Who's This? A magno-ball champion.
The facts: One of the three original Legionnaires appearing in Adventure Comics #247, going back in time to meet their hero Superboy, Cosmic Boy has a long and rich history with the team and is, constitutionally, its de facto leader. Every iteration of the Legion has had a Cosmic Boy, though - shockingly - he was only a RECURRING character in the Legion Animated Series, voice by Wil Wheaton and identifying as the team's original leader. He has even appeared in live action in Smallville. Cos is one of the few Legionnaires to get his own mini-series (during Legends), which was followed up by Legionnaires 3, which also had a big role for him.
How you could have heard of him: If you've heard of the Legion, you've probably heard of Cos. If you like funny comic book pictures on the Internet, you'll have laughed at his 1970s corset.
Example story: Cosmic Boy #1 (December 1986) "Those Who Will Not Learn the Lessons of History..." by Paul Levitz, Keith Giffen, Ernie Colon and Bob Smith
The mini-series actually highlights some of Cosmic Boy's main attributes. That's important, because the Legionnaires can come off - to non-fans - as a little bit generic. What makes Cos Cos? Well, like many Legionnaires, part of his identity is who he's involved with. At the risk of making this too much about Night Girl, his steady is hella cool, swooping in here to save him from a Glorious Godfrey-ignited mob.
Man, it's not even dark and she still takes her man in her arms and takes him out of danger. For a couple that started because she saw him on TV and decided to stalk him, they have a surprisingly good relationship. But in terms of making our HERO look cool, getting hit with a rock and going down on page 2 is perhaps not the best showing. You gotta understand, he had JUST been knocked for a loop by Brimstone in the Legends book itself. One doesn't recover that quickly from that. Nor from the realization that the Crisis screwed up your history (permanently, as it turned out) and that Superman no longer recognizes you. That leads us to the other important thing about Cosmic Boy. Though he came from the world of sports, his main interest is actually history. It's why he and the Legion went back to meet Superboy all those years ago, and it's why he chose the 20th Century for his couples vacation.
But history's been rewritten, though it seems the news has been slow to get to the 30th Century. Cos is aghast, not only at the anti-hero hysteria, but also nuclear proliferation, the Challenger explosion, etc. that mark this as the darkest timeline (just you wait, Cos, the 2000s are coming). This mini-series and Legionnaires 3 involve the Time Trapper who is made responsible for the Legion's creation through a pocket universe where Superboy existed, and also hints at the Trapper's identity being, possibly, Cos himself (which is how the 5YL era ends). This is controversial, but logical. A historian shocked by a change in the 20th Century decides to "create himself" after getting trapped in a temporal anomaly (let's call Zero Hour that) somewhere down the line. The Trapper's timey-wimey identity tends to shift from continuity to continuity, but at one point, yes, I think it's believable that Cosmic Boy would put the pink (PINK!) robe on.
Anyway, taking a page from Assignment: Earth, Levitz drop in an unmanned NASA mission that might put nukes in space as part of Reagan's Star Wars initiative.
And she's not just saying that because of Insane Irving's low, low prices. According to the original Legion history, in 1986 we should already be sending people into space so they can become the various super-powered humanish races of the 2986. Rioters at the launch may or may not have sabotaged the mission, but Cosmic Boy is sure that its payload (reputed to be atomic) could be an important part of getting humanity into space. The ship blows up, but Cos is there to save its important contents.
Magneto has many magnetic powers cool to the larger population, but it's nice to see Cosmic Boy can look good doing it too. But despite his help, armored troopers acting on anti-hero sentiment nevertheless try to arrest him. With extreme prejudice.
Clipped in the arm, Cos flies off before things get worse. He's taken such a beating in the last 24 hours that he can't even concentrate on his flight ring correctly.
Despite his doubts that he can do anything without the rest of the Legion backing him up, I think this is still a good showing for the character. His powers look cool, the situation is desperate, and you know how much I love functional superhero power couples. Of course, he kind of flew into a situation without all the facts and doesn't exactly triumph (at ANY point), but this is a first issue of four. You only expect your hero to win in the finale.
Cosmic Boy CAN, from the outside, seem like a generic squared-jawed Legionnaire. A single power, pure of heart, your basic Silver Age white boy. One of his main traits in the LSH is his leadership skills, so it's interesting to see what else he can bring when he has no team to lead. Exposed are his feet of clay, but also what makes him more than just a cardboard cut-out.
Who's Next? An adult Legion villain.
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