Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes Legion number one..the return of....

When I started reading Legion in 1978 Chemical King was already dead. I discovered him when I started buying back issues including the two part story of his death. I have always prefered the in the background legionnaires verse the panel hogs so I thought he was a cool character...cool powers, costume..etc.
Well now there seems to be alot of evidence that he may be back..never killed, never joined, a clone, or healed by his own chemical reactions over the years and brought back from he dead.

1. We have his lack of appearance in the "statues" group shot in the lightning saga story
2. Paul Levitz comments that have been floating around
3. Legion of Super Heroes number 1- The hall of the dead....no Chemical King
4. Adventure number 11 .. Chemical King flying over Phlon, a bottle city reborn.

I think Condo had a lot of potential and maybe he will finally meet it over 30years since his death

I wish for that, too.

I never actually understood his powers, he can speed up chemical reactions or slow them down? In that one wildfire issue (the debute of ERG-1) he threw acid.

Yeah, he speeds up and slows down chemical reactions. Unfortunately, not all writers understood what that meant.

I actually would like to see him be given another shot, if only because he's the only traditionally dead Legionnaire who hasn't been brought back in some form or another [not counting reporter] in the past fifteen years.

See my sig line

'nuff said!

Chemical reactions being the basis of so much of the processes going on in the universe, his power is almost as ridiculously over-the-top as Element Lads.

He could make people burst into flames, by accelerating various processes. He could transmute elements (albeit, slowly, up or down the scale, not to the level that Jan can). He could cause energy weapons to simply fail to function, or make objects chemically inert, and therefore, all-but indestructible to conventional energy attacks (but not destructive kinetic impacts, like a punch from Mon-El!).

His power sometimes seems to have been 'shorthanded' as being able to transform chemicals and compounds as well, to cause the air to become corrosive, or corrosives to become inert, and should be able to create any of a bewildering plethora of adhesives, corrosives, toxins, anti-toxins, medicines, explosives, incendiaries, etc. with a wave of his hand (even if he's not actually transforming water into gasoline or whatever, but simply changing it's chemical properties so that the water is now flammable).

Im hoping that we are going to see him return. One of my first stories was about his "death".

I think that is a great idea!

The problem with CK was not only that most writers didn't understand his power, but also that there were no set limits on it. He could do innumerable things by controlling chemical reactions and that makes him hard to write for. He needs a short list of specific abilities and a writer who understands chemistry.


Apparently they're bringing back Tyroc in the next issue. He falls into the same category. His screams were shown as being able to accomplish many different things from illusions to teleportation to warping reality to explosions to hyper sonics and on and on. Without limits our heroes aren't very interesting. They can simply do anything and where's the challenge in that?

I don't think Chemical King could ever actually change the chemical properties of a particular thing ... it was, more or less, slow down or speed up the chemical reaction of something. So let's say it is water we are talking about then he could speed up the evaporation of the hydrogen molecules, or slow them down to the point that they would take forever to evaporate if he so wished it. I don't think he could add an element into the equation if it wasn't a natural part of its molecular makeup to begin with.

In all fairness to everyone (writers and readers) his character and abilities were so under-utilized that he was never given a chance to explain what his powers could actually do given more chances to do so. All we did know for sure was that he was pretty down on himself close to his death, feeling that his power was next to useless as we know from his conversation with Superboy.

I think his passing was one of the biggest missed opportunities the Legion comic ever had. His power is/was one of the most original of its time, and as others have said, if the writers back then had understood chemistry better he would have or could have become one of the coolest Legionnaires alive in the here and now.

On the one hand I'm against dead characters constantly returning, but on the oher hand, I'm like Jim Gallagher in that I really like the idea of Chemical King's powers somehow saving his life and restoring him after all this time.

He's a character that was long dead before I was born and I've never had the chance to seem him in 'real time'. So I'd be really interested if he did come back.

Hmmph! Kids these days! Why, when I was your age . . .


I don't like bringing back dead characters either, but Chemical King is one character whose powers could actually facilitate his return, which is pretty unique in comics. Usually there's some convoluted mistaken identity plot device or some cockamamie machine or alien being with magical power or something. Having his own power chemically recharge his body would make perfect sense, IMHO.

So what were the views of Chemical Kid in comparison with Chemical King

Definitely better utilised power-wise! One of the few things I consistently liked in the last run was how Hadru's powers were developed! I think his personality could have used a lot of work but you could say that for everyone...the last two series were really not Levitz's finest moment.

I think if Chemical Kid & Dragonwing had been admitted without the baggage of beating the old-school Academy kids & so many classic Legionnnaires being shipped off as soon as they came on board they would have been a lot more popular. Taken on their own merits they were interesting additions to the team. Glorith and Harmonia on the other hand I can't see that I would ever have liked without a LOT of work....

EDIT: wanted to say that it would have been nice to see the legacy aspect played up more with Hadru too. Aside from that one arc in Adventure I don't think anyone even ever mentioned that poor Condo had ever even existed. Might have helped integrate him into the cast more if Levitz had characters comparing him for better or worse to his predecessor every now and then...

Here's a thought that I had that would've made Hadru really interesting for me:

So, Condo Arlik was a mutant. He was born with the power to control chemical reactions that was not shared by any of his race. But what if he were merely the first child born on Phlon with this adaptation? So there could be a whole "next generation" of Phlonians that possess his power that would look up to him as a hero. Hadru, for whatever reason, would be the representative of that generation that actually manages to follow in his footsteps and join the Legion. And, of course, things get really interesting when it is discovered that Condo himself is still alive...

^ I like that idea more than Condo Arlik's DNA living on in a pile of glowing green rocks

I think it's a tough one when introducing new characters to an established team. The legion were pretty decent at using their powers when they were all introduced. They all had pretty mature personalities too. Bringing in someone new directly into the team gives the problem of how to portray that character?
They can be shown as mature and in decent cont4rol of their powers. Mwindaji and Otaki are like that, but there wasn't much spark. Both needed more personality quirks to be memorable.

I saw Mwindaji and Otaki as a reaction to Chemical Kid and Dragonwing. The latter two were inexperience in power and immature in personality. This creates more story potential than Otaki and Mwindaji's introductions.

Levitz showed Hadru being trained by the others (Jan especially) and having senior members knocked out by debris at convenient moments. Personality wise, there was a hint of friction with his relationship with Dragonwing and his need to overcome freezing in combat. For Dragonwing, it was a trip to where she grew up and her ongoing training with Shadow Lass. It's a tough one. The writers think that there should be tension between the new and old members, between the younger ones and the older ones. The trick is doing it so that there's at least some empathy left all round.



Yeah, if the team were that short handed they would logically go to the subs and the graduates. Perhaps there's a parallel to Power Boy and Lamprey's final test, where they were a bit uninspiring, and the new batch's defeat of a major league villain. Perhaps more potential was seen in this new crop. Perhaps when the team came calling to Lu, they simply decided to quit entirely if they couldn't join. They were a lot feistier than Power Boy ever was. But the truth is that more sales were seen in the new recruits than the old academy students.

Following her "golden girl" run of issues where she could do everything, Harmonia grew on me considerably. Where Otaki and Mwindaji had maturity without enough panel time and Chemical Kid & Dragonwing had panel time but not the maturity, Harmonia was eventually a good medium. Mature, in control of her powers and with a few subplots going on. Had Levitz not kept Glorith in lab for two pages every issue, we may have seen mroe of her there too. The book didn't get anywhere near the pay offs for Glorith.



Yeah, that would have been a nice nod to the past. It may well have helped Hadru develop a place in the Legion. He did get plenty of help from the others, so it's not as though he was isolated or forgotten about. He probably did better than Condo there actually.