Twelve Days of Christmas Special Review Series, Part Twelve, By Johnathan

Holy Hannah. I did it!

I mean *ahem* of course I did. And look: I planned things out ahead of time. After starting on the Legion Christmas tale in Adventure Comics No. 289 we wrap up with the Legion yarn from the Super-Star Holiday Special, which is very likely to make an appearance here next year as well.

The setup: Superboy is visiting the future yet again and it's Christmastime. He's oddly upset that the world of the one thousand years in the future is not full of familiar 1950s (or 1940s, or 60s or whenever Superboy was from at that point) holiday traditions. Saturn Girl tries to cheer him up with some old-fashioned invasion of privacy:

"To be shared only by close friends and whoever happens to be spying on them from the Clubhouse."

Karate Kid's tree isn't as nice as that one from the Adventure story. It's still cool and all, but there's just something about concentric rings...

Also, who here thinks that Sun Boy invited himself along to this thing? I for one would not take my main squeeze home for a "private tea ceremony" and also bring along my womanizing pal. Unless there's more to the KK/PP relationship than we were told... or less, I suppose.

Fireworks trees! Terrific, improbable, hazardous!

Forcing your friend to work because he doesn't celebrate the holiday that you're all taking off? Not cool.

I think that this might be the first time that we learn that Colossal Boy is Jewish, which was always a nice touch, especially as all of the black characters kept getting shuffled off to other dimensions or weren't black at all and then were killed. Colossal Boy is the face of Legion diversity, folks!

Not sure if it's necessary for him to be so big, though, even if the Allons do have a gigantic dining room. My brother is in the army, and we discourage him from showing up at dinnertime in full camouflage and armed. This seems similar to me - "Look everyone! I'm a super-hero!"

Here's something for you to think about, Superboy: you flew to the future under your own power. You could very easily jaunt off to Smallville for Christmas, or go back to watch the invention of the first piece of tinsel (and then take the inventor Hans Tinsel to the moon to fight 17th Century Dominators or something). The future is, after all, another country - you're acting like someone who goes to France and complains about the lack of English and Coors.

Now just calm down and...

... go completely over the top. Say one thing about Superboy, folks: he doesn't mess around. No candlelight service for him, no sir. No going to Bethlehem to check out possible manger sites or trying to summon the ghosts of the Wise Men or feeding Tenzil gold, frankincense and myrrh until he pukes Christmas spirit. No, it's time to fly to the Christmas star. Basically the only way to top that would be to travel back to watch Mary giving birth, but that's too obvious.

The rest of the story is concerned with the legion haring off on Superboy's mad quest and helping a planet full of fairly dumb aliens ("The ocean's freezing, huh? Well, I guess I'll just sit here and die.") It's okay, but the real attraction is the sheer scale that Superboy thinks on. And his super-demented facial expression.

JOHN APPROVED

All together now!

On the twelfth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me:

Twelve beasts of lightning,
Eleven Tyrocs shouting,
Ten Stone Boys standing,
Nine Police sciencing,
Eight Trappers timing,
Seven boys a-bouncing,
Six Tenzils snacking,

FIVE LEGION RINGS!

Four head-shaped worlds,
Three Luornus,
Two Turtle Boys,
And a Brainy, out of his tree.

A retroactive happy whatever if you choose to celebrate something at this time of year, a good time anyway if you don't and may your smugness be extra satisfying if you're one of those types.

Review of Lazy Costuming Syndrome, By Johnathan

Every once in a while, you may see/ have seen me complain about something called "Lazy Costuming Syndrome" - heck, I think that there's a tag for it, I've bitched about it so much (yep, there it is down there). Since I have some good examples of this dreaded affliction on hand, I thought it might be fun to pin down exactly what I'm talking about in these drunken ramblings of mine. NOTE: I'm not actually drunk... this time.

Lazy Costuming Syndrome (LCS) can affect characters, writers and artists. It is characterized by a super-hero or -villain wearing as a permanent or long-term costume the clothes that they were wearing when they either acquired their powers or first put them to use in thwarting or perpetuating crime. There are two major sub-strains of this disease: Strain LB (for Lucky Bastard) and Strain LD (for Laundry Day). This syndrome is not exclusive to residents and writers of DC's 30th Century Earth, but is especially prevalent among them, possibly because virtually everybody in that particular fictional century is wearing some freaky tights-and-tunic-or-whatever getup that could qualify as a super-suit of some kind.

Strain LB affects characters by having them already in possession of a suitable costume when their moment of truth arrives, and occurs in a variety of levels of severity - the mildest cases appear in characters such as the Barbara Gordon Batgirl, who fights crime in a Hallowe'en costume that she was wearing when she happened upon a Killer Mothing-in-progress. Indeed, some experts argue that Gordon doesn't possess the disease at all, as she is perhaps the most severe case of the Coincidentis Virus on record, being a judo-, computer- and gymnastics-expert, who's adopted father the Police Commissioner happened to be Batman's best friend and who stumbled upon a crime-in-progress whilst wearing a superhero outfit and having something to prove re: her ability to smack down baddies.

Slightly more severe is the case in which a character comes from a race or group who share the same power and choose to glorify this in their everyday outerwear. Stone Boy, above, is an example of such. His people run around in bright orange getups that work perfectly well as third-rate super-hero costumes, with a logo and everything. Although I suppose it's possible that those are ceremonial hibernation clothes that everyone is wearing, which would mean that Stone Boy spent a number of years fighting crime in his pajamas. Either way, it's evident that Distant World does not possess an abundance of graphic designers - that rock is hideous.

Polar Boy is another example of this level of LCS, Strain LB, in that he is a member of the cold-projecting subset of the population of Planet Tharr and, judging from the above evidence, this entitles him to wear the little purple-and-fur number that we all know and love so well. Why, it is even likely that he already thought of himself as a Champion of Justice, in a lifelong struggle against the machinations of the evil Sun! Which is why I want to see Polar Boy in a costume modeled after the Kool-Aid Man.

Perhaps the most extreme case of Strain LB known, Fire Lad defied the laws of logic and causality and greatly advanced the field of LCS research by acquiring fire-based powers while taking a pleasant stroll wearing an almost excessively fire-based costume. Neither Fire Lad nor Science has been able to provide an explanation of why he might do so, and the level of LCS in his system at the time has been theorized as being near-lethal.

The LD Strain of LCS has similar symptoms to the LB, in that it causes the hero or villain to adopt whatever they were wearing at the time of their first foray into adventure as their costume. The effect is markedly different, however, in that the victims of LD Strain LCS essentially end up wearing their everyday clothes. The effects of this strain can be seen in heroes such as the Jack Knight Starman or Matter-Eater Lad (just because it's skin-tight doesn't mean it's a costume, Tenzil). It may never be known what percentage of the 30th Century super-human populace are afflicted, due to the above-noted fact that virtually every citizen of that time wears on an average day an outfit that wouldn't look out of place on, say, a one-shot Justice League Europe villain. Documented cases include Bouncing Boy and Mon-El, but by far the most dramatic is that of the ill-used Legionnaire Tyroc:

Note that Tyroc first used his powers at the age of about seven or eight and from that point wore exactly the same high-collared, gold-chained playsuit that he had had on that fateful day, down to the little Robin-style pixie boots. i would commend him for taking the little sleeves off around the time that he hit 14, but I suspect that he did it because they were starting to cut off the circulation in his arms. Perhaps the most telling sign that LCS was involved in the clothing choices of Tyroc is the fact that someone chose to send a small, seemingly non-super boy out to play in a gleamingly white outfit. Extra-dimensional island only sporadically connected to earth or not, no parent in their right mind would even consider such an act unless under the insidious thumb of this frighteningly pervasive disease.

LCS is NOT APPROVED, despite some giggles on my part.

Super-Human Detritus of the 30th Century: Review of Absorbancy Boy, By Johnathan

Due to file corruption, you will never get to read the totally neato review that I wrote yesterday. Instead, a totally neato review that I'm writing today!

So: Absorbancy Boy, the villain of the hour over in Action Comics right now. Who'd have thought? Definitely not me or I'd have reviewed him by now, instead of spelling his name wrong while writing about Infectious Lass.

Here's our first look at the future Earth Man, fresh from a character-building dose of soul-crushing disappointment:

I have to say: I kind of like that costume, even if it looks a bit like something an evil version of Animal Man would wear (alternate versions of that comment: like something that Earth-3 Animal Man would wear; even though it makes him look like Anne Rice's Animal Man).

I kind of like him looking grumpy over top of that explanatory caption - it's as if he got a job as a continuity editor, like Affable Al and friends back in the day, but he wasn't really very happy about it. Curmudgeonly Kirt?

Putting aside the fact that I know that the guy turned out to be a complete ass and later a super-villain, at this point in the tale my sympathies are with A-Boy. As I understand it, having his power (absorbing and utilizing residual superhuman energies) on hand would allow the Legion to basically double up on any power that they need, as well as having someone on hand who could use a super-powered enemy's abilities agin 'em. Too limited, Legion? Sounds like a pretty good deal to me, actually.

My personal theory is that Absorbancy Boy was pre-rejected based on his name. After years of crazy applicants the Legionnaires were probably terrified that some guy in a bright yellow costume was going to come trundling in towing a big tub of water, which he would then proceed to empty using the super-porous tissues of his ass cheeks. If he'd only named himself after his most impressive features, then Muttonchop Lad or perhaps Sideburn Squire would be running around with the Legion to this day.

Meanwhile (and this is relevant to the review) Tyroc is being inducted into the Legion, but before he can even begin to enjoy the state-of-the-art Dungeons and Dragons arcade, the building is attacked by Zoraz, an "old foe" of the superteens who lurks in the ductwork and craves revenge for something or other. Supposedly, he has managed to steal the Legionnaires' genetic information from their central storage area (though I wouldn't think that it would be hard to collect genetic material in a building full of teenagers. From all of the laundry that they'd leave everywhere, I mean). From this he has worked out exactly how to counter each Legionnaire's powers, information that he seems a bit too eager to use, honestly. Causing Star Boy to make himself heavy enough to sink into the floor is one thing, but taking out Dream Girl by beaming nightmares into her skull? That seems like overkill, really. Don't get me wrong, Dream Girl's a great Legionnaire, just not one renowned for her incredible combat skills. A good sock to the jaw would probably be as effective as any three green faces that you could cause her to think about.

Anyway, Zoraz is eventually revealed to be a fake villain designed as a final test for incoming recruits. Tyroc actually seems pretty ticked off when he learns this, which is understandable given the number of hoops that he had to jump through in order to get in, while schmucks like Matter-Eater Lad and Dynamo-Boy just walked in off of the street.

Here's Zoraz's poorly-clad backside:

And the front:

But wait! That's not Sun Boy at all, it's Kid Cheek-Pelt! Our old friend from the first three panels has come back to prove himself worthy of the Legion. Heck, it worked for Wildfire - maybe it'll do all right by Absorbancy Boy.

Although a good first step in proving your worth, Absorbancy Boy, would have been keeping mum about how you've been hiding in the very first place that someone searching for Zoraz would have looked. I mean, jeez.

Oops. I was with you up to this point man, but really: beating up the guy who got into the Legion instead of you is not the way to get into the group. Just ask Phantom Lad - the last I heard he was working as an "Uncle Ghosty the Clown" mascot at one of a galaxy-wide chain of Bgtzl Fried Kangobronc restaurants.

Someone really should take that second panel out of context someday.

Fight scene!

Not bad, A-Boy. You've definitely got some serious chops. If only you'd gone about this in a more reasonable and thought-out manner instead of stomping in and being a total dick. Talk about things instead of hitting Superboy and maybe people will listen to you.

Battle of the spread-legged joes! This is where Tyroc really underlines just how great, if pantsless, he is:

Two-panel takedown! BONK! indeed, mister Tyroc. You truly have demonstrated that you are worthy to wear those extreme collars. You know, Tyroc himself has fairly impressive facial hair - had this little scrap lasted longer it could've been classed as a Heavyweight Muttonchop Rumble. Tickets could've been sold! I'm sorry. That was terrible but, hey, it's past my bedtime. Things are only going to go downhill from here.

Absorbancy Boy, though your muttonchops are JOHN APPROVED, you yourself are a total oaf. The best thing that can be said about you is that you are an efficient way for the muttonchops to get from place to place and spread the joy that is their gift to the world. For your thoughtless violence and for eventually becoming a full-fledged xenophobic semi-tyrannical super-villain you are

NOT APPROVED

Review of Future Current Events, By Johnathan

BIG FONT WARNING: SPOILERS AND SALTY LANGUAGE AHEAD.

Holy shit! I've been picking up the recent issues of Action Comics, first because of Bizarro and then keeping it up because of the LSH story that has been rocking the proverbial house. It's been neat to read what is essentially a retro Legion story and a well-told one at that, so this week I cracked open Action Comics No. 859 with all expectation of enjoyment and I'm all like "Neat! the Batcave!" and then this happens:

!!! Holy shit again! This issue was written especially for me! It's the Legion of Super-Human Detritus! Honestly, Golden Boy? Storm Boy? this is fantastic! Wait... check this:

A handy picture guide. Compare and contrast character designs!

The appearance of Absorbancy Boy/Earth-Man really threw me for a loop. A-Boy originally showed up in Superboy No. 218. He got rejected from the Legion - despite his glorious muttonchops and ability to absorb and utilize residual superhuman energies - and stood by and glowered whilst Quake Kid tried to score with Infectious Lass. He then weaseled his way back into the clubhouse to try to interfere with Tyroc's induction into the Legion, only to be beaten down by the Mauler from Marzal himself. How much do I want Tyroc to show up at the end of this story for a rematch? Very, very much.

I see that The Tusker and Golden Boy have been toughened up a bit for this appearance - I shall refrain from making a joke about Golden Boy turning himself into gold by masturbating (no I won't).

Wait, if the Tusker has unbreakable bones then what happened to his tooth?

And so on. My thoughts on these characters have been logged on the Internets for all to read. I love them all, even as I love to mock them. I'm just super glad that the Legion of Throwaway Characters is getting their time in the sun. Sure hope that The Mess shows up before this is all through (Alternate version of this joke that I forgot to use: I sure hope that Lester Spiffany is behind all of this).

Thoroughly, totally JOHN APPROVED