Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes Dumbest Legion Moments?

Inspired by the discussion of the shameful Titans/Legion Universe Ablaze, which contains enough dumb moments to fill up this list.

What are the moments in Legion history that baffled you? I'm looking at moments when our favorite super-team, which has accomplished so much, has suddenly done something so stupid that it could clearly only be a case of the writer dumbing them down to fit the plot?

My entry:

1) Legion 18. Ra's al Ghul has destroyed his current body, turning himself into a living pool of acidic blood or something, and escaped. Because it's quite bad for the carpets, M'Onel and Star Boy head to his hundreds of clones in stasis to ensure that Ra's doesn't inhabit a new body.

M'On facepalms. "Grife, I told him these were here!"
Star Boy: "What?"
M'On: "I mean... he got it out of me! The guile of that man!"

Really now? I check Legion 17 to tell if M'On is lying. I mean, why would the legendary Valor lie, though?

Ra's: "I require assurance as to the welfare of my clone bodies."
M'On: "Why? You didn't seem to know what they were when we found them."
Ra's: "I'll admit, that was troubling. But they are clearly significant.I want verification they are undamaged."
M'On: "i can tell you they're secure on Legion World."

Why, how guileful! I would never have expected that's what Ra's was asking! Oh, ANYONE could have fallen for that! No need to feel sorry for yourself, M'Onel. Star Boy will understand!

Thom and M'On see a hole in the ceiling, clueing them in that Ra's must be here! Then, the clones are released from stasis. Oh no! It's a good thing our resident Daxamite, and our gravity-controller (note: this Thom can control gravity, not just make things heavy!) are here! Why, they'll surely go into action, right?

But first, they have to talk!

Thom: "Yeah, but wh-aaah!" (clones come out. Poor Thom, he clearly wasn't expecting to see Ra's aged genitalia flopping about).
M'On: "It's okay! He's deactivated the stasis tubes. These are just mindless clone bodies."
Thom: "But one of them's really him, right?"
M'On: "Only if he's had time to inhabit a fresh body."

Gosh, it'sa good thing these two are here to stop that from happening...

Oh, dear, there's a puddle of blood on the ground. Oh, one of the clones is stepping on it!

In a surprising move that I would never have expected, the clone comes to life and knocks Star Boy out! and the mindless clones swarm on M'Onel, with the strength of a physically fit elderly man!

My goodness, Ra's is such a criminal genius! However could we have expected two Legionnaires to stop his mindless, non-powered clones before he inhabited one of them, when they arrived before he freed them from stasis? What a criminal genius, no wonder Batman never beat him! Especially as we really must talk before acting, it's not like M'Onel has super speed or super strength, or Star Boy could have flattened all the clones to the ground with a gesture. Nope, they could not have done that at all!

My sarcasm gland has been depleted, so I'll just leave this here.

Looking forward to all your entries

Great idea for a thread, Ibby. I'm normally not a fan of focusing on the negative aspects of stories just for the sake of doing so, but sometimes you gotta let loose and call bad writing/art for what it is. Creators are professionals. They should know better.

The first thing that comes to mind is an old favorite (sort of). In Superboy # 200, during Bouncing Boy and Duo Damsel's wedding on Mars--attended by maybe 50 Legionnaires, Subs, Wanderers, Heroes of Lallor, and assorted guests--the bride mysteriously collapses. Old Legion enemy Starfinger shows up with Luornu's equally unconscious other self and demands the Legionnaires turn over the bride Lu to him so he can figure out the secret of her duplicating power and create multiple Starfingers. If the Legionnaires do not cooperate, both Lu's will die. He then goes off somewhere . . . to give the Legionnaires time to plot against him, apparently.

So what do the Legionnaires do? They select a search party of four--that's right FOUR!!--heroes: Superboy (it's his book, after all), Cosmic Boy, Saturn Girl, and Brainiac 5. What did the other 45 or so heroes do? Stand around and eat cake? Participate in a seance? Count up their frequent flyer parsecs?

Worse, once the Legionnaires track Starfinger down (hard to miss since he's gone to the trouble of erecting a giant tower that looks just like his costume), Superboy runs off. Why would our greatest hero do that?? To fly all the way to earth, pick up a spare Starfinger costume from the Legion museum, return to Mars, impersonate a second Starfinger, catch the real villain off-guard, and defeat him with a head-but. (If Phantom Girl were there, or Shrinking Violet, they could have found a stealthier way to enter Starfinger's tower and stop the cloning/reunification process. Any number of Legionnaires would have been more effective and immediate. Heck, Superboy could have been more effective and immediate.) Then Superboy, still wearing the Starfinger suit, exits the tower carrying the two Lu's. Why is he still wearing the costume? Just so Cos--who must justify his presence somehow--can use his magnetism to destroy the outfit and reveal Superboy!

Hey, if you're going to defeat a villain, you might as well do it in a clever, twisty, and roundabout way. Who needs logic or expedience?

It has been suggested that the other heroes also organized into search parties and explored different parts of Mars, but we're not told this in the story. (A good rule of thumb in evaluating fiction: If we're not told it, it didn't happen.) Perhaps Superboy didn't have time to ditch the spare Starfinger costume since both Lu's were dying--yet he did have time to fly all the way to earth to pick up the costume and return to Mars in the first place.

Even more moronic: Lu comes from a world full of people who triplicate. Why did Starfinger go to the trouble of kidnapping a Legionnaire when he could have gone to Cargg and kidnap a random citizen? (I actually addressed this in one of my few fanfics, "Myriad"--still available on LW.)

The real reason, of course, is that writer Cary Bates didn't consider any of these possibilities. Superboy 200 is a product of its time--aimed at a very young audience that would not likely question these things (albeit one that was rapidly growing up, judging by the bikini-like costumes). However, I was nine when I first read it and I still questioned why only four Legionnaires went after Lu. Bates was a master of creating gimmicky villains and plot twists, not logical plots or maneuvering large casts. The story remains entertaining if one doesn't think too much about it.

Great entry, HWW! And I agree with you; this thread is about calling out horrible writing. When a character acts stupid in a way that makes sense (i.e. because character is arrogant or inexperienced), that's good writing.

And thanks for adding LSH 200. I disliked these aspects of that story too, despite liking the Lu/Chuck romance and the wedding!

Convergence: Superboy and The Legion of Super-Heroes #2
(May 2015)

It’s Superboy and The Legion of Super-Heroes in the 31st century vs. the Atomic Knights from the post-World War III of 1985!

The Atomic Knights have no super-powers, are weighted down by 150-200 lbs. of iron armor apiece, and must be suffering ill effects from starvation and radiation poisoning. But they ride cool mutant giant dalmatians, and come very near destroying the Legion, and all of 31st-century Metropolis with them.

This despite the fact that the Knights are outnumbered five-to-one, the Legion itself has sufficient power to lay waste to the surface of a planet, and access to military-grade Star Cruisers, and an arsenal of bizarre alien weaponry such as the Concentrator.

With their entire world in danger, the Legionnaires... attack one or two at a time?

In other circumstances, the Atomic Knights could be taken down by Invisible Kid, Duo Damsel, and Arm-Fall-Off Boy.

Or Saturn Girl, all by herself.

But fortunately Metropolis is saved because the Knights and the Legion… decide to stop fighting for some reason? Has anything changed? No. So why did they start fighting in the first place?

Plus, we get the highly unlikely pairing of Superboy and Ayla Ranzz. Snogging on a rooftop.

Don't recall the issue but the one where Saturn Girl is disqualified for a mission because it was "too dangerous for a girl".

Oh yeah, that was silly. Credits to the writer though, and to Saturn Girl, for insisting on her right to go! This was in the early 60s, so I don't know how much of the "too dangerous for a girl" crap was influenced by the times.



Yeah, this was a pretty bad tie-in too. And a rather unconvincing battle.

This one doesn't necessarily qualify as stupid mistake dumb, but it's one of the scenes that annoys me to no end, from SLSH #200 (that's two mentions already!):

Lu can't split into two. Brainy examines her, figures out what's wrong and doesn't tell her. Instead we get this exchange:

Brainy: Easy, Luornu! The worst is all behind you! But I'm afraid your twin is gone for good! You'll NEVER be a DUO again! But that shouldn't matter to you now...because you have a whole new life ahead of you as a devoted WIFE!

Lu: Y-You're right, Brainy... as always!

It ends with her clutching his wrist, his hand cradling her face and she's shedding tears of ... joy, I guess, since she's smiling.

She lets the guy responsible for her first death mess around with her head? He tells her it doesn't matter if her second self is gone now. Despite the Legion being generally female-friendly, she's to be content with devoted wife status after a life of adventure. And she tells him he's always right! And lets him put his hands on her, albeit in a not-creepy manner. It just makes Luornu look dumb. Well, in the end, he did fix her problem, so perhaps I'm being harsh.

Brainy and Lu definitely have a weird relationship...missed opportunity that Levitz never really did much with it I think!

Bouncing Boy's whole origin story is pretty dumb even for the standards of the time...dude blows off work and then drinks a mutagenic formula by accident; I can see Imra's disapproving glare at his first tryout already lol

I remember being downright confused by the Digest Issue where Glorith turns the Legionnaires to babies and they are eating candy. Even as a child I thought that story was silly.

At the end of the Earth War saga, the whole Legion is confronting Modru and everyone is using their power against him. Princess Projectra is casting the illusion of a wolf's head. Why not cast an illusion of a coffin of Earth?

The whole bit was annoying, but I vaguely remember one of the Atomic Knights mentioning that there were only like 100 people left in their entire world, and it would be destroyed, and I remember thinking, "Or you could just *leave* with the Legionnaires and live in a storage tesseract in their basement and no longer have to eat rats and drink radioactive water in a ruined wasteland., 'cause your word *sucks* and why do you want to stay?"

From LSH #14, as Legionnaires were discussing who to admit as new members, an off-panel voice declares "Besides - He's Cos' kid brother, so we know he's okay." Although Magnetic Kid turned out okay (but what a set-up for betrayal), the logic of this statement should have been questioned à la "Besides - he's Garth's older brother, so we know he's okay".

Yep. Legion siblings don't have a good track record--Renkil Kem being another shining example.

An extremely good point, and another facepalm moment showing how silly our heroes could be written to be