Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes Adventure #523 Preview/Spoilers!

He definitely looked Asian.

Chemical Kid is 100% meant to be Asian. I think even Dragonwing might be meant to be too, underneath the red hair and pale white skin.

Great issue as others have said. The art was amazing. Phil seems to be having a blast with all of these crazy and interesting character designs and settings and landscapes and so on. A book like this is so tailor-made for a highly detailed artist with an excellent eye for design like he is (and Perez is - oh how I wish he could get an extended run on this book too!) so I'm sorry it's taken so long for him to finally get some work with the Legion.

I'm kinda sorry I'm not seeing these pencils on the "real" Legion though. I wonder if he is too? It seems weird to have an artist of Phil Jiminez's calibre on essentially the Legion B-book while a virtual no-name artist (no offence to Cinar) works on the main title. With art this good, I could almost see this book out-selling the other one soon!

Enjoyed the writing and all the characterisations too. Great to see Luornu and Lydda in extended roles. And YAY for the Chuck appearance!

Thought it was a bit weird that Lu was wearing a variation of her 70s costume though when last time we saw her she was wearing a variation of her 60s one. Maybe she's still got all her old outfits in her wardrobe and just tries them on for giggles? I kinda preferred the 60s one though so hopefully she goes back to that one (unless she puts the cape back on this one - it looks wrong without it IMO - and loses the very dated belt).

Feels good to be excited about this title again. It's been too long.

I think that Chemical Kid DOES look like he has Asian lineage, although, again, to me, not purely Asian.

Sometimes, Adam looks like he has Asian somewhere in his background, too.
I'll post a couple of pictures.





It doesn't really matter much, imo, since Val kept changing back and forth, over the years.
Artists take those kinds of liberties, and if a model reminds them of someone, or something, they use them.

Anyway, that's my opinion and I like it.
Of course, it might just be that I like Adam for ALL of the Chemical guys.

She even wears the 60s variation on the cover of the same issue!

P.S. I hope you and Phil won't fight over me, Blacula, now that you both know of my affections. Oh, what the heck? Let the duel begin!

Yeah, I wondered the same thing about Dragonwing. I lived in Japan for almost 5 years and she reminded me of alot of young girls I saw there. Her name (Marva Pai) has an Asian feel to it, though definitely not Japanese.

Those Asians are bad influences, it seems!

So I just got it, and wow, was it cool! Love the art. Love seeing that the old-timers (Jed, Lamprey, etc.) are considered pretty much graduates, and that Comet Queen managed to get herself flunked out, and then re-admitted due to some heroic act that 'earned' her a second chance. Neat explanation for why someone who should be nearing graduation (since she's been in training since before Tellus and Quislet became Legionnaires) was back in the beginning classes again.

I suspect that Jed and Tel are not roommates, as Tel was shown in motion, following the others past his own lit doorway as he was talking to them about not going out, and then Jed came out of his quarters to see what all the noise was about. (Not that this precludes them, or any two or more Academy students, for that matter, having some extracurricular fun.)

Jed used to carry quite the torch for Laurel, and now he seems fairly friendly with Lamprey, but I didn't get a sexual vibe, so much as a good friends / brotherly sort of vibe. That would certainly be something daring and new for a comic book, a male and female character who are friends and *aren't* being paired up (or secretly in lurve with each other)...

*Loved* Chuck's Legion jammies. I covet them!

Chemical Kid seems to be a bit of a brat, but he's about seventy times less annoying than Quislet was when we met him, so I'm sure he'll find his voice.

Glorith, IMO, is a bit of a misstep. She's presented as the point-of-view character, despite Variable Lad, Gravity Kid, Chemical Kid *and* Dragonwing all being new to us. Any of them could have been the new kid, fish-out-of-water, perspective character, writing home and wondering if they are cut out for this.

A POV character should be someone relatively easy for the reader to identify with, and Glorith, with her squiffily-defined power to point at metal bars and maybe melt, maybe levitate, maybe disintegrate them, without casting any sort of spell, just by doing who-knows-what, seems less than ideally suited for that role. Hopefully this is more of an Avengers Academy sort of thing, and we'll get points of view from the others, in later issues, since I find myself not really interested in Gloriths 'oh the UP is so alien and strange' drama, since I'm a Legion fan, and already have spent a few decades happily living vicariously in the world that she finds so perplexing and uncomfortable.

Her being unfamiliar with the UP does give the writer a chance to explicate stuff, like the big about the holo-displays that show new fashions on the faces/bodies of passersby, or how stores of the future debit credits directly from customers accounts, so I can see the use of that, but there's no reason why one of the established characters couldn't find Metropolis a bit more flashy than their homeworld, without being from a magical, medieval society.

I like Glorith quite a bit and like that her letters are to Harlek and Mysa/Blok because they're long established characters and it sort of brings them into the stories.
Sort of.

I agree though, that I hope that we see other students communicate with their loved ones, too.

I REALLY want to know why CK has such disregard for his father and how Dragonwing's family feel about her power set!
lol
I hope she didn't develop those powers in early childhood!
gads

CQ was never very bright, so her receiving brain damage is a true shame.

I've so loved all of Lannings work here, too.
I hope he has input into visuals.
I think that his attention to detail is extremely important to the wonderful effects we're seeing.
sigh

I prefer the costume Duplicate Girl wears in this issue. A lot more interesting than the uber drab one on the cover.

Fantastic issue, the art was amazing, the attention to detail, especially in the backgrounds...superb. Lots of little Easter eggs for long time legion fans.
One thing I really noticed was the amount of aliens in the background. A complete difference from recent Legion issues due to the xenophobia storyline. Perhaps Montauk is an area with more tolerance for aliens? I suppose there would be different regions of Earth with conflicting views?

The story really moved along at a swift pace giving equal time to each cast member and quickly establishing basic personalities.

This Legion Academy concept is great way to invite new readers to try the Legion. It's too bad there was not a special price incentive or a Legion ring give-a-way. Hopefully the positive buzz should pull in new readers regardless

I agree.
I feel it was Phil's li'l tribute to Nick Pascale, the fan who designed it.

Fantastic artwork. This is the kind of art that can turn some heads into the Legion direction - it's a pity they did not invest in a major league artist to begin with.

Just LOVE Night Girl... nice to see her popping up again, I was already wondering where she had dissappeared to.

Quick question folks (maybe I missed it, but didn't see it covered here)...I noticed that Luornu is using the Durgo name and not Taine. Are they still married or has she just decided to use her maiden name?

I agree with most of this, though it didn't really bother me while I was reading the issue.

However, one cool thing that having Glorith as our POV character provides is the tension she creates in most (in-the-know) Legion fans who wonder if she's going to turn evil like her namesake.

Nearly every super-team has a member go bad at some point or another but I can't recall many/any times when it's been our POV character who's done so.

So if Paul's setting her up in this POV/sympathetic fashion to show us how she switches to the dark side then that could be quite cool IMO.

Given how often female magic-users flip out, lose control of their powers, get possessed, etc. and end up power-mad victims of their powers (Raven, Scarlet Witch, Ilyanna, possibly Mysa, depending on how 'dark' she ends up going), having a young female mage named *Glorith* go all darkside seems about as subtle as a bulldozer in a pottery barn.

I'd much prefer if Paul laughed at that trope and left Glorith a nice young girl (with a limited and thematic set of spells, and not the ability to wave her hands and do anything).

It would play against both the expectations brought up by the name Glorith, and the too-common fate of female characters that delve into magic. Messing with expectations can be fun.

If one of them were to 'go dark' (and this isn't Avengers Academy, so that's not a sure thing), Dragonwing looks *too* attractive for that, and might be a red herring. She's got a very villainous sounding powerset, with 'acidic venom' and fire breath.

Chemical Kid also seems like a 'gimme.' He's a brat who thinks the world revolves around him, and likes to show off to his peers, but that's not 'evil,' so much as, as Chuck points out, 'being young.'

Variable Lad seems so earnest. He'd be a spectacular left-field choice to have a hidden agenda or something. Given how his powers have been shown thus far, he could be a Durlan assassin, for all we know...

Comet Queen, if something happened in her time out of the Academy, would also be the last person most would suspect, although after the Laurel Kent-Manhunter garbage, it's possible that Paul would want to stay the hell away from a repeat of that 'someone we thought we knew turned out to be an imposter' plot.

So, once upon a time, Rokk, Lydda, Chuck, Luornu, Myg, and Comet Queen formed a Subsitute Heroes II. I wonder what the status of that team is now that Rokk's back on full duty, he and Lydda are broken up, Myg is dead and CQ is back at the academy. Will it be mentioned or just forgotten about?

Comet Queen, if something happened in her time out of the Academy, would also be the last person most would suspect, although after the Laurel Kent-Manhunter garbage, it's possible that Paul would want to stay the hell away from a repeat of that 'someone we thought we knew turned out to be an imposter' plot.

If there is a character in the Legion world who is as annoying as Comet Queen, I would like to be told clearly and distinctly who that is. Thank you.

Quislet and Dr. Gym'll are pretty damn annoying in my book. Could be a 3-way tie for most annoying, IMHO.

Well, yes - if this is a new character who just happens to be called Glorith for some reason like the old evil one was, then making her into a villain/traitor would be a pretty hackneyed and unwelcome plot turn.

I was more coming from the speculated idea that this Glorith might actually be the same as the old one and is either just re-grown, or earlier in her history or something, and should therefore still have the evil in her (potentially).

When I first saw Phil's designs for the new Academy members, my first thought when looking at Gravity Kid was "He's the traitor." It's obviously too soon to tell if he or any of them will be a traitor/evil but if that plot arises then I'm sticking with him.

I kinda hope I'm wrong though 'cause based on his few appearances, I think I like him most of the newbies. (Dragonwing would be next. Then Chemical Kid. Then Glorith. And lastly, Variable Lad. Just not really feeling that character.)

Gym'll, Quislet and Comet Queen ARE a pretty annoying trio.
I'd have to add the retroboot Shadow Lass (and the early Umbra, if I may.)

I'm not going to assume that any of the cadets are going to be traitors.
That's highly unusual in the 'real' world, isn't it?

Traitors should really only happen once-in-a-great-while or it's VERY off putting, imo.
It's been done quite a few times in Legion history, hasn't it?
I seem to remember at least 3 times.

Anyway, I'm hoping for the best.

Add me to the list that thinks that Chemical Kid looks Asian.

I liked this issue a lot and it was a great first issue for this new on-going series.
The art was a treat to the eyes and I'm glad we have Mr. Jimenez on our team.

I like how the new academy friends like to go out together and hang out, but I do not want this to turn into the New Mutants comic when it first came out where the team gets into mischief frequently so the senior team has to bail them out every other issue.

That aside, the writing was good and I am glad I now have a place to catch up on some of my Legion favourites like Lu, Chuck, Lydda and hopefully Block and Mysa as well. I can't wait for the next issue!

I'm not crazy about Variable Lad either. He's too Dial H for Hero/Lor Morning (if I may be so blasphemous as to name the 4th most annoying character in Legion history).

I don't find Dr. Gym'll to be annoying but I've always found Quislet to be annoying.

I could have liked Quislet, in theory, but during his first appearance, the writer (don't recall whom) had him use his powers in front of Brainy, who exclaimed something to the effect of 'awesome, it breaks So-and-so's X rule of artificial intelligence!' (AI, of course, has nothing to do with Quislet's powers, in any event.)

When Brainy, of all people, is being used as a wide-eyed cheerleader to 'sell' a new character, my suspension of disbelief does a Gwen Stacy right off a bridge.

I'd probably like the character better if his personality was less nonsense phrases 'poop a doop? really?' and he sounded more like an alien intelligence that was deemed competent and smart enough to man an experimental ultra-tech extradimensional space probe... Heck, it would have been fun if, during some crisis, Violet had to shrink down and hide in his ship, only to discover that Quislet is the *captain* of the ship, and that it has a crew of thirty or forty Teallans, all of whom have voted to remain in this dimension, seeking refuge / political asylum from their home dimension. (Weirdest mashup ever, Quislet as the boat from Hunt for the Red October...) Before Violet discovers this, it would be foreshadowed by having 'Quislet' behave out of character a time or two, as he sometimes leaves his second-in-command at the helm while he's off-shift, and the second-in-command has a much different personality, leaving the unsuspecting Legionnaires believing that 'he' is prone to mood-swings...

He's always had the potential to be fun, but, unfortunately, has always been the exact sort of 'fun' that Comet Queen is, someone who talks funny and is immature and exuberant.

Not to take this thread too much further off-track but "Ditto" to all the above Quislet criticism.

The thing about Quislet for me is, annoyingly non-funny personality aside, I actually really liked Quislet when I thought there was a little alien living inside that ship. I was really intrigued by what his design was going to be and couldn't wait to find out. When I finally did track down the correct back-issues that revealed him to be just a boring ball of energy or whatever, all my interest in him/it quickly dissipated.

I'd like to see Paul or any other writer make me interested in this character, but I just don't see how that's possible at this point. He's probably the Legionnaire I would least miss.

One other thing I noticed about Chemical Kid is that he seems to come from a wealthy family, Same as Condo Arlik if I remember correctly, now my question is, is there a connection or is everyone on Phlon rich?