Archive for the ‘Retro Review’ Category
Or – “Sometimes You Have To Work Your Way Up To The Big Leagues…”
There’s a lot of confusion regarding the early days of the Legion and their recruiting practices. Bouncing Boy got in, but Radiation Roy did not. Matter-Eater Lad got the nod, whereas Animal Lad was told no. The reasoning behind this has been the subject of much discussion (though I like Geoff Johns’ recent revelation in Action Comics that some of the Legion rejects were rejected because Saturn Girl could tell that there was something wrong with their minds) but the whole issue really seems to boil down to “Who Do We Like Best?” Come on, we’re looking at a bunch of teenagers, even with vast super-powers, and teenagers do a lot of stupid, arbitrary, exclusionary stuff. We should be glad that the team wasn’t smoking super-elastic fluid, or piercing their pancreas. Some heroes who didn’t make the cut, though, wouldn’t take ‘No’ for an answer, knowing that their day in the sun was just around the corner. These stalwart few decided to prepare themselves for the inevitable moment when they would be the ones called upon to save the day. This, then, is your Major Spoilers Hero History of Lydda Jath of Kathoon… Ral Benem of Mardru… Ulu Vakk of Lupra… Staq Mavlen of Schwar… Drura Sehpt of Somahtur… Peter Dursin of Earth… Dag Wentim of Zwen… The Legion of Substitute Heroes!
Or – “What A Difference A Few Decades Make…”
If you’re a regular reader of our Hero Histories, you’ve probably gleaned that the team’s adventures have been somewhat unorthodox for a comic super-group. The Legion has been up and down the popularity charts, have run the gamut from super-silly to ultra-serious tales, and have dealt with grown-up subjects like marriage, death, betrayal, and sexual issues long before the rest of the comics world was ready to do so. The Legion’s earliest adventures, though, were steeped in the rules of the Silver Age of comics, and the rules of Mort Weisinger’s Superman titles especially. For a long time the LSH was considered nothing more than Tom Welling’s little pals from the far future, and no matter what happened, the boy in the red cape had to be the center of attention. Nowhere was this more evident than when his non-super pals made the scene in the Legion and were given special status due to their proximity to the boy of steel. (It’s good to have powerful friends…) Awesomely, though, the pals and gal of Superman ended up PROVING the point of the Legion rather than undermining it, showing once again that heroism is a state of mind. This, then, is your Major Spoilers Hero History of Pete Ross of Smallville… James Bartholomew Olsen of Metropolis… Gnill Opral of Hagor… Lana Lang of Smallville… Rond Vidar of Earth… The Honorary Legionnaires!
6 Comments »Or – “Eight Heroes Are Better Than None…”
In recent weeks, we’ve been examining those heroes who joined the Legion in it’s second major incarnation, after harassment from a corrupt Earthgov (undermined by Dominator spies) drove the team to disband for over three years. The team was eventually brought back together by the murder of longtime member Blok (*sniff*) and rose like a phoenix from the ashes, only without sleeping with the kid in the visor. But there is something that we’ve only touched upon briefly that you may not have known… The Legion was active for several months during that Five Year Lacuna. And during that time, took on new members (including the already-covered Kent Shakespeare) whose Legion tenures were mostly undocumented. But, thanks to the miracles of modern technology (and a collection of Legion comics bigger than the average minivan) their stories can be told… Sort of. This, then, is your Major Spoilers Hero History of E. Davis Ester of Touston… Bobb Kohan of Earth… Myke-4 Astor of Calish Aetia… Myg of Lythyl… Berta Skye Haris of Earth… Stig Ah of Rimbor… Myke Chypurz of Earth… Rhent Ustin of Earth… The Five-Year Gap Legionnaires!
7 Comments »Or – “The Path To Heroism Is Seldom Easily Traversed…”
One of the great joys of the Legion of Super-Heroes has been the vast array of heroes to choose from. Don’t like planet-juggling mighty men? Maybe you can find the love for Phantom Girl, or Invisible Kid. Looking for somebody more cerebral? Try Brainiac 5 or Chameleon Boy. The post Five Year Gap members of the Legion were especially diverse, with members like Matter-Eater Lad and a powerless Cosmic Boy taking irreplacable roles in the team structure, and showing that you don’t have to be a combat powerhouse to contribute to the team dynamic. This Legion also welcomed a sneak-thief, a smuggler, a private eye, and even a cub reporter to their numbers, so it’s not that strange to see them welcoming one of their former foes on board as well. She came to the team looking for help, and ended up supporting them during one of their darkest hours. This, then, is your Major Spoilers Hero History of Sussa Paka of Earth… Wave!
Or – “For Those Who Wonder What Happened To The Guardians…”
There are a lot of interesting stories in the fifty-year history of the Legion of Super-Heroes, but the ones that fascinate me are the Legionnaires whose stories remain mostly untold. The post-Five-Year-Gap stories of the Legion tried to bring the shiny future kids up to speed with a more adult comic industry, adding to the mix characters who had adult skills and knowledges, giving the LSH experience with things out of the purview of, say, Lightning Lad, who has been fighting giant space whales since he was 12. From Tenzil Kem’s return with years of political experience and clout, to Devlin O’Ryan’s career as a reporter, to Kent Shakespeare’s medical training, these characters brought a new perspective to the kids, lads, and lasses. Today’s entrant was another of these, trained as a private investigator (even taking her pseudonym from a character near and dear to Stephen’s heart) with ties to the Legion’s earliest history. Get ready to pony up 200 credits a day (plus expenses) as we delve into her life and times. This, then, is your Major Spoilers Hero History of the hero briefly known as Neon of Earth… Celeste Rockfish!
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3 Comments »Or – “Some Heroes Take A While To Warm Up…”
Last time out, we returned to the “Five Year Gap” era Legion of Super Heroes for the first time in a while, visiting the world as it was with neither Kal-El of Krypton or the Time Trapper. I’ve said before, and I still believe that this portion of Legion history (now, apparently relegated to one of many alternate realities) was the first dry run for rebooting Legion continuity, which was then considered to be too complex and hard to understand. Of course, Keith Giffen and company felt that the best way to deal with the issues of complexity and continuity was to remove the distinct color-schemed costumes and codenames and go low-tech. It was a bold move, and one that worked mostly due to the characters in play. One of the more unique Legionnaires of this time started out not as a hero, but as a Daily Planet cub reporter sent by Earthgov to bury the Legion with bad press. In a Legion that welcomed a smuggler, a private detective, a senator, and even a former member of the Legion of Super-Villains, he was our point of view character, the closest thing we had to the kid next door in a 30th Century fraught with terror. This, then, is your Major Spoilers Hero History of the Legionnaire briefly known as Reflex of Earth… Devlin O’Ryan!
1 Comment »Or – “Not Nearly As Innocent As She Looks…”
The post-Five-Year-Gap stories of the Volume Four Legion get, I think, short shrift in LSH history, for a lot of reasons. It was really the first proto-reboot of the title, pushing the team forward in time, forcing us to learn, issue by issue, what had happened in the missing years. It gave up on the colorful costumes and superhero codenames, and delved much deeper into the corruption that some would say always exists at the heart of a bright and shiny society. This period of Legion history is one known for a looser team ethic, a more catch-as-catch-can philosophy, and in some cases, a complete disregard for the legal niceties of the United Planets. That’s where this week’s entrant comes in… Born of a planet of notorious thieves, she joined the Legion almost by accident, but once there, became one of the definitive characters of her Legion’s era. Smart, funny, perverse, mean-spirited, and cute as the dickens, she perfected the art of needling her opponents by first torturing her friends and teammates. This, then, is your Major Spoilers Hero History of Brita An’nan of Sklar… Kono!
Or – “What’s REALLY In A Name?”
If you were to go to the dentist, open the door, and find a nameplate that reads “Dr. Hiram Rippedflesh, DDS,” you might consider postponing that appointment, right? And, say, if the first officers to respond to your call for help were Sergeant Lunatic and Detective Disemboweler, again, you’d probably have second thoughts about your situation, yes? I imagine that general feeling is roughly how the Legionnaires must have felt when confronted by a girl choosing a nom de guerre that originally hung on one of the worst threats the team had ever faced, a murderous inhuman creature that nearly cost Brainiac 5 his mind, that came close to killing the second Invisible Kid, that DID KILL one of Triplicate Girl’s selves. What possible reasoning could there be behind such a name, you ask? How about “It just sounds cool!“ The 1990’s were a brave new world for the kids of the LSH, and few moments are as emblematic of that move away from history and into the bright and shiny future’s brighter and shinier future-er than the induction of today’s Hero History subject… Once just a cute kid sister and plot device, she grew into a leader among the team, and a respected Legionnaire in her own right. This, then, is your Major Spoilers Hero History of Danielle Foccart of Earth… Computo!
Or – “I Can Has Flight Ring?”
There are many subtle differences between the comic publishing industry in 1958, when the Legion debuted, and 1991-ish, when the ‘Legionnaires’ comic was published. Aside from the obvious post-modern, technological blah dee blah, the major factor that separated the 90’s from the 50’s in comics terms was the existence of the X-Men. The 600 pound gorilla of the comics world, our boys and girls in blue and gold caused rampant changes to nearly every comic book title extant, in the hopes of catching some of that proverbial ‘phat cash.’ Today’s H.H. subject is one of the characters who really shows that influence, for good or for ill, as the 30th century’s take on Wolverine, himself influenced by Legionnaire Timber Wolf. (Of course, Logan then influenced Wolfsbane and other feral hero types, who in turn influenced this character. Can anybody say “Ouroboros?” No? Me, neither…) Regardless of her roots, though, she’s more than just a T-Wolf stand-in, acting as a change of pace in character terms, much as her teammate Dragonmage did in terms of powers. Driven by her instincts, motivated by her whims, she represents something unusual for the Legion: the animal perspective. This, then, is your Major Spoilers Hero History of April Dumaka of Earth… Catspaw!
Or – “Magic And The Legion. Two Great Tastes That Taste WEIRD Together…”
Throughout the history of the Legion of Super-Heroes, many of their members have gotten their powers from experimentation run wild (Sun Boy, Wildfire, Quislet, and even the Ranzz twins, in a way) whereas others have gained their powers from simple genetics (Dawnstar, Cosmic Boy, Matter-Eater Lad, etc.) But for many years in the bright and shiny future, no one gained their abilities from manipulation of the mystic powers, from the hoary hosts of the neitherworld, or from the various powers beyond the pale. When Mysa Nal, the White Witch, joined the original Legion, she was, in her own way, nearly as alien as Tellus or Blok, with her spell and her grimoires and such. And it was quite a few years before another Legionnaire arose from the ranks of mysticism to take his place among the team. One of the shortest lived LSHers of all, he nonetheless showed courage, character, and heroic ideals worthy of the decades-long membership of Colossal Boy or Brainiac 5. This, then, is your Major Spoilers Hero History of Xao Jin of Earth… Dragonmage!
Or – “Robot ROLL CALL!“
The concept of “the bright and shiny future” is the key behind the popularity of the Legion over the years, but what that future entails has changed with each decade. What started as a bunch of squeaky-clean teens in an upturned rocket ship had to evolve with the changing times, as the kids of the Legion and the readership aged. When the Legion was rebooted in the 1990’s, the strange future where everybody was clean-cut and had a nice stable family upbringing had finally been thrown aside, and we got to see the Legionnaires recast in roles that were more like the other heroes of the age. In that vein came today’s entrant, a hero whose powers were oh-so-90’s, the mecha-empath, a technokinetic hero who served as a sort of Swiss army superhero for the Legion’s slicing-dicing-and-even-cutting-tin-cans-with-it hours of need. Though his time with the team was short, he nonetheless was a change of pace for the Legion, and at least his powers (thank Rao) didn’t come from freakin’ nanites. (Bloodshot! I’m lookin’ at you, pally!) This, then, is your Major Spoilers Hero History of I.Z.O.R. of Linsnar… Gear!
Or – “An Old Tradition With A Brand New Face. Well, Actually… NO Face.”
The Legion of Super-Heroes has, through the years, defied the archetypes of superhumans, redefining powers that we’d already seen in new ways. During the early 60’s, when Sue Storm was a preening airhead with an astronaut’s wife’s haircut, Saturn Girl was leading the team. In the 1970’s, the Legion pioneered a number of concepts ahead of their time, with the bodiless energy being known as Wildfire, and the strange and obscure powers of Tyroc and Chemical King presaging weird nebulous characters like Jack Hawksmoor and… well, everyone written by Grant Morrison, really. So, when a winged woman with the ability to exist in space and whose powers included the ability to seek out and find her target across interstellar distances showed up, the Legion was once again ahead of the curve. Years later, during the rebooted Legion, this concept was remixed (with a little alternate dimension thrown in) giving us one of the most unusual and intriguing characters of the Legion’s second run. This, then, is your Major Spoilers Hero History of the Kwai known as the Lone Star of the Lost Galaxy… Shikari!
Or – “The Kind Of Heroism That Doesn’t Require Super-Powers.”
During the 5o years of Legion operations, many heroes have come and gone, and a great many of them have had limited tenures with the team… But it should be noted that one of the least tenured Legionnaires, the boy called Ferro Lad, even to this day casts one of the longest shadows. But few Legionnaires have had the deck stacked against them the way today’s Hero History subject has. Even his own team leader had trouble seeing him as anything but a replacement Cosmic Boy, but he did everything in his power to change that assessment, and went through a series of setbacks and trials that forced him to redefine the kind of contribution that he could make. Always upbeat, even in the face of tragedy, he helped to define the rebooted Legion as a separate entity from it’s Pre-Crisis counterpart. This, then, is your Major Spoilers Hero History of Dirk Magz of Braal… Magno!
Or – “When The Girl Next Door Comes From Another Dimension…”
In our Hero Histories to date, we’ve seen martyrs and martinets, rockmen and rubber boys, 12th level geniuses and 20th century rejects, but today’s Hero History subject is one of the most relatable of the various Legionnaires throughout the years. Her story is very familiar, a girl from a good family who leaves home and ends up bonding with a kid from the wrong side of the tracks. Her story becomes inextricably intertwined with that of her longtime beau, encompassing one of the Legion’s longest-running and most successful romances, and the depth of love is as impressive as his super-powers in many ways. She’s the sweetest, the calmest of Legionnaires, even at times when all seems lost, and the nature of her powers allow her a sense of serenity that most LSHers can only dream of. In short, she’s the Legionnaire I’d be most likely to fall in love with, and, I have to say this… her classic costume showcases one of the finest derrieres of the 31st century. This, then, is your Hero History of Tinya Wazzo of Bgztl… Phantom Girl!
4 Comments »Or – “Bruce Banner Malibu Barbie, Anyone?”
Astute Spoilerites may have noticed that at the very bottom of each Hero History, tucked under the seemingly endless links, there’s a coming attraction for the next episode. It’s my old-school television roots showing… In any case, the last Hero History promised a little bit a Tinya in your life, and I was well into gathering my research for her story, when something happened. Something important, something that caused an immediate change in plans. In order to explain the significance of this event, I need to tell you the story of “The Hero History That Did Not Want To Be Told.” Many weeks ago, I broke down my outline of Legionnaires and the order in which I wanted to indoctrinate them to their moment in the sun. Way back in March, I completed my Sun Boy history, and turned to the next hero in rotation… only to find that I didn’t own her last appearance. But of course, I WORK in a comic store, so this shouldn’t be too hard, right? Nope. The issue was neither in our back issue bins or in the storage area we call the cave. I asked Deon to order me the collected TPB, but it’s out of print. I then went to my second line of the defense, a fellow comic store owner in Lawrence. No dice. Having checked my friendly local comic book shop, I went to Mile High Comics online. Out of stock. Then, wonder of wonders, I found a copy on Ebay…
…only to lose the auction at the last minute. Another ray of hope came when a new agent came to my team in June, and he, a fellow comic fan, mentioned in passing that he had a copy…
…but when he went to find it, he found that his home had been broken into and many of his comics stolen, including the one I needed. Yesterday, I spent SIX hours in the comic shops of Kansas City, only to find my efforts in vain. This issue was destined to evade me. Last night, I bumped into an old friend online, and lo and behold, she had the issue, and within twenty minutes had given me the images I needed. After all this folderal, I felt that I must immediately put together her much-delayed and seemingly cursed Hero History before a catastrophic hard drive failure or a plague of locusts struck. She joined the team on a lark, and soon made herself beloved amongst her fellows, standing by the team in one of their darkest hours, and dying like she lived, as a champion of hope. This, then, is your Major Spoilers history of Candi Pyponte-Le Parc III of Xanthu… Monstress!
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