Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes Crowning Moment Of Awesome

I like to think of Devlin as the Superman of the future.

Travelling the fringe worlds of the United Planets, as an investigative journalist of the Daily Planet.

His power means that he can survive threats and attacks that would kill other scribblers and hacks.

His sense of social justice was evident from his very first appearance. I can easily see him going up against the social corruption of the very early golden age superman.

Of course, that sense of social justice also ended up with him working for the Dark Circle, as seen oh so briefly in V4.

Interesting take on Devlin. He never really clicked for me overall. I thought he had potential, but it seemed that, except for the Mordru storyline, he never had much to do. It may just be me though.

Things to think about...

no, he never clicked with me either. Very much the team's get-out -of-plot-hole card. He was over egged occasionally by editorial as well, in terms of his dialogue.

Need to beat Glorith, the Time Trapper, Mordru or Firefist? Just stand Devlin in front of them and taunt.

Far better to play to strengths of his journalism and social justice. His powers are possibly better built on that, as an explanation why his enemies can't seem to kill him off despite how much they try.

Of course, his friends can get hurt in that as well, so he does have to be pretty careful.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: for me, the Legion's crowning moment was during the 5-year gap when Mon-El killed the Time Trapper--with the full knowledge that his reality would be consequently obliterated--in the faith that good people would arise to stand up for justice and decency in any reality, even if the Legion itself might not necessarily be resurrected. Sorry for the pun, but this really blew me away!

Certainly Mon El's Moment for me too.

Meanwhile, back in Brainy's Lab...
Brainy: He's gone Tasmia. I can't bring him back. However, I may be able to trace the Trapper's temporal energy and send help. Have you ever heard of Devlin O'Ryan, Plot Killer Boy?

Oh, and earlier in the thread there was reference to quieter Legion moments. For me, it would be the Batch SW6 Legion when Shrinking Violet and Triplicate Girl were sitting around once and just talking about boys, the way that girls do in real life (Vi's simplicity and innocence were very touching).

Another small but memorable moment that comes to mind is when the disbanded Glorith-verse Legion vacationed on Winath to attend a memorial service, and more or less just hung out together and talked about their lives in their 30s.

And finally, I also fondly recall a moment in the post-boot Legion when Monstress and Projectra were about to dine together and were pleased to find that they both said small prayers of thanks to the animals (i.e. the meat) they were about to consume. Both of those ladies were so classy.

Great moments come from characterization as much as they do from dramatic plot events, IMO. Cheers!

RE: Devlin, I always assumed he was supposed to plug the "Jimmy Olsen" role in much the same way Kent Shakespeare was to plug the "Superboy" role.

good point.

On Tharn, Surrounded by Mordru's hordes, Devlin activates his signal watch.

Hearing his friend's call for aid, Kent races from bustling labs of Quarantine.

Only to discover that in post crisis continuity Superman clones couldn't survive in space.

Tune in next month for...Decompression!

Devlin's powers are kind of not traditionally super-heroic. They are reactionary. For him to do anything cool, a *villain* has to do something cool to him, and have it reflected back. So he's kind of dependent on a cool villain moment (like Mordru chucking a sun at someone) to be able to have his own awesome moment. In a crafted storyline, he can run into any number of people who have no idea what his powers do, but the second he gets some press, or puts on a flashy costume and joins a team, every villain with half a brain is going to know to just flat out ignore him, since he's just some dude in tights if you don't shoot at him.

He'd be great guns against Validus, who is probably not intelligent enough to ever figure out that every time he punches or brain-blasts Devlin, he gets smacked back just as hard, and Devlin never seems to get hurt, but it's going to seem pretty contrived if he always ends up facing robots or space monsters or wild animals or villains with very specific intellectual limitations...

(Not that comics don't generally *live* on such contrivances, with the gunmen always shooting at the bulletproof people and ignoring the ones running around in bathing suits with no defensive powers at all!)

Devlin had a good CMOA in issue 37 (the one where the Earth blew up) that highlighted his journalistic skills. He covered the whole thing in a very poignant manner.



I like both of these! Many people hated Monstress' "sweet" personality, but I thought it added a nice touch to the team.