Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes Preview Legion Lost #15

From DC Collectors:
http://www.dccollectors.com/2012/12/preview-legion-lost-15/#
An ominous title for the penultimate issue...

Pssh. Wildfire's 'died' from blasting out of his containment suit in his first story arc, and has regularly had suits shredded and spent considerable amounts of time 'pulling himself together' after such incidents a half-dozen times in his history. As Doctor Manhatten once said (paraphrased), 'That's literally the first trick I ever learned, putting myself back together...'

Wildfire's as likely to 'die for real' from a suit failure as Peter Parker is to suddenly keel over dead from the radioactive spider venom that's been in his system for the last fifty some years.

It's extra ironic that he's wearing the white suit that Harvest stashed him in after the *last* time he got blasted out of his boots, during this oh-so-terribly-not-dramatic 'my suit is failing!' scene.

Maybe that's what Harvest is saying, back in the background. "You know this is, like, a temporary inconvenience for him, right?"

And Dawnstar's like, "Obviously. I'm all shocked by something happening off the cover. Drake'll be fine. Happens all the time, really."

Superboy's "Kill, Maim, Destroy" is just blah. As if a brainwashed killing machine needs to recite any mantra.

The Gates-Timber Wolf friendship is nice, and I hope to see more of it when (and I'm adamant about the WHEN!) they return to the future.

Ridge and Yera talking about redemption... could that be foreshadowing?

Well, I really like the art here--and it seems like this issue's got more of an actual Legion focus, which is nice, considering, you know, this book's being cancelled in a couple of issues.

Of course, the site that posted this preview sucks. I mean, heaven forbid that I might want to actually READ that double-page spread.

Reading the full issue...I have a crazy theory.

So in this, Wildfire's suit goes ka-blewy--or KAWADA-DOOOM, rather--and it's all sad and stuff. However, when Tellus is consoling Dawny about restoring her...some familiar Kirby Krackle wraps around her.

Here's what I'm thinking--what if, in order to save Drake's life, Tellus merges the consciousness and mind within Dawnstar, basically combining the lovers into one form?

It helps further accomplish the mission that this book seemed to start out with--using this time travel adventure to drastically alter these Legionnaires, like with Gates and Timber Wolf. With the merging, we could have that this...Dawnfire would have her tracking and flying skills, but could maybe access the Kirby Krackle blasts that Wildfire had.

There's also something oddly...romantic about the idea. These are two people that have been played for ages that they can never have an intimate relationship (which has always been kinda weird to me, since, well, he does have hands with the suit, but that's beside the point), but they've bonded due to this very personal and emotional connection. There's that old saying that love is finding that person that completes you, and being together makes you a whole being. They would be taking that on a literal level.

This actually isn't too bad of a Legion story this issue. Too bad Superboy and the Ravangers are taking up space. I miss Pete Woods artwork, but alas, that's what you get with a cancelled book.

Interesting idea. It wouldn't be the first time Wildfire has survived by inhabiting someone else's body, nor would it be the first time another entity has inhabited Dawnstar. As long as she doesn't start cutting her wings off...

You know, as immature as this is, I couldn't stop staring at Dawnstar's boobies on this cover. They are just so...round. So very round. Unnaturally round.

Thank god for comic books.

On a more mature note, I can't understand why Drake blasting out of his containment suit is exciting anymore. Has anyone on the boards actually added up HOW MANY TIMES his suit has been destroyed or he's been "killed"?

My guess would be at least three dozen. Anyone?

I remember a comment from the original writer Nicieza, pre-first issue, about not wanting to ever fall back on the over used "Wildfire's suit has a hole in it" cliche.

It's even worse considering that Wildfire has survived his suit being destroyed inside a boom tube (Preboot, Great Darkness Saga) and inside a reality-eating rift (Postboot, Widening Rifts)!

Not counting the destruction of Wildfire's suit, what happened in this issue? Nothing.

The point I always assumed was the case wasn't "oh no what's going to happen if Wildfire's suit explodes?" Supposedly, the tech required for Drake to have a containment suit isn't even remotely something that could be made in the 21st century. If his suit breaks, and these Legionnaires are truly stuck in this time frame, then it's game over for him. He may be alive, but he'd be a bunch of floating, invisible anti-energy unable to communicate with anyone. That's definitely something that everyone would be concerned about.

Well, they established the gun on the mantlepiece--the Time Bubble and the Singularity bomb that could save the world but kill millions in the process. It doesn't make for an interesting issue here, but next? I'm genuinely excited to see what happens in the last issue.

Boobies, boobies, boobies, boobies.

umm...if time travel is no longer an issue, why haven't the Legion proper come after their pals? And why is Brainy obsessing over how he can't break the time barrier anymore in the main title? I CALL SHENANIGANS!

Bad continuity is one thing, but bad continuity which completely screws the premise that your own title is based on is another thing altogether, lol...it's not even like they're just throwing this in because they know they don't care as the title's ending now; those Science Police have been here for months!

Ah, but maybe it was the SP who are blocking everyone else's attempts to use time travel?

But that would require that Captain Adym be able to build a mousetrap so clever that Brainiac 5 can't find a way out of it, so never mind.

I can't even fanwank a solution to this crap.

Next we'll find out that Captain Adym blew up the Time Institute (and, incidentally, Titan) just to put up this time barrier and stop people from time travelling around willy-nilly, so we can stop blaming Harmonia Li and start blaming him...

In dotREBELS, a Wildfire/Dawnstar powered character has already been created, Wildstar.
And in the postboot Legion, Wildfire was created by combining the 'souls' and powers of two heroes who were killed by, Mordru, I think, Blast Off and Radion.

I don't know if those examples make something like the combination of Dawny and Drake more or less probable.


There are two examples of him, or a version of him, existing for ubber lengths of time without a suit, the DnA LOST arc and the 1,000,000 year special.
So, being without his suit might be isolating and not much fun, but it won't kill him.
Unless, of course, DC drastically changes him in this boot.
Again,

In pre-Zero Hour, Giffin drew Drake and Dawnstar in an intimate moment with multiple hand prints burned on her body.
Drake flipped out about it and left her, even though she asked him to stay.

Those things being said, I still like your idea of the two combining, especially if it's longterm.
Like, what would he do if she fell in love with someone and had a family?

I remember the 1,000,000 special in particular, since he's pretty much the only Legionnaire that was likely to live that long.

I never liked that bit, because Dawny's body is immune to various environmental effects, including the friction burns of travelling at incredible speeds in-atmosphere, and the brutal temperatures, radiation and pressure differentials of outer space. *If* Drake was capable of forming an energy body that wasn't destructive enough to destroy the atmosphere of whatever planet he was on (which he apparently was), Dawny shouldn't have been burned by contact with it.

Indeed, when out of suit, Drake's energy is harmless to *everyone,* so it should be doubleplusharmless to Dawny!

But that's Giffen for ya. The same guy who decided that Polar Boy, a character that for years dressed in a fur-trimmed parka, because earth's temperature was freezing cold to Tharrans, would then decide to take his fur-trimmed hat off and wear a block of *ice* on his head.

It's like he doesn't even think about this stuff.

"Fire Lad has fire for hair, why not have Polar Boy have ice for hair! And, Stone Boy can have rock-hair, and Chlorophyll Kid can have plant-hair, and Night Girl can have... uh, night-hair! Aren't I terribly clever!"

I believe both the Drake-burns-Dawny scene and the ice hair were Laroque rather than Giffen.

Blast-Off and Atom'X (although even the writers got Atom'X and Blast-Off mixed up more than once for... some reason.)

Eh, I'm gonna blame it on Giffen anyway. Easier to blame all the stuff I don't like on one guy, than keep track of a whole bunch of folks!

It wouldn't be an irrational dislike if it made sense, after all!

Actually, IIRC, Atom'x was originally intended to be the reboot Atmos, but when Lee Moder drew him wrong, TPTB found it easier to make him a new character with a similar name than to erase his armpits.

To be fair, most writers are not well-versed enough in the laws of thermodynamics to get that Polar Boy does not create cold, he absorbs heat. Of course, that's because paying too much attention to that would necessarily prompt the question, how much heat can he absorb before he gives himself a stroke?

The other confusing aspect, for me anyway, is that Tharr is a desert world. IIRC, it's inhabitants developed the power to absorb heat as a way of cooling their environment. But that's kind of like saying, I shall keep from drowning by chugging this bucket of water down my windpipe!

I didn't know that Polar Boy absorbed heat.
gosh
How does that work?

I always thought that he generated cold, sort of like Iceman; or channeled it, maybe.
Sort of like how the girl in 'Firestarter' by king, channeled heat, only instead of from the sun, like she did, the Tharrians grab cold from outer space.


I'm sorry about the Giffin reference, although that allowed Set to post hilariously, which was fun.
I don't have the issues from that era anymore.
I really thought it was from his last stint before TMK and his drastic change in illustrating style.
sigh

I didn't realize that Wildfire was creating his own 'body' then, either.
I thought it was just his face that he was forming, while the rest of his energy was inside a containment suit.
My memory is a bust.
Or, maybe IN my bust, rather than my brain, anymore.

He was, although more from the lack of mohawk (Atmos cameoed in Legionnaires #0, where the baggy purple suits he, Star Boy & Kid Quantum were wearing didn't show his torso clearly). The name was taken from Tom McCraw's ATOM'C screenname.

McCraw knew he wasn't going to be Atmos, but didn't know he was going to be named after him when he coloured him yellow and pink :
[The above should have said "the writers got Atom'X and Radion mixed up, incidentally.]

You can't "grab cold". Cold is literally the (relative) absence of heat - which, in turn, is molecular motion (which can be induced by various factors, including infra-red radiation). Either you can cancel out the motion somehow (think of stopping a non-bouncing ball by kicking it with another ball at exactly the same speed in the opposite direction) or you can absorb the heat (catch the ball, which will induce motion in you - more obviously if you think of something more like a bowling bowl than a baseball).

Real-world applications you'll meet invariably use the latter, which is why the back of fridges are hot. The former is known as adiabatic cooling , which slows the particles' momentum in ways that don't involve making other stuff hotter.

For what it's worth, Polar Boy's powers are originally described as using "mental force to neutralize heat vibrations".