What the Robins consider each other to be

From Heroes in Crisis #9.

The Legion of Super Heroes Reviews: The Legion of Substitute Heroes or Unsung Heroes

Happy 29th Birthday to Me! Yes it’s my birthday which means it’s time for reflection, griping about getting older and cake. And after an exausting weekend of grappling with a growth, i’m not going to go into anymore detail, I can finally, relax celebrate and get back to reviewing. And since i’ts my big day, that means I decided to dedicate today’s reviews to things that mean a hell of a lot to me and in one way or another shaped me as a person. A self indulgant way to reflect on my past, look to the future and show y’all some stuff I really like. So with that out of the way let’s talk about the Legion of Super Heroes.. and their oddball sub team I love dearly. 

This is also my first chance to talk about DC Comics on my blog. I’m honestly shocked that in the year i’ve been reviewing stuff regularly, the other half of the big two superhero comic publishers hasn’t come up. While I do tend to lean towards marvel, in part because Marvel is simply better at collecting their stuff and putting it on sale more often, it’s still the home of some of my faviorite properties: Justice League International, The Green Lanterns (Minus Hal), Teen Titans, Wonder Woman, Oracle, Batgirl (All of them, particularly Steph and Cass), Young Justice, Supergirl, my personal boy The Martian Manhunter.. the list dosen’t go on by much but it indeed goes on. I”ve been reading dc comics since I was in middle school, and I haven’t stopped since and don’t intend to stop now and maybe in the next year I can get around to tackling some of their awesome cartoons and comics more eh? But yeah among these titans, including the actual titans, are the Legion, one of the most unique and awesome super team concepts in my humble opinon and , even for DC, one of the teams with the most tangled up histories. 

First created in the Silver Age by writer Otto Binder and Artist Al Plastino, The Legion of Superheroes is DC”s first successful teen superhero team, predating the titans by a few years, though I dearly love both wildly diffrent teams. The Legion is defined by their high concept: A thousand years into the future, three super teens from diffrent worlds who happened to be on the same ship with billionare RJ Brande, saved Brande from some goons hired by his crooked buisness partner. 

And exposed him. Inspirired by their courage, heart and skill, Brande latter called the three together to form them into a super team, one inspiried by the legends of teen hero Superboy. 

No not Conner though it was nice to get to show off my poster of him. While he was part of the second continuities legion, we’ll get to that, he’s not the superboy we’re looking for. He is damn great though and it’s good to have you back bud. 

Not Jon either, though I do miss this kid’s pre-bendis version and he was the inspiration.. for another version of the legion. (SIGH). Try. AGAIN IMAGE SEARCH. 

...... 

No not the cool bad boy turned troubled good boy, not the child who was inexpciably aged up by that bald smeghead, and not the great idea turned into a editiorial mouthpiece. I”m talking about THIS superboy. 

This is where the name came from: From the silver age till crisis on infinite earths, Clark Kent was active as a kid in smallville, and thus was Superboy, superman when he was a boy. He dealt with similar stories just with Lana replacing Lois, and Luthor as a ginger teenager. And it was these deeds as a teen hero on his own, one of the first honestly, that inspiried the legion and brande and forged the team. 

And it was naturally a super boy story where they were first introduced as the legion’s founders went back to recruit Superboy after putting him through some trials, and were intended as just one of many silver age one off concepts.. but caught on with the readers so much they were brought back, and had their ranks expanded and eventually not only added supergirl, yes the one your thinking of this time, to their ranks, and yes sometimes she and superboy were in the same place at the same time, Clark willingly had founding member and telepath Saturn Girl put a mental block in his head for any info he’s not supposed to know yet so it’s cool . But yeah not only that but they eventually became their own feature in Adventure Comics, where Superboy’s stories were published, but overtook him in popularity with time.  Over time a number of distinct aspects were established: The roster eventually got as large as 20 plus legionarres, almost all from diffrent worlds, and they eventually set up bilaws. Some are silly and dated such as “Legionarres marrying means they retire” which was eventually done away with in the 70′s, but others were simple logic: each member must have a unique power, no using weapons and such which rather than be super power snobbery is so said tech dosen’t fail and the legion later fully allowed Karate Kid, a martial artist, to join, no killing.. just common sense stuff that adds to it. And one of those is the centerpiece to today’s story, which we’ll get to in a moment.  Obviously given they’ve been around since 1958, there is a LOT more to the Legion’s history I will dig into at a later date: The short version is that Crisis on Infinite Earths, Dc’s first big reboot, fucked the team up badly by retconning superboy out of existance and dc editorial made it worse by shooting down EVERY solution the team came up with to fix the issue. So eventually things got so messy they nuked the whole thing during the event Zero Hour and rebooted fresh with Mark Waid taking the helm and updating the concept for the 90′s and being a more lighthearted, if still not without weight, comic in the sea of 90′s edge. Waid would reboot the team again due to sagging sales, a far weaker reason this time, with a more rebllion slant, the original team would be reinstated, and then ended for a while before recently being rebooted by Brian Micheal Bendis... who sadly is long past his creative prime from books like Ultimate Spider-man and alias and is instead stewing in his own toilet dinner these days and thus it’s not pretty.. well okay art wise i’ts VERY pretty, it’s just story wise it sucks dirty ass in thunder storms. There was also an awesome cartoon that sadly lasted only two seasons that I will DEFINTELY be digging into, especially since unlike x-men evolution, it’s not you know 50 some episodes and me biting off way more than I can chew but a slim 26 that still has fans to this day. I”ll get into ALL OF THIS, some ohter time hopefullly and I mostly outlined it since some of you might be familiar with another version or “Sigh” the reboot and this helps clear things up.  So yeah with all that out of the way we’re going back to the silver age and the first story I ever read of hte team, how I met them with “The Legion of Substitute Heroes” and a later subs story I genuinely love. I first read this story in one dc’s old expensive archives collections I got from the library. Oh how I miss the library. Your probably wondering who the legion of susbstite heroes are.. but since the first story covers that we can jump right in after the break!

So we open with a teen in a parka uniform disembarking from a spaceship from another planet, which a passerby notes is just like the airplanes people used to ride from country to country. 

But we meet our hero, Polar Boy, whose in a winter themed outfit and has come to try out. This is the tradition I was saving for now: The Legion Tryouts. Like a club or sports team would, but I like it because it makes sense: The Legion NEEDS to be as big as it is because while their headquartered on earth, their mission scope is anywhere in the united planets which spans GALAXIES. They could be called on any time and need their full force or need to have severa l members on a smaller mission and frequently having members away on a mission was cleverly used to reduce the cast to whoever was needed for the story. 

So it only makes sense to frequently look for new membbers to help strengthen their ranks... but given their teens and are recurting teens they need to be careful and need a logical way to reduce crowd flow. I mean you saw how many people used to line up for american idol before that died a justified death, people will do anything to be famous and they need to weed out those whose powers and skill just aren’t up to snuff yet, or those who are just dicks as, unsuprisingly, several stories have been built on assholes who applied and were rejected turning evil and attacking.. even though the Legion wasn’t even paticuarlly harsh. They also are more than fair as applicants CAN try again or if they prove themselves in other ways can be let in, as Bouncing Boy, my favoirite legionarre, was intially rejected for his power of .. well...

Yeah.. on paper inflating like a ball and bouncing around is kind of silly. In practice he can ricochet off enemies, walls, and obstacles and is fairly durable in that state. It’s why I don’t really brook mocking the guys power: yes it’s goofy.. but say that again when he hands you his ass. It’s the same with matter eater lad who yes is an actual character: While being able to eat anything is gloriously goofy.. it means he can chew through ANY substance and digest ANYTHING. Hell in the cartoon episode intorducing the subs they used both of these guys to great efffect: Bouncing Boy, who in the cartoon had to try out multiple times in his backstory, encouraged the future subs while Matter Eater Lad got in by EATING A FUCKING BOMB. He also had shades which I dind’t know he was missing but now I do. My point is the process is fair and well thought out and leads to some really fun scenes. 

But yeah joining the legion is naturally Polar Boy’s dream, as he walks down the avenue of heroes, basically a series of statues honoring the legion and hopes all his hard work paid off. We then cut to the auditions, where he apparently waited all night. What I like about this story is that unusually for the silver age legion where it was mostly a sea of powers attached to a bunch of cardboard, really the dc silver age in a nutshell and why marvel broke out so much for having more dynamic and realistic characters, Polar Boy has more of a personality. It’s not MUCH but he’s a dedicated, hard working kid who just wants to join his heroes and seems really in awe of htem, a feeling we can all relate to. We’ve all had people we’ve looked up to, admired, and we’ve all had groups we wanted to join as kids, teens or what have you. And of course.. we all know what it’s like to be rejected by someone or something you badly wanted to be a part of.  And that’s what happens to poor polar boy, who comes from a world with an intense sun thus his people developed super cold powers.. but he can’t control them well so while their impressive, they also freeze the legion. HIs powers are good... but due to their strength and radius he’s also a liablility. They give him an consolation anti-gravity belt.. they had these before eventually compressing them into the much cooler flight rings.. which I still desperatly want one of. I have the flash’s costume ring and a green lantern corps ring, but still no legion ring. 

Naturally this devistates the poor boy and he wonders around dispondent till nightfall, convinced he’ll never be one of them. He soon meets Night Girl, a fellow reject with super strength given to her by her dad’s formula.. but only in darkness as she’s from a world without sunlight. She also faces a “hopeless future” but it’s then Polar Boy’s true strength reveals itself: he decides screw giving up on their dream and if they can’t be in the legion they’ll start their own Legion. 

Though not to compete but to serve as a subtistute, in case the legion is ever incapacitated. So Night Girl gathers the other rejects the next morning. Cleverly one of them, Chlorophyll Kid was seen with Night Girl herslef at the tryouts behind Polar Boy. We soon learn about them and each of their origins: Stone Boy can turn himself into an immobile stone statue, as his world has half a year long nights and thus his people hybernate, Fire Lad who can spit hot fire literally and set anything combustable on fire and Chlorphyll Kid who can make plants grow rapidly. Each were rejected for resonable powers: Stone Boys powers too static, Fire Lad’s is too dangerous and Chorlpyl Kids toos pecific. But upon seeing all of this Polar Boy says they STILL have fantastic powers and still can help people and the legion. 

Thus the Legion of Substittue Heroes is born. And I love them as much as the originals. As a bit of a misfit myself I relate to these guys: They have strange specific powers, got rejected by the big team.. while that trope is nothing new at the time it was unique and even now it’s a nice and inspiring message. Instead of giving up they form their OWN team to do what htey can anyway. They might not be the best like the legion but they can still help and still do what’s right even if not on their scale. It’s a great concept and really makes them endearing. Again I have a thing for the underdogs but I still really like these guys. It’s why it annoys me they got kind of spat on with time: While I love Keith Giffen and Paul Levitz run on the legion, and feel it’s the best of that contnuinty it’s not without fault and the two basically spent a full issue mocking the team and split polar boy off from them before making their own subs with only ONE of the originals. It just felt.. disrspectful. And so far no continuity has used them again until the recent bendis run, which has them announced for the Future Slate special. It took BENDIS, who dosen’t get how to use the team properly and is up his own ass, to bring them back in a new continuity and I find that obnoxious. The subs are a great concept and deserve to be honored as such and as such are one of my favorite superhero teams. 

But their careers don’t start well as they doubt themslves, except for Polar Boy who boisters them along, and constnatly just end up going to missions the legion already has covered and when the legion go to fight some robot ships, they refuse the subs help.. which is fair though, as Brainy puts it they can’t risk putting untrained volunteers in harms way. Their about to just quit, in a really sad moment.. when CK, because I can’t spell cholophill and hate having to use spell check notices some odd seeds spread about.. and when he grows one a horrifying tree man shows up. They struggle with it till the setting son finishes it’s job, meaning Night Girl is at full power and whollops it and the subs spend the night destroying the seeds.  They  find out the next day the seeds came from the same planet as the robot ships, meaning the ships are a distraction for whoevers doing this and since they can’t just call earth, as the full force of the legion is needed with the robots and all it’d do is cause a panic, it’s down to them. Night Girl however is scared.. and I like that. It shows that while their regaining their confidence.. it’s sitll risky. Their a bunch of barely trained fanboys, and girl, going up against an alien invasion, with it down to them. They CAN save the world but it’s alright to be entirely terrified when your thrust into it this fast. 

They make their way to the planet, having built a ship earlier and lie low, finding out what’s going on: The plant men are fully intellegent, and grow themselves..though how they know to attack and go to the bathrom and what not out of the seed I don’t know but I assume it’s a genetic thing or they might be some form of hive mind. point is the seed plan is to grow troops all over the world via rockets for an invasion, and it’s a brilliant concept for one too. Aliens who simply GROW the troops right into battle, born with the knowledge to do so, and right where they can ambush them. It’s down to our heroes and Stone Boy, whose been the most pesemistic, valiantly dives in to provide a distraction so they can destroy the factory and the seeds. Turns out he is useful as the most the treeple have is a space lead pipe.. yes really. I love the silver age. But they’ll bring ray guns soon, so Stone BOy knows it’s a suicide mission and now our heroes have a timer. But luckily.. our heroes are stronger than they think. Night Girl punches a way in till Night passes, while Polar Boy and Flame Lad use their powers in concert to make an opneing.. but with time running out Polar Boy finishes things by having CK grow all the seeds now they have acess.. thus exploding the planets population, destroying several cities from the number of bodies, and thu discourguing the treeple from trying again. Stone boy is able to flee with the rest of our heroes and the day is saved. 

The heroes opt not to tell the public, as to take away glory for the Legion. It’s a noble gesture.. they do DESERVE credit, but they choose not to take it, preferring to let the legion get theres for stil lsaving the world from the robots. They stand firm, now confident they may someday make it to the big leagues.And it’s this that really makes me love them: Thier not the strongest or best, but they try anyway for the reasons a hero should: to help people, and not for the glory. THey remain unsung heroes and are fine with that.  Eventually the Legion WOULD find out about them, but naturally instead of being dickheads about it, fully accepted them, even offering them some contests for membership, but that’s a story for another day. THey’d remain stalwart allies and valuable backup in crisis situations for years to come until the bollocks outlined above. But they’d never leave my heart and thanks to them.. the legion never left either. 

Final Thoughts:  While I do love the story for it’s personal signifigance to me, It’s stilll a really good story for the time. A bit stilted as was the style, but still good, well paced and with an endaring cast of underdogs who prove themselves in the end. It’s something diffrent from the usual clean cut ahead in life wasps these stories usually followed at the time. While the team’s still all white and all that, their outcasts and misfits who just want to help and have trouble beliving in themselves. Their a good standard to live up to.. and a good inspiration for me and my constnatly self hating self doutbing self. And I hope you enjoyed htem too.  If you’d like to comission your own review, just dm me. It’s 5 bucks for individual issues. Later days. 

Cheer Up, Shit Hair

A/N: Platonic Bakugou and Kirishima. 

Kirishima has been depressed all day and his best friend decides to help the only way he knows how too. 

___

Bakugou was worried. Sure, he’d never admit that, but he hadn’t seen Kirishima all day. He didn’t show up for breakfast or lunch, he didn’t come to any of his classes, and he wasn’t answering texts or calls. Something was wrong. 

“Ass hole, you in there?” He banged on the door, eyes narrowed. It was almost dinner time. The door opened slowly to reveal darkness and the familiar scent of sweat. Was Kirishima ill? Perhaps he’d just been working out all day?

“Oh, hey Bakugou.” The door opened more to reveal a rather deflated Kirishima. His red hair feel normally to his shoulders, bits of black root showing through. The blonde looked over him. T-shirt, shorts, socks. He wasn’t sick. “Are you ill?” The other shook his head. 

“Uh, no. Whoa!” The door was pushed from him as the hot head let himself in. Shutting the door, Kirishima walked over and sat on the edge of his bed. It was like facing a parent. The blonde stood with his arms crossed, scowling at the other. “Then what’s your excuse for missing classes and not answering your phone?” 

His phone? The hardener looked to his head board before retrieving the item. Three calls, six texts. Whoops. “Sorry man, I guess I wasn’t paying attention.” He offered a small smile but was met with a sigh. “So what’s bothering you?” He sat beside the other as he pulled out his note books and began to check through to make sure he grabbed all the right ones. 

“Camp is not that important.” Bulshit. “It’s not so much of the camp. I failed the test, even with extra hours of studying. My folks called me and.... I just.... I’m never going to live up to Red Riot. I’m going to be an embarrassment to Crimson Riot. I should have picked a different name.”

Bakugou sighed. “No, your just a shitty test taker. Dumb ass.... it doesn’t matter what you know from the books. It matters how you act in a time of crisis.” The other looked up a bit, frown still present. “Dude, I just.... I just need to be alone for a while.”

The blonde sighed. He tried being nice, but if his best friend wasn’t going to stop being depressed over something so “childish”, he’d have to move to drastic measures. “Your acting like a child, Eijiro. Stop moping.” The red head opened his mouth to protest but just shrugged. He looked away as he moved back to lay down. 

Wow, Bakugou had never seen him so depressed. “Your acting like Deku over All Might. I never understood why someone as great as you would want to be second under some.... guy.” He wouldn’t insult the hero. He knew his best friend had too deep of a respect for Crimson Riot. “Because I’m not that great. Like All Might to Deku, he made everything just seem better man. I don’t know how to explain this.”

The other closed his eyes, listening as Bakugou placed the books in order with his own. “It’s an admiration, not a crush.” Kitishima snorted. “Dude, he’s like a dad. That’s so gross.” Bakugou rolled his eyes. “Yeah, not sure what happened to that nerds dad. He wasn’t really talkative from what I remember. Hardly noticed he was present.”

Kirishima brought his arms under his head as he hummed. “Yeah, he never really talks about him.” The blonde looked over with a frown. “Well.... you never talk about yours either. Do you hate them or something?” He thought back to Todoroki’s words. Was Kirishima bred for greatness as well? Was he a product of a quirk marriage?

“It’s.... complicated man. I don’t want to talk about it.” The blonde frowned as he sat back down. He’d met Bakugou’s parents a few times. They actually really hit it off! His mom wanted Kirishima to come around more often. But the way he acted with them, it was like they were part of his family. 

That might sound creepy but... the more the hot head thought, the more he realized. Kirishima treats all his friends like family. They are his family. “You shouldn’t let shit like this get to you. You could make so much use of your emotion in training.” It was the best Katsuki could do. 

He wasn’t really good at comforting. “I know, I tried. But... I just kind of laid on the floor for a while.” Kiihima sighed. “It’s getting late, you should get something to eat before-- eep! H-Hhehey!” Red eyes shot open as gentle tweaks and touches found thinly clothed ribs. “W-Whahahit! N-No, nohoho tickling! Katsuki!” 

The other smirked a bit. “Maybe you should start training now? See if you can harden when I run my fingers over every square inch of your body. Sounds like a blast to you, doesn’t it?” It was no secret the red head liked tickling. He used to tickle Bakugou a lot, before dropping the most obvious hints that he was touch starved. 

His best friend complied and soon.... found it pretty addictive. Would he every tickle someone else? Hell no, well. Maybe? It all depended on the situation. But just freely tickling his best friend to cheer him up, or win a video game, or get him to shut up? Yeah, he was okay with that. “Dhahaon’t tease me!” 

He was too weak to the other, but he wasn’t trying to fight back. Maybe it was the need for laughter, or his depression keeping him still, but he didn’t move too much. “Your not very squirmy. Maybe I’m doing this wrong?” Oh shit! No, no, no! Fingers found his underarms, making him scream with hiccupy, gaspy laughter. His arms flew out from behind his head, only to be pinned close to where they were. 

“Oh no you don’t. Sorry shit hair, but your not moping while I’m here. Now suck it up and take your cheering up like a man!” The other blushed a bit. How could someone so rock hard.... with such an explosive personality be so dorky? “Bhahahkugou! Thahaht’s too much! S-Sthahahaop! I’ll ghahaho to dinner, jahahust stop it!” 

He shirked as lips found his neck. With his arms free and quickly curled up.... into the other being. “B-Bro that’s ticklish! Stop i-- not theheh feet!” When he curled up he brought his legs higher. This left a gateway for a quicker cheer up as the blonde’s stomach was growling. “Let’s go shit hair, laugh it up!” Bakugou tried to yell over the hysterical laughter. 

He stopped when a pillow made contact with his face. A low growl escaped his lips, making the other start to curl up once more, giggling in anticipation. “I’m sorry, please don’t tickle me!” The hot head rolled his eyes a bit. “You act like you hate it, but will place my hands on you for tickles. Explain that to me, dumb ass.” 

Kirishima blushed at the comment. His friend wasn’t wrong. “I’m soerious though, I’ll go eat. Just... please stop.” Bakugou was a bit taken back. “Did I hurt you?” The red head shook his head. “No... you just went too hard on my kill spots.” Another pillow. “And started with my kill spots!” 

His dorky smile came back as the blonde blushed. “W-Whatever! I was fucking hungry and I had to cheer up your dumb ass first! So yeah, I may have speed up the process!” Fingers found the other’s sides, earning soft giggles and kicking legs. 

“It just means I’ll have to start over after dinner.” Ah.... shit. Honestly, Kirishima did’t mind. He could use the laughter anyway. It was fun kind of having his own tickle monster, especially when it was his best friend. “R-Rhahahse you to dinner?” A challenge the other couldn’t resist. Bakugou smiled a bit. “Your on.”