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

I have just read Action Comics # 858 and have come to the conclusion that the powers that be at DC have it in for Chemical King. In the 2 page spread that had the Silver Age (Adventure era) Legion, all of them were there except Chemical King. It strikes me odd that Ferro Lad is pictured along with Shadow Lass and Timber Wolf, since Ferro Lad was dead by the time they joined. And even odder since Chemical King joined at the same time Timber Wolf did.
He had no statue in the JLA issue during the "Lightning Saga", now he's not even in the group shot of the Adventure era Legion. So does this mean he has been retconned out of the Legion? Are the writers and artist that lazy that they don't know or care for the Legion Lore?
Let the discussion begin.

I'm not a big Chemical King guy myself, but I can't think of a good reason why they wouldn't show him. All he's got to do is stand there at the back of the crowd shot and wave. What harm could he do?

Please try to add some spoilers to your headers - not everybody in the world can read the new issue of Action the moment it comes out...

As for Chemical King, no matter what: Bring him back, even dead !!!

THAT was the conspiracy CK, to get YOU to read an unheaded spoiler.

It's probably just that the reference material that Gary Frank had to do the two pages spread didn't feature Chemical King.

As for the statues, maybe Krypto broke it.

Someone has to take the holovids... maybe Chem is the designated Legion photographer (in lieu of Proty II not being around).

Well, I haven't read this yet, but having Ferro Lad with Shady and Brin is just not right. It's another nail in the coffin of Johns's propaganda that this really IS the original Legion. Leaving out Condo is another "oversight" that really doesn't have to happen. If you are doing artwork to show EVERY Legionnaire, Condo should be there. It bespeaks laziness and sloppiness and brings home the cynicism behind this effort. If Johns really is such a diehard Legion fanboy, he could get this stuff right, but he hasn't.

I don't think that putting Ferro Lad alongside Shadow Lass and Timber Wolf is a continuity problem; I don't think that page was supposed to represent an actual scene that happened. I took it more as an overview of all the Legionnaires Superman hung with back in the early days. Which means, yes, there's no reason for Chemical King not to be there.

I figure if the Johnsboot can blow off Supergirl's membership in the original Legion (plus the other stuff doublechinner said), CK has no chance if they want to cut him out.

Maybe he's got a better shot as part of Shooter's Legion without the "born to die" albatross hanging around his neck.

This hardly constitutes a spoiler.

There's no such thing as "Johnsboot" unless that becomes clear after the end of the Action run and/or it's stated explicitly in the comics.

As for CK, let's face it. He was never a very important character (and that was unfortunate)and besides his "early death" as shown in the Adult stories, the only important storyline he starred in was the one preventing WWVII back in Superboy and the LSH.
If they want to retcon that particular storyline out of the "restored" continuity for some -unfathomable to me - reason, that's the only justified excuse, other than an oversight (Occam's razor applies here)not to include him, or simply retcon him out.
It is conceivable that not including CK anywhere is a hint that this Legion is not the original one, but I'm sure if they wanted to give us such hints, direct or indirect they'd use something or someone a little more...hmmm....well known from the entire Legion history.
The retconning explanation seems too convoluted, too complicated and rather dubious, the "indirect hint" explanation flies in the face of everything they've said so far, so I guess the simpler explanation of oversight is more plausible.

Edit: Let me add here that I'm very, very fond of Condo Arlik and I wish he were back, too!

I am very surprised to hear you say this.

Because there have been dozens of hints that this is a partial reboot of the original Legion. If Chemical King has really been removed from this Legion's history, it's only the latest in a series of details that don't line up. The only thing that doesn't indicate that this is a partial reboot is that Johns and DC keep claiming it's the original no-changes original.

I mean, look. This Legion is the original Legion in the sense that it is not the reboot or threeboot Legion, and it is the original Legion in the sense that its link to Superman has been restored. And I suppose you could say that it's the original Legion in the sense that you can feel the same emotional connection to it that you could to the original Legion. I don't dispute that.

But when you sit down with a pad of graph paper to suss out how the continuity works, you have to put in a lot of work not to come to the conclusion that this Legion doesn't quite match the original*. It's a new twig that's been grafted onto an existing branch, and the leaves have a different shape to them.

Not that I care if it's the original group or not! I'll take a good Legion story (assuming this is going to be one) regardless of what version it's about.

*Johns and DC will say that the differences are because of the few years of in-story time that have passed between Crisis on Infinite Earths and 'The Lightning Saga'. And it is true that some of the differences can be accounted for that way. When pressed, Johns will also say that a few things about Legion history had to be tightened up, or had characters substituted, to match current continuity or modern sensibilities. And it is true that some of the remaining differences can be accounted for that way.

But not all.

I don't care if it's the "original" Legion either, as long as it's a good version, Matthew.
So, we agree on that.
Still, my definition of a reboot is "starting an existing mythos from scratch and stating explicitly than nothing from what we knew before ever happened". Not a very good definition, but you know what I mean. Throwing everything away and starting anew.
It's just a matter of language but even though "partial reboot" does seem to cover a lot about this Legion, it doesn't cover the *return* of a great part of a "lost" continuity.
It'd be more accurate to say it's a "partial unboot", or - as I've seen it called in the DC Boards - a "restored" version.
Restored doesn't mean "exactly copied". We can't have all the old continuity back both because "Superboy" is a no-no and because the entire DC Universe, and Superman, has changed way too much in the decade+ since Zero Hour.
Restored is a more...hmmm..."endearing" term that may describe accurately this Legion, while "partial unboot" is more "technical".

The word "reboot" is a contradiction in this case.
What is rebooted? A continuity that never existed after ZH? Is this Legion going to replace the 3boot Legion as the "real" one, the way the 3boot Legion replaced the post-ZH Legion?
It doesn't seem so. I wouldn't want it to, come to think of it.

It's obvious that some time - maybe years - has passed from the "point of departure" of this "divergent" Legion. Divergent if the point of departure is COIE. This Legion can be the future of some other Earth, or a divergent path after Crisis.
It could have been - and I know I'm stretching things here - the future of the "adult" Legion before ZH. OK, I know that Mr. Johns has stated that "they'll honor the Legion continuity up to COIE".
The point is that this Legion cannot be "exactly" like the old one either for real life reasons (Superboy etc) or because time has passed as I said before. This Legion is an evolved form of "some" Legion of the past, it's its future.

Even though my favorite Legion is the original one, I wouldn't want it to be exactly like it was 20-30 years ago, not matter how good it was. I don't want beautiful statues, static for all eternity (we have enough of these in Greece ). If there's to be another Legion, an adult one that's very similar to the original, I want it to be "living and vibrant" in the "now", not in the "then". The Lightning Saga/Action fits pretty well to a "now" adult Legion that has striking similarities to the original one. Two of the most important are the "origin", and the "promised" restoration of a great part of the old continuity.

A few "details" bother me too, though. Sensor and Karate Kid? Wildfire and Red Tornado? Chem? No explanation. Yet. But I can't see it as a "reboot".

I don't insist on the terminology; I'm just trying to find some way of communicating that this Legion doesn't follow seamlessly from the original Legion at any point. We can call it anything you like; we can call it a spaghettiboot if you want.

But DC's trying to get people to believe that it is the original Legion, with no changes, and that bugs me. It seems deceptive. And that's why I sometimes get vehement about what is really an unimportant nuance of continuity.

I think it all boils down to lazy (or bad) writing & editing.

It's the fans who suffer the most though.

I understand what you are saying, but my question is: Is it even possible to have any Legion follow seamlessly from the original one today? There are so many "bumps" in the road that it just isn't possible anymore.
There are pros and cons regarding the theoretical question whether the Lightning Saga/Action Legion can be considered a continuation of the original.
The pros are the origin of the Legion as revealed in Action, part of the characterization, the costumes (costumes are symbols for who and when a superhero is, it's not just esthetics), Superman's memories etc.
Strong evidence that this is "some form" of the original Legion, that is.

The cons are discrepancies in the old continuity in juxtaposition to this version of the Legion.
Some of them are important too, and it's just possible, as Nightcrawler said above, that it's just sloppy writing, but do they weigh as much as the pros? I don't think they do.

The very basis of this Legion is similar to the original one in such a degree that I tend to believe it IS the original, or at least a "version" extremely close to the original (keeping in mind that time has passed).

To use an analogy, it's like a tree hit by lightning. If the root and the basic trunk survive, then the tree that will regrow wil be very similar to the original one, but some of the branches will be different. They can't be replicated exactly, ever again.

Naturally, DC will have to do a lot of explaining about all the changes in this Legion's 31st century, and character changes and it remains to be seen whether us fans will find the explanation satisfactory and accept it or not.

Personally, I'm prepared to see the bottle as "half full or almost full" instead of "half empty" because I *want* to like any Legion version there is. I can't always like it but I'm willing to see the good points first and foremost.
That's sentimental, ok. But what the heck. It's the Legion.

Edit: Actually it was a metaphor I used, not an analogy. Nitpicker Dain, out!

Well, even if you couldn't, that still doesn't mean that a not-original version can be considered original.

I think you could do it, though. What's to stop you? It's just ink on paper; you just do it and there you are.

That's kind of like saying - and this is just an analogy - that 100 + 100 = 195, because 195 is most of the way to 200, and the 195 is more important than the 5.

It is close to the original, very much so. Nobody disputes that. Hey, I'd recommend it to someone who was a diehard fan of the original. But it's also different in many ways, including some very subtle ways, and in some obvious ways that people tend to look past.

One way it's different: one of the themes of this Legion is that they stand for unity and diversity in a world plagued by xenophobia. Red Tornado said so back in the Lightning Saga and it's obviously part of the storyline in Action. But this was never one of the themes of the original Legion! It's an artifact of the reboot Legion, is what it is. Now, by itself, that doesn't prevent this Legion from being the original Legion, but it's one more indication that we've got something different here. And when you pile all these different hints, all these different kinds of hints, together, I think the result is conclusive.

Hah! They don't have to explain anything they don't want to explain, and in this case I think they'll find that things go much more smoothly for them if they don't. Whether we like it or not.

But do you see what you did there? You're implying that you would like this Legion if it was the original and not if it were not. Simplistically, you're equating original with good and non-original with bad. And not only do I not think that that's true, I don't think you think it's true. After all, we just got through agreeing that what we want is a good Legion story about whatever version is available.

I miss the original Legion as much as anyone; that's not what this is about to me. If this isn't the original Legion I'm still going to give the story a fair shake. I just want to establish the facts about whether it is or it isn't. DC says it is but my best analysis is that they're talking through their hats, and I have to go with my best analysis.

Consecutive posts; sorry. A question about this whole Chemical King aspect of things.

There was a story where Superboy worked with Chemical King, right? They actually knew each other as more than faces in the crowd?

Yes. Chemical King was part of the faux band of baddies led by Superboy to infilitrate the Legion of Super Villains.

Superboy, Timber Wolf, Chameleon Boy, and Chemical King. Superboy and Cham were disguised. TW and CK weren't well known as they had not yet joined the Legion.

Also, Superboy and Chem had a private conversation just before Condo's death. He was telling Superboy about his feelings of inadequacy as a Legionnaire. It was an intimate discussion, and one got the impression than it wasn't the first betwen them, IIRC.

Then I say the man belongs in Action Comics.

Superboy and Chem also joined other Legionnaires to raid the secret villain hideout called Haven at the edge of the galaxy. At the time they captured Roxxas, among others.

Somewhere around Superboy & LSH #210-220

While I can understand the points, the fact remains that Chemical King has not achieved the status of "Legion Icon" that most others have. While the other characters are often referenced, Chemical King is not. While the other characters are more or less guaranteed a spot in any alternate version of the Legion, Chemical King is not.

Furthermore, he doesn't even seem to be important as a symbol of that era, the way one could argue Kinetix, XS, and Gates were for the post-ZH Legion. The original costumes and the Superman connection fit that role here.

With other members of the Legion, readers who have at least a passing familiarity with the Legion probably know who they are. Before I read the Legion, I could at least identify the characters in my mind, even if I didn't know their exact names or powers. But Chemical King? He has never really fit that bill.

Matthew said It can't. But then, no character in DC Comics can be considered original whatsoever.

Uhhh, the Siegel family's lawyer?


It wasn't as prominent as it is/was in the reboot versions but it was there. The polymer screen around Earthfor one, and, maybe even more importantly, the prejudice against Durlans was subtly but certainly a recurring sub-theme.

Not at all. I've stated many times that if it's a good version of the Legion - whatever good may mean - I'm going to like it regardless of how "close" to the original it is. My comment about "half full" and "half empty" had to do with my attitude towards *any* Legion version. Meaning I'm willing to give it a chance to prove what it is, good/bad, original/restored, rebooted/unbooted or whatever, without trying to necessarily find faults or jump to conclusions before the whole story that introduces this Legion is finished. Instead I try to focus on its good points *on its own merits*. It's not easy to see any version of the Legion "on its own merits", I realize that as a long-time Legion fan, and I definitely would like the Legion I loved back. But would I be disappointed if it was revealed that this Legion isn't the original, or it's just the Legion of another Earth that shares similarities to the original? No! No way!

Anyway, to get on topic again, back then Chemical King was difficult to write for. A writer needed to be very familiar with Chemistry to really find ways to use Chem. It's one thing to change oxygen to nitrogen, like Element Lad did but chemistry doesn't leave much space for "fantasy".
Things may have changed today, and even if a writer's knowledge of Chemistry doesn't go beyond high-school level, there's the Internet and many ideas for clever uses of Chem's powers can be found online.

I disagree with Matthew (something which rarely happens). This theme wasn't as prominent in the original Legion as in the reboot, but it was certainly there in "The Hero Who Hated the Legion," for example.