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I don't have much, this month, just a couple of characters I spotted while flipping through old Who's Who issues. It's sad, but I think I'm running out of characters I care about! That doesn't mean I'm stopping, or anything, but I'm going to have to think of new things to tackle that interest me and that I think will interest you guys.
I picked a couple of reasonably obscure characters from the Legion family, for this month. One hero, one villain. The hero I chose because, for a guy with unbelievably great powers, he had a dull, even comical, costume. The villain, well, he has a name and a costume far too similar to one major Legionnaire.
Duplicate Boy is one of the Heroes of Lallor, a world populated by humans or humanoids indistiguishable from Earth-types (seems to be an excessive number of those in the DCU). His powers are, simply put, to duplicate any and all super powers. He can even duplicate them simultaneously, making him the most powerful character ever. To me, this makes him dull, dull, dull! Power is cool, but what about weaknesses? Well, he is a bit thoughtless, I guess that's a weakness. When his girlfriend had been kidnaped and was being impersonated by a Durlan, he recognized the imposter, but said nothing to anyone else, nor did he go search for his girlfriend, Shrinking Violet, of the Legion of Super-Heroes.
For me, the weaknesses of a character are as important as the strengths, and with a guy who can duplicate all super-powers, with no weaknesses, how can anything challenge him? So, here's what I'm thinking. What if he duplicates anyone's super-powers, but also gets their weaknesses? And, to make it even more interesting, what if Duplicate BOY is really a boy...of about twelve. Powerful and dangerous, but inexperienced and impulsive. This gives him an element of humanity, a flaw we can identify with. He can launch himself into battle with Superman's strength and speed, but forget he's in a red sun environment.
I kept the color scheme the same, but I decided to break the colors up differently.
The villain I chose is Cosmic King. First of all, the guy swipes Cosmic Boy's name, but he also dresses like Cos. What's wrong with this guy, identity issues? Anyway, I took the colors and reworked them, making the costume more of a "futuristic" outfit. The guy has some fairly decent powers, able to transmute matter, a bit like Firestorm, without the "organic matter" handicap. He was involved in the "Absolute Power" arc of the Superman/Batman series and was among Superman-Prime's Legion of Super-Villains in "Final Crisis". He could be a really serious bad guy and a counter to Element Lad, in a fight with the Legion.
I know I do a lot of Legion columns, that's because I'm a super-mega-Legion fan. I'm disappointed to hear the cartoon's been cancelled. I was enjoying it, even though it takes unnecessary liberties with the source material. We didn't really need the future Superman, Mon-El could have worked just as well and been a better fit. I do like that they made Brainy "human" in the end. I never liked the mechamorph Brainiac 5. Who knows, maybe they'll take it over to Cartoon Network or something.
Well, that's the column for this month. See you next time!
As always, thanks for reading and I hope you'll take a look at my web
comic, Ad Astra at:
www.adastracomic.com
Copyright © 2008 Joe Singleton
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