Who's This? The biggest Legionnaire.
The facts: Seen with the Legion as of Action Comics #267 (August 1960), the size-changing Gim Allon's background was eventually filled in, including his origin, faith (Judaism) and decision to join the Legion instead of the Science Police, something that would be revisited often over various iterations. He, in fact, did join the Sci-Cops in the Five Years Later time frame, and was the Science Police's choice to join the new Reboot Legion as Leviathan (though he was a jerk and died early). In the Threeboot, Colossal Boy was from a colony of giants, so his power was to shrink to human size (ha!) and is called Micro Lad. The Retroboot reestablished his history.How you could have heard of him: Colossal Boy was a semi-regular character in the Legion of Super-Heroes animated series. The Bendis Legion uses the character - he's one of the most on-model - with the giant colony origin.
Example story: Legion of Super-Heroes #305 (November 1983) "Violet's Story" by Paul Levitz, Keith Giffen and Kurt Schaffenberger
It's called "Violet's Story", I know, but Colossal Boy was going out with her at the time and there's some strong Gim content to be had. As the start of the issue, Gim, Vi, Chameleon Boy, Element Lad and Brianiac 5 are orbiting Vi's homeworld of Imsk. And then the boys turn against Gim and Vi!
Ol' Colossal Boy is a bit of a loose cannon, quick to threaten with bodily harm, which tracks with the unpleasant personality he ended up with in the Reboot. But let them explain, dude. What just happened? One of Legion history's most shocking reveals is: Violet isn't Violet...
...she's a Durlan impostor! And Colossal Boy's been kissing her hard!
Legion readers will be well aware that Gim was actually dating a Durlan actress called Yera hired to pose as Violet, not to spy on the Legion, but to simply prevent them from figuring out the real Violet was missing. Her motivation: To prove Durlan actors can do more than shape-shift, but truly ACT! Her one mistake: Falling in love with Colossal Boy. The other Legionnaires are very harsh on him when they say their first clue was that "Vi" was suddenly attracted to him. But still, she's been in the Legion for MONTHS. Could they have handled it better with Gim though?
Survey says yes. But look, Yera does help them get Shrinking Violet back, but it's still been months of torture and interrogation for the diminutive Legionnaire at the hands of Micro Lad. If Colossal Boy is ready to break a team mate's nose, what do you think's gonna happen to the bad guys?
HE'S OUT OF CONTROL!
But while a giant can do a lot of property damage, against enemies who can shrink down, it's a little like trying to find a needle in a haystack. So it's up to a regular-sized hero like Brainy to crush them under his boot (or threaten to, they surrender). Vi is rescued, but what's to come of Yera?
Well? Can he?
Of course he can. These are evolved sentients from a thousand years in the future! They WILL get married and yes, there WILL be references to sexy time where Yera changes her form in bed. I'm sure Wildfire and Dawnstar gave them the evil eye.
But hey, when you're just the muscle in a team of, like, 30 heroes, many of which have super-strength, you need every advantage.
Who's Next? A faux-Golden Age hero.
Comments