Suicide Squadcast: TDK vs Arm-Fall-Off Boy

We recorded this one on August 29, a couple weeks after The Suicide Squad movie came out, to give everyone a chance to watch and then we'd discuss it here without having to worry about spoilers. One of the topics we touched on was TDK, played in the movie by Nathan Fillion, and how he was "inspired" by the one and only Arm-Fall-Off Boy. So here's what I put together to talk about AFOB.

• TDK is most likely based on Arm-Fall-Off Boy (who in turn was based off of a character in Legion fandom called Ear-Fall-Off Floyd, which is where the name Floyd Belkin came from). The character has appeared with the Legion 3 times in various continuities: Secret Origins #46 (Silver Age), Legionnaires #43 (Reboot), and LSH31C #16 (TV).
• For April Fool’s Day 2010, I wrote up an article on the Omnicom about the history of AFOB, starting with Ear-Fall-Off Floyd, and then interviewing via email Mark Waid and KC Carlson, both of whom said it was probably Gerry Jones who came up with the idea for AFOB. So I asked Jones, who wrote to me:
• Early in my comics-writing days I joined Interlac briefly and even afterward hung out with several of its members. From one of them — possibly Mike Forrester or Mike Valerio, but maybe someone else entirely — I'd heard, or thought I'd heard, about a pseudo-character in Legion fandom called Arm-Fall-Off Boy. It could be that they were saying "Ear-Fall-Off Floyd" and I misunderstood, or it could be that one of them had misunderstood Ear-Fall-Off Floyd as Arm-Fall-Off Boy and passed it on to me. In any case, when I stuck Arm-Fall-Off Boy into that Secret Origins story I thought I was making a nod to Legion fandom but later discovered that I'd accidentally brought in something entirely new. Had we had more time I probably would have talked to Waid about it and gotten all this clarified, but that story was a last-second replacement for an earlier story that had been cut. Which is fortunate, ultimately. Now we have Arm-Fall-Off Boy, and yet Ear-Fall-Off Floyd is still out there awaiting his moment in the spotlight. ... I think I left [AFOB's design] mostly to Curt, although I believe I did specify that when his arm pops off we should somehow see the open socket in his body. It was a thrill to be working with Curt Swan on a Legion story, I must say.
• Curt Swan was thanked in the closing credits of the movie, but Gerry Jones was not (for likely obvious reasons). Note that it’s not a requirement to get thanked, but for creator payment purposes, if they include Swan they’d likely include Jones as well. (For example, Joe Gill and Pat Boyette created Peacemaker for Charlton in 1966, but they weren’t in the credits either.)
• Roger Stern came up with the name Floyd Belkin for Splitter’s appearance in the Reboot #43, but I never got in touch with him to find out where that name came from. AFOB’s third appearance was in LSH in the 31st Century comic, written by Matthew Manning, who had come up with the story idea as part of a pitch he had proposed when Steve Wacker was the editor (around Shooter’s time on the Threeboot, I think). He was able to write the story for the cartoon’s tie-in comic, and proposed the Adventure 247 homage cover. 
• My headcanon: Cory Pitzner (TDK's real name) was a teenage superhero called The Detachable Kid, but then he grew up. He liked being a super-hero and he was well-known by that name, but he aged out of it and changed it to TDK. But what got TDK sent to Belle Reve and joining the Suicide Squad?
• James Gunn revealed that Nathan Fillion’s The Detachable Kid has a hidden ability that he never used in The Suicide Squad. The Detachable Kid can telepathically control his limbs after detaching. As per James Gunn, in The Suicide Squad, Fillion’s character’s legs are also detachable. Gunn said that “TDK is just a guy whose arms and legs come off. That’s his only power.” This revealed an ability that TDK never reflects on screen. (This was a deleted scene.)
• If you go to DC's character page for TDK, you’ll find the character with TDK’s costume description but a picture of AFOB from Secret Origins, and his real name listed as both Cory Pitzger and Floyd Belkin.
• There’s a TDK Funko Pop, but it’s a Hot Topic/Funko Summer Convention exclusive (#1122 if you’re keeping track)
• In a video interview with ET Canada, Nathan Fillion said (joked?) that when James Gunn offered him the part, he was told that TDK stood for “The Dark Knight”.
• Nathan Fillion has described the process that went behind creating the character of TDK along with director and writer James Gunn. He said that “My participation in the invention of the character kind of went like this, James saying, ‘Here’s how it’s going to go.’ And me saying, ‘That sounds good.’ That’s what I call dissipation…I take a lot of credit. It’s all about the function of the character in the story. What is his function in the story? And TDK’s abilities, for me, clearly spelled out his function and I got it. I know exactly what you need. I know what you’re looking for. I know what you want. Boom. Let’s do this. I get it.”
• Via Sean Gunn’s Instagram: “Thrilled to announce my new show ‘T.D.K & the Weasel’ with @nathanfillion coming soon to HBOMax!* *note: some information in this post may be untrue,” Gunn joked. “My catchphrase is, ‘Let’s see you WEASEL your way out of this one.’ And I lean on the word Weasel really hard,” Fillion joked in the comments. “…and announcings Javelin as the awkwerd naybor,” Flula Borg added. 
• TDK was never shown or otherwise confirmed as deceased; when he was last shown, he was in critical condition, but still alive. It is therefore possible that he survived.
• And now TDK has more discussion time in this podcast than he had screen time in the movie.

Happy anniversary! (Plus: The long and winding road of page 8A of Superboy #212)

On Wednesday, July 15, 1975, "Superboy" #212 was just appearing on the newsstands across America. Sometime around then, I picked it up from my regular shop (a 7-11 near the local mall). It was just a month shy of my 9th birthday. I think it was a little while before I became a regular reader, eventually getting the back issues that I had missed, but I consider this to be my anniversary of being a Legion fan.

So in honor of that, here's a story in 3 parts behind the story in that issue; in particular, about a single page of art in that book that never even appeared in the first place. Surprisingly, I don't think I've told this story to a wide audience before.

Part 1: How a Comic is (Un)Created

If you have read ""Last Fight for a Legionnaire!", the story from "Superboy" #212 about the Legion of Super-Rejects and Matter-Eater Lad getting drafted, in Legion Archive #11 and compare it to the printed issue, you'll notice that there's an extra page in the reprint, the page where Karate Kid gives Tenzil a pep talk. That page was cut from the original issue. Why? Well, here's Jack C. Harris (aka Production Assistant Lad), to tell us why, from the pages of "Amazing World of DC Comics #9" (cover dated December 1975), the special all-Legion issue, in an article entitled "How a Comic is (un)Created".

In prior installments of this feature, various writers revealed how comics spring from the scripter's or editor's mind, are translated into penciled pages, inked and finally become finished artwork.

Boy, did they ever make it sound easy! To hear them tell this wonderful story, you'd think there were never any problems! Oh, if it were only so!

Every snag or delay that could possibly happen -- has! Even those problems that couldn't ever occur -- do! Thankfully, most of those difficulties are little ones that can be corrected in the early stages. But some require more drastic action.

For instance, here's a problem that confronted us in March of this year. Murray Boltinoff and I had just turned SUPERBOY starring THE LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES #212 in to the production department for final corrections before it headed to the printer. Originally, these stories were scheduled for the lead pages of a 50¢ Giant. Since we'd recently discontinued that format, we kept the 12-page cover feature ("Last Fight For A Legionnaire"), the 8-page back-up ("A Death Stroke At Dawn") and my Super-Talk letters page (my first one for that book!) as our regular 25¢ Issue.

The day after we turned it in, production manager Jack Adler rushed in (Adler constantly rushes nowhere) to tell us the page count of the 25¢ books had been reduced. We had to cut two pages....

The first thing we sliced was my letters page! It was a good one, so I could easily add some new comments and have it ready for #213. But how about that second page? Somewhere, somehow, we had to cut some story! After careful re-reading, Murray and I found that the 8th page of the first story could be omitted without losing the even flow of action, even though we had to sacrifice a good bit of Jim Shooter's dramatics concerning the resignation of Matter-Eater Lad. It was an editorial decision -- lose some characterization or some action -- and characterization lost out! The page was removed, the remainder was re-numbered and the book left for the printers.

Now the question arose as to what to do with this un-used, paid for, Mike Grell page of Legion art. Murray suggested that we use it for a "springboard" and write a new story around it -- which we still might do someday. In the meantime, instead of letting it collect dust on our shelves, we've decided to present it here within our special Legion issue of AWODCC!

If the purists among you wish, you can color the opposite page, clip it out and insert it between pages 7 and 8 of SUPERBOY #212's lead story, thus maintaining the tale in its original form.

However, since those two pages are back to back, this might prove a bit difficult. Because we've just told you how we solved one of our problems, we figured, to be fair, we'd offer suggestions as to how to overcome this page manipulation problem:

1. Buy an extra copy of SUPERBOY #212.
2. Find yourself an incredibly sharp razor blade to split pages 7 and 8 apart.
3. Make your own Editor's Note at the bottom of page 7 referring to this page of AWODCC.

If you can think of any others, please keep them to yourself -- we've got problems of our own!

Click on each image to embiggen.

 

Part 2: How an Archive is Created

I'm sure this will come as a shock to some readers, but I've been tracking Legion reprints for over 20 years. In the 1990s, I was Archives Lad, and once a year I'd post to Usenet's rec.arts.comics.dc.lsh newsgroup my best guess for what would be coming in the Legion Archives, which were at the time being published annually. Here was my guess for Archives 11 as posted in July 2000. As you can see by scrolling down a bit, Paul Levitz lurked in the newsgroup (as "DCOLevitz", the DCO standing for "DC Online" which was part of DC's AOL presence at the time) and posted from time to time.

I predicted the volume would cover issues 203-214 (it ended up being 203-212), and then said this (emphasis added in bold):

That's 233 pages (not including covers). None of these have already been reprinted. The stories are by either Bates or Shooter, and the art is all Grell (except for Cockrum pencils in 205 and inks by Bill Draut in the backup of 214). I'm hoping for a new cover by Grell, too.

This volume will cover the death of Invisible Kid, Brainiac building a Supergirl robot, the intro of the clone bank, Dvron, Flynt Brojj, Roxxass, Matter-Eater Lad resigning, and the appearance after 26 years of the page that was cut out of issue 212 when they had to cut out a page of story for budget constraints.

And for what it's worth, this volume catches up to the first LSH issue I bought off the newsstand (the aforementioned issue 212).

At some point years later, Paul Levitz was interviewed by Comic Shop News for their site csnsider.com (unfortunately, the content has long since been removed and I don't have the original URL to check the Internet Archive), came this quote that I copied into a post on the LSH-L email list:

An Internet board that I poke my head into occasionally was having a discussion of the Legion Archives; they remembered a page that had been cut out of a Grell Legion issue and published in an Amazing World of DC issue later, and they wanted to know if we were going to put the page back in the Archives. I was one of the editors of the book it was reprinted in, and I didn't remember it; I was thrilled to find that page there, and I ran down to Dale Crain and said, "Look what I found!" That will make the Archives a vastly better book.

So that's how that deleted page ended up being put into LSH Archive #11. It's page 8A in the book, as seen colored below. (It has since been reprinted again, in 2008's "LSH: 1050 Years of the Future" TPB.)

Part 3: How an Art Collection is Created

OK, not "created" so much as "added to", but that would have wrecked the flow of the three headings.

In 2008 I attended the San Diego Comic Con. Among the many pieces of Legion art I would have loved to have bought but didn't have the budget for, was this page for sale for $1500. Taking and owning this photo is as close as I would be able to get to owning the page itself:

I did not buy it, but not too long afterwards Tom Fleming did. He bought it and posted it to his ComicArtFans page in 2009, where it presumably sits in his collection today (and is likely worth a lot more than $1500). Notice the little stamp in the upper left corner, it says "N.P.P. INVT'Y", meaning that National Periodical Publications wrote that off as inventory.

So there you have it. The long and winding road of page 8A of Superboy #212.

Bits of Legionnaire Business

Got way behind on these links, so here's a shot at catching up. Sorry if some of these are old.

• The first of several new additions to my Legion blogroll over there on the left: The Miracle Machine, which is (as stated at the top): "Mostly bitching about comics with an emphasis on The Legion of Super-Heroes". Super-dickery from the Legion.
• The Comics Bronze Age spent a week looking at the Legion in 1973-74, including Superboy 197, 198, 199, 200, and 201.
• Bryan at Laid-Back Comics has a video about the Top 8 Legion Rejects. Interestingly, the author says that he never got into the Legion until the Superman & The Legion story.
• Fanboy Wife has some commentary on Legion Archives vol 1, the Legion of Super-Pets, the LSV, Bouncing Boy, Supergirl the matchmaker, Superboy Planet, and a look at Superboy's X-Ray Vision that is astoundingly accurate.
• Legion Abstract brings us histories of the White Witch, Timber Wolf, Tyroc, and Lightning Lass.
• Get-a-Life Boy brings us the Legion in comics each week. Additionally, Don reviewed "Legion of 3 Worlds" for the April 2010 issue of Analog Science Fiction and Fact, the oldest and most successful science fiction magazine.
•  Did you see the pencilled and inked version of page 1 of issue 1 of the new Legion book?
• Tom Bierbaum, co-writer of the TMK v4-era Legion, recalls writing issues 19 and 29 in "It's OK, I'm a Senator!". Those are just the newest entries, he's got lots more in there.
• The Legion of Substitute Podcasters continue their weekly podcast (what else did you expect?). Recently they've covered Adventure 358 (the Most Dangerous Game), LSH v2 283 (spotlight on Wildfire), LSH v2 284 (Levitz returns), and LSH v2 285 (Nullport). 
• The Last of the Famous International Fanboys would like to see the Legion in the next Superman movie.
• Bronze Age Babies look back at Superboy 197.

More coming soon.

Teenagers from the Future, the Constitution, and More

Stuff.

Tim Callahan's new book is finally ready (too bad the kinks couldn't be worked out before San Diego, this would have been a perfect addition!). Teenagers from the Future is now available at Amazon.com.

Via RAB at Estoreal:

According to Tim, the book will also be available for order through the direct market in either the October or November Diamond Previews catalog. Tim isn't sure whether the book will still be available through Amazon after it appears in the Diamond catalog, so anyone who wants to be sure of getting a copy without actually going into a comics shop should probably order it now.

I can't believe I missed the various series Siskoid has had going lately. I missed Legion Tryout Week the last week in August, which featured Adventure Comics #247, Tales of the Legion #343 (reprinting Superboy 195 and 201), Tales #339 (reprinting LSH v3 #14), Legionnaires #2, and Secret Origins #46.

This week he's doing the Annotated Legion Constitution. So far he's got Articles 1 and 2 and Article 3, with representative panels demonstrating each of the clauses.

4th Letter has the story of "an audio book based on a book based on a graphic novel," the Books-on-CD version of the novelization of "Infinite Crisis". He's got some interesting sound clips.

When the multiple Earths are flying around space and we see into them, the Legion of Superheroes world gets a cool techno theme.

Hey, there’s a complaint right there. They give us stretched out scenes based on those panels of the Legion world, the Tangent world and the Fawcett world, but nothing with the cowboy world and the Bizarro Earth with all the inhabitants happily strangling each other in the chaos. I feel gypped.

Sadly, no sound clips of the Legion bits (yet).

Astronaut Karen Nyberg

It isn't very often that my job and my hobbies overlap, but it happened this week when I was looking at pictures from the most recent space shuttle mission. I saw these pictures of astronaut Karen Nyberg, the first taken aboard the space shuttle and the second on board the International Space Station.

Who do these photos remind you of?

She reminds me a lot of Sussa Paka, aka Spider-Girl (the original one). However, Karen is way too nice to join the Legion of Super-Villains, and as far as I know, she doesn't have complete (or even incomplete) control over her hair. Or, at least, I've never seen her expand her hair in a web to try to entrap foes.

Ambush Bug

Once upon a time, back when comics were fun, Keith Giffen co-created Ambush Bug in the pages of DC Comics Presents. He showed up first in issue 52 and then again in issue 59, the infamous Superman/Legion of Substitute Heroes teamup. If you've never read it, stop what you're doing right now and go to your local comic shop and buy it, then read it. Or read it in the store, if they don't mind.

OK, so now you've read one of the best Legion stories ever. Levitz and Giffen at their peak. And really funny - who knew? That's the issue in which the Subs became a joke, by the way, which wasn't really fair to them, but they're fictional characters so they didn't protest too much.

Ambush Bug appeared in several of his own miniseries and specials in the 1980s, and the Legion had some odd cameos (because of Giffen).

For example, who can forget Julie Lad, from "Ambush Bug Nothing Special" (1992) (as seen here with R.J. Brande and Cosmic Boy)?


Over at the Legion Wiki, you can find a list of the Ambush Bug stories that the Legion has been somehow involved in, whether it's Bug talking to Paul Levitz, the Super-Pets, or the SW6 Legionnaires.

But now, Ambush Bug is coming back this summer, where Giffen promises to poke fun at all of DC's crossovers. I think somewhere in here we'll find that Bug is responsible for all the Legion reboots. It may even guest star Dark Proty, who makes his debut in an upcoming DC Nation page (sneak peek at the page on DC Nation's Myspace page).

The Legion of Super-Human Detritus

At this point, I should explain that I have been negligent in bringing you the continuing reviews of the Legion of Super-Human Detritus. Paul and John have, for a while, been presenting the Legion rejects starting in the early Adventure issues - where, coincidentally, many of the "Justice Leaguers" in the current Action Comics run are appearing. Once presented, Paul and John approve or disapprove of them. Their current entry, as seen here, contains a yearbook picture version of what they looked like when they appeared ages ago.

My thoughts on these characters have been logged on the Internets for all to read. I love them all, even as I love to mock them. I'm just super glad that the Legion of Throwaway Characters is getting their time in the sun. Sure hope that The Mess shows up before this is all through (Alternate version of this joke that I forgot to use: I sure hope that Lester Spiffany is behind all of this).

Individually, most appeared for a panel or two, as recounted below (though they haven't yet gotten to Rainbow Girl).

In 12-ish posts, John and Paul have reviewed:

• Part 1: Lester Spiffany
  "Lester's role in the proceedings quickly emerges: he is there to assure the reader that in the future there will still be douchebags."
  
  
• Part 2: Storm Boy
  "Did he think that he'd do well as a member and that everyone would just laugh it off when they found him out? Listen, Storm Boy, if a Legionnaire loses his or her powers at two o'clock they're out the door with a selection of erased memories by four thirty. They don't even get a party."
  
  
• Part 3: A bunch of no-name rejects, except for the very last guy in brown who turns out to be Matter-Eater Lad on his first tryout
  "Part three in our series of tributes to the common and/or crappy superteen of the future is devoted to the poor shmoes who had their Mom (or their Mom's robot, at least) sew up a costume and drive them down to Legion HQ but weren't quite distinctive enough to merit their own tale of rejection."
  
  
• Part 4: Eyeful Ethel, The Mess, Dynamo Boy, Golden Boy, Polecat, Animal Lad, and Tusker
  "There follows a period of time where Dynamo-Boy is a member of the Legion and is devoting all of his time to having everyone else kicked out. I have no images of this, but rest assured, it all happened due to Ridiculous Legion Thing No. 3: Bylaws. The Legion charter's full of all kinds of ridiculous rules, and every time someone runs afoul of them and gets kicked out for getting married or failing to salute the Legion flag everyone acts helpless, like it's the US Constitution, rather than a set of rules laid out by three 14-year olds on a rainy Saturday afternoon."
  
  
• Part 5: Radiation Roy, Ronn Kar, and Spider Girl
  "Spider Girl and Radiation Roy's fighting skills may have improved, but only when they are fighting each other. Seriously, even if I were using panels from the right fight scene they'd still be getting their asses handed to them. Suddenly moral and ethical considerations don't seem so important - who loses out when you inspire only the most bumbling and ineffective to become super-villains? Not the Legion - for every screw-up they turn away they get another easy victory to impress the ladies (or gents) with."
  
  
• Part 6: Rann Antar
  "I can see his plan now: "I'll throw the feathers up in the air, then spray them with my formula. The Legion will give me a standing ovation as heavy feathers rain down upon them. The boy Legionnaires will go out to plan a parade in my honor while the girls wrestle for the right to kiss me. It will be the best day of my life.""
  
  
• Part 7: Magno Lad, Chameleon Kid, Phantom Lad, Esper Lass, Micro Lad, Calorie Queen (the Legion of Super-Rejects)
  "I mean even if they beat their counterparts into comas, these losers are never going to get in to the Legion. They'll serve some time and then have to go door-to-door in any neighborhood they move into in the future, warning everyone with superpowers that they have a history of making ridiculous challenges."
  
  
• Part 8: Lamprey, Nightwind, and Crystal Kid
  "Today I'm reviewing three of the most boring-ass characters in the occasionally spotty history of the Legion of Super-Heroes."
  
  
• Part 9: Alaktor
  "He was totally just covering for his embarrassment over the tryouts - there's no way that he meant to press the button that made his belt go 'ROAR.' Dude screwed up and then improvised some evil to cover for it."
  
  
• Part 10: Micro Lad (again)
  "The guy's trying really hard to have delusions of grandeur but can't quite get it right. See? He installed spooky mood lighting for when he talks to prisoners but he ruins it by making piggy faces."
  
  
• Part 11: Command Kid
  "Theme number two? People pointing out his questionable tendencies. This is basically just some heavy foreshadowing of the fact that he turns out to be a bad guy, not unlike his terrible hair, bad costume or the title "The Lad Who Wrecked The Legion"."
  
  
• Part 12: Infectious Lass, Absorbancy Boy, Quake Kid
  "I must say, the mucus cape show real devotion to a theme. It's possibly my favourite hero accessory of all time. Screw bat-cloaks and Spidey-mobiles and those little wings on the sides of the Flash's head - a cape that looks like it's made of snot, that's where it's at."
  

For all your work, Paul and John, I deem "No Further Explaination" OMNICOM APPROVED.

Previously: Rejected! and Rejected Rejects, part of Dial B for Blog's "create your own Legion reject" contest

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.

Rejected!

The Legion is famous for their rejects - some turned out to be pretty good Legionnaires later, some have similar powers as other Legionnaires, some have what we might consider to be useful powers, and some, well, some are just wrong.

Over at the original Legion Clubhouse, Jo and Terri-Anne recount the Adventure-era rejects. Other reject pages include the DCU Guide and Chaim M. Keller's Legion Help File.

Supergirl, Shrinking Violet, Bouncing Boy, and Sun Boy were all rejected on their first go-round. Polar Boy made a career out of being a Reject, co-founding the unfortunately-named (in retrospect) Legion of Substitute Heroes, before finally joining.

The other Subs - Night Girl, Chlorophyll Kid, Fire Lad, Stone Boy, and Color Kid - did pretty well for themselves as well. The guys even made it to the main team for a time during the Five Year Gap (a time of which little is known).

Lester Spiffany, Storm Boy, and Dynamo Kid all tried to cheat their way on to the team.

You'd think that some of them might have useful powers - Color Kid, for example, not only had as useful a power as Princess Projectra, but he could also change the chemical properties of Kryptonite just by changing its color (handy, if you have a Kryptonian on the team). Or Camera Eye, who could project events he's seen, rejected because it's not valid in court (yet someone who merely tells what he's seen is considered an eyewitness and is valid), yet useful as a member of the Espionage Squad. Or Rainbow Girl - she was better than Triplicate Girl, Sun Boy, and Polar Boy put together: she could split into four, each with a separate power of either heat, cold, light, or kryptonite.

Some of them even took it badly and either joined a super-villain team or came at the Legion on their own. Some struck out on their own (Jungle King), some joined the Legion of Super-Villains (Ronn Karr, Radiation Roy, Spider Girl), some formed their own teams like the Legion of Super-Rejects (Micro Lad, Magno Lad, Esper Lass, Calorie Queen, Phantom Lad and Chameleon Kid) and later joined the LSV. One even had villianous intents when applying (Alaktor). Absorbancy Boy tried to strike back as Zoraz. Cera Kesh tried to strike back with an Emerald Eye.

But then there are the ones that everyone fondly looks back on when thinking about Legion rejects. Like Double-Header, who thought that two heads being better than one was a worthwhile power, or Antennae Boy, whose big ears could receive random radio signals (even though both later did join the Subs). Eyeful Ethel had a ring of eyes on all sides of her head. The Mess could attract dirt. Polecat stank. Tusker could grow really long tusks. Calamity King caused accidents. Infectious Lass made people sick. Arm-Fall-Off Boy's power is self-explanatory. Plaid Lad. Porcupine Pete, Accordion King, Barber Boy, Calcu-Lad, Estimate Boy, Fortress Lad, Quake Kid, and X-Bomb Betty.

It's this last list that Dial B For Blog is interested in. They're holding a contest for the greatest Legion reject as created by the fans. Deadline is next Friday, August 4th, 2006.

The whackiest DIAL B FOR BLOG contest ever! To be accepted, you have to be rejected! Your mission: create an applicant for membership in the Legion of Super-Heroes who would be rejected by the LSH! The winner gets to pick the subject of a future Dial B for Blog. (Sorry, but for security reasons, losers will not be getting a Legion flight belt!)

Check out the submissions so far (issue #340). Can you top Matter-Drinking Lad, Princess Projectile, Boring Boy, Kryptonite-Lead-Magic-Red Sun Kid, or Drama Queen?

In the same vein: here's a little humor list: the Top 9 Legion of Substitute Heroes Rejects.