Posted by darren in Comics
Time to cover some of our Supporting Cast Members, so let us start with the Superman Family, shall we?
I’ve already talked a bit about some of the people in the Big Red “S”‘s world..
Lois Lane - intrepid reporter for the Daily Planet, and the love of Superman’s adult life.
Lana Lang & Pete Ross - childhood friends in Smallville, where Lana was always trying to figure out who Superboy was and Pete who knew who Superboy was and kept it a secret, often covering for Clark when he had to disappear.
Supergirl – Kara Zor-El, the super-powered cousin from Argo City.
Nightwing and Flamebird, are examples of Kandorians, who are miniaturized Kryptonians living in a bottle in the Fortress of Solitude. The Kryptonian city of Kandor was shrunk by the villain Brainiac and the city was rescued by Superman.
So, with a character in publication for most of the 20th century, there are other characters that should garner a few mentions. Lets start with parents.
Jor-El and Lar-A of Krypton, the biological parents of Kal-El.
When Jor-El discovered that Krypton would soon explode, he attempted to warn his fellow Kryptonians of the danger and was roundly thrashed for it and prevented from doing anything that might incite a riot by the rulers of More >
Posted by darren in Comics
As the Legion began its Baxter run, the regular Legion run became Tales of the Legion of Super-Heroes while the new title became the first Legion of Super-Heroes #1 ever.
The problem with reviewing these issues is that in continuity they came out concurrently, meaning the events happening in LSH #1 were happening roughly at the same time as the events in Tales of the LSH #314… hence the dilemma of how to simplify this for the novice reader. So, lets finish up some old business in Tales of the Legion of Super-Heroes before tackling the major arc of Legion of Super-Heroes #1-5.
As we open the Tales of the Legion of Super-Heroes we discover Sun Boy, Brainiac Five, and Supergirl on hand as witnesses for the Trial of Ontirr, the traitorous Science Police officer who collaborated with the Emerald Empress back in LSH #302-303. It turns out that Ontirr is a member of the villainous Dark Circle, the group of shadowy anarchists threatening to undermine the United Planets.
While the Legion is busy putting Ontirr and a whole bunch of Dark Circle clones in their places… (and pay attention because that is going to come back to haunt us in a bit…) We get the White Witch’s origin story in a back-up piece More >
Posted by darren in Comics
In the future, the Legion of Super-Heroes is in a resting period for most of the team as we see Chameleon Boy and his father R.J. Brande return to the highly toxic and xenophobic tribal world of their origin, Durla.
The team also gets a few new costumes as showcased here on this cover, a tribute to an older Legion cover from its Silver Age origins in Adventure Comics. When the father/son pair arrive on Durla, immediately they are set upon by their fellow tribal Durlans for leaving Durla. The Durlans appear as a race in large purple robes with tentacles come from the hood, presumably these tentacles transform into the antennae we see Cham wear. R.J. Brande, Cham’s father, is also powerless at this time and has been stuck in his form of an older humanoid male since the origin of the Legion when the founders stopped the assassination attempt on his life.
R.J. had arranged for Reep/Chameleon Boy to join the Legion in its early days as a way of helping Durlan relations with the rest of the United Planets, but Durla itself remains a reluctant world. A toxic atmosphere laced with radiation and pollution, the counsel of Durla imprisons Chameleon Boy and R.J. More >
Posted by darren in Comics
Top Row: Supergirl, Invisible Kid II, Colossal Boy, Dawnstar, and Superboy
Second Row: Sun Boy, White Witch, Karate Kid, Projectra, and Timber Wolf
Third Row: Phantom Girl, Shrinking Violet, Blok, Star Boy, Dream Girl, and Brainiac Five
Fourth Row: Ultra Boy, Wildfire, Cosmic Boy, Saturn Girl, Lightning Lad, Mon-El, Element Lad, and Chameleon Boy
Fifth Row: Proty, Shadow Lass, Duo Damsel, and Bouncing Boy
In the Legion of Super-Heroes #300, the Legion is assembling for its re-dedication ceremony. This ceremony takes place every so often, but this is the most elaborate one we have seen on panel. As additional Legionnaires arrive to the headquarters we see Element Lad, Ultra Boy, and Phantom Girl welcoming Superboy and then his cousin Supergirl to the party. Supergirl inquires where Brainiac Five is, and Invisible Kid II (along with the dyed energies of a pouting Wildfire) show up and Jacques asks the same question and that leads us into the meat of the story.
Brainiac Five, Circadius Senius, and Rond Vidar are working on a patient at the Time Institute, it is an odd thing to have a medical patient here, but odd is what Brainiac Five specializes in. Apparently this patient has accessed some ability to transfer his More >
Posted by darren in Legion
The final chapter of the Great Darkness Saga starts with the Legion recovering from the last battle from the Servants of Darkness, and Brainiac Five concludes who they are facing, the dread lord Darkseid. At this news, Dream Girl sounds the general alert summoning the Legion of Substitute Heroes and even Supergirl from the 20th Century.
Out in space near Weber’s World the Heroes of Lallor pick up the Kryptonian Dev-Em and join the Wanderers and the Substitute Heroes at Weber’s World to attempt to stop the brainwashed Daxamites who are now attacking every one they come across.
On Takron-Galtos, Chameleon Boy finds himself hunted by an insane Daxamite child named Ol-Vir. Ol-Vir sweeps the area for Chameleon Boy using X-Ray vision but appears to have no control over his powers. Chameleon Boy manages to borrow a trick from Karate Kid and hurls Ol-Vir into the cell holding Fatal Five member, Validus. Afterwards, Chameleon Boy passes out from the exertion.
A Servant of Darkness in an effort to gain access to the child that was created in the third part of the saga, destroys the spaceship carrying Light Lass, Dream Girl, Sun Boy, Invisible Kid II, Blok, Mon-El, and White Witch. While the Legionnaires are unconscious More >
Posted by darren in Comics
In the DCU there are the arch enemies like Lex Luthor, Joker, and Cheetah, mostly these are dark reflections of the heroes that they find conflict with often, however, then there are those baddies who supersede any specific hero/villain relationship and those villains find themselves in conflict with not only heroes but the universe at large. These villains are usually well equipped, long term strategists, and possess overwhelming amounts of power.
It is in this backdrop that we begin to discuss The Great Darkness Saga in the Legion of Super-Heroes.
When last we left our discussion of the Legion, the Legionnaires had been held prisoner in their own headquarters by the villainous C.O.M.P.U.T.O. and in their midst they had elected a new Legionnaire as Jacques Foccart joined the Legion as the second Invisible Kid. Prior to that, Legionnaires Mon-El and Shadow Lass had been called to investigate a planet that had just appeared in United Planets space and no probe had successfully returned from investigating the planet. Mon-El and Shady found out why when they landed and the planet’s defense systems nearly killed them both and it is that “Prologue to Darkness” that serves as the prelude to The Great Darkness Saga.
And The Servant Shall Be More >
Posted by darren in Comics
As popular as Superman and Batman are comic fans love to see their heroes teamed up with other characters and DC Comics had two comics that did exactly that. The classic silver age Brave and the Bold featured Batman and the bronze age DC Comics Presents had Superman teaming up with other characters. While many of these stories included co-stars from the Justice League of America that we have already introduced; the other guest stars are those lesser known characters who get to shine when paired with one of DC’s big names.
We are going to start with those guest stars that are closest to our main stars and work our way outwards in groups that hopefully will make some consistent sense. So, today.. we do guest stars heavily related to Batman and Superman.
We have already discussed the Earth-2 and Earth-3 counterparts of our headlining heroes so we are going to ignore those gentlemen for the time being.
You certainly wouldn’t catch Kal-El wearing those hot pants, now would you?
Supergirl makes an appearance in her more adult form with her super-powered cousin and with Batman. We’ve already told her story at least her Legion story. As more of an adultish character Supergirl tries to More >
Posted by darren in Comics
Well seven members down and we are going to cover four more, ready?
and
So here we have Colossal Boy, Invisible Kid I, Supergirl, and Brainiac Five.
Colossal Boy is Gim Allon of Earth who was exposed to the radiation of an asteroid (which has to be one of the top 10 most common origins of all times) which gave him the ability to grow to immense proportion, which matches his symbol which is the overly large “male” symbol. He has a crush on fellow Legionnaire Shrinking Violet, but has not been able to win her heart yet.
Invisible Kid is Lyle Norg or Earth who created an invisibility serum for himself. He is one of the Legion’s best scientists and leaders. Unfortunately, Lyle was killed in battle by the Legion foe Validus.
Supergirl.. *wha*? Yes Virginia, there is a Supergirl. Kara Zor-El, from Argo City which was a large part of Krypton which flew off the planet relatively intact. Eventually Argo City was also doomed and Kara’s parents who were related to Jor-El, rocketed Kara off to Kansas to meet her cousin. Kara can do all the things that Superman can do, just usually in a skirt.
We’ll talk about the turn the male superhero into a female hero comic conceit a More >
