find out what this is all a bout, Satan Girl is unmasked and we realize that she looks exactly like Supergirl (SHOCK!)

This is apparently what happened:

When Supergirl first arrived in the future, she over shot her destination and entered the future in space just as a red Kryptonite meteor flew by (Oh, red Kryptonite causes random effects that last for 48 hours) this time causing a duplicate of Supergirl to be created. Determined to live past the 48 hour limit, this other Supergirl deduced that if she built a device to expel the Red Kryptonite energy from her body into other people she'd be able to live past the 48 hours, and this is how this whole fucking thing started. And instead of being smart and siphoning it into anybody and everybody, she was dicking around and only infected the female members of the Legion to try and steer the real Supergirl away from confronting her.

After explaining it all, this duplicate Supergirl remerges with the

I don't know what else I can add to this review, I don't think I really need to comment any further on how fucked up this story is, the story itself does a pretty good job at it. But if you want to read it for yourself, pick yourself up a copy of Showcase Presents: The Legion of Super-Heroes Volume 1, and give it a spin, there are other even more fucked up things in this collected volume than the comic I just described. Enjoy!