One More Try-Out for the Road

ADVENTURE COMICS #305, DC Comics, February 1963
By popular demand (well, one person asked), here's one last Legion try-out before we leave the 30th centurty for a while. Remember the rules?

a) A hero with a really lame power will be rejected.
a2) Said hero may or may not prove his worth and be accepted after all.
b) A powerful hero will be rejected for having the same powers as another member.
b2) Said hero may or may not turn out to have one lame power no one has and be accepted after all.
c) A hero will turn out to be a villain and will be rejected.
c2) Said "hero" will instead be accepted and THEN show his or her true colors.
d) The established Legion will be real jerks to the hero trying out (hey, you think the cool kids are bad, imagine if they had super-powers).
And let us add e) A hero will be rejected for having mechanically-assisted powers.

Our eye falls on the Tales of the LSH story in Adventure Comics #305, which I have in both Archives and Showcase form, but not in the 1963 original, though I am of course interested in that Superboy - He-Man story. Among the applicants, Callous Boy:
Actually, that's Dynamo Kid, but we'll get to him in a second. First: Anteanea Boy, later to be called Antenna Lad. His powers definitely have potential.
What teen superhero clubhouse couldn't do with a radio? But unlike Bob Haney's Teen Titans, Jerry Siegel's Legion is filled with squares. But beyond that, couldn't you use a guy who could hear radio news reports from the FUTURE?
And from the looks of it, from ALTERNATE TIMELINES? But this is before Wildfire was appointed head of the Membership Committee, so Antennae Boy gets a jerk-ass rejection.

Next up: Dynamo Boy, who has pretty much the power set to replace Lightning Lad, but Saturn Girl takes wire-cutters from her utility belt (Batman survives in spirit) and snips a wire in his back proving his powers were mechanically-assisted. REJECTED!!!
Next up: Legionnaire Lemon AKA Marvel Lad. The first name is not very marketable. The second might cause problems down the line. His powers?
Wow, Shrinking Violet is easily impressed. He's also got super-strength and speed, invulnerability, heat vision, etc. How is he doing all this? Time to take the metal detector out to make sure he isn't a filthy robot.
Cosmic Boy knows his Silver Age.

But no, he's not Superboy in disguise. He can stand to be near kryptonite and lead alike. Passing the first stage of the job interview, they then send him on three assignments. The first has him get a load of "fluvium" (ewwwwwwww) from another galaxy, and the second has him fight a rather more humanoid than we're used to Sun-Eater.
For his third trick, he must create a new element. I mean, how would an Antenna Lad EVER make it into the Legion with those standards? In case you ever WANT to create a new element, here's how it's done:
To be fair, Nth metal already exists in the DCU, but the Legionnaires are suitably impressed by all the super-rubbing and they allow Marvel Lad to join.

The next day, the truth is revealed. He's actually Mon-El, returned from the Phantom Zone and trying Brainiac 5's new and improved lead poisoning serum. So why the charade? See, they didn't want to get everyone's hopes up until they knew the serum was good for more than a day. Ah. But why didn't he just go somewhere for that day instead of destroying every new applicant's chances of making it into the Legion?
Mon-El is already a Legionnaire, so he's a jerk. More proof... Mon-El returns to the Phantom Zone for 10 minutes to taunt the Kryptonian criminals:
And why not throw a God complex in there for good measure?
TRY-OUT CHECKLIST: A, D, E

Comments

De said…
Looks like Antennae Boy can receive radio signals from alternate timelines too judging from that one about Kennedy being re-elected.
H said…
Never has the rating "trippy" been more appropriate. Thanks for the series!

Antennae Boy rejection is controversial. The guy's a walking iPod. Surely there's some value there?

Perhaps the "ear-splitting" noise that caused Antennae Boy to be rejected was hair metal. Guess we can't blame the Legion for that call.
Anonymous said…
The Legionaires wern't big on finding potential. I guess they wern't looking for some great «to be hero» but for a guy that could take Superboy out for a ride.

The Legion, like almost every hero in the silver age... were jerks.

And who would have thought that Saturn girl, a girl that can read your thoughts, would be such a bitch.

I used to have such a crush on her

/broken heart
SallyP said…
Gah! Yet another reason why those bratty little snots just drive me crazy!

It isn't so much that they reject the not-so-cool kids...it's that they reject them with such GUSTO!
Anonymous said…
Pretty much every silver age DC guy NOT in the Subs was an ass.

Polar Lad was a surprisingly nice guy on the whole in the early years.
Marc Burkhardt said…
How come Silver Age heroes - both Marvel and DC - always had such ready access to plastic masks and wigs?
Siskoid said…
One of the reasons I liked the 2996 "adult" Legion is that the Subs really came into their own as badass freedom fighters.
Anonymous said…
ROM! I demand ROM!

more ROM less everything else

hold on, have discovered something called 'wikipedia'....
Siskoid said…
You've looked in a day early. :D
Siskoid said…
Proving there are no bad powers, only bad superheroes.
Bauble said…
It's hard to believe that at one time in the 80's the Legion was a top 5 seller, it was selling more than Batman and Superman. Then the Crisis came and it was like they just didn't fit in anymore.

Then have tried to relaunch the title numerous times since then but it's just not the same.