| Liberty Legion | |
|---|---|
 Marvel Premiere #29 (April 1976). Cover art byJack Kirby &Frank Giacoia. | |
| Publication information | |
| Publisher | Marvel Comics |
| First appearance | Marvel Premiere #29 (April 1976) |
| Created by | Roy Thomas |
| In-story information | |
| Base(s) | United States |
| Member(s) | TheBlue Diamond Bucky Jack Frost Miss America Patriot Red Raven Thin Man Whizzer |
TheLiberty Legion is a fictionalsuperhero team appearing inAmerican comic books published byMarvel Comics. The team was first created in 1976 and set duringWorld War II. Composed of existing heroes from Marvel's 1940sGolden Age of Comic Books predecessor,Timely Comics, the team was assembled and named by writerRoy Thomas in a story arc running throughThe Invaders #5–6 (March & May 1976) andMarvel Premiere #29–30 (April & June 1976). Inspired by theLiberty Legion, a second fictional team called theLiberteens was published in 2007 as part of theAvengers Initiative.[1]
The genesis of theMarvel Comics superhero team the Liberty Legion came in the 1970s'World War II-setThe Invaders, starring a team composed ofCaptain America, theSub-Mariner, and the originalHuman Torch, plus sidekicksBucky andToro, all characters that had appeared in Marvel's 1940s predecessor,Timely Comics.The Invaders #5 (cover-dated March 1976) featured cameo appearances by fellow Timely charactersMiss America, thePatriot, and theWhizzer, who would go on to the Liberty Legion, and theFin, who would not.[2] The team was formally assembled and named the following month inMarvel Premiere #29 (April 1976), with additional Timely superheroes theBlue Diamond,Jack Frost, theRed Raven and theThin Man joining.[3] The team went on to star in two more installments of this four-story arc, inThe Invaders #6 andMarvel Premiere #30 (June 1976),[4] all written byRoy Thomas and illustrated by various artists.
A new, unrelated version of the Liberty Legion, known as the Liberteens, based in modern-dayPennsylvania, debuted inAvengers: The Initiative Annual #1 (2008).[5][6]
"America's Homefront Heroes of World War II", the Liberty Legion differed from the Invaders by confrontingAxis plots and influence in and around the United States as well asfifth columnists, rather than in the overseas theaters of war. It also differed by consisting of mostly obscure Timely Comics superheroes, rather than starsCaptain America, theSub-Mariner, and the originalHuman Torch, and their sidekicks. The Liberty Legion, indeed, included only two of even the company's secondary tier – theWhizzer andMiss America, who in late-1940s comics were members of Timely's first super-team, theAll-Winners Squad.
In the team's modern-dayretcon origin, the Liberty Legion was assembled in 1942 by Captain America sidekickBucky, the only Invaders member to escape a brainwashing trap by theRed Skull. To rescue his teammates, he gathered:
The Blue Diamond (a super-strong, superhumanly durable anthropologist), Jack Frost (the mythological spirit of winter), and the Thin Man (comics' first stretching hero, predatingPlastic Man by just over a year) were here reintroduced into Marvel continuity, appearing for the first time since the Golden Age. Unofficial team leader the Patriot had appeared as asimulacrum projected from the mind ofRick Jones inThe Avengers #97 (March 1972), but was otherwise reintroduced here. The winged Red Raven, who had starred in the single issue of a namesake title in 1940, had re-entered the modern Marvel universe withThe X-Men #44 (May 1968). The Whizzer had returned as an older character inGiant-Size Avengers #1 (Aug. 1974), relating how he and the since-deceased Miss America had married each other years before.
| Liberteens | |
|---|---|
 The Liberteens. Art byPatrick Scherberger. | |
| Publication information | |
| Publisher | Marvel Comics |
| First appearance | Avengers: The Initiative Annual #1 |
| In-story information | |
| Base(s) | Pennsylvania, United States |
| Member(s) | The Blue Eagle Hope The Iceberg Ms. America The Revolutionary The Whiz Kid 2-D |
The Liberteens, whose name is ahomophone of "libertine", is a young group of superhumans inspired by the Liberty Legion and formed as part of theFifty State Initiative of government-sanctioned superhero teams. The group is first seen as thePennsylvania-basedInitiative team.[5][6]
The team consists of:
In public, the Liberteens use "liberty"- and "America"-based puns. In private, the group is shown celebrating victory with debauchery, with the exception of the seemingly straitlaced leader, the Revolutionary, who is revealed to be aSkrullsleeper agent involved in preparations for that shape-shifting alien race'sSecret Invasion.[7] During the invasion, upon the beginning of overt hostilities, a loosely organized band of Initiative members, including the Liberteens, join forces with theSkrull Kill Krew to identify and defeat the Skrulls within their own ranks, the Revolutionary among them.[8] Afterward, the Whiz Kid saves her fellow Initiative members from the Skrulls' poisonous gas, before succumbing to it herself.[9]
During the "Fear Itself" storyline, representative of the Liberteens are called byProdigy when the Initiative is restarted and briefed on the hammers that theSerpent summoned to Earth.[10]
Ms. America, 2-D, Hope, and the Iceberg later leave the Liberteens and come together as the Fantastix after theFantastic Four disbanded following theSecret Wars storyline. While Ms. America took up the name of Ms. Fantastix, they also gained ownership of theBaxter Building. The Fantastix' first mission sees them thwarting theWrecking Crew's jewelry store robbery. When the Fantastic Four return, they revealed that the Wrecking Crew's robbery was staged by their manager/publicist Brenda Bannicheck as part of a plan to boost their popularity. The Fantastix got the Fantastic Four's blessing to continue using the Baxter Building.[11]