Legionnaires #43 (1996)
written by Roger Stern & Tom McCraw
pencils and cover by Jeff Moy
After spending so much time with the time-displaced Legionnaires, it’s time to see what the rest of the team is doing in the 30th century.
More than that: it’s audition time!!!
You can spot most of the Substitute heroes on the cover, as well as a couple of other heroes that will pop up in the rest of the Reboot (including a sneak peek of two of the Legionnaires joining this issue).
I’m more focused on Graffiti King’s botched audition, but appreciate the dedication of writing in English instead of Interlac.
The breakout star should have been Quack Head.
Is that a girl with the power to turn her hair into a duck, or a duck with the power to turn her feet into a girl?
The invite to the audition might have been a bit too vague, inviting everyone who has “one power or ability”.
And since this is the 30th century… it’s A LOT of people.
I’m not going through ALL of them because most of them are either cameos, silly gags or people who will show up in the proper story. But there are a few highlights.
We clearly have Dev-Em and Comet Queen; they will both be absent from this continuity.
Charma, on the other hand, WILL be an extremely minor villain later.
Kind of weird to see her attempting to join.
Is this guy attempting to join? Maybe the Legion should’ve made it clear they were looking for YOUNG heroes.
Lori Morning doesn’t qualify for the audition even in her Future Girl outfit.
Not-Matter-Eater-Lad’s comment about powers is interesting, as his wording seems to imply that Chuck DOES have his Bouncing Boy powers in this continuity.
He definitely doesn’t.
Neat little sight gag: Tenzil wasn’t cleaning that glass to serve drinks, he was cleaning it before eating it!
This issue is even more full of small sight gags than the usual Jeff Moy standard, and I love it.
Tempted as I am to categorize ALL the potential candidates… you’ll see why this would be futile.
I don’t know whether I should be more surprised by the fact that only a few candidates are from planets where everyone has powers… or by the fact that evidently there’s a Borg candidate!!!
What did you expect, Live Wire!? You didn’t put that in the invitation!!!
Sun Boy will not be one of the candidates, although he’s not done appearing in this continuity.
This issue presents a unique challenge to my attempts to keep count of the Legion rejects.
We are TOLD that there are hundreds of rejected candidates, but we are not shown most of them.
So I will be counting only characters that are explicitly SHOWN to have received an audition, whether we learn their names or not.
The first ones to be added to the count are therefore Polar Boy, Radion and Blast-Off.
We also have Particon, and there’s an argument to be made that Spider Girl might be here to audition. However, given that the other rejects are immediately recruited into Workforce, I think it’s more likely that she’s here to steal members from the Legion.
Well… MOST of them. Poor Polar Boy is even rejected from Workforce.
Polar Boy is, unfortunately, a VERY minor part of the Reboot.
Too bad because “Isn’t it enough that I can break the laws of thermodynamics?” might be the best way to rebuke his unexplainable rejection streak.
He’s not the only classic Sub to be rejected: Night Girl was there too.
This is clearly setting up a Reboot version of the Substitute Heroes, but I guess they got lost in the shuffle because this won’t really go anywhere but a couple of minor cameos.
Another reason why I’m only counting rejects that we see: it wouldn’t be fair to consider all 327.
This issue is the only acknowledgment of the awful Showcase ’95 #6, not only for the appearance of Cannus but also for the mention of the Legion Academy that only existed in that story.
There will be a Legion Academy for the Reboot, but at the veeeeeery end so this makes me wonder if it was ALSO lost in the shuffle.
But enough about extremely minor cameos, it’s time for a VERY prominent Legionnaire.
Her audition plays remarkably similarly to her Silver Age counterpart in Adventure Comics 346.
She’s not the only silver-haired Legionnaire to make a return with a slightly different civilian name… and she’s not the one to get the worst joke.
This is Dream Girl’s proper introduction, but she DID show up early in LSH #84.
They are definitely hyping the “ditzy blonde” stereotype so much that she turns into an actual blonde instead of her usual white hair.
It’s pretty clear that both Stern and McCraw had a pretty bad opinion of Dream Girl, since they turned her into a complete joke.
She will eventually join the Legion much later though, where she will be written MUCH better.
Not that it’s hard given where she starts, but she’ll be awesome. Eventually.
She might have been just a dumb blonde, but she still made an impression on Star Boy.
While the auditions are going on, XS chats with M’Onel who is in one of his missions.
We also have a confirmation that Chlorophyll Kid got an audition.
Well with Cosmic Boy lost in time, I guess XS needed to someone else to have a crush on.
They shouldn’t have turned Dream Girl into a joke audition. That’s a job for professionals like Arm-Fall-Off-Boy and Stone Boy.
I feel bad for Dragonmage. He was one of the blandest parts of 5YL but there has to be SOME use for a guy who can summon magic plasma dragons, but the Legion is too burned out on magic right now.
I would fully understand Polar Boy for turning into a supervillain: he was rejected by ARM-FALL-OFF-BOY goes to the final???
Yeah considering you’re the only member of the team who fully duplicates another one’s power, Live Wire, you sure are set on avoiding duplicated powers.
And then SUDDEN FISH ATTACK!!!
With the Legionnaires taken by surprise, it’s time for the new applicants to show how they good they are… at running away.
Hey at least three out of five finalists are not total failures.
And thanks to their quick thinking, the enemy is defeated…
…and of course it’s no enemy. That was the final test.
And now we have reached what might be one of the most controversial decisions of the Reboot.
Princess Projectra is back… as a giant snake.
She will take the codename Sensor and yes, she will keep that form for the vast majority of the Reboot.
This was a… WILD decision to say the least.
I fully understand why it’s often ridiculed. But at the same time, I consider Sensor one of the best-written Legionnaires of this era and it’s about time we added more non-humanoid Legionnaires.
In fact, had she been a completely new character instead of taking Projectra’s name, I have a feeling she would be one of the most fondly remembered Reboot Legionnaires.
I shouldn’t underplay the addition of Umbra, the Reboot version of Shadow Lass: you will see that she has a VERY distinct personality compare to the original version. In fact, this might be my favorite version of the character.
And Magno is also… there.
He’s not a BAD character and will have a couple of great moments, but he’s the only one of the three that won’t leave a lasting impression on the team.
I’m not sure if we ever actually see Sensor eat anyone.
Legion significance: 8/10
Two of the new members will stay with the team until the end of the Reboot (kind of; there’s a couple of asterisks there) but there are a whole lot of moving parts being introduced here, including some of the rejected members. It’s not higher because we still don’t know most of them.
Silver Age-ness: 4/10
Any audition has a bit of Silver Age DNA, and this one does embrace the silliness to a healthy amount without overdoing it. Poor Polar Boy though…
Does it stand the test of time? 10/10
One of the best audition stories. In fact it should be the gold standard: it pays homage to earlier sillier auditions but doesn’t turn it into a joke, in fact it goes hard in trying to keep the humiliation to a minimum. While also introducing new members AND new characters that will either be used down the line or be involved in several subplots.
Of course your opinion of turning Projectra into a snake will play a big part on your opinion of this issue. I still think it would’ve been a much better idea to introduce a non-humanoid character who is plainly intended to take the place of an earlier one while keeping her distinct enough to be her own thing.
We will see this done in an excellent fashion waaaaay down the line in the Reboot.
Spoiler alert: I’m the one guy who prefers Shikari to Dawnstar, and it’s not even close.
Moy Tongues: 24
I’ve counted Legionnaires on the cover in previous reviews, so I have to count Turban Kid and Ponytail Lass here.
But also we have Green Good Boy.
And no, Sensor does not count: she ALWAYS has her tongue out, not just when Moy is drawing her so it wouldn’t be fair.
Who did it better?
Lots of comparisons to make.
Despite my appreciation for this style of audition, which even brings back the old idea of the audition being the last step of a longer process (I think that was introduced in the second Shooter run)… the first Substitute Heroes is still the best way to introduce Polar Boy and Night Girl.
Of note, the Reboot version pays homage to the original by retaining the detail of these two being the first two Subs to meet. Even if they don’t really create the Subs in this version.
As mentioned, Sensor’s audition is very close to Princess Projectra’s; I would call that a tie.
The original Dream Girl audition, on the other hand, is still the most dignified one.
Which is saying something.
As much as I like the new version of the character, Umbra’s introduction absolutely pales in comparison to the epic of the first Shadow Lass story.
Fun fact: this was her first-ever audition, as the Silver Age character was promoted on the field without ever doing a proper audition.
On the positive side, however, THIS version of Arm-Fall-Off-Boy is a better introduction.
In fact, given that most of his (rather minor) appearances will show him to be an insecure klutz, they owe more to the Reboot version than to the original.
We are legion
Adding the three new recruits.
- 12 active Legionnaires
- 8 missing in action
- 1 resigned member (Andromeda)
- 1 honorary member (Superboy)
- 2 deceased members (Kid Quantum and Leviathan)
- 24 people have been members
- 4 Legion leaders (Leviathan, Cosmic Boy, Shrinking Violet, Live Wire)
- 13 members have been rejected
Now that there’s a decent amount of rejects, they received their table in the membership page.
Interesting letters: the return of Mon-El and his new name of M’Onel are widely celebrated, but more than one person asks why they decided to use the variation and say it’s a Martian word.
After all it would have worked just fine if they said Mon-El or M’Onel is a Daxamite word.
Apparently it was done to avoid confusing him with Superman, which… doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, doesn’t it?
