Friday, November 27, 2009

True Tales of the 31st Century

Stealing yet another idea (like yesterday's), here's one inspired by Chris Sims' (of the ISB) post on "True Tales of the Core Marvel Universe". That's a series of entries on just how bizarre and absurd the Marvel Universe can really be if you stop to think about it. I read that and thought that surely the Legion's time (all of their timelines) must have some wackiness that we normally take for granted with our suspension of disbelief, but "when you put it that way...."

  • In the Legion's time, a boy from the 20th century spent 1000 years in isolation in a buffer zone, unable to communicate with the outside world. After he got out of isolation, a magically cloned younger version of himself went back in time to replace his 20th century self after the 20th century version got prematurely killed by an evil magician from the 30th century.

  • In the Legion's time, a boy's mind was replaced by that of a sentient blob of protoplasm, yet his long-time girlfriend (who later became his wife) who was one of the greatest telepaths known, never knew.

  • In the Legion's time, members of the team have included a teenager who created a monster to kill his teammates, someone who couldn't tell a bottle of soda from an experimental serum, an emo bag of sentient anti-energy, someone who later married his stalker, someone who ate a magic machine, and an energy creature whose favorite phrase was "poop-a-doop".

  • In the Legion's time, they have their headquarters in the body of a dead alien.

  • What else do you have?

    5 comments:

    Richard said...

    Legion comics are full of ideas that sound ludicrous if they're described in a way that emphasizes the absurdity -- and some ideas are just plain bad, like almost all the ones you cite above -- but what Chris was going for is more like "accepted Marvel continuity has stuff that's clearly absurd even in context and sounds silly no matter how straight the description." Some examples I'd use from the Legion are:

    In the Legion's time, the Legion chooses who'll go on a dangerous mission by sitting around a rapidly spinning model of the solar system and waiting for each of the planets to fly off and smack someone in the head. The first Legionnaire whacked on the head this way gets to be leader.

    In the Legion's time, an omnipotent other-dimensional race creates a mechanism which can turn any thought into reality, and entrusts this sheer godlike power to the Legion. The smartest Legionnaire subsequently decides the best thing to do with this device is feed it to a Legionnaire whose super-power is being able to eat anything.

    In the Legion's time, getting married was grounds for expulsion from the Legion, as was killing a man in self-defense. However, going insane and trying to destroy the Earth was not.

    Brainy Pirate said...

    This isn't quite in the same league as y'all's, but it's what came to mind first:

    In Giff-Legion time, being really, really smart is considered more of a super-power than being trained as the galaxy's greatest combat fighter.

    Dr. Michael J. MacArthur said...

    In the Legion's time, an organization funded by one of the galazy's richest individuals, with an extremely large asset base of space ships, weaponry and technology
    is so concerned about its finances that it allows its mightiest member to resign just to bring its membership down and avoid paying additional taxes.

    Mac

    Greybird said...

    Damn. Just when I'd managed to forget about that sad absurdity known as Fortress Lad {rueful smile}

    And-Ru said...

    The Night Girl origin is one of my favourite Legion origins ever!!

    It's such a great idea!

    Basically, a super groupie gets her dad to perform scientific experiments on her so she can meet her teen idol. It's Grant Morrison-esque before Morrison was even born (probably).