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Posts tagged Tyroc
The Pathway to Darkness
Mar 5th
Here we are finally actually talking about some Legion stories!
We’re going to start with Legion of Super-Heroes #284 which is two issues prior to when I started collecting, but I might as well include it as this is the beginning of what Legion fans call “The Levitz Era.” Paul Levitz that is. Paul was a lifelong writer, comic guy who started working at DC Comics back when he was in high school. Paul had written the Legion prior to this run, but this is the definitive run of his writing in my opinion, and the definitive run of the Legion of Super-Heroes, so lets hop on in!
In issue #284,we witness Bouncing Boy staring at the bronzed statues of dead Legionnaires Chemical King, Ferro Lad, and Invisible Kid stating to himself that he’s getting himself out of the game. His wife, Duo Damsel shows up to get him and they bounce off to a Legion meeting where they announce their resignations.
The Legion is called to stop some organ-leggers, a 30th century take on the Tijuana kidney theft urban tales of today, but with more of a pirate bent. Timber Wolf and Light Lass are already at the hospital called Medicus One where the pirates are stealing all sorts of organs and the two Legionnaires manage to cause the pirates a bit of trouble, but not before one of them leaves behind a mysterious canister.
Back on Earth, Bouncing Boy and Duo Damsel are doing their last tour of duty at the Mission Monitor Board and Karate Kid calls in to inform the Legion that he is on Orando with Princess Projectra and they are taking care of some business with her father King Voxv and will be out of touch for a bit.
Several other Legionnaires manage to help clean up the damage and capture the raiders, meanwhile Lightning Lad, who is acting leader of the Legion at this time, wonders what two members were doing on Medicus One in the first place. Timber Wolf was getting a bit of facial reconstruction surgery to look a little more human and a little less, Wolverine. After going through all his identity crises a return to humanity was going to prove to be a good thing, but Wolf likes his privacy so the rest of the Legion leave without saying a word. We are also treated to a brief cameo of the Legion’s future physician, Dr. Gym’ll.
When the Wolf comes out of surgery looking like a hunk-a-hunk-a burning love, he manages to once again say the wrong thing and a rebuffed Light Lass winds up storming out of the room. Light Lass is wondering what she’s doing with such a complete…. BOOM! No time to finish that thought, the capsule has burst open and out crawls this hideous mixture of body parts fused together calling itself Organus. Before Light Lass can react, Organus hypnotizes the heroine and attaches its tongue to her head… Altogether now. EWWWWWW!!!! Timber Wolf comes to the rescue of his lady love, however, to no avail.
Back home at Legion HQ, other Legionnaires are called back to Medicus to deal with this more dire situation. Element Lad is the deputy leader so he decides to take over this mission and he takes a crew to the medical satellite. Element Lad, Cosmic Boy, Brainiac Five, Sun Boy, and Blok enter the hospital and one by one, they each have their abilities absorbed by Organus, who seems to have gotten larger. Light Lass, who has recovered from the leeching that Organus gave her, tells Blok that he is the only one who can beat Organus. Cue the “Fastball Special” maneuver! Light Lass sends Blok speeding into Organus by lightening his weight and when Organus feeds on Blok, the feedback renders Organus inert. Apparently Organus doesn’t like rock based life forms.
At the end of the issue the Legion meeting finally commences with an announcement that Superboy is going to stay in his own time for a little while now but will be back every now and then and that Tyroc is considered honorably discharged since his disappearance. At the end of the story the active membership includes:
Cosmic Boy, Saturn Girl, Lightning Lad, Phantom Girl, Chameleon Boy, Colossal Boy, Brainiac Five, Superboy, Ultra Boy, Star Boy, Shrinking Violet, Sun Boy, Mon-El, Element Lad, Light Lass, Dream Girl, Karate Kid, Princess Projectra, Shadow Lass, Timber Wolf, Wildfire, Dawnstar, and Blok. A total of 23 active Legionnaires which keeps the Legion under their 25 member limit, for tax purposes. More like for writer and artist headache purposes. heh.
In issue #285, five Legionnaires find themselves on Nullport, the space drydock of the United Planets. Mon-El, Shadow Lass, Shrinking Violet, Star Boy, and Colossal Boy are there to pick up a new space cruiser for the Legion, because they go through them like a gay boy goes through boyfriends. Well, something happens to the cruiser and Violet suspects sabotage.
Back on Orando, Karate Kid and Princess Projectra are watching Jeckie’s dad be greeted by the gentry and nobility. When Projectra and KK approach the King to discuss the issue of a blessing for a union between a princess and a commoner he accuses the youths of impatience and then… keels over.
Back on Nullport, the Legionnaires discover that Violet’s suspicions are right and that the Khunds, a warlike conquering race are poised to destroy Nullport and all of its inhabitants. Including the part horse, part octopus, part humanoid, all used space cruiser salesman H’hranth.
The Legion forms a plan and while the boys attack the Khunds… Fastball Special alert as Mon-El throws Colossal Boy through a Khund battle cruiser. Shrinking Violet gets some space coordinates from Brainiac Five, Shadow Lass uses her power to blanket Nullport in the blackest shadows she can create, and Star Boy adds his power to Nullport to give it an artificial gravity so Nullport won’t fall apart as Mon-El takes Nullport to a new home deeper in protected United Planets space.
Grateful as he is H’hranth gives the Legion five Mark-494 cruisers for his gratitude.
Meanwhile on Orando, King Voxv is pronounced as dead. Long Live the Queen.
A quick backup story features Dream Girl, who has been called back to her home planet of Naltor to discover why all the Naltorians have lost their powers. Dreamy uses her powers of deduction, many people forget while looking at her beauty that she is one of the smartest Legionnaires in the roster. Dreamy figures the problem out in five pages, but what this story really gives us is the first Keith Giffen Legion art. And thus begins the Levitz/Giffen run of Legion of Super-Heroes!
In #286, old Legion foe Dr. Zaxton Regulus attempts to ruin a party weekend being held by the Legion’s benefactor, Mr. Rene Jacques Brande. Mr. Brande would be the man that the original Legionnaires saved in their origin story, turns out R.J. had more money than anyone and he funded the Legion in its formative years until the United Planets took over. It was also recently revealed that R.J. is a Durlan shapeshifter stuck in his R.J. Brande form and is the father of the Legion’s Chameleon Boy. This revelation has led to some awkwardness and so Chameleon Boy takes off for Earth to get away from dear old dad.
Cue the bad guy causing R.J.’s artificial sun manufacturing plant to meltdown. The Legionnaires begin to fight his and all are knocked out but Phantom Girl who in her immaterial form is able to avoid harm. She runs through Dr. Regulus and into the reactor to stop the pending explosion. Meanwhile, Sun Boy, has recovered from the initial attack and is ready to give Dr. Regulus a beat down.
Back on Earth, Legionnaires are discussing what to do about the Khunds given the Nullport incident. Chameleon Boy interrupts them to say that he is going to conduct a mission to Khundia as leader of the Legion Espionage Squad. He takes Shrinking Violet and Timber Wolf with him and they leave for enemy territory. Meanwhile a tape delayed message from Karate Kid starts playing on the screen.
Regulus manages gets away when he tells Sun Boy about the reactor problem. Sun Boy obviously chooses to save the galaxy from the explosion versus taking in Regulus. The rest of the Legion recovers and Dawnstar, Lightning Lad and Colossal Boy take off after Regulus while Saturn Girl forges a telepathic bond between Superboy and R.J. Brande so that Superboy will know how to shut down the reactor.
Reactor shut down. Dr. Regulus captured. And a very pissed Lightning Lad when he discovers that Chameleon Boy left the picnic. Overreaction much? Oh yes.
The back up story here features Projectra and Karate Kid back on Orando as the planet mourns its King. Now with the royal line in question and no official approval to marry a commoner, Projectra is free to do what she will do, until… her impending ascension to the throne is challenged by her villainous cousin Pharoxx. But on Orando, Trial by Combat is perfectly within Pharoxx’ rights so the battle is arranged. Pharoxx charges Projectra and Projectra’s illusions are useless. Pharoxx knocks Projectra out and then reveals to Karate Kid that he wore a helmet which provided him immunity to Projectra’s illusions.
Karate Kid charges Pharoxx with a sword and while they swordplay for a little bit, Pharoxx reveals a surprise by shooting KK with a magical bolt of energy. With the two Legionnaires unconscious, Pharoxx sentences them both to death.
Next time: Three Legionnaires in too deep, Six Legionnaires burned at the stake, and Five Legionnaires marooned in space.
Legion Crash Course Part Eight
Mar 4th
And it’s the last part of our intro to the Legion of Super-Heroes!!! So let’s jump in!!!
(I learned from Stan Lee, that one can never use too few exclamation points!)
So these symbols represent Wildfire, the star with wings; Tyroc, not really sure what his symbol means or how to describe it; Dawnstar, the twinkling star, and Blok, the building block.
Wildfire was originally introduced as ERG-1 whose real name is Drake Burroughs of Earth. ERG-1 has a multitude of powers when he shows up at Legion HQ for a tryout, unfortunately they all duplicate the other Legionnaire’s powers. He has one superpower that is unique, but he can’t demonstrate it for the Legionnaires, as a result, ERG-1 is rejected for membership. However he tags along on a mission to prove his worth and uses his “one shot” power to destroy a machine about to kill Colossal Boy. The Legionnaires only find his costume, completely empty. ERG-1 was apparently nothing but a containment suit filled with living energy.
A year passes. The energy that is Drake Burroughs makes its way to Earth a year later to find the suit that the Legion took. In his energy form Drake is apparently undetectable to the Legionnaires but he could not get to his suit as it was behind an energy shield. Drake also finds out that a new Legion applicant is planning to destroy the Legion and Drake is the only one who can stop him. Drake uses the Miracle Machine to wish himself to his suit, puts it on, and ends the threat. Drake rechristens himself Wildfire and joins the Legion.
Now, SHUT YO MOUTH!!!
Tyroc is Troy Stewart of the island Marzal, on the planet Earth. Marzal is an island populated by slaves gathered from Africa during the rum trade years who rebelled from their captors and found this island which is sometimes out of phase with Earth.
So, what happens when a bunch of 17th-19th century slaves live apart from the rest of the planet? Well, we get the stereotype of “the angry young black hero”. It’s a tried and true and SAFE place for creators to go at this point in comics history. Other black characters introduced at this time were mostly this stereotype which mirrored the films of the day, from Shaft, Supafly, etc.., Hollywood had cashed in on the blaxploitation movement and DC and Marvel had a quandry. While movies geared towards African Americans would no doubt garner some viewers, would comics? And in fact in multiple interviews the creators of the day had to wonder would their comics be returned from the less liberal areas of the country (i.e. the South).
Now, Tyroc is not alone in this, even the Titans’ Victor Stone/Cyborg suffered from some of this “angry young man” stereotype, however Tyroc is the hardest to reconcile because of the racial inequality in the Legion’s story thus far. Most of the Legionnaires are white, and even those that are not, are of races not included on Earth. Karate Kid squeaks by for being half Asian, and he has been drawn less and more Asian depending on the artist over the years. So the solution for the angry black man and the absence of black people in the 30th Century was that they were ALL on this island… Really? *thud*
So the solution? Turn racism around. Make the black character the racist one. Yeah. I am sure it sounded like a good idea at the time to the folks in power and maybe this is the only way a black character could get into the Legion at the time.
More about the whole different races in comics thing a bit later, but as a white, Southern male being raised in the 70s-80s I can say that yes, it was still an issue and still is, however the issue is not exclusively limited to Caucasians, nor to the South, yet the burden of the Civil War, slavery, lynchings, and segregation live on.
Tyroc’s powers were that he had sonic abilities that basically allowed him to do whatever the writer needed him to do at the time, he also has a snapping outfit reminiscent of Peter Pan in a way, evoking the Neverland quality of his home. Eventually it is discovered that Tyroc’s usage of his powers is lessening the time that his island can stay in phase with Earth, and Tyroc resigns from the Legion and the character disappears for a good long time. Other writers would find good things to do with Tyroc, but it will take a while.
Dawnstar’s codename is also her real name. Dawny is a member of a race called the Amerinds.. get it? (AMERican INDians). She’s a mutant amongst her people so add some wings on her, superspeed, able to survive in space without any protective gear, and the ability to track anyone through space and that outfit. It reminds me of someone.. oh wait..
Now that we have that out of the way. Dawnstar is rather aloof to her fellow Legionnaires. She’s all business as she started out as a bounty hunter, a great fit for her power set. She was discovered by one of the Legion’s benefactors and persuaded to enroll at the Legion Academy. Wildfire brought her into the Legion for her skills and her more obvious features. Drake carries an obvious torch for Dawny and their love is a tragic one, always there and burning, but never consummated.
Dawnstar is a fan favorite in part due to her design, the Legion of male fans are well, drooling at the pic above, but Dawny is more than a pin-up girl, she’s a Legionnaire. And like all Legionnaire women, she’s pretty damn tough.
Blok first appeared as a villain alongside the League of Super-Assassins. One of five children of the planet Dryad who was saved by the Legion when their planet exploded. The five youths resented the Legion for not doing more to save their world, a hatred that was fueled by an evil clone of Tharok called The Dark Man.
Blok broke free of his brainwashing and revealed he was a member of a sentient rock race located on Dryad. Humans colonized the world as the native Dryads revealed their presence. Blok tends to be horribly naive and is one of Timber Wolf’s best friends. That being said, Blok is a fiercely loyal Legionnaire and given his abilities is the best natural defense that the Legion has around.
Blok’s body is so dense that it takes three Legion flight rings to lift him off the ground. He has super-strength of course and is able to telepathically communicate with silicon based life forms. He is the latest and newest Legionnaire when we begin our Legion stories.
Well there we go, all the Legionnaires accounted for. When next we meet, we’ll be catching up with what they are doing.