Thursday, February 08, 2007

Trivia Answers #8

You guys are getting too good. (That's "guys" in the gender-neutral sense.)

1. Special 52 related question: In non-retconned history, how did Booster Gold end up with a Legion Flight Ring and Brainiac 5's force field belt?

In a time paradox, several Legionnaires went back in time to 1985 to find out why a flight ring and Brainy's belt ended up in one of Rip Hunter's time machines that was used only once to go from 2462 to 1986. In a classic superhero misunderstanding, the Legion thought that Booster Gold (who had used the time machine, ring, and belt) was there to assassinate President Reagan, while the Legion thought Booster was there for the same reason. They figure things out, protect Reagan, and Brainy leaves his flight ring and belt in the time machine so that it'll be there in 2462 when Booster steals it to go back in time.

This story was recently recapped on scans_daily, so maybe you'll be able to understand it better there.

2. Which code names have been used for more than one Legionnaire or close Legion associate by different people? Count all examples of a person across the different continuities as one person for this question, e.g., all versions of Kal-El count as the same Superboy.
The original names that I had thought of were Superboy, Impulse, Inferno, Leviathan, Kid Quantum, Invisible Kid, and Karate Kid. You came up with Lightning Lad and Livewire (which I wasn't going to count since it wasn't a permanent name, but what the hell), Computo, and Reflecto.

3. Across the various continuities, which Legionnaires have had the power to physically change their body's form, appearance, and/or physical properties?
My original list: Invisible Kid, Chameleon Boy, Shrinking Violet, Colossal Boy, Ferro Lad, Phantom Girl, Color Kid. I hadn't thought of Kono, Bouncing Boy, Timber Wolf (as Furball), Shikari, Stone Boy, Gear, Elastic Lad, Celeste as green energy, Thunder changing identities, Insect Queen, or Spider Girl. Clearly my fact-checking was a bit deficient.

4. In the Levitz-era Legion Academy, what was the name of the little gray guy with the big eyes?
To the best of my knowledge, it was never given. He even showed up in the "Who's Who" book as "unknown", as in this page on scans_daily.

5. A Tuckerization (named after a 1950s science fiction author) is when a real person's name or physical description is used for a character in a fictional story - for example, Flynt Brojj was named after Mike Flynn and Harry Broertjes. Name five other Tuckerizations from Legion history (there are tons).
Here's a list of over 30 Tuckerizations on the Legion Wiki. They include the element Sigellian (Jerry Siegel), the Weisinger Chambers, Gigi Cusimano (Paul Levitz' wife's maiden name), Magno's name Dyrk Magz, Thunder's real name Cecebeck and home planet Binderaan (after Capt. Marvel co-creators C. C. Beck and Otto Binder), and the real names of Nightwind, Crystal Kid, and Lamprey.

6. In original Adventure-era continuity, why did Dream Girl use Naltorian science to change Ayla Ranzz's powers from lightning to making things lightweight?
I didn't think anyone would get this. It was not the "no duplication of powers" rule, that came later. As Jonathan said, Nura appeared to remove Ayla's power to kick her out of the Legion (long story), but she really just changed the power to something Ayla didn't know she had.

7. Special bonus 52 related question: How many different Emerald Eyes have we seen? I'm talking about the large ones like the Eye of Ekron, not the normal ones from people with green eyes or the kind when the Emerald Eye possesses someone.
Jonathan got all the ones I was thinking of, so I'll just repost what he said:
a. the original.
b. Cera Kesh's.
c. the one MacCauley had.
d. Violet's eye in the reboot.
e. the one the Bek's found in L.E.G.I.O.N.
f. The one Lobo has in 52.
g. the other one in the "head of Ekron," seemingly destroyed.
h. the seemingly mechanical (and disassembled) Eye in Sivana's lab on Oolong Island

I'll have to come up with some harder ones next time.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Tsk. I should have posted about #4, then, since I knew as much as you did. :)

And there's still an extra bunch of Emerald Eyes from the Fatal Five Hundred.