Legion World Forums LEGION OUTPOST Bits o' Legionnaire Business Young Ultra Boy: The Rimbor Adventures

While working on "Young Legion" characters, I found I had the most fun with Ultra Boy. If I was given a chance to do a Saturday Morning Cartoon of any one Legionnaire, he'd be it.

He combines all of the fun stuff that makes Superboy neat, with none of the backstory. I thought it would be a blast to work with young Jo Nah, shortly after he attains his powers, and before he really gets into the hero game. As well, a futuristic (but slightly Dystopian) world like Rimbor (with minimal Science Police presence) should make for interesting story ideas.

What I think would make this the most interesting is following Jo while he learns to use his powers to their best advantage, while figuring out ways around his one-power-at-a-time problem.

In the Young Legion Universe, Jo is a teenage mechanic who, while testing one of his repairs with a joy ride where he shouldn't really be, is swallowed by an energy beast, freed by the Galactic Patrol, and shortly after returning to Rimbor finds out he's not the young man he used to be.

He has no interest in being a hero, but he's constantly being dragged into it by a bounty hunter female (with a jet pack and blaster) while simultaneously being discouraged by a young Green Lantern (who doesn't want an amateur messing things up, especially one who doesn't really have a handle on his powers yet).

Here's the early character drafts ( Jo's uniform in the second set of images is the final one, dark green pants instead of dark green underwear atop lighter pants, the white stripe on his cuffs, etc.).





The Green Lantern's costume here is a stand-in only until I decide on a final design (the temporary texture used here is the excellent work of Jeffrey W. Orange, of Muskateer Graphics).

Jo's only partner at work is an outdated robot (added for comic relief, as well as Jo's sounding board).

In this test scene, the Emerald Empress has arrived on Rimbor and is exploring a set of ancient ruins there (looking for the Eye's mate). Jo flies off to deal with her (without waiting for help or information about what he's up against) and he quickly finds out that his invulnerability doesn't protect him from the Eye's mind control...

As always, click the thumbnails for a larger view.






As always, comments, critiques or suggestions are very welcome.

The dark pants are very much better! The trunks-over-tights look does *not* work in this format, IMO, and the less said about aqua tights combined with a leather jacket, the better.

Traditionally, Jo ran with a street gang (or perhaps even led said gang) in his original origins, but you seem to be making a kid-friendlier origin, which is also cool. Working a gun-toting bountry hunter sort (who might provide a noir-ish 'mean streets' vibe, without quite so much mean) and a Green Lantern into it certainly mixes things up.

Some of those Empress shots in the other thread look nicely imperious. Very cool!

I really like the designs and the premise you've got going on for young Jo. My first reaction was to wish that you'd use existing characters to "play along" with Jo, but thinking about it, it's pretty cool to have new characters in those roles.

Here's hoping you do sequentials from the beginning of the story through the end!!

Mind control is a new power for the Eye?
Interesting!

I like your cast.
I don't know how difficult this format is, but you might consider having Jo alter the robot regularly, improving how it gets around, what it can do.
Sort of a sidekick in the making.

I think I'd like to see Jo with a male friend.
I loved Brin on Rimbor during the reboot and perhaps he'd be just as much fun here with Jo.
He'd make a great group leader that Jo does work for or something like that.

Brin might even have a girl member that he's taking care of, a phantom half cousin!

Interesting ideas, thanks! I hadn't thought that far ahead about a supporting cast, those are very helpful.

See!
I totally didn't see the animated series!


I think it's a great extension of the Eye and makes sense.

I'm always 'helpful'.
sigh
Feel totally free, like most of the rest of the people I make suggestions to, and just ignore me.

great character set though the robot looks somewhat familiar. Agree with the above, dark pants, no underwear.

I really like the Emerald Empress as a major opponent for Jo.

It's been way, way too long. I'm starting to catch my breath a bit at work, and I'm planning on sneaking in a bit more Young Legion stuff over the next few weeks. First up is some Rimbor Adventure shots, specifically some origin shots and an early adventure or two.

I tried out a few different takes on the energy beast (I always think of it as composed of energy and thinly-spread matter, almost ghost-like, a beast that spends it's life away from stars and planets because their gravitational forces would tear it apart. It's not above snacking on small bits of matter and energy it comes across, like Jo and his speeder...

As always, click to enlarge.







At this point, the energy beast is already draining the life out of his robot co-pilot...



And we follow the ship's progress to the belly of the beast...

LOVE the red, glowing beast!
He looks very space dragony, while having some wonderful water dinosaur details, especially the flipper ends to his legs.
The see the stars through him is beautiful.

Lovely work, all aroung.

Beautiful stuff!!

Thanks guys.

I agree with you, Candle, though I thought the first energy beast was a little too "cloudy", and it renders much more slowly as well, so for now I'm probably going to stick with the second style of material, but to compromise, I'll make it more reddish and transparent.

Here's a couple of reddish energy beasts:

Had some time off today (it's a Civic holiday) so I took a quick swipe at doing a few screens of Young Ultra Boy's origin.

As mentioned before, I'm aiming it at all-ages, with a strong leaning towards a younger audience.

As always, click to enlarge...