Friday, August 11, 2006

Rejected rejects

A couple of weeks ago, I touched upon one of the most endearing traditions in Legion history, that of the tryouts (and subsequent rejects). Robby Reed's "Dial B for Blog" had invited the assembled blogospherians (blogistanians?) to propose new characters who would surely get rejected, and the winner (or most rejected) would win the right to propose a topic for the blog.

There were four rounds of hysterical judging (here, here, here, and here) with ten rejected applicants apiece, then six semi-finalists out of the 40, with a winner and a runner-up.

None of mine made the semifinals. I had proposed:

  • Donut-Eater Lad - no real powers, just likes donuts
  • Anti-Matter-Eater Lad - useful in limited situations
  • Matter-Vomiter Lad - can projectile vomit with great accuracy
  • Slinky Girl - she walks down stairs, alone or in pairs, and makes a slinkety sound
  • Silly Putty Boy - when he presses up against something, he can take its mirror-image, but can't hold the power very long before melting. Good for short-term espionage, also can replace Bouncing Boy if needed
  • The Count - can keep track of lots of numbers and memorize things. Great at blackjack, not so useful in a fight.
  • Timestep - can move back and forth in time but limited to only 5 seconds per jump
  • Speaker Boy - can hook up a home electronics system in minutes
  • Pirate Wench - likes to dress up as a pirate wench. Has own parrot and eyepatch.
  • MySpace Lass - can speak and understand IM. "Ell oh ell, Rokk! Oh em ef gee! I are oh eff elled! Colon close parentheses. That roxxored!"
  • Firefly - can make his butt light up, but only if he takes his pants off. (A lighter helps, too, if you know what I mean.)
  • Lying Manipulative bitch Slut Whore - she'll be your ex-girlfriend.
  • Gaydar - can determine the sexuality of someone within a 3-block radius.
  • Monkey Boy - can fling explosive poop.
  • Splinter - gets under your skin and is pretty annoying.
  • Trunk - has had an elephant's nose implanted on his face, which he uses back home to fight crime.

Sadly, they all got rejected as rejects. Robby revealed his criteria after the nominations:
In selecting the semi-finalists, I simply chose the entries that made me laugh the most. (One entry was miles above the rest in this regard.) Beyond that, I chose the entries I thought were the most clever, and the most comic-book savvy in relation the rejected LSHers.

His tryouts are laugh-out-loud funny. Go back and read them.

Finally, the finalists:
  • COMATOSE INFANT - "WAHHHHHH! Me am Comatose Infant! Me am never been conscious since birth! Even Stone Boy never been as seemingly lifeless as me! In fact, me can even . ... ZZZZZZzzzzz glub glub drool!"
  • FLAYED LAD - "My power is permanent, uncontrollable invisibility which only affects my own skin!"
  • DARK KENT - "What is my secret power?"
  • UNIVERSE DESTROYER LAD - "I have an impressive power, but I can only use it ONCE!"
  • JACKSON-5 - "I am a distant cousin of Brainiac-5. I am also a musical genius who wants to join the LSH, a club for underage boys!"
  • LITTLE HANDS - " I used to work in all those Infantino comics, like The Flash, pointing stuff out. 'Look, someone's sneaking into the trophy room!' "

Go read to see who won, and check out the hilarious cover parodies.

No comments: