Who's This? One of the Legion's first LGBTQ+ members.
The facts: One of Jim Shooter's new Legionnaires, first appearing in Adventure Comics #371 (August 1968), Condo Arlik had the power to control chemical reactions, which would have been really cool if writers had known what to do with it. Maybe it's me, but my limited exposure to the character showed him do just about anything, and through disuse or misuse, he was killed in Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes #228 (June 1977). After that, there's a Secret Origin, a couple flashbacks and a zombie appearance. He's mostly seen as a gold statue in the Hall of Fallen Legionnaires. In the Reboot, he's just a journalist and not a member.
How you could have heard of him: Quite famously, he and the equally-dead Invisible Kid were touted as an item in the DC Encyclopedia and though there were hints after that in the comics, it was never actually said. If you were a Legion reader around the time of the New52, then you may recognize the name (well, almost) as one of the new Legion Academy members. Chemical KID is a brash new recruit with the same powers, evidently following in the dead Legionnaire's footsteps. The New52 has his graduate to the Legion proper.
Example story: Action Comics #389 (June 1970) "The Mystery Legionnaire" by Cary Bates, Win Mortimer and Jack Abel
A lot of the time, in the Legion, if you get ignored it's because the roster is too big. But this is a three-hander, with Condo teaming up with only Cosmic Boy and Shrinking Violet. Will he be able to shine?
So meet Klim. He's a sentient robot built by a group of disabled criminals who, while they can built this thing and send it out into the universe, can't escape themselves on account of their disabilities. Okay, 1968, whatever you say. Anyway, this "perfect synthetic criminal" was to commit all the crimes they couldn't. And he was of course stopped by Legionnaires and now has an itch to scratch with ONE particular Legionnaire. But which is a mystery to the reader. Well... not a big mystery. Cos, Condo and Violet decide to recapture him and the way he was caught really does seem like a team effort. First he was drawn to the ground by a mysterious force, then he was frozen by the oxygen around him turning liquid, and finally he was invisibly beheaded.
Doesn't take a genius to figure it out. But before Klim can get his revenge on the Legionnaire who did all this to him, his body has to find his head millions of miles out in space. And he does have a VISUAL for that Legionnaire, if not a name. So the mystery persists. Not who beat him, but who does he THINK beat him? Well, our Legion trio start chasing the body, but Cos and Condo get caught in a vegetable web trap. Cosmic Boy hands it off to Chemical King who...
...just does Sun Boy's thing. Well, fire IS a chemical reaction. Meanwhile, Shrinking Violet's been caught in a stasis beam. Cos can disrupt the ore in the rock to break its hold, but Condo still has his part to play, pulling her out before she's killed in the resulting cave-in.
It does bury Klim's body, but the head thinks it's enough of a match for the three of them. If only the Mystery Legionnaire were with them to die at their side! So what DID he see? Well, losing his body caused a short-circuit that confused his two photoelectric eyes so that he blurred the two boys together. See?
So there IS no Fashion Nightmare Lad. And while he was gabbin', Violet slipped into his glass box and disabled his final weapon, so there.
Did Chem shine? You could say they they were all pretty equal (even if Violet got all the killing blows). Still, this is about as good as it gets with Chemical King stories. An underused Legionnaire to be sure.
Who's Next? A walking vat of chemicals.
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