"... except for Superboy and Supergirl... we made that rule to promote diversity and--"

Cafe Society
1

“… except for Superboy and Supergirl… we made that rule to promote diversity and–”

Let’s revisit the supposedly hard and fast rule that the Legion of Super-Heroes will not accept a new full member without at least one power that they cannot duplicate with current membership. The quote in the title is from issue 212 of Superboy and the Legion of Superheroes.

At the end of the *Adventure Comics *issue wherein Dev-Em makes a re-appearance and shows himself reformed upon advancing to the 30th Century, he is offered Legion membership by (IIRC) Superboy and Mon-El. This is somewhat moot, as he has already committed himself to heroism as a member of the Interstellar Counter-Intelligence Corps. And perhaps the duo spoke in haste, as well as unofficially.

But it certainly would involve a new member with no new power. And the Legion was founded on the example of Kal-El and Supergirl, which is why Cosmic Boy (IIRC) said “but they’re special.”

Mon-El may seem an exception, at least marginally. I get the sense that here the emphasis is on the lack of K-weaknesses. It makes more sense to me that he, too, has a special place in hero history. Ultra Boy of course has vision powers that transcend lead and perhaps other resistant substances.

But again, this may have been a trivial example, based on the lack of official process in the offer.

How about other examples, though, which call the rule, or at least the strictness of application, into question?

One example is Sun Boy, following the induction of the Super-cousins. It may not be precisely the same thing, but they could certainly produce heat. And then there was an example of a *Lois Lane *comic in the mid-60’s, # 56 with Superman producing brilliant flashes of light directly with his eyes.

Can you think of any other examples where the application of the rule is disputable?

2

What was Blok’s special power? He could talk to rocks? Cause super-strength and a degree of invulnerability seem to be his main power. Ferro Lad is similar except he can’t even talk to rocks.

Timber Wolf doesn’t seem to bring anything new to the table.

Speaking of Legion rules…how does Wildfire’s suit and Quislets ship figure into the ‘no artificial devices rule’? Artificial devices aren’t allowed because if the device is destroyed…blammo…no more super-hero. (As if people like Dream Girl are so much more useful than someone like Lex Luthor or Batman)

What I want to know is why in that issue where Star Boy is expelled for killing…why the **** honorary member Jimmy Olsen gets to vote?

3

If we’re being brutally honest, here, then, yeah, she pretty much would be.

4

IIRC, Mon-el attained Legion membership not because of his super-strength or invulnerability, but because he invented the anti-gravity metal from which Legion flight rings are made. Therefore, the rule is (perhaps) that a candidate must show a certain special talent or ability that no-one else has, rather than just a super-power.

After all, would you really consider Brainiac-5’s being super-smart a demonstrable “super power”? And his force field belt is artificial, so that can’t be considered as his power.

Likewise, Karate Kid was awarded membership after he figured out and thwarted Nemesis Kid’ plan to infiltrate the LSH. He was initially turned down because knowing karate wasn’t considered “super” enough.

Ultimately though, when trying to decipher the intricacies of “Legion Lore”, you simply have to bear in mind that in the real-world 1950/60s Silver Age when the stories were being written, the Legion of Super-Heroes was a spin-off series of a spin-off series (“Superboy” from “Superman”). They were like “Star Trek:TOS” in that they had a devoted, but VERY small fan-base during their hey-day. Also like ST:TOS, they amassed a much larger following years later, after they accumulated a whole lot of back story baggage.

During the time when a lot of these “ground-rules” for the LSH were being written, mainstream comic book creators gave very little consideration to long-term continuity. Most of these rules were made up for one story only and never expected anyone to even remember the story a few month later, let alone be applied to stories decades later. The writers never anticipated the very real future of the world in which masses of geeks and nerds would have an elaborate web of cyber-technology in which to communicate and expound upon the contrivances they were pulling out of their asses.

If you really want to get pedantic, re-visit Supergirl’s first encounter with the LSH. The Lightning Lad, Cosmic Boy & Saturn Girl she met in that story claimed that they were the sons and daughter of the LL, CB & SG whom Superboy met in his adventures with the Legion. At the time the story was written, the writers knew it would cause huge contradictions for the super-cousins to belong to the same super-hero club in the future, because then it would mean Superboy knew about his cousin at least a decade or so earlier than he actually met her.) Of course, DC editors realized that would be too confusing, dropped the whole idea like a lead weight and simply never mentioned it again. That shows how much the actual original writers of the “LSH mythology” respected the continuity.

5

Honestly, it’s stupid, since you want backups, as not everyone is available at all times. Heck, I think that’s the main reason for wanting Superboy and Supergirl. Superman is often busy.

6

Superboy IS Superman. There’s, like, 3 stories, total, where he hangs with the Legion as an adult. One of which was a flash-forward that later canon contradicted (although it did draw on it), and another was Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow, which a) wasn’t even meant as proper canon, b) had them popping in on him at the time as an unusual occurrence.

7

That you know off the top of your head that Superman hung with them, and that it’s only three stories, and you know the outline of these stories is … impressive.

8

Inaccurate though. There’s a couple of DC Comics Presents appearances also…assuming we’re only talking Pre-Crisis and discounting the very rare Adult Legionairre dropping in from time to time. Note, I’m not talking about the Adult Legion two-parter he’s already referred to.

Oh, and the Ambush Bug Special too…narf.

9

Sun Boy can do it when there’s Kryptonite around!

10

No, it isn’t. There’s way more than three stories with Superman and the Legion. I can think of three from DC COMIICS PRESENTS alone.

11

There is so much to respond to in several posts. Please excuse me for skipping (for now) over your point about continuity and a different attitude way back when. It’s interesting, but I think you started out with three boners.

YEP! Brainy is certainly “super”. In one retro story Cosmic Boy said they MIGHT consider a dude (earlier) who could only make rapid calculations. Note: He was not summarily told good luck elsewhere. B-5’s power goes far beyond that and a good quote about him is “… but he Legion DEPENDS on your planning and inventions.” (This is form the Action Comics story with one member needing to resign for tax purposes.)

KK proved his merit with a supposed non-power. His super-Karate, unlike his range of other fighting skills and weapons-mastery, was certainly portrayed (quite unrealistically, IMO) as other-worldly in scope. One online site I can no longer find attributes it to “Qi” energy. Whatever.

He stumbled on to Nemesis Kid’s sabotage by accident and was initially assumed to be guilty himself, because of prior non-cause for suspicion. When he was confronted, NK, who was unaware of KK, assumed they were talking to him, and confessed. A completely misleading cover showed KK smashing the super defense weapons himself. (!) (Maybe the ultra-suspicious Phantom Girl was also hyper-imaginative, and this is what she thought she saw.)

KK was clearly an active member.

ALMOST EVERYONE has to pass a corny “initiation test” (At least in the early stages of the feature) including Supergirl (two attempts) and Brainy.

12

:smack: :smack: :smack:

Good grief! I goofed on this one. Actually Mon-El was made a full member, albeit with part-time active duty status in Adventure # 300, the premier Tales issue. And the usual requirement was WAIVED.

Quoth Saturn Girl: “We admire you so much that …” something-something “… initiation test!”

It was only when B-5 made a more effective and long-lasting serum and Lar Gand was therefore fit for full-time duty that he hoaxed most of the Legion present as Marvel Lad aka Legionnaire Lemon, that he volunteered to perform an impressive feat.

Superboy was the only other member (early on, anyway) that we KNOW did not really have an initiation test. His “test” was essentially bogus. It was only a ritual 3-pronged humiliation, meant to be tongue-in-cheek, which he took with a brave smile.

We never saw Shrinking Violet transition from unsuccessful applicant to member.

We saw Sun Boy as a member instead of unsuccessful applicant only at the end of a Superboy-era story largely featuring a temporarily convincing imposter with a sinister agenda.

Presumably they each had some sort of initiation.

Bouncing Boy was shown finally getting admitted (in flashback) and perhaps the substitute for an assigned test was his willingness to publicly humiliate himself in his early attempts to get the Legion to reverse his quick dismissal. That, and his final successful demonstration that Cosmic Boy was wrong to assume that there was absolutely no practical value to his power.

Then again, maybe an assigned test was just off-camera. The story of his origin and frustrations was already getting long.

They would have had to cut out an ad or two. :eek:

13

I really should wait for some more feedback, but this can’t wait.

Honorary members, although not active duty roster ones (Although JO had some power) were otherwise treated as full members.

JO and Pete Ross could not only vote but particicpate in a unique contest devised by Proty II (backed up by a preliminary vote to use a contest that year instead of the usual direct vote) to SELECT THE NEW LEADER. I have a particular fondness for Adv. 323 because it was the 1st issue I owned. In the splash panel for part two, Jimmy imagines having to tell Lucy that, as the new leader, he will be very busy in the future. Heh.

Honorary members seemed well ahead of other classes of reservists in perks!

– ETA: Also a letter column response reinforced this and directly implied that Pete Ross could have voted about Star Boy.

Good points about Blok and Timber Wolf, BTW. (It has been said that Blok cannot only directly block energy, but also absorb energy. Presumably huge amounts.)

14

As I recall, and it’s been ages, Superboy was under a hypnotic command, self administered, to forget anything he learned about his own future so that no worries about the integrity of the timeline factored into it.

That’s how he can meet Supergirl when he’s an adult and believe it’s the first time.

15

Martha and Jonathan’s little boy was under multiple such blocks; the Legion clearly didn’t trust the one he gave himself. There was a second one administered by machine which prevented him from learning how to slow human aging; there was the clear implication that he had long outlived Lois, Jimmy, and so on, and they didn’t want him tempted to change that. Later, when some sadistic villain contrived to have him learn how his parents died (which was inadvertently his fault), Saturn Girl gave him a posthypnotic command to remain in the 20th century so he wouldn’t have to deal with that foreknowledge, and later simply wiped his memory of the events.

16

Also, later it was subtly implied that Superboy’s history had caught up with his parents dying relative to his appearing with the Legion. Though we don’t see him say anything about it. He does start to look more Supermanish when he and Supergirl help against Darkseid.

17

Yeah. I’d say Kal was 13-16 during his major tenure with the team, and 18 or 19 during the Great Darkness Saga. (I’m ignoring the post-Crisis affair with the Time Trapper for obvious reasons.)

18

IIRC, Blok’s unique ability to get around the Legion by-laws was his massive density. Didn’t it take three flight rings to get him off the ground? Timber Wolf’s unique ability was his agility. Dawnstar’s wasn’t her flight or her superspeed, but her tracking sense.

Early Star Boy had Kryptonian/Daxamite powers plus electro-vision that couldn’t see through copper. Early Sun Boy, IIRC, could just radiate intense light. The whole spectrum of light/heat/flame/solar radiation was added later. Princess Projectra, if written correctly, could do anything Invisible Kid or Shadow Lass could do.

The Legion seemed to be much more sticklers about the rules when applying them to tryout candidates than to heroes who helped them out on a case and then were invited to join. Still, you think they would’ve given Ayla a break on the no-duplication rule.

Even as a kid, I felt the Super-Rejects got a raw deal from the Legion, even though most of them turned out to be stinkers. Their Legion counterparts were getting their butts handed to them in one-on-one fights. The Legionnaires won by switching opponents, and then lectured the Super-Rejects about their superior teamwork.

19

So why did their clubhouse look like a rocket that took a nosedive into the ground?

20

That was just the first one, and it WAS a rocket. I assume Brande gave it to them.