In "When We First Met", we spotlight the various characters, phrases, objects or events that eventually became notable parts of comic lore, like the first time someone said, "Avengers Assemble!" or the first appearance of Batman's giant penny or the first appearance of Alfred Pennyworth or the first time Spider-Man's face was shown half-Spidey/half-Peter. Stuff like that.

Today, based on a suggestion from reader Freedy J., we look at when fans were first allowed to vote on who would become the leader of the Legion of Super-Heroes!

We'll just look at all of the leadership votes until we hit to the fan voting!

The first Legion election took place in Adventure Comics #304 (by Jerry Siegel and John Forte), which saw Saturn Girl take over from Cosmic Boy as the new leader of the team (the implication is that Cosmic Boy had been the leader for pretty much as long as the Legion had been around at this point)...

This was one of those classic Silver Age bits where Saturn Girl comes up with a plan that makes her look like a jerk because she won't tell anyone her actual plan but her actual plan involves her sacrificing herself to save her friends (she finds out that a Legionnaire is destined to die, so she gets herself elected and then gets everyone else kicked off of the team so that she is the only possible choice to die. Lightning Lad, though, spoils her sacrifice and he dies in her place).

The next election was supposed to happen in Adventure Comics #323 (by Siegel, Forte and George Klein), but Saturn Girl instead suggests that the Legionnaires all compete to see who becomes the next leader...

She wins the competition and thus remains the leader...

In Adventure Comics #337 (by Edmond Hamilton, John Forte and Sheldon Moldoff), we see that Brainiac-5 has been elected off-panel...

In Adventure Comics #348 (by Jim Shooter and George Papp), the Invisible Kid is elected...

I love Sun Boy's train of thought. "Huh, she seems to be more into him than just politically. I think she has a crush on him. She SHOULD have a crush on him."

When was the first fan vote?

Page 2: [valnet-url-page page=2 paginated=0 text='So when did fans vote?']

My pal, Michael Grabois, showed me a vote in the Adventure Comics #364 letter column...

with the results in Adventure Comics #368...

the results of the fan vote led to Ultra Boy making it in Adventure Comics #371 (by Jim Shooter, Curt Swan and Jack Abel), there is no election shown, but Ultra Boy has clearly been elected at some point...

In Action Comics #382 (by Jim Shooter, Win Mortimer and Jack Abel), now Karate Kid is in charge...

I'd like it if he had just taken over by coup.

Ten issues later, in Action Comics #392 (by Cary Bates, Mortimer and Abel), Mon-El mentions he was elected the new leader...

In Superboy #184 (by Cary Bates, Dave Cockrum and Murphy Anderson - Cockrum's first issue as artist!), Ultra Boy has been elected...

In Superboy #190 (by Bates, Cockrum and Anderson), the election is held...

The heroes are stolen away before we got the results.

We only found out offhandedly three issues later that Mon-El won...

In Superboy #225 (by Paul Levitz, James Sherman and Bob Wiacek), a very clever bit was that the fan voting resulted in Superboy winning, but Levitz didn't want Superboy to be the leader, so Levitz picked the runner-up and then had that same result occur in the comic itself, turning it into a plot point...

That Levitz, he's a clever one.

Thanks for the suggestion, Freedy! If anyone else has a suggestion for a comic book first, drop me a line at brianc@cbr.com!