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popculturebuffet · 4 years ago

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The Legion of Super Heroes Reviews: The Legion of Substitute Heroes or Unsung Heroes

Happy 29th Birthday to Me! Yes it’s my birthday which means it’s time for reflection, griping about getting older and cake. And after an exausting weekend of grappling with a growth, i’m not going to go into anymore detail, I can finally, relax celebrate and get back to reviewing. And since i’ts my big day, that means I decided to dedicate today’s reviews to things that mean a hell of a lot to me and in one way or another shaped me as a person. A self indulgant way to reflect on my past, look to the future and show y’all some stuff I really like. So with that out of the way let’s talk about the Legion of Super Heroes.. and their oddball sub team I love dearly.

This is also my first chance to talk about DC Comics on my blog. I’m honestly shocked that in the year i’ve been reviewing stuff regularly, the other half of the big two superhero comic publishers hasn’t come up. While I do tend to lean towards marvel, in part because Marvel is simply better at collecting their stuff and putting it on sale more often, it’s still the home of some of my faviorite properties: Justice League International, The Green Lanterns (Minus Hal), Teen Titans, Wonder Woman, Oracle, Batgirl (All of them, particularly Steph and Cass), Young Justice, Supergirl, my personal boy The Martian Manhunter.. the list dosen’t go on by much but it indeed goes on. I”ve been reading dc comics since I was in middle school, and I haven’t stopped since and don’t intend to stop now and maybe in the next year I can get around to tackling some of their awesome cartoons and comics more eh? But yeah among these titans, including the actual titans, are the Legion, one of the most unique and awesome super team concepts in my humble opinon and , even for DC, one of the teams with the most tangled up histories.

First created in the Silver Age by writer Otto Binder and Artist Al Plastino, The Legion of Superheroes is DC”s first successful teen superhero team, predating the titans by a few years, though I dearly love both wildly diffrent teams. The Legion is defined by their high concept: A thousand years into the future, three super teens from diffrent worlds who happened to be on the same ship with billionare RJ Brande, saved Brande from some goons hired by his crooked buisness partner.

And exposed him. Inspirired by their courage, heart and skill, Brande latter called the three together to form them into a super team, one inspiried by the legends of teen hero Superboy.

No not Conner though it was nice to get to show off my poster of him. While he was part of the second continuities legion, we’ll get to that, he’s not the superboy we’re looking for. He is damn great though and it’s good to have you back bud.

Not Jon either, though I do miss this kid’s pre-bendis version and he was the inspiration.. for another version of the legion. (SIGH). Try. AGAIN IMAGE SEARCH.

......

No not the cool bad boy turned troubled good boy, not the child who was inexpciably aged up by that bald smeghead, and not the great idea turned into a editiorial mouthpiece. I”m talking about THIS superboy.

This is where the name came from: From the silver age till crisis on infinite earths, Clark Kent was active as a kid in smallville, and thus was Superboy, superman when he was a boy. He dealt with similar stories just with Lana replacing Lois, and Luthor as a ginger teenager. And it was these deeds as a teen hero on his own, one of the first honestly, that inspiried the legion and brande and forged the team.

And it was naturally a super boy story where they were first introduced as the legion’s founders went back to recruit Superboy after putting him through some trials, and were intended as just one of many silver age one off concepts.. but caught on with the readers so much they were brought back, and had their ranks expanded and eventually not only added supergirl, yes the one your thinking of this time, to their ranks, and yes sometimes she and superboy were in the same place at the same time, Clark willingly had founding member and telepath Saturn Girl put a mental block in his head for any info he’s not supposed to know yet so it’s cool . But yeah not only that but they eventually became their own feature in Adventure Comics, where Superboy’s stories were published, but overtook him in popularity with time. Over time a number of distinct aspects were established: The roster eventually got as large as 20 plus legionarres, almost all from diffrent worlds, and they eventually set up bilaws. Some are silly and dated such as “Legionarres marrying means they retire” which was eventually done away with in the 70′s, but others were simple logic: each member must have a unique power, no using weapons and such which rather than be super power snobbery is so said tech dosen’t fail and the legion later fully allowed Karate Kid, a martial artist, to join, no killing.. just common sense stuff that adds to it. And one of those is the centerpiece to today’s story, which we’ll get to in a moment. Obviously given they’ve been around since 1958, there is a LOT more to the Legion’s history I will dig into at a later date: The short version is that Crisis on Infinite Earths, Dc’s first big reboot, fucked the team up badly by retconning superboy out of existance and dc editorial made it worse by shooting down EVERY solution the team came up with to fix the issue. So eventually things got so messy they nuked the whole thing during the event Zero Hour and rebooted fresh with Mark Waid taking the helm and updating the concept for the 90′s and being a more lighthearted, if still not without weight, comic in the sea of 90′s edge. Waid would reboot the team again due to sagging sales, a far weaker reason this time, with a more rebllion slant, the original team would be reinstated, and then ended for a while before recently being rebooted by Brian Micheal Bendis... who sadly is long past his creative prime from books like Ultimate Spider-man and alias and is instead stewing in his own toilet dinner these days and thus it’s not pretty.. well okay art wise i’ts VERY pretty, it’s just story wise it sucks dirty ass in thunder storms. There was also an awesome cartoon that sadly lasted only two seasons that I will DEFINTELY be digging into, especially since unlike x-men evolution, it’s not you know 50 some episodes and me biting off way more than I can chew but a slim 26 that still has fans to this day. I”ll get into ALL OF THIS, some ohter time hopefullly and I mostly outlined it since some of you might be familiar with another version or “Sigh” the reboot and this helps clear things up. So yeah with all that out of the way we’re going back to the silver age and the first story I ever read of hte team, how I met them with “The Legion of Substitute Heroes” and a later subs story I genuinely love. I first read this story in one dc’s old expensive archives collections I got from the library. Oh how I miss the library. Your probably wondering who the legion of susbstite heroes are.. but since the first story covers that we can jump right in after the break!

So we open with a teen in a parka uniform disembarking from a spaceship from another planet, which a passerby notes is just like the airplanes people used to ride from country to country.

But we meet our hero, Polar Boy, whose in a winter themed outfit and has come to try out. This is the tradition I was saving for now: The Legion Tryouts. Like a club or sports team would, but I like it because it makes sense: The Legion NEEDS to be as big as it is because while their headquartered on earth, their mission scope is anywhere in the united planets which spans GALAXIES. They could be called on any time and need their full force or need to have severa l members on a smaller mission and frequently having members away on a mission was cleverly used to reduce the cast to whoever was needed for the story.

So it only makes sense to frequently look for new membbers to help strengthen their ranks... but given their teens and are recurting teens they need to be careful and need a logical way to reduce crowd flow. I mean you saw how many people used to line up for american idol before that died a justified death, people will do anything to be famous and they need to weed out those whose powers and skill just aren’t up to snuff yet, or those who are just dicks as, unsuprisingly, several stories have been built on assholes who applied and were rejected turning evil and attacking.. even though the Legion wasn’t even paticuarlly harsh. They also are more than fair as applicants CAN try again or if they prove themselves in other ways can be let in, as Bouncing Boy, my favoirite legionarre, was intially rejected for his power of .. well...

Yeah.. on paper inflating like a ball and bouncing around is kind of silly. In practice he can ricochet off enemies, walls, and obstacles and is fairly durable in that state. It’s why I don’t really brook mocking the guys power: yes it’s goofy.. but say that again when he hands you his ass. It’s the same with matter eater lad who yes is an actual character: While being able to eat anything is gloriously goofy.. it means he can chew through ANY substance and digest ANYTHING. Hell in the cartoon episode intorducing the subs they used both of these guys to great efffect: Bouncing Boy, who in the cartoon had to try out multiple times in his backstory, encouraged the future subs while Matter Eater Lad got in by EATING A FUCKING BOMB. He also had shades which I dind’t know he was missing but now I do. My point is the process is fair and well thought out and leads to some really fun scenes.

But yeah joining the legion is naturally Polar Boy’s dream, as he walks down the avenue of heroes, basically a series of statues honoring the legion and hopes all his hard work paid off. We then cut to the auditions, where he apparently waited all night. What I like about this story is that unusually for the silver age legion where it was mostly a sea of powers attached to a bunch of cardboard, really the dc silver age in a nutshell and why marvel broke out so much for having more dynamic and realistic characters, Polar Boy has more of a personality. It’s not MUCH but he’s a dedicated, hard working kid who just wants to join his heroes and seems really in awe of htem, a feeling we can all relate to. We’ve all had people we’ve looked up to, admired, and we’ve all had groups we wanted to join as kids, teens or what have you. And of course.. we all know what it’s like to be rejected by someone or something you badly wanted to be a part of. And that’s what happens to poor polar boy, who comes from a world with an intense sun thus his people developed super cold powers.. but he can’t control them well so while their impressive, they also freeze the legion. HIs powers are good... but due to their strength and radius he’s also a liablility. They give him an consolation anti-gravity belt.. they had these before eventually compressing them into the much cooler flight rings.. which I still desperatly want one of. I have the flash’s costume ring and a green lantern corps ring, but still no legion ring.

Naturally this devistates the poor boy and he wonders around dispondent till nightfall, convinced he’ll never be one of them. He soon meets Night Girl, a fellow reject with super strength given to her by her dad’s formula.. but only in darkness as she’s from a world without sunlight. She also faces a “hopeless future” but it’s then Polar Boy’s true strength reveals itself: he decides screw giving up on their dream and if they can’t be in the legion they’ll start their own Legion.

Though not to compete but to serve as a subtistute, in case the legion is ever incapacitated. So Night Girl gathers the other rejects the next morning. Cleverly one of them, Chlorophyll Kid was seen with Night Girl herslef at the tryouts behind Polar Boy. We soon learn about them and each of their origins: Stone Boy can turn himself into an immobile stone statue, as his world has half a year long nights and thus his people hybernate, Fire Lad who can spit hot fire literally and set anything combustable on fire and Chlorphyll Kid who can make plants grow rapidly. Each were rejected for resonable powers: Stone Boys powers too static, Fire Lad’s is too dangerous and Chorlpyl Kids toos pecific. But upon seeing all of this Polar Boy says they STILL have fantastic powers and still can help people and the legion.

Thus the Legion of Substittue Heroes is born. And I love them as much as the originals. As a bit of a misfit myself I relate to these guys: They have strange specific powers, got rejected by the big team.. while that trope is nothing new at the time it was unique and even now it’s a nice and inspiring message. Instead of giving up they form their OWN team to do what htey can anyway. They might not be the best like the legion but they can still help and still do what’s right even if not on their scale. It’s a great concept and really makes them endearing. Again I have a thing for the underdogs but I still really like these guys. It’s why it annoys me they got kind of spat on with time: While I love Keith Giffen and Paul Levitz run on the legion, and feel it’s the best of that contnuinty it’s not without fault and the two basically spent a full issue mocking the team and split polar boy off from them before making their own subs with only ONE of the originals. It just felt.. disrspectful. And so far no continuity has used them again until the recent bendis run, which has them announced for the Future Slate special. It took BENDIS, who dosen’t get how to use the team properly and is up his own ass, to bring them back in a new continuity and I find that obnoxious. The subs are a great concept and deserve to be honored as such and as such are one of my favorite superhero teams.

But their careers don’t start well as they doubt themslves, except for Polar Boy who boisters them along, and constnatly just end up going to missions the legion already has covered and when the legion go to fight some robot ships, they refuse the subs help.. which is fair though, as Brainy puts it they can’t risk putting untrained volunteers in harms way. Their about to just quit, in a really sad moment.. when CK, because I can’t spell cholophill and hate having to use spell check notices some odd seeds spread about.. and when he grows one a horrifying tree man shows up. They struggle with it till the setting son finishes it’s job, meaning Night Girl is at full power and whollops it and the subs spend the night destroying the seeds. They find out the next day the seeds came from the same planet as the robot ships, meaning the ships are a distraction for whoevers doing this and since they can’t just call earth, as the full force of the legion is needed with the robots and all it’d do is cause a panic, it’s down to them. Night Girl however is scared.. and I like that. It shows that while their regaining their confidence.. it’s sitll risky. Their a bunch of barely trained fanboys, and girl, going up against an alien invasion, with it down to them. They CAN save the world but it’s alright to be entirely terrified when your thrust into it this fast.

They make their way to the planet, having built a ship earlier and lie low, finding out what’s going on: The plant men are fully intellegent, and grow themselves..though how they know to attack and go to the bathrom and what not out of the seed I don’t know but I assume it’s a genetic thing or they might be some form of hive mind. point is the seed plan is to grow troops all over the world via rockets for an invasion, and it’s a brilliant concept for one too. Aliens who simply GROW the troops right into battle, born with the knowledge to do so, and right where they can ambush them. It’s down to our heroes and Stone Boy, whose been the most pesemistic, valiantly dives in to provide a distraction so they can destroy the factory and the seeds. Turns out he is useful as the most the treeple have is a space lead pipe.. yes really. I love the silver age. But they’ll bring ray guns soon, so Stone BOy knows it’s a suicide mission and now our heroes have a timer. But luckily.. our heroes are stronger than they think. Night Girl punches a way in till Night passes, while Polar Boy and Flame Lad use their powers in concert to make an opneing.. but with time running out Polar Boy finishes things by having CK grow all the seeds now they have acess.. thus exploding the planets population, destroying several cities from the number of bodies, and thu discourguing the treeple from trying again. Stone boy is able to flee with the rest of our heroes and the day is saved.

The heroes opt not to tell the public, as to take away glory for the Legion. It’s a noble gesture.. they do DESERVE credit, but they choose not to take it, preferring to let the legion get theres for stil lsaving the world from the robots. They stand firm, now confident they may someday make it to the big leagues.And it’s this that really makes me love them: Thier not the strongest or best, but they try anyway for the reasons a hero should: to help people, and not for the glory. THey remain unsung heroes and are fine with that. Eventually the Legion WOULD find out about them, but naturally instead of being dickheads about it, fully accepted them, even offering them some contests for membership, but that’s a story for another day. THey’d remain stalwart allies and valuable backup in crisis situations for years to come until the bollocks outlined above. But they’d never leave my heart and thanks to them.. the legion never left either.

Final Thoughts: While I do love the story for it’s personal signifigance to me, It’s stilll a really good story for the time. A bit stilted as was the style, but still good, well paced and with an endaring cast of underdogs who prove themselves in the end. It’s something diffrent from the usual clean cut ahead in life wasps these stories usually followed at the time. While the team’s still all white and all that, their outcasts and misfits who just want to help and have trouble beliving in themselves. Their a good standard to live up to.. and a good inspiration for me and my constnatly self hating self doutbing self. And I hope you enjoyed htem too. If you’d like to comission your own review, just dm me. It’s 5 bucks for individual issues. Later days.

#the legion of super heroes #the legion of substitute heroes #polar boy #fire lad #night girl #chorophyil kid #stone boy #silver age #comics #comics reviews #birthday

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game-refraction · 7 years ago

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Movie Review: Spider-man - Homecoming

I remember fondly the first theatrical Spider-Man movie. I must have seen it at least a dozen times on the big screen, having gone to it four times just on opening day alone; it was one of my favorite movies for years to come. Spider-Man 2 had come along and Alfred Molina’s brilliant portrayal of Otto Octavius was fantastic, and while Spider-Man 3 wasn’t terribly impressive, It did allow me to see ol’ webhead fight a few villains that visually looked fantastic. Amazing Spider-Man and its sequel did a lot of things right and despite my issues with Jamie Foxx as Electro, they were really enjoyable flicks, that again, allowed me to see things I always wanted in a Spider-Man movie.

My favorite era of Spider-Man, in the comics, is Ultimate Spider-Man. This was a separate universe that told modern retellings of classic Marvel characters. Even though the Ultimate universe is no longer around, bits and pieces of it currently still exist, namely, Miles Morales, another of the superheroes to use the Spider-Man name. Spider-Man: Homecoming is a combination of what Captain America: Civil War gave us for the Marvel films version of Spider-Man and that of not only the Peter Parker version of Ultimate Spider-Man (and no, I’m not talking about the recent cartoon) but that of Miles Morales as well, who coincidentally is getting his own animated movie at some point in the near future. In fact, there are several components of this movie that are directly lifted from the Miles Morales arc, but I’ll get into those later.

Spider-Man: Homecoming came about when Kevin Feige, the man in charge of the Marvel films, put together a deal with Sony to reboot the character within the Marvel Cinematic Universe, a deal where Marvel would produce the films and Sony would sit back and collect all the profits from them. While that deal may sound somewhat bizarre, remember that Marvel will still rake in hundreds of millions from any and all toys and merchandise surrounding the film, and be able to use Spider-Man in their other MCU films. It’s really a win-win situation for everyone involved. These deals are good for Marvel because frankly, have you seen many X-Men or Fantastic Four figures around? Nope.

Director John Watts, who is really only known for the 2015 Kevin Bacon movie, Cop Car, campaigned hard to direct the movie. Watts had been wanting to create a ‘coming of age’ movie for several years before hearing that Marvel had intended to go quite young for the Peter Parker role, casting 21-year-old Tom Holland, who would be playing a 15-year-old High School Sophomore. With Watts being a fan of filmmaker John Hughes, it felt like the perfect mix of what Marvel had intended to do and his desire to make that style of a film.

Despite the inexperience that Watts has when compared to several other filmmakers that were possibly up for the job, Kevin Feige, and the team behind creating this Spider-Man MCU reboot, saw his desire to create something that was exactly what Marvel and Sony had in mind, and something that felt faithful to the character of not only Spider-Man, but of Peter Parker as well. In short, Spider-Man: Homecoming was brilliantly crafted.

Spider-Man: Homecoming is a coming of age story about Peter Parker, a 15-year-old kid that recently just fought alongside Iron Man and several members of the Avengers. He’s sent back to his normal boring life, well as normal as being a super powered teenager is anyway, and wondering when his next big Avengers-sized mission will be. While stopping various small crimes around his neighborhood, or at least attempting to, Peter is constantly is looking to prove himself, to show Tony Stark that he is ready for the big time, except he very clearly is not. It’s during one of these attempts to prove himself that he stumbles across something a bit more sinister than a simple bike theft; a string of crimes that will put him face to face with the Vulture.

Michael Keaton might be the best Marvel villain since Loki, as he brings such a depth to a character that is normally not known for it. The Vulture hasn’t really been a big villain for Spider-Man for years, if not decades. Adrian Toomes, the name behind the bird costume, is written as a man who will do anything he can for his family. Keaton’s performance outside the costume is just as intimidating as the Vulture is when swooping in, or lashing out with its large metallic wings at Spider-Man. This is a villain that is not looking to take over the city or the world, he just simply wants to make a living to take care of his family, even if he does go about it a bit extreme.

Tom Holland as both Peter Parker and Spider-Man is the real highpoint of the film. Holland brings a believability to the role as a young kid wanting to do the right thing but constantly screwing up. The majority of the movie is Peter getting in way over his head, and fighting for what he believes is right. Tom has great chemistry with everyone in the film, whether it’s his best friend Ned, his Aunt May, his fellow classmates, or even Tony Stark himself. The quips he has during the bank robbery scene are fun, and the way he enters that scene trying to be all cool and confident is really enjoyable and rather hilarious.

What differs from previous movie versions of the character, is that this Peter is very inexperienced and is still getting used to being Spider-Man. While the previous versions tried tapping into that, they still had him far more successful in his attempts than not, and Holland’s Spider-Man is constantly getting batted around and losing almost every single encounter. The film also does not have Spider-Man using his Spider-Sense, and while it’s not used throughout the film, it has been said that he will eventually come to rely on it, just not in the way we’ve seen before. The film is also a lot more grounded, and this is to be taken quite literal, as there isn’t one single city-based web swinging scene like in the previous films. Much of the action takes place in small neighborhoods, far away from sky-reaching buildings, so when Spider-Man needs to get around, he’s either hoofing it, jumping from house to house or riding on the backs of other vehicles.

As I mentioned above, there are several things lifted directly from the Miles Morales version of Ultimate Spider-Man. The Ned character is essentially Miles’ best friend Ganke, in both attitude and overall look. There is also a mention that Miles exists in the movie during a scene where Spider-Man is talking with another character, that while is part of the regular Spider-Man world, this version is based upon the Ultimate Comics version of the character. And while I didn’t catch it on my first viewing of the movie, the license plate of that character’s car is UCS-M01, which translates to Ultimate Comics Spider-Man Issue #1, which is the first appearance of Miles Morales. There are several other easter eggs in the movie to watch out for, and a few names that pop up during the film that while they may not necessarily mean anything right now, they could pave the way for certain characters to make an appearance in future films.

There also isn’t the Uncle Ben origin here, which is a good thing as we’ve already seen it on screen twice before, in fact, he isn’t even referenced by name here. I like the fact that he loses his clothes and backpack almost everytime he goes out to fight crime or investigate something that may be a bit suspicious. Having Aunt May say something like that he’s lost 5 backpacks already, really shows that Peter isn’t as good as this as he could be, and another character in the movie also points out that he really isn’t nailing certain parts of being Spider-Man as well. I also like the fact of seeing Peter having to miss out on much of his social game due to being Spider-Man, and this means letting down those that he cares about, for the greater good.

John Watts does a great job at framing the action and while the movie plays very much like if John Hughes had made the movie, there still is some strong action moments throughout the film. The Ferry scene alone has some really fast paced web swinging and acrobatics on the part of Spider-Man and really showcases the filmmaker’s ability to show that he really understands the fast paced nature of the character. Long time readers of the comics know of the test of strength moment from Amazing Spider-Man #33 in 1966, where Spider-Man must free himself from being trapped under tons of metal and rock debris, a collective weight that seemed beyond his capacity to lift. The movie does a great job at not only how this scene is played out, but the fact that Peter is really out of his element with how inexperienced he really is.

The suit itself is really nice and while I wish the black lines were a bit more pronounced, it’s my favorite of the Spider-Man movie costumes so far, even if it has a few changes made to it visually. I like the web cartridge slots on his hips as it looks really impressive when he pops them in and out of the web shooters, which are more like bracelets than anything built into the suit. The suit also has a voice of its own, much like Jarvis for Iron Man, Spider-Man has Karen, voiced by Jennifer Connelly, who is actually married to real life Jarvis, and Vision, Paul Bettany. The suit has some nice tricks, and provides much of the humor in the movie, with moments where Peter is trying to understand exactly what this suit can do. The eyes are what really set this costume apart as they move and squint with retractable lenses when the expression calls for it and this is directly lifted from the comics, at least visually.

I’ll also mention a part of the movie that many people thought was going to be an issue; Tony Stark. Many assumed that there was going to be too much of him and that he might take away from the movie. He doesn’t, in fact, he only has a small handful of moments in the film and he is here mostly as a guide and mentor for Peter and not the co-star than many assumed he would be. There were several jokes about how this was Iron Man: Homecoming, featuring Spider-Man, and that is easily not the case here.

When the supporting cast was first shown, many of the characters they were playing, who exist in the comics, were of a different race, and this lead to much-unwarranted hostility towards the cast. Tony Revolori, who plays Flash Thompson, actually received death threats. There was also wild speculation regarding Zendaya, a character simply named Michele. And while I won’t spoil if those concerns were warranted, don’t take what happens at face value as the truth behind her role has already been talked about in length by Marvel Film’s Kevin Feige.

I could see some people having issues with how much of the film is via Peter Parker and not Spider-Man, but the fact of the matter is that both of these persona’s need to exist as it is very much what Spider-Man has always been, a delicate balance of being Peter Parker and Spider-Man. Holland excels in the role and his eagerness to impress Stark is through a very believable energy that can be rather contagious. The movie is playful, energetic, and can be a bit dark when it needs to be. Spider-Man: Homecoming really nails all the fun elements of various Spider-Man iterations throughout the character’s rich history, and the fact they chose to adapt so much from Ultimate Spider-Man is just, to me, the icing on the cake.

Tom Holland is the Superior Spider-Man.

Spider-Man: Homecoming was seen in ULTRA AVX 3D, where the 3D effects were ok, but not drastically impressive.

Movie Review: Spider-man – Homecoming was originally published on Game-Refraction

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