Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes Cary Bates/Mike Grell Legion

I started reading Legion in 1978...so I missed the entire Adventure run..I did go back and purchase some Adv. issues over the years and I have every issue of Superboy Cockrum run into issue 197, when the Legion got it's own book. I also have every issue since 197 in all the Legion's incarnations. That being said, I have started to re-read every issue starting with 197 like most of you long time Legion lover's do on occasion and thought it would be fun to revisit these issues after many years...so I would love some feedback from my fellow Legion lovers! One thing that really stands out is some really good stories and Mike Grell's very original art work. Their run was a lot longer than people give it credit for specially when compared to Dave Cockrum's! What follow's are alot of observations I made during my first chunk of issue's #197-#239.

1. The very long gap between adding new Legionnaires..from Timber Wolf and Chemical King to Wildfire there was a huge gap with no new Legionnaires...one of the biggest I believe.

2. Cary Bates makes a concerted effort to clean house of some "uncool" Adventure run Legionnaires "Matter Eater Lad" and Bouncing Boy" and to some degree "Duo Damsel" and one very long term member "Invisible Kid" in a very, very short span of time..they are all gone from issue #200 to 212"..so in a year roughly are four out. They are replaced by Wildfire and Tyroc both more diverse and more powerful than the four. I feel all these were good choices even Invisible Kid because of his closeness of powers to Phantom Girl.
3. Some Legionnaires hardly seen today are very common. almost panel hogs, in this run. A casein point my favorite Legionnaire Shrinking Violet who is in almost every issue even spot shots.

4. There is some continuity during the run. Tharok's robot half being destroyed, rebuit, then returning is a perfect example...as well as Mon-el being leader. Although, the way Invisible kid's death is basically never mentioned again with the exception of issue #206 clone issue, is a little odd. How can you work/live beside someone for all those years and have very little emotional fall out...
5. Tyroc and Chemical King under used and non players is very weird. With Tyroc it's like let's introduce this great new hero with an interesting power and then pull him and act like we never did...why? Chemical King there is not excuse..a member who had been around for years and always portrayed as intelligent, and even a little cocky..like in the issue where he "killed" Roxass and then ..poof. GONE. His powers were very easily explained he controlled chemical reactions. Why was that so difficult to write? Jim Shooter, his creator, seemed to have no problem.
6. The same villians...over and over again..Fatal five was constantly in this book...a far, far cry to their appearances in the last 20 years! They are and always will be, the iconic Legion villians!!
7. The costumes....ICONIC LEGION COSTUMES..nuff said!

any thoughts?

Cary Bates' cleaning house of the (what he considered) "uncool" and lesser-powered Legionnaires is definitely a documented fact.

I'll bet it was only the adult Legion story that saved Chuck, Lu and Tenzil from death. Since Lyle didn't appear in that issue, his fate was up for grabs. Hence, his death.

I'm willing to wager that it was only Dream Girl and Phantom Girl being married to more-popular (and powerful) Legionnaires in the adult LSH that kept THEM from being ousted.

I hate to cast aspersions over these favorite childhood stories of mine, but as I have grown up, it's become pretty clear that Bates' ideas for what the LSH was and should be were NOT what I would agree with now. It was the artwork of Cockrum and Grell that carried his run.

Bates certainly had a different agenda as writer than many fans would want.

However, his Legion stories remain favorites of mine. Bates was really good a crafting a complete story (or sometimes two) in a single issue. His stories also had greater excitement and action than most of the Adventure and Action eras. Who can forget Mon-El stretching Superboy's cape to subdue a brainwashed Timber Wolf? Or Brainiac 5 and Element Lad leaping out of the way just as the Persuader destroyed their time bubble? Or Bouncing Boy's life-saving sneeze? Bates, aided by Cockrum and later Grell, excelled at creating such memorable moments.

Hmm... I will grant that he spotlighted Chuck (and Lu too, in the DAYS & NIGHTS story) before he uncerimoniously booted them.

I also appreciate his using the "weaker" members in the GUN THAT MASTERED MEN story... even if he had no less than Princess Projectra herself screeching about how useless they all were in that same story.

It's odd that if Bates wanted to remove the "less cool and powerful" Legionnaires, then why didn't he use Tyroc and Chemical King more often? Was it the "vagueness" of their powers (though as Imskian78 says, Chemical King's powers are broad but they're NOT really hard to understand).

At the very least, though, Lyle died a hero while BB and DD exited due to a happy marriage.

And Tenzil rallied the Legion to beat the Super Rejects, so he got a good spotlight too.

I'd reckon Bates didn't know what to do with Chem other than throing him in crowd scenes. It should be noted that Tyroc appeared second only to Superboy between Bates creating him and Levitz taking over... Ty appeared in 216, 218 and 222! (Levitz came in at 225) ...so it does seem like Bates had a very pro-Tyroc agenda!

Thanks for clarifying the eras! Looks like Tyroc under Levitz had a similar fate to Chem under Bates - writer didn't know what to do with 'em so eventually wrote them out!

Most def-- it's on record (somewhere, don't ask me where 'cause I'm drunk) --that Levitz was VERY anti-Tyroc (back then... and I suspect he wasn't crushed when they took him away for Legion Lost last year)

I dunno, he seemed to be going out of his way to relaunch the character, right from the get go (bringing him in to clean up debris from Titansfall and having Mon-El, of all people, referring to him as a big gun, and then having him do his sonic diagnostic thing during the Durlan assassin arc).

He may have disliked the original design of the character, the costume, the origin story, the 'scream and do anything' magical powers, but stripping that all away and relaunching him as a sound manipulator in a more standard costume, seems to have been a step up for an otherwise abandoned Legionnaire.

Indeed, his recent use of Bouncing Boy and Duplicate Damsel makes it feel kind of 'old home week,' as he's been making use of characters that had been long ago sidelined or written out.

Granted, he hasn't done Matter-Eater Lad any favors, on that score...

Actually, it was artist Mike Grell who hated Tyroc, whom he saw as nothing more than a token black character created to cash in on the popularity of blacksploitation movies of the time like Superfly and Shaft. This is why Grell's original costume for the character was so over-the-top. It was Grell's way of protesting what he saw as a continuation of long-standing racist policies at DC.

Grell himself had tried to work in a more down-to-earth black character earlier in his run, but was overruled by editor Murray Boltinoff, who told him that readers did not want to see dark skin in a comic book. If you look closely at the first appearance of SP officer Dvron you will see that Grell drew him with African-American features, but that the colorist made him light-skinned.

I can certainly understand why Tyroc was barely used. His powers were so poorly defined that he seemed to be able to do whatever the writer needed him to. I suspect if his powers were more clearly defined, he would have been used more.

As for Chemical King, I don't think most writers understood his power. Levitz clearly did, but other writers did not seem to understand what he could do. I remember in one issue he was transforming elements (just like Element Lad) when he should not have been able to do that.

I feel the same way about magic characters. The White Witch, and now Glorith, run the risk of being able to waggle their fingers and do anything.

Even when magic characters start out with limitations they tend to become able to do anything, over time.

From a narrative standpoint, I much prefer characters with some clearly defined powers and limitations, forcing them (and the writers!) to be a bit creative if they want them to solve a problem that isn't perfectly suited to their powerset.

Even characters like Superboy and Mon-El have clear cut limitations (can't touch Phantom Girl, can be shut down by Element Lad or possibly Sun Boy), but with a character who might have a spell to do anything, even turn off Phantom Girl's powers (or trap her in an intangible state, or 'exorcise' her all the way back to Bgtzl), it messes up the sense of drama, for me.

The above could be one reason why Element Lad was retained by Bates, and not Chemical King.

Jan's powers are very clearly defined - turns one element into another. To affect a part of a compound, he has to know its composition, I believe.

Chemical King's powers are easy to define in the sense that you can sum it up in a phrase - speed up or slow down chemical reactions. But goodness, how many chemical reactions are there in nature? Rust, combustion, oxidation, metabolism... Condo's powers need a lot more research than Jan's do.

I remember way back in Levtiz's old run, both Chuck and Luornu were important supporting characters and appeared quite frequently. On the other hand, Tenzil barely appeared at all.

Indeed.

One of the beefs I have with super-hero comics in general is that nothing ever really changes. Sure, heroes change costumes or die (but they get better), but the illusion of change means there are never any long-term consequences to stories and that characters never really grow.

Bates' choices for Legionnaires to eliminate may have been controversial, but he at least gave every Legionnaire a decent farewell. Lyle's death shows how a super-hero death should be handled. He went up against a massively more powerful enemy and won, even though it cost him his life. And the story ended on a paradoxically happy note, with his spirit finding happiness.

In fact, the outcomes of Chuck, Lu, and Tenz were positive, as well. It was bittersweet to see old friends go, but they were going on to better things.

That's much better than blowing up someone's homeworld.

The Legion certainly has a better retirement plan than the Teen Titans, that's for sure!

At least no Legionnaire has had their head punched off yet.

Good point HWW on how Legionnaires exits were handled in such a positive way as compared to these days.

One of my favorites during this run: "Soljer's Private War"

Originally posted by Set
At least no Legionnaire has had their head punched off yet.

What about Sun Boy of Earth Prime?

Hmm. I disagree with those of you who feel that in the past, Levitz handled Lu and Chuck well. They were the first characters he wrote out of the main team on two separate occasions of returning to write the LSH. In the issue of EARTHWAR where Lu, Chuck, Imra and Garth fight together, Lu does not have one single line of dialogue, IIRC.

Which, I will say, does make his most recent handling of them against the Dominators nothing less than EXCELLENT. I was absolutely terrified to read those issues, but I applaud his handling of them there.

Still, I believe Mr. Levitz has a more Bates-esque idea of what (and who) the LSH is...

Science just wasn't Bates' thing at that point in his career. He probably slept through his high school chemistry class and had no clue or initiative to make use of Chemical King. He is also well known for not wanting to write more than a few characters in a story (example - Chuck and Lu's wedding where only a handful of Legionnaires go after Starfinger). Plus don't forget he also wrote out Supergirl during this period.

I started reading the Legion with #208. That Grell cover of Superboy got my attention. Then the mention of Superboy's "brother" (Mon-El), Clark having young parents instead of senior citizens, and the literally tons of other teen heroes (from the future!) that Superboy was hanging with got me to buy the issue. I was hooked
and haven't an missed an issue since.

I remember reading through the reprints in #208 and other Superman reprints of the time that had Legion appearances, and thinking - who are all these interesting characters that were kicked to the curb. In particular I liked Invisible Kid, only to find out he had died a few issues before I started reading. So I expected the issue where he died to be a big deal. Boy was I disappointed when I finally read that story. It was like Bates saying "you are the weakest link. goodbye!" to Lyle, who I found later was a character that really rocked under Shooter's pen. And then that ending where Tinya sheds a tear and then they are all like oh well, now let's go eat.

In Bates defense, I think he had a cool Star Trek like plot in his head and decided to run with it and surprisingly (for that time period) his editor didn't say no.

I didn't get the impression that Lyle was the "weakest link" at all. He was negligent in his duty to guard the museum, but that shows he was human, not weak.

The more I think about it, the more I'm struck by the differences between Lyle's death (written by Bates) and Chemical King's death (written by Levitz) 25 issues later. Lyle went out as a hero with a chance to redeem himself after his error in abandoning his post. He also went out with a ray of hope.

Chem, on the other hand, went out as a whining, self-pitying person who never realized his true worth, even when he died preventing a war. Whereas Phantom Girl cried tears of joy for Lyle (and, really, what's wrong with that?), Chem's death provoked the Legionnaires into an angry, vengeful pursuit of the man responsible for his death.

Neither approach is necessarily better or worse than the other--and the circumstances of Chem's death might have been more in keeping with the more negative outlook and darker storytelling styles of the times--but I do think Lyle went out in a much better way than Chem did.

I have the same problem with magic characters. It's kind of funny - some of the Legion's best stories have involved Mordru, Darkseid, and the Time Trapper, but...I don't like them as villains. What can they actually do? About anything. And why does the Legion win? because the writer wants them to.

Mordru has a powerful weakness that can be played against him, so that's at least something (not ideal, but something).

Darkseid tends to stick to a very specific set of powers. He's as strong as he wants to be, as tough as a Kryptonian, he can make boom tubes, and he uses his Omega Effect eyebeams to disintegrate or teleport people or things. His individual powers are brutal, but he rarely pulls crap like weather control or shapechanging or control of a planet's magnetic fields out of his butt. He's a surprisingly 'usable' uber-villain, compared to some.

Time Trapper, yeah, there's no excuse for a time manipulator on his scale to ever lose. He can look ahead and never be surprised by any tactic, and counter it before even Brainiac 5 has thought of it, and if he ever *does* lose, he can call a time-out and retcon his loss into a victory. He's pretty much unbeatable, or, should be.

I do dislike when heroes win the day, and it feels unearned. They go in with little or no planning, take it on the chin, and win pretty much by writer fiat, 'because they got angry' or whatever. Unless you're the Incredible Hulk, 'getting angry' or 'this time it's personal!' doesn't provide any real tactical advantange, and might even make you *less* likely to win...

I do miss the Silver Age (and, occasionally, later) tendency for the heroes to sometimes cunningly outwit the villains. "Ha! The League of Super-Assassins only *thought* they killed us, because we faked our deaths!"

In a team with Dream Girl and Brainiac 5, that sort of thing should still happen from time to time, and the Legion not consistently be portrayed as 'too late to stop!' stuff, and caught off guard, with the villains always one step ahead of them.

I absolutely love the Bates/Grell Legion stories. Many of today's comic fans complain about decompression in modern comics. The Bates/Grell team was the total opposite end of the spectrum. Complete compression. Small teams. A little bit of characterization and personal interaction by the team in the introduction. Here's your villain/conflict. Here's your obstacle in overcoming that villain. Here's your trope for overcoming that conflict, and a couple cute lines of characterization to wrap it all up. Bam. There's your story - completed in 17 pages. Some of these issues contained two stories, so the process was complete in half the time. Grell's open style with little to no attention to background detail gave the whole thing a wide open feeling even though it the storytelling was actually very tight. He was able to play with Cockrums stunning designs and give them his full focus. So you had a visually appealing, very cool looking Legion.
It was a formula that worked well for the team.

I was actually kind of bothered by this kind of thing in the latest arc, when the "ragtag" Legionnaires basically get overcome by the Dominators one issue, and then escape and pretty much overcome the Dominators the next issue, with the main difference being not any brilliant plan on the Legionnaires part, but that "Hey, it's the last issue, so they've got to win this time!" I mean... there's slight differences, since Comet Queen "betrayed" them in the first fight (though that only really took out Brainy), and Mon-El/Ultra Boy showed up at the very end of the second fight to finish off the Daximator (who wasn't in play in the previous fight), but for the most part, it just seemed to me like the Legionnaires suddenly became more competent because it was the appropriate point in the story for them to win.

Thanks, Cobie.

"Soljer's Private War" was different in that it was darker than most Legion stories of that era. However, I liked it because "Soljer" wasn't truly a villain; he was just a soldier doing his job. The story also touched on all kinds of themes, such as the horrors of war, reality versus perception, and how soldiers are or aren't remembered long after their sacrifices.

Most Legion stories of that time explored themes relevant to teenagers (e.g., insecurity, fitting in, proving one is not "the weakest link"). "Soljer's Private War" was one of the few that connected to more adult themes and gave the reader much to think about.