It's our yearly Comics Should Be Good Advent Calendar! Every day until Christmas Eve, you can click on the current day's Advent Calendar post and it will show the Advent Calendar with the door for that given day opened and you can see what the "treat" for that day will be! You can click here to see the previous Advent Calendar entries. This year, the theme is a Very Groovy 70s Christmas! Each day will be a Christmas comic book story from the 1970s, possibly ones that have a specific 1970s bent to it (depends on whether I can come up with 24 of them).

The drawing for this year's Advent Calendar, of Disco Santa Claus giving out 70s present, like a Simon, while disco dancing with four superheroes with the most-70s costumes around, is by Nick Perks.

Here it is...

And now, Day 10 will be opened (once opened, the door will feature a panel from the featured story)...

Today, we look at the Christmas 1979 Superboy and Legion of Super-Heroes story from DC Special Series #21, "Star Light, Star Bright... Farthest Star I See Tonight!" by Paul Levitz, Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez and Dick Giordano.

This is an interesting tale in terms of where it took place in Legion of Super-Heroes' history. You see, this came out RIGHT after the Legion of Super-Heroes finally graduated from sharing a series with Superboy (it was almost entirely a Legion a series, but it just would typically feature Superboy as a prominent figure in the series) to having Superboy leave the series for good (well, as long as "for good" lasts in comic books, of course). So, of course, RIGHT after that happened, we then had a story here that featured Superboy in the Legion of Super-Heroes! There's even a joke about it at the start of the story, where Mon-El says, "So you couldn't stay away after all, eh, Superboy?" with a note to explain that this story is set BEFORE Superboy left the series.

The other interesting aspect of the timing is that this was written by Paul Levitz, but it was right after Levitz's first run on the series was coming to a close. Levitz, of course, would return two years later and would soon be paired with Keith Giffen in one of the most iconic Legion of Super-Heroes runs of all-time.

The artist on the series is the great Joe Luis Garcia-Lopez. Garcia-Lopez, amazingly enough, had worked in comics for YEARS before going to work for DC Comics. He worked for Charlton Comics in the late 1960s/early 1970s, but this was when Garcia-Lopez was still living in Argentina. He moved to New York City in 1974 and introduced himself to DC editor Joe Orlando, who had two functioning eyes, so he quickly hired Garcia-Lopez to work for him. Garcia-Lopez soon became a prominent artist for DC's licensing department, as his work was so great that it worked great for licensed products, but he still drew special projects and covers throughout the late 1970s and early 1980s. Luckily for Levitz, Garcia-Lopez drew this story (Garcia-Lopez also drew the cover). The great Dick Giordano (ALSO a Charlton Comics alum) inked the story.

As noted, the story opens with Superboy visiting the Legion during Christmastime in the future. Phantom Girl surprises him with a kiss under the mistletoe...

Superboy meets Saturn Girl, who had volunteered for monitor duty since, now that she and Lightning Lad are married, they feel like the Legion is their family and they want to give the others a break. Saturn Girl then shows that they are monitoring the various Christmas celebrations around the galaxy (it is a bit disturbing that they have cameras in people's houses, but whatever, you gotta embrace Big Brother, I guess). Note that Chameleon Boy doesn't celebrate a winter holiday, so wouldn't HE have been the best choice to do monitor duty on Christmas?

This is also when we first learned that Colossal Boy was Jewish, just a month or so after Kitty Pryde debuted. Superboy decides that they should spend Christmas discovering the fabled "Christmas Star," also known as the Star of Bethlehem.

The other Legionnaires decide to humor him, in fear that if they don't, he will turn his mighty superpowers on them (not actually, but that'd be kind of funny, right? In reality, they like the guy and figured they could humor his odd request). However, when they get to where the star SHOULD be, it's not there, but they instead find a planet that is slowly dying due to, well, you know, a lack of a star.

The Legion help out the various races on the planet, but it is clear that they are all near extinction. Even space arks wouldn't reach them in time. Superboy, though, comes up with a plan that gives the groups universal translators that will allow them to all work together to survive until at least they could be rescued eventually...

They go back home and reflect on the fact that while they didn't find the Christmas star, their search for it DID lead them to a situation where they could do a lot of good for a bunch of people, so they're happy. They decorate an old fashioned Christmas tree and just enjoy the holiday together...

It's a good story, but wow, the art is just so outstanding. Garcia-Lopez is a true treasure and his art on this DC Comics Christmas holiday special was like a Christmas present in and of itself.

WAS THIS A PARCTICULARLY GROOVY CHRISTMAS STORY?

They are rocking the EXTREMELY 70s superhero costume designs of the Legion of Super-Heroes, especially Saturn Girl and Phantom Girl's costumes, so this is very much a 1970s story.

As noted before, I do have 24 stories picked out, but I would be happy to hear from some of you for suggestions for Christmas comic book stories that you can think of that are distinctively 1970s (and, of course, FROM the 1970s). You can e-mail suggestions to me at brianc@cbr.com