Post Zero Hour he became their cook. (Don’t know if he’s still around…haven’t read any DC book in ages.)
Bouncing Boy was still around at that point, too, only not called Bouncing Boy, and devoid of his powers. He was just an architect helping rebuild Legion headquarters.
And Lance - that page rocks.
While Hawkman was equally lame, (I mean sure flying would be cool but doesn’t it really help when fighting supervillans. “Watch out, I’ll drop things on you or maybe gust wind into your eyes.” Puhleaze) Hawkeye is the Marvel equivalent of Green Arrow. “Watch out, I’m going to shoot arrows at you because guns are bad. And we all know arrows don’t hurt anybody?” :rolleyes: Give me a shotgun and we’ll see who wins.
“Watch out, I’m trying to bore you to death with my really lame sarcasm.” Oh wait a minute, I didn’t me to say that out loud.
[sub]Quick get away before someone spots you and they start accusing of being lame. Run away! Run away![/sub]
It’s been mentioned on the board before, but my favorite is still “Turkey Volume Guessing Man”, whose superpower was being able to look at any sized chamber and estimate how many turkeys it would hold. Truly awesome. His secret identity was Crow T. Robot.
A sentimental favorite is “Bipolar Bear” from “The Tic”. Some days he was really psyched up to fight crime, other days he just couldn’t be bothered to get out of bed.
I was begining to think that no one had bothered to check it out.
A friend and I were laughing our collective ass off about it on IRC after I saw it here.
You got it backwards, jayjay. The original Green Lantern was on Earth 2, the one allergic to the color yellow was on Earth One. (I agree, it doesn’t make much sense in retrospect, but it made sense at the time)
Regarding the Legion members: C’mon, some of 'em were obviously intended to be funny. Those don’t count do they? And if they do and you want really lame, let’s talk about the Legion of Substitute Heroes Rejects: Arms-Fall-Off Boy (power: exactly like his name says). Antennae Lad (has big ears and can pick up radio broadcasts from the past). Plaid Lad (can turn things plaid).
But the lamest of lame, far worse than Robbie “Sockamagee!” Reed, is the Blackhawks when they became Super-Heroes. My. God. During the Batman TV show of the '60s, the Blackhawks decided to become superheroes. I can’t remember most of their powers, but one of 'em (Olaf?) became “the Listener”. His power? He had a super-Ear-Trumpet. His costume? A navy-blue, skintight jumpsuit with hundreds of little, pink human ears printed all over it. The others were equally lame.
Fenris
My vote goes to The Phantom. The “Ghost Who Walks Will Never Die”? C’mon! He’s just the son of a son of a son of a son who punches guys with his skull ring.
An sobering point is the both the Legion and “Dial H for Hero” used fans’ suggestions for heroes and their powers. In other words: don’t think you could do better – because you created them in the first place. 
How about Mr. Miracle? He was an escape artist. He could escape from any trap. So?
Though even some of the lamest of superheroes made good comics. I’m reminded of General Glory, who was designed as a parody of Captain America in a very good three-part JLA in the early 90s. For some reason, they made him a member, where he did nothing for several years. Finally, though, they killed him off in a very effective little story.
Okay, here’s something we haven’t yet touched on:
Archie and his friends as superheroes.
Anybody else remember them? Archie was Captain Pureheart, Betty was Superteen, and the others were some other kind of superhero. Like Batman and Superman and the rest, the Archie heroes battled various super villians. And even the Little Archie comics featured the heros’ child equivalents.
If we can go back to DC comics for a moment, I seem to recall a number of DC titles that may have flirted with the idea of making a character into a superhero. (My guess is that everybody was trying to cash in on the Batman craze in the 60s, so we saw many lame heroes, whether they were meant to be funny or not.)
My memory isn’t great on this since I rarely read the non-superhero titles. But in the Bob Hope comic (one of DC’s titles), am I correct in remembering the character Tadwallader Jutefruce having some kind of super hero identity at some point?
You’re right, of course. I was going by the formula of “heroes appeared earlier in their history = #1”.
Her name wasn’t Duplicate Girl, it was Duo Damsel.
Green Lantern doesn’t have super strength, nor did he ever have super strength. The Earth 1 Green Lantern had a weakness to yellow, which was an impurity in the ring placed there by its creators. Green Lantern now has no weaknesses, and his ring lasts longer than 24 hours at a time.
You want a lame hero? Try the new mute Batgirl who seems to be all about hyperviolence with no need for a decent plot or character development. Bleh. Give me Barbara Gordon any day… even though she’s actually the second Batgirl. Major points to anyone who knows who the original Bat-girl was, and what she became post Crisis on Infinite Earths.
Sigh. This isn’t even relevant anymore (It was noted previously that the current GL can affect yellow objects), but if you were to start your crime spree as Yellow Guy, I’d simply drop a car on you, or cause an earthquake, or make a big-ass wind machine to knock you down, or blind you with a bright strobe light, or wrap a light pole around you, or throw a hubcap at you, ect. The ring’s weakness to yellow wasn’t nearly as bad as it might first appear. It simply gave the writers a chance to make Hal Jordon use a little bit of intellegence to find a way around the yellow ring weakness. If nothing else, he could grab a can of (Non yellow paint) and dump it on you.
DC seemed to have a bad habit of creating godlike characters with silly weaknesses, a la GL’s yellow weakness, Superman’s kryptonite, or Martian Manhunter’s pyrophobia (Yes, one of DC’s most powerful hcaracters can be stopped by fire. He really needs to invest in a fireproof suit and a fire extinguisher).
My personal nominations for lame heros are:
Hawkman. You know, the writers have done everything they can for this guy, but when push comes to shove, he’s a shirtless guy with wings.
Angel. Marvel’s answer to Hawkman.
The Elongated Man. Anythng Plastic Man can do, EM can do…not quite as well. He doesn’t even have a cool set of skills to augment his lame power, like Mr Fantastic; he’s a second rate detective who actually wiggles his nose when he “sniffs out” a clue.
With a couple of exceptions (Like Hitman), any hero who gets his origin from a crossover series, like Crisis or The Manhunters.
The various lame Legionarres have already been covered.
Moon Knight. “Hi. I’m a master of disquise, who uses my martial arts and gymnastics to fight crime. I’m also a millionare. But I’m not Batman, because I dress in white.”
Aquaman has been finally getting some decent attention in the JLA. While he’s no Superman, he’s far from lame. Besides his well known swimming abilities and marine telepathy, he has super strength and toughness (From growing up in the depths of the ocean), he can see in almost total darkness (Ocean dephs again), he can use his telepathy to cause seizures (Higher animals still have the marine forebrains of their ancestors), and he has an artificial hand that has a rocket fired harpoon thingie. He’s also the monarch of a kingdom that covers over two thirds of the planet with futuristic technology. Don’t knock the guy just because Hanna-Barbara sucks donkey dicks.
-what did “Braniac 2150” do? I recall that he was a robot of some sort.
Also, wasn’t the Legion’s clubhouse rather small? From what I remember, “Bouncing Boy” would have had a hard time getting inside it!
Back to “Green Arrow” for a moment-what was his sidekick called, and was he a strong young lad like “Robin”? Actually, “Robin” had a quite risque costume for the time-he must have gotten cold on those winter nights (in persuit of the Joker)!!
Not really…even the original ‘Rocket with a bad pilot’ version was rather more spacious than it looked.
The more recent one is several stories tall.
His name was Speedy. Rather a better name for Kid Flash, but, there you go.
Green Arrow’s sidekick was “Speedy”, which was also the name of the Supercat. No wonder you didn’t see him so much.
If you think Pete Ross was lame, then what about “Snapper” Carr, the embarassing pseudo-hipster from the Justice League comics? Not a superhero, but still…
Then there are the Metal Men – robots made out of various metals in a cheap attempt to be educational as well as entertaining. Too many jokes at Tin’s expense. Mercury is a “hothead”, and he’s red (because of “mercury” in thermometers? Or maybe they were thinking of cinnabar). Most of them didn’t get a lot of character, though.
Actually, the Supercat was Streaky. He makes an appearence in the all-Krypto edition of the Gone and Forgotten page Lance linked.
You forgot to mention how bitter he got when he realized that Mike had the same ability. 
::giggles:: I almost used that line as my sig!
From IMDb:
Wasn’t there also a character on “The Tick” known as The Lemming? I think all he did was run off the rooftops of buildings. 
I’m about to earn everyone’s contempt. I know this stuff by heart. (and I’m going by the original '60s version, not the modern revamps)
Archie was Pureheart the Powerful. Superstrong, invulnerable, but if kissed by a pretty girl, lost his powers.
Reggie was Evilheart. Less powerful than Pureheart, but without the weaknessess
Betty was Super-Teen, she could fly, etc. I don’t exactly remember her transformation stchick, but it had to do with her pony-tail
Jughead was Captain Hero. Got his powers from rubbing his hat and reciting the following rhyme:
Teeny-weenie magic beanie
Pointing towards the sky
Give me muscles, stregnth and vigor
(Make me?) A Super-Guy!
Veronica was either Evilheart’s henchwoman or Evilheart’s vicitim.
**
The last name may not be quite right, but it’s close and I can’t remember the correct name.
Tadwallader became “Super-Hip”, God help us. His costume was early Partridge Family.
Cal: I liked the Metal Men. (But the Tin jokes did get lame fast)
EGKelly: Brainiac 5. Oh God. You’ve got me started. The upshot. In real life, in the mid '50s, when Braniac was created, in his first appearances he was just a green alien who shrunk cities and had a force-field. Some time later, Brainiac 5 showed up as a try-out for the Legion. His power was his “Super-Brain” (later changed to a 12th level intellect…normal humans are a 6, and Superman is an 8(?) )
He wanted to be a Legion member to try and clear the family name from Brainiac’s Eee-vil. He was accepted as a member.
Some time later, (early '60s), in an issue of Superman, Brainiac had a surprise revelation and Braniac told Luthor that he was a robot.
Braniac 5’s origin got changed and the story became as follows: On Colu, the really smart Coluans created giant super-computers who took over and called themselves “The Computer Tyrants”. The Computer Tyrants built Braniac as a mobile weapon. They built him to look just like a Coluan. Brainiac grabbed a kid from the local orphanage and “adopted” him to further the illusion that Brainiac was human. Experiments performed on this kid, Brainiac 2, gave him a super-intellect. Brainiac 2 eventually led a rebellion that defeated the Computer Tyrants.
Anyway, I think I’ve embarrassed my self enough for now,
Fenris
I’m still wondering what possessed Stan Lee to give the Backstreet Boys their own comic. ::shudders::