Review of Adventure Comics No. 337, part 1, By Johnathan

This was merely going to be a plain old ‘Super-Human Detritus’ review of three nutty Legion applicants, but upon rereading the issue of Adventure Comics that they made their shameful appearance in I discovered that it was an almost quintessential Legion story, jam-packed with far-future hijinks! And so I present to you a review of the whole damn comic, including all manner of interesting asides.

(Later) It was also going to be one long review, with maybe thirty images and so forth, but it turns out that I'm still recovering from the weekend. Prepare for installments!

The tale opens with an exciting, action-packed board meeting! Today’s topic: the weekly invasion of the Earth. First, though, we need to decide who’s bringing what to the Klordny Day potluck. Sun Boy, are you still bringing the condiments and napkins? Terrific.

Man, I wish that this wasn’t just a colouring error and that Brainiac 5 really did turn grayish-purple when he got angry. It would lend a whole new dimension to his super-logical behavior of later years. “Brainiac, are you sure that you’re not mad about how we ate all of the jelly doughnuts while you were in the bathroom? Because you’re starting to look like a week-old eggplant again.”

But seriously, Brainiac, do you honestly expect to have a long strategy-oriented meeting involving twenty or so teenagers of various genders and maintain the room’s full attention the whole time? My friends are all in their mid- to late twenties and I have a hard time getting them organized to do something that they want to do, let alone listen to me give a long speech about threats to our security (not that that stops me from giving such speeches). You’re just lucky that Ultra Boy and Phantom Girl aren’t furtively groping each other under the table whilst Sun Boy and Superboy ignore you in favour of a detailed conversation about how their moustaches are coming in.

I’m assuming that these two panels are just here for exposition purposes and not to show that Brainiac 5 went around after the meeting delivering his speech to every Legionnaire individually. Plus that’s an awkward sentence being spewed forth by Superboy in the second one. Although, come to think of it, it might be fun to do, say at work (“I, the editor, will use my Bachelor of English to search for extraneous punctuation.”) or at the comic bookshop (I, the giant nerd, will use my Blogger account to bitch about Countdown.”). It could clear up a lot of ambiguity about people’s upcoming goals and the means by which they will achieve them!

I love the old standby of making something alien by making it super big, like that wedding ring. But honestly: who sets up an exhibit on marriage customs in a museum for use by a group of people who aren’t allowed to get married? If I could think up any super-villains who were also museum curators I would certainly be suspicious (Composite Superman? Dammit, no. He was a museum janitor). Well, it was someone with a mean streak, anyway.

Also, Lightning Lad is an idiot. Robot arms make you way more loveable, man. It’s like, a million times more extreme than that lip ring/soul patch combo you were thinking about.

Oh, how I love the Phantom Girl/ Ultra Boy duo. Look at him: that’s possibly the goofiest, most lovestruck expression I’ve ever seen in a comic book. That big dumb ox is just so darned endearing.

You know, I’d think that Brainiac 5 might be more interested in harnessing the crazy energy that everyone was giving off in that first panel, instead of being all snarky. I mean, necking teenagers as a power source? The implications are mind-blowing!

I like these aliens because they mostly just look like someone kept messing with a drawing of a regular guy until he looked slightly inhuman. “Let’s see… give ‘em big ears, an overbite, a widow’s peak, heavy brows… aaaaand… jaundice. Yeah, that’s pretty otherworldly.”

Huh. Turns out that the first third of this story's mostly setup. Well, I assure you that there will be action aplenty in our next installment, along with even more nitpicking and taking things out of context!

Adventure Comics No. 337, you'll get your judgement when I get some more plot.

REVIEW DEFERRED

Review of the Super-Human Detritus of the 30th Century, Part 10, By Johnathan

This one's a follow-up issue of the old Super Detritus series. Since there's all kinds of Legion of Super-Heroes comics out there, with all kinds of crazy nerdlingers writing them, there's a pretty good chance that any goofy Legion reject will show up more than once if you read for long enough. Not that I'm complaining, mind you. I love that kind of stuff. I'm just warning you all so that you don't complain when I start writing about *sigh* Crystal Kid again.

See how long it takes you to guess who I'm dredging up today!

The setup: Legion of Super-Heroes No. 305. For the last few issues Colossal Boy has been dating Shrinking Violet. People start getting suspicious, because Colossal Boy is creepy around women and Violet had a much cooler boyfriend in Duplicate Boy. Turns out that SV'd been replaced by a Durlan actress by some sort of underground movement back on Imsk, so an infiltration is arranged:

Spooky dark rebel headquarters, complete with shapeshifter-containment bag? Check. Turns out that there's a faction on Imsk that wants to secede from the United Planets and they've kidnapped Violet to pump her for information.

Ah! Literally! Dude, that's a pretty creepy info-extraction setup right there. This underground faction is pretty serious, I guess. The Legion'd better watch out and... wait. Who is that?

Dude! It's Micro Lad! Possibly the lamest of the so-called Legion of Super-Rejects! This, my friends, is why Imsk is still in the UP. Seriously, Micro Lad?

That Micro Lad? He's who you've chosen to lead your conspiracy? First off, he's a jerk. An unoriginal jerk with a glass jaw and bad hair. Secondly, he was born, raised and lives on a planet populated entirely by people who can shrink at will, yet still goes by the name Micro Lad on a day-to-day basis. It's be like me calling myself Able To Breathe Guy or the Has a Spine Kid. The guy's trying really hard to have delusions of grandeur but can't quite get it right.

See? He installed spooky mood lighting for when he talks to prisoners but he ruins it by making piggy faces. (For those of you keeping track, Durlan actress posing as Shrinking Violet turned out to be Chameleon Boy posing as Durlan actress posing as Shrinking Violet. And he's pissed.)
Take a good look at this panel because it's the high point of Micro Lad's life. Immediately after his little gloat Chameleon Boy busts out and Legionnaires start popping up everywhere.

Micro Lad shows off his mad thinking skills by deciding that a hostage would be a good thing to have:

But...

Gets completely taken down by Braniac 5. The rebellion on Imsk lasts roughly five minutes after the Legionnaires pull their heads out of their asses long enough to notice that something's up. In the parlance of my video game playing chums: they got owned.

I used to feel slightly sorry for Micro Lad. He was obviously a sheep, blindly following Phantom Lad and Esper Lass until he got his clock cleaned by Phantom Girl. He just had bad advice and judgment and friends, I said to myself. Turns out I was wrong. Micro Lad is a genuine, Grade A jerkwad. Boo to you, sir. Booooooooooooooooo.

NOT APPROVED

Review of the Super-Human Detritus of the Thirtieth Century, Part 7, By Johnathan

Special "Last Fight For a Legionnaire" edition.

Ah, "Last Fight For a Legionnaire". This is another of those episodes in Legion History that I was tantalized by for years, thanks to Jeff Rovin and his Encyclopedia of Superheros. As with "The Super Stalag of Space", Appendix Q or whatever of this mighty tome was crawling with entries like:

Magno Lad (C)
Powers: Identical to Cosmic Boy; from the planet Braal.
"Last Fight For a Legionnaire," Superboy #211, DC
Comics, 1974.

Four or five of these minimalist entries and I was out of my mind with speculation - what was with all of these cats with the same powers as Legionnaires being in one story? Were they replacements? Trainees? I had no idea. Eventually, I found a scanned copy of this so-enigmatic of comics lurking on the Internets and since the statute of limitations on spoilers is only 30 years I'm going to deliver unto you a plot summary:

In a nutshell, six characters hailing from planets such as Braal and Bismoll, where the entire populations are superpowered, show up looking to join the Legion but are rejected because of a bylaw stating that each member must have power that is unique and does not duplicate that of any other Legionnaire. Bitter over their rejection, the six beat the tar out of their Legion counterparts before getting tossed out on their asses by Superboy. The Legionnaires accept a challenge to a second fight due to wounded pride and this time remember that when fighting a group of evil (or at least hostile) counterparts the only way for the good guys to win is to switch up opponents. They win and then Matter-Eater Lad gets drafted.

So that's the plot. Now here's the really important part: reviewing the characters and in most cases soundly mocking them.

Magno Lad:

Here's Magno Lad with a mild case of Different Colourist on the Cover Syndrome, in that his costume's not that dark normally. It is however that bad. As Blockade Boy so wisely reminds us, long sleeves and short pants do not a good combination make. Plus that loin cloth thing kind of looks like a big spray of pubic hair. Oh, not literally, of course. You have to use your imagination. And then cry.

In any case, I started with Magno Lad for a reason: the issue begins with him getting the heave-ho from the Super-Hero Club, because of the aforementioned bylaw. He's awfully sad that he doesn't get to be a noble hero, an inspiration to millions with his upright feats of righteous derring-do -

- and so he starts in on the vandalism. And not only is he smashing a statue because he's disappointed, he's smashing a statue of Ferro Lad, who had recently died to save the galaxy. You know, sometimes I think that the Legion's a bit too harsh on applicants, that they reject them for no reason, but sometimes they're right on the money.

Here's the first fight - turns out that he's a magnetic athlete - in the Magnetic Olympics, no less! Because of this, he's stronger and thus should replace Cosmic Boy in the Legion, just like how we in Canada recently replaced all of our police officers with professional hockey players. Due to their great agility and ability to swing a blunt object with much accuracy, our crime rates have never been lower!

Here's the second fight. The result? comeuppance! Chameleon Boy whomps him good while posing as a giant needle.

Final analysis? Magno Lad is a Grade "A" jerk in a lousy leotard. Though I'm impressed that he can say "Ch- Chameleon Boy?" while getting punched in the jaw, I'm going to have to say:

NOT APPROVED

Chameleon Kid:

Chameleon Kid's from Durla, just like Chameleon Boy, and has a lousy imagination. Seriously, guy, if you're trying to stand out don't just change the last three letters of the other guy's name. Call yourself Toog the Transformer or Metamorphic Marquis or even Change-Shape Lad. Toog tries to justify replacing Chameleon Boy by pointing out that he's bigger and stronger, but it's a fair guess that he's also substantially dumber and more cowardly - check out his contribution to the big fight at the end:

He turns into a tree! He hides like a little, orange-skinned, antennaed baby until Matter-Eater Lad threatens to eat him. My guess is that his family all chipped in and sent him to the Legion tryouts to get him out of their equivalent of hair for a while. "I can shapeshift like you but I am stronger! Therefore I demand the last slice of cake!" "No matter what form you take I am mightier! Return my videos to the rental outlet!"

NOT APPROVED

Phantom Lad:

Phantom Lad is special in a couple of different ways, and both of them are awful. First, he's another member of Club "Too Lazy to Think Up a Good Name" and stole his off of Phantom Girl. Secondly and most heinously, he also ripped off her costume design, if "take a white outfit and cut slots in it" can be called a design (kidding: I actually love Phantom Girl's Seventies duds, especially as compared to, oh, Saturn Girl's). He's a prime example of the rule that states that what works on a dame doesn't necessarily work on a dude. Plus he's grotesquely musclebound.

Phantom Lad's from the extra-dimensional world of Bgtzl, just like Phantom Girl. He's a big obnoxious oaf in a white singlet, which isn't quite as cool, frankly.

Plus he's a misogynist and a hair-puller! Seriously, "a Phantom Lad is better than a Phantom Girl"? What the hell is the justification for that? If it's physical strength, think again, bucko - your power is becoming immaterial. That means that you can't touch things, so having totally ripped glutes isn't really any help. Plus, the Legion is full of folks who could rip you in two, no matter how many Cosmo-steroids you shoot into your ass.

I have to admit: this was my favourite part of this comic book. POW! Right in the kisser. Plus we got to see the Shrinking Violet Growing Uppercut, which I always enjoy.

Phantom Lad, you are NOT APPROVED

Esper Lass:

Esper Lass chose her own name, which I like. Plus her costume, flimsy as it is, is still better than Saturn Girl's. However thanks to Magno Lad I'm conditioned to equate loincloths with pubic hair, so that's a bit disturbing.

It's not made expressly clear whether Esper Lass is from Titan, like Saturn Girl. She's got some mental powers, sure, and she can fire ovals from her head, but that's no proof of anything. Various panels that I was too lazy to cut and paste suggest that she's the leader of this little band of rejects, which suggests that she is a moron of some sort. I mean even if they beat their counterparts into comas, these losers are never going to get in to the Legion. They'll serve some time and then have to go door-to-door in any neighborhood they move into in the future, warning everyone with superpowers that they have a history of making ridiculous challenges.

She does have a wondrously ignominious defeat, though. Just look at her spin! For that and for being just barely better-dressed than Saturn Girl she's kinda-sorta

JOHN APPROVED

Micro Lad:

I think that Micro Lad and Phantom Lad must go to the same gym, that they've been talking about coming to Earth and beating up some ladies for a while. They both like the "Lad," they both stole their costume design; they're both lame. Micro Lad seems to think, like Phantom Lad, that physical strength somehow augments his superpowers, despite the fact that his power is to get very, very small. I would wager though that by knocking down Shrinking Violet he has won his first and last fight in shrunken form - I can't honestly see a bit of upper-body strength helping out when you're the size of a dust mite.

He even gets defeated like Phantom Lad. And hey, isn't that Magno Lad's haircut? Jeez, Micro Lad, I mean, come on. Make a decision for yourself, hey? Try one that doesn't make you look like a giant tool.

NOT APPROVED

Calorie Queen:
We'll get to who Calorie Queen is in a second. First, though, I'd like to say that I like her costume - possibly because it includes bell-bottoms, or maybe because of the woad. In either case, she's rocking about a hundred times more style than anybody else on the Loser Brigade. Plus, Calorie Queen is the best name in the bunch. She does spend a lot of the issue flirting with Magno Lad, which is kind of sickening, but I'm predisposed to like her.

Okay, so she's from Bismoll and she's insulting Matter-Eater Lad...

... and she has a pretty cool power! She's like Matter-Eater Lad but with super-strength - my theory is that she was being lined up to replace ol' M-EL after he left the Legion - heck, he even recommends her to them - but that somebody said no at the last minute, which is a shame.

Another great defeat - Matter-Eater Lad chews down a flagpole and hits her with it, thus resolving a subplot wherein he was feeling like he wasn't good enough to be in the Legion, just in time for him to leave the Legion. Ah, well. Keep on eating, Matter-Eater Lad!

Hee-hee! She forgot Magno Lad's name.

I quite like Calorie Queen, especially as one of her few other appearances is in Legion of Super-Heroes No. 11 - "Tenzil Kem Takes a Bite Out of Crime" - as Senator Matter-Eater Lad's assistant. Since this is one of my fave comics of all time, anyone in it gets a

JOHN APPROVED

Bonus Material: some group shots which illustrate the rise and fall of this band of dumbclucks.

Here's everyone being disgruntled - that's Magno Lad's hand on the left.

Initial victory. Some points: Esper Lass appears to be kicking Saturn Girl while she's down, Phantom Lad and Magno Lad being asses.

The wind-up...

...and the pitch!

The second fight - Phantom Lad even runs like an idiot.

And the ignoble defeat/dose of moral superiority.

This issue was completely

JOHN APPROVED