Can you believe it? Another month gone and I barely came up with an idea, in
time. Thanks to Sheryl for triggering the thought processes that led to this
month's column.
Once again, I'm dealing with the Legion of Super-heroes. I guess you might
say these are my favorite characters, in comics. This time around, I had
the idea to rework some of the characters who've been neglected since the
Legion books were revamped in the early 90s. According to the Legion of
Super-heroes reference manual for the old DC Heroes Role Playing Game, it
begins about the third year of the Legion's existance, when five young people
with super powers failed in their bids for membership in the Legion.
One of the unique features of the Legion of Super-heroes is it's periodic
membership tryouts. No other team that I can think of uses anything like
this method to increase its ranks. Another unusual thing about the Legion,
they had age limits. Age limits kept two would-be Legionnaires from joining,
Brek Bannin, calling himself Polar Boy, was too young, and Lydda Jath, Night
Girl, was too old. It didn't help the Brek had a problem controlling his power
to generate cold and ice, or the Lydda's super-strength faded in sunlight. Polar
Boy lacked experience with his hereditary powers, and Night Girl's homeworld has
no sun, being heated by volcanically(yeah, I know, no sun, what did they orbit?
Maybe their sun is a brown dwarf, or neutron star, emitting little or no visible
light, but high in the infra-red and neutron emission, which might explain why
sunlight, especially ultra-violet, negates her powers...).
Three others competed, that day, for membership and were turned away for
various reasons, Dag Ventim, aka Stone Boy, native of Zwen (don't you just
love these futuristic/alien names?) could convert his body to stone, a trait
all natives of Zwen share. Dag failed because, while he was virtually
indestructible in his stone form, he was also totally immobile. Staq Mevlen,
calling himself Fire Lad, could breathe a jet of flame as a result of an accident.
Unfortunately, like a lot of kids, he had allergies that caused him to sneeze
uncontrollably at times, creating a fire hazard. Last of the original Substitute
Legionnaires was Ral Benem, whose power to control plant growth earned him the
name, Chlorophyll Kid. Apparently, Ral's control of his powers was not all it
could have been, and so, he too was denied membership, at this time.
Polar Boy refused to take "no" for an answer, determined to start his own
team. In order to keep in the Legion's good graces, presumably, he decided
his group should be a secret back-up for the Legion, to help out when the
Legion was spread too thin, or in times of serious trouble.
All five joined, then, and were a great help to the Legion on many
occasions. Later, they were joined by Ulu Vark, known as Color Kid. He had
the power to change the color of anything, and once saved Superboy and
Supergirl by changing the blanket of green kryptonite dust, suspended in
Earth's atmosphere to keep them from aiding the Legion, from deadly green
to harmless blue. Was it just the green light from kryptonite that hurt
Superman?
Well, that's a rough sketch of the early history of the Legion of Substitute
Heroes. Years later, they were joined by other Legion rejects, and even by a
Legion founder, Cosmic Boy. The Subs, as they are affectionately known, have
been the butt of many a joke, in comics, and they've even been war heroes.
They've gone through many changes, in the past, and now I think it's long past
time to introduce a new version of these old favorites. I always liked the Subs,
even in their most ridiculous incarnations, because they represent the average
person more than any other bunch of spandex-clad do-gooders, ever has. The Subs
is the team for those of us who didn't always measure up, who were passed over
when picking sides, or who didn't fit in with the "in" crowd.
Well, it's a new Universe, out there. A new Universe needs a new Legion of
Substitute Heroes.
I kept as much of the original costumes as I could remember, for the most
part, and just tried to fit them in with the current style of Legion
costumes. I happen to like the style, personally, so I find it easy to work
with. I kept the original code-names for this piece, though I'm sure if they
appeared in the comics today, they'd have names like Granite, Colorist, Iceberg
or Botanist. Hope you like them.
For a larger version of this pic, without the lettering click .
Okay, that's it for this time. Let me know what you think, Legion fans, and
anybody else who happens along. See you next month.
