Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes Long Live the Legion! "Seven Pre-Approved Candidates"

So, in LSH 37, we're told that seven government sanctioned, "pre-approved candidates" are on the LSH HQ's threshold.

Who do you think they'll be? Who do you think they *should* be?

I think either Matter-Eater Lad or Wildfire will be there, but maybe not both.

I think there'll be at least two entirely new characters.

Chemical King and Ferro Lad are both good bets. I'd be especially pleased if Condo's there.

I doubt all seven'll get rings (if there's even material for *any* rings), so there should be a clunker or two among the seven. Remember the Justice League of Earth appearing in ACTION, though. Today's clunker could be tomorrow's supervillain. Or LSH leader...

1. Wildfire
2. Chemical King
3. Infectious Lass
4. Jungle King (with monsters in tow)
5. Quicksand
6. new character
7. new character

Who would you most want to go from candidate to member?

If the UP follows the 'politically correct, if slightly clueless' model we've seen so far, it's likely that each of the new 'pre-approved candidates' will come from an UP world that has lobbied to have an official Legionnaire.

Some might be 'replacements,' sent by UP worlds concerned that the current Legionnaire from their homeworld isn't a 'proper representative' of their planet, others might represent worlds we've heard mentioned but don't have current Legion representation.

Wildfire could well squeak in as the Lallorian nod, by virtue of Lallor maybe not wanting him on the planet any longer, given his destructive potential, and rumors of presidential assassinations and that sort of thing...

Tenzil Kem as a representative of Bismoll also works, and he's even more likely to be 'pre-approved' by the UP Council, since they'd think of him as 'their man in the Legion.'

Braal may send a 'replacement' for Cosmic Boy, just as Naltor sent Dream Boy as a 'replacement' for Dream Girl. Magno Lad seems like the ideal choice here, dramatically, as he can get shoved to the side when Rokk returns, and turn into the villain we all know and loathe. Or, to spin things differently, Pol could be sent to take his brothers place, not perform particularly well, and family resentment swirl up when Rokk returns from whenever and 'sends little brother back home.'

Conflict could arise if Rimbor decides that Ultra Boy isn't an 'appropriate' representative, and sends someone else to take his place. Same for Thom, if Xanthu decides that Atmos would 'better represent their importance within the UP,' being a more powerful hero.

If Brainy, who was conspicuously absent this issue, is keeping his fingers in the pie, and remains as effective a manipulator as we've seen in the recent past, at least *some* of these 'pre-approved candidates' may well be his picks, including perhaps Evolvo Lad?

I'd love it if it were Evolvo Lad!

Actually, I'd be ecstatic if three of the seven were all from Lallor (four if you count Wildfire)... Ev, Gas Girl and Life Lass/Kinetix!

I like your thinking re: Brainy. Perfectly fitting.

sorry to sound like a broken record, but HAVEN'T WE SEEN THIS BEFORE?
Isn't this exactly how the Zero Hour reboot started, with Legion draftees?

I love the Legion, and I love comic books. I love storytelling, but if I wanted to read the same stories again and again, I'd just reread old issues.

Everyone is harping on about how the 3Boot failed, but at least it was trying something new and different. Okay, it didn't totally succeed, but there's no shame in that, but if we're going to see rehashes of old plots, DC may as well revive Adventures of the Legion of Super Heroes and just reprint old stuff.

1) Curious as to Mr. Shooters view on needing more alien looking members in the Legion - Yes or No?

2) I like the idea of different planets having Legion members, and the UP insisting upon that.

3) I love new Legionnaires and tryouts. The more the better - it doesn't get old for me.

That all said, here's who I hope are the seven candidates:

Wildfire - Lallor
Matter Eater Lad - Bismoll
Chemical King - Phlon
White Witch - Zerox
Quislet - Teall
Dynamo/Immorto - Triton
Blok - Triad

Quantum Queen, Infectious Lass, Polar Boy, XS and Tellus would also be fun to see.

Heh, when I read that I thought you want a triplicating Blok... that would have been interesting. Blok's from Dryad or someplace like that though.

I wonder if the 7 candidates are characters that is currently being shown in Action:

Dawnstar
Nightgirl
Polar Boy
Wildfire
etc.

Didn't Shooter say Night Girl was going to join? Her for sure then.

The others? Tough one. I say Blok & Wildfire.

I think/hope Matter-Eater Lad and Wildfire are givens.

As for the rest:

FERRO LAD... and let Shooter do what he originally intended with the character (that is, make him a brotha). Dropping the mask angle would work too. Heck, make him totally HOT this time!

CHEMICAL KING... WAY overdue for a comeback, moreso than any other single LSH character ever.

INFECTIOUS LASS... I believe Cary Bates was the writer of her 2 earliest appearances (SB/LSH 201 and 218). I'd love to see Shooter's take on her (and we need more chicks!!)

BOUNCING BOY... It's time.

As for the 7th...

I'd prefer a lass. Night Girl, White Witch, Dawnstar or someone completely new.

I actually don't think Wildfire will be one of the seven. I'm not sure that someone who attempted to assassinate a President would be "pre-approved". I can see them rejecting him, but Brainy taking him on anyway.

Shooter also didn't seem very fond of him from that old character description thing...

I would hope it's a mix of old and new though any new character introduced this way (amongst a group) would have a harder time having any lasting power in this franchise. I'd be shocked (though pleasantly surprised) to see Dragon Mage, Gates, Kinetix, Computo and XS. I'd be less surprised but still happy to see Ferro Lad.

And a scary thought came to me;

What if, for some insane reason, the 'pre-approved candidates' were...

Terror Firma!

EEEEEeeeeeEEEEeeee[plonk]

Or could it be some of the Legionnaires rather than the expected classic heroes?
Catspaw?
Dragonmage?
..
Veilmist f'r grife's sake?

Better yet, bring back Laurel Gand! After Supergirl's passive/aggressive weirdness it would be immensely cool to have a self confident powerhouse blonde to make Brainy's head spin around.

edit: Might JS bring back retrofitted Kid Quantum (James Cullen) as the first Legionnaire to die?

Ooops! Yeah I meant Blok from Dryad, not Triad. What was I thinking?

I'd like to add Ferro Lad and Bouncing Boy to my list of preferred new Legionnaires (but from which world would they be considered from?).

Is it too much to ask for the resurrection of Laurel Kent from the ashes that was the Manhunter debacle?

If Blok was a Cargggite, would he need nine flight rings?

I'm Set, and I (pre)approve this message!

Wildfire, Tenzil, Polar Boy, Dawnstar, Blok, Ferro Lad an Night Girl would be expected...

Personal preference, though, would have

1. Kinetix (more girl power! I'm not holding my breath though )
2. Gates (more alien Legionnaires? here we go!)
3. Polar Boy
4. Bouncing Boy
5. Infectious Lass
6. Wildfire
7. Kid Quantum II
* I'd also like to see White Witch (but seeing as how she's a Wanderer, I dunno how they'd pull this off.)
* if they can't do Mysa, then Dawnstar is perfectly acceptable.

I dunno Lash, they already went this route with Star Boy during this boot...

Refresh my memory - Did Brainy say Wildfire WOULD be a member or did he merely say he would make a good candidate?

Wildfire seems obvious, unless a would-be assassin doesn't get pre-approved.

Tenzil seems very obvious, with Brainy's stamp of approval and presumably the UP's.

Ferro Lad, Nemesis Kid and Chemical King are the missing Shooter creations, so they could be likely candidates - IF he's looking to recreate his own past. Imagine a Nem Kid who doesn't go bad?
Re: Craig/Lash: Why does Star Boy have to be the *only* black Legionnaire? Since FL was intended to be way back when, this would be more of a restoration. I don't recall a definitive preboot moment esablishing his ethnicity at all; only in Reboot.

But ather than those three, I'd go with Quislet, Blok and XS, adding a missing speedster plus two interesting non-humans.

I'd round out the list with Kent (a powerhouse plus a team medic,a useful niche) and Kono (a trickster to shake things up).

While i think that the seven will be familar faces, I think that only one will get in and another from the not preapproved group. This is the first tryouts so maybe we can look forward to the subs being formed soon.
Nemesis Kid, has already appeared as a Wanderer.

he has??
i don't remember nemesis kid as a wanderer.
i think wildfire, night girl, matter-eater lad, and 4 new alien characters.

Yep, and I imagine that's why I'm not particularly intrigued by who will be showing up. Plus, given what else we've seen before (once by Mr. Shooter himself), the real guessing game will be as to which of the candidates will soon die.

... another thought also occurs to me.

With this Legion being a social movement, will these pre-approved Legionnaires already BE Legionnaires, or will they represent the official UP party line? THAT might stir things up again, and potentially split the team again... Maybe it's not such a dull idea after all.

Kent, I have no problem with Ferro Lad being black, I was just pointing out that threeboot Legion had a black Star Boy, which is odd. I don't usually like changes for the sake of shock-value. Maybe WaK were going out of their way to show this was a completely different Legion, but I don't get changing the ethnicity or gender (a la Shvaughn/Sean) or species (Jeckie was never a snake! ) to shock people. Just like one of the reasons I don't like CW's 'Smallville', with Pete Ross being black and Lana Lang not being a redhead. I have nothing against ethnic diversity in life, TV, or comics, but I'd rather they introduce a new character to the story instead of "retrofitting" an existing one you already had laying around. Smacks too much of what happened to Laurel Kent..."Oh, wait, she was always a Manhunter robot with faulty wiring..." What the heck????

And as to Ferro Lad being black when originally introduced, that would have been cool. The Adventure era was painfully humanoid and white bread (sure they had members with blue skin, green skin, even orange skin who could look like white skin if he wanted to) but there were hardly any alien creatures (until much later: props to Tellus, Quislet, and Gates!) and not one black teen? And when we get one, it is Tyroc, who was pretty stereotypical of the times (angry black youth sick of being hassled by 'the man'). He makes a few token appearances and then vanishes with his homeland to another dimension. Bad storytelling! At least Invisible Kid II got better character development!!! And the reboot seemed to finally break the mold, with great characters like XS and Kid Quantum II actually serving on the team at the same time!! (sarcasm alert )

I like the idea that Ferro could have been black, but I don't know if it needs to happen now. Preboot we never saw Andrew's face, but we did see his identical twin's face in Legion of Super-Heroes #300. He appears to be a green, scaly skinned mutant (which shouldn't be a big social issue 1000 years in the future with all the myriads of lifeforms bopping around the known universe...). On a side note about seeing Douglas' face: I believe originally you could see a bit of Andrew's face around the eyelets of his mask when he wasn't powered up (made of iron) and I believe they showed white skin. I could be misremembering, and whether he was ultimately supposed to be one or the other, neither skintone matches up to Douglas' face in #300.

I'm all for more ethnic and alien diversity in the team, and I know Jim will be there for us in that regard. He was good for the Legion as a kid, and his storytelling's only gotten bettter over the years!

I agree that pointless revisions of established characters are a waste (shocking or not), but for me, that's more about personality than ethnicity. Reboot Lu was a kick-ass revisioning: useful in combat (tri-jitsu, rather than being, well, essentially two or three powerless virtual-civilians) and an experienced/competent adjutant (basically a permanent deputy leader). She could have been made black, Pakistani or whatever in the process, and to me it still would have worked.

Jeckie/Jeka sort of made sense on paper: if any preboot Legionnaire could be remade as a non-humanoid, an illusion-caster makes the most sense. But... it didn't work. Jeka was almost okay in her own right (if one could ignore/not know about Jeckie), but the baggage of the failed revisioning bogged her down all the way through.

I don't know that any character *needs* to be revamped into any ethnicity per se, but an all-white Legion seems more 1950s than 2000s, let alone futuristic. Ideally, introducing new characters of various ethnicities makes more sense than revisioning based on race alone, but those characters need to be compelling in their own right... but falling back on recreating the Silver Age Legion (Threeboot, Reboot and even SW6) undermines this again and again, and fans continually clamoring for absent favorites to be brought back (I'm guilty, too) further undermine this. Would Chemical King be any worse (or even better) if he was Asian? Would Rokk be diminished if he was Arabic? But simply adding ethnicity for (literally) color is pointless, unless it brings something to the character. With Star Boy, thus far, it has not.

Thus I will ditto your final sentence, if not the rest. I may be misinterpreting your sarcasm about XS and KQ2, so I will avoid commentary until I find a way to interpret it in more charitable terms.

(Re: Douglas Nolan in #300: Pre-boot continuity was full of enough loopholes that using any single issue/appearance as a hard-and-fast rule seems pointless. If one scrutinizes, one can find lots of minor contradictions/inconsistent variances in how things are depicted from artist to artist. Look at RJ Brande around the #230s, for example)