Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes Long Live the Legion! Action Comics -- The Chemical King Conspiracy

It may have been there in some individual stories; I hold to my opinion that it did not particularly apply to the Legion franchise as a whole until the reboot.

I was just going to post my own version of this topic and see someone beat me to it. I am a very big fan of his(Chemical King) because I never really saw him as a child when I started reading the Legion. I do remember his prominate roles in the intro of Wildfire story, his saving Roxxas from Element Lad story, his two part death issues and several small shots like in Tyroc joining and BB/DD wedding issue. So it was like a mystery character like Tyroc became. I just wanted to know more about him and what he could do. Why he hasnt been in all these scenes is a mystery yet again. But we see his symbol on the Legion cartoon as well as Tyroc so he exist's somewhere!

My gut is that he will be reintroduced in the New Shooter Legion..I think SHooter created him and he may not have joined the original Legion as yet as some hiccup in the timestream.
Either way most of us I assume want Condo back so we can finally see what he is all about and what under the right writer he can do!

Back in my day, we had editors for that kind of thing, to either A) make sure the artist had the correct refrence info, or B) to correct any mistakes.

THAT makes me wonder if the omission of Condo is not intentional.

To wit: He's always been maligned for being an "unimportant Legionnaire" who died soon after joining. But, while Ferro Lad had a similar Legion career, Andrew Nolan won posthumous fame and celebrity, while Condo was largely forgotten.

But, in a twist on "It's a Wonderful Life," what if Condo had never joined the Legion, and thus, never sacrificed himself to prevent WWVII?

Johns has reportedly said the Lightning Sage Legion is THE pre-crisis team. But that does not necessarily mean that it is the future of current DCU continuity. Note: Everything post-Infinite Crisis takes place on New Earth, and while we have confirmation that Earth-2 exists among the 52 universes, we have yet to see Earth-1.

My theory is this: The lack of a wedding ring on Clark Kent, his traditional Silver/Bronze Age style bumbling, and apparent lack of a hook up with Lois (per Perrys' comments about having no friends besides Jimmy), is an indication that this story takes place on Earth-1.

TPTB at DC have said each of the 52 universes has their own unique alternate dimensions and timelines.

Therefore, this story takes place in an alternate Earth-1 timeline in which Chemical King never joined the Legion, and thus never prevented WWVIII.

PREDICTION: We will meet Chemical Kinf sometime during this story and he will be instrumental in restoring the timeline to the one in which he died, thus making a double sacrafice. Once the timeline is restored, THEN, this will be THE Pre-Crisis Legion.

I hope you're right! I'd really like to see what Shooter would do with his creation. (Maybe he'll bring back Quicksand, too!)

One of the few joys of the Legion's multiple rebooting has been seeing Lyle and Ferro Lad in action (reboot and SW6, respectively- though I liked the reboot F-Lad better than most). I hope the final member of the early LSH dead gets his shot at representation, if not stardom.

Sometimes I think that Condo's been left in the cupboard because of the perceived similarity to Element Lad. I wish a writer would utilize that perception and show the two teamed up for a couple of missions-- in which they could display how different, though complementary, their powers really are.

Yes, it is kinda weird that CK didn't even have a statue in the Fortress. If it's not an oversight, then this unexplainable disappearance of CK ought to lead to a very interesting storyline in the future.
Speaking about Chem, I read somewhere that in the DC Encyclopedia, which I haven't bought, it's stated that CK is gay. I know there were "rumors" about Condo Arlik and Lyle Norg, so I can't help but wonder if this side of him will resurface if/when he appears again.
One could hypothesize, of course, that if this Legion an otherdimensional one, then this CK might never have been gay.

PoFo, that's a very interesting and creative explanation for the absence of Condo. Having said that, I hope they never read this post or come up with this idea on their own. It would seem tremendously unfair to me that they would finally reintroduce Condo simply as a plot device in order to restore the original Legion.

Of all the Legionnaires, Condo is one of the most, if not THE most, poorly treated members. He was first introduced as a memorial statue in the Adult Legion story and so his fate seemed to be sealed from the start. I should point out that Shady shared a similar introduction (as did Quantum Queen, Reflecto and Power Boy) in the same story yet future writers allowed her to confront that destiny and prevail!

Instead Condo, whose power should have made him one of the most original and powerful of the Legionnaires (as demonstrated in the few stories in which he was a featured player), was relegated to merely occasional background scenery.

Pouring salt into the wound, when TPTB finally decided to kill him off years later, they first trashed him by portrying him as a troubled, self doubting, moping, loser with an inferiority complex who manages to die a heroic death in spite of himself.

Condo deserved much better treatment than he got and much of it is due to laziness on the part of the writers, IMO. They simply didn't understand his power and wouldn't take the time to figure it out. It was just easier to kill him off.

Sadly, this lack of respect seems to continue even today. It is disrespectful to Condo's fans that he was left out as one of the statues in the Lightning Saga scene in the Fortress. This issue provides an additinal slap in the face to those of us that have always loved this Legionnaire and the unfullfilled promise he represented.

I can only hope that Jim Shooter will find a way to bring Condo back into the line up and show everyone how wrong they were and what a great Legionnaire he always was.

BRING BACK CONDO!

Couldn't agree more, Mystery Lad. Teaming Condo & Jan makes so much sense it's really hard to believe that such supposedly "creative" people could never figure that out. It's as natural and logical a pairing as teaming Shady & Lydda consistently (which, of course, rarely happens either! )

I didn't realize what a can of worms I'd opened when I started this post. But I am glad it got you all thinking.
I agree that Condo has always been sort of the black sheep of the Legion Family. I can understand why the writers of the past always treated him badly (since they didn;t know how to write him), but writers have gotten alot better and more imaginative since then.

I agree, Healex. And I don't think you opened a "can of worms". Civilized discussion and debate is a very good thing, imho.

One more point to remember regarding Condo in relation to this version of the Legion...

His big sacrifice to prevent the Governor of Australia from starting World War VII? It may not have been needed in this version, as KK indicates in Countdown that their Australia (like the threeboot) is now the South Pole.

Several people have noted that Ferro Lad and Triplicate Girl didn't serve with Shadow Lass or Timber Wolf, but I don't think anyone has noted that Shadow Lass and Timber Wolf never served in the original clubhouse either. Shadow Lass was sworn in in its ruins and Timber Wolf never set foot in it. However, I agree with Matthew E. that the scene isn't meant to display a precise moment in time, just represent the Adventure era membership.

It is a shame that Chemical King never got his chance to shine, but since he only appeared in about a dozen stories, most notably his death scene, it doesn't surprise me that he apparently has been jettisoned from the cast. Not only were his powers never used consistently or explored very extensively, but his costume was pretty bland and forgettable and his personality never got a chance to develop. If he is reintroduced, I hope he has a much more dynamic costume and personality attached and I hope somebody takes the time to come up with a specific set of abilities and limitations for him. That's the only way his character is going to work.

I don't care to debate what does or doesn't constitute a reboot or the "original" Legion. I'm just glad to see a return to a Legion who looks familiar, and as such, I wish every new Legion creator didn't feel the need to redesign everyone's costumes. What the Legion needs more than anything is some stability and staying power, and giving them a whole new look and new direction every few years isn't going to establish it.

Superman is the most well known and one of the most long standing comics icons out there and one of the reasons for that is that his costume has remained virtually unchanged for what? 50 years? Not that I'm saying the Legion should return to their original costumes either, but constant change is part of what's keeping them in relative comic obscurity, imho of course. And by stability and staying power, I don't mean that they shouldn't be allowed to grow either, but consistency and balance are key.

Stability and staying power! Amen to that!
The Legionnaires did tend to change costumes from time to time, but it was hardly a common thing.
I like the new costumes in Action but I agree that they should have stayed a little longer in the "old" ones, or at least have them don new clothes organically, not all at the same time.

As for CK, I hope he's reintroduced with the characteristics and fleshing out you described above.
He should have been in the spread in Action though, no matter how small his career was. Anyways, maybe there's a reason for this, as other have said, so we'll just have to wait and see.

Given what a cipher he is, with inconsistently used powers and minimal characterization, he's the 'canon' Legionnaire best suited to be re-imagined as someone fresh and exciting.

I'll bet he isn't a cipher to Shooter. I wonder if we'll see plans he had for the character back when he created him? Assuming he shows up in the EIG (eat it grandpa) Legion, that is.

It's funny that you say that, cause to me, Chemical King has always been more of an icon than an actual character - because I grew up with the three statues of the dead Legionnaires Ferro Lad, Invisible Kid and Chemical King. The fact that they were dead and the rest of the team honored them in that special way always made them very special to me - they were very symbolic for what the Legion was standing for: A team in which the members were ready to die an heroic death for their teammates and the world they were sworn to protect. And: They stayed dead - at least the three never got resurrected as long as I was reading the Legion as a child.

Now you can say that makes Chemical King an even weaker character - cause he was dead that much longer than he was a living member. But to me, the few appearances of CK - just like the ones of the moribund Ferro Lad and Invisible Kid - were that much more important and thrilling when I actually got to read them later on.

So knowing CK mostly as a statue makes it much more of a failure that his statue is missing NOW. Ferro and Lyle are there. That's sad. And it is missing a major point of the Preboot: The three dead Legionnaires everybody was talkiong about in awe...

By the way both Reboots tried to capture that spirit by quickly killing off at least one character. The first Reboot killed of Kid Quantum after just a few issues just to have one of those niftly statues standing around - a rather pathetic attempt considering that you cannot capture the same spirit the old statues stood for after twenty years of story development.

The Threeboot kind of killed Dream Girl after 13 issues of non-story for the same "dramatic" effect. At least they did abstain from making a statue again...

So was Chemical King a good character? I don't know, cause he had too few chances to shine. But was he an icon? All through the later 70s and 80s, he certainly was...

The issue with CK's death was the first Legion comic I read, after I started reading it in English, where a Legionnaire I knew well died. Invisible Kid had died in #203 but I didn't know him well enough yet to care - it was the first issue I read with Lyle - even though I was saddened by his death.
CK's death was a shock to me because it was unexpected and the most heroic death I had seen in comics at that time. After that I always thought of him as a noble and caring person, a real hero (I hadn't read the issue of Ferro Lad's death yet).

Very well said.