#meta legion

[co-mixed]

Supurbia: Superhero Picket Fences

When you see a Controversy section on the writer’s wiki page, you shudder. Especially if you happened to already love their work. But sometimes it’s not a massive issue at all as was the case with Grace Randolph. Let’s get this out of the way – I only know her through her work, so that’s exactly what I’m going to talk about. 

Supurbia. 

This story is all about what happens between the sheets after your classic save-the-day team of superheroes takes off their tights and capes. A more interesting part is, it’s not even their story �� it’s the days of those who wait for them at home and those who pick up the pieces when they fly full speed to yet another battle. Which right away makes it an interesting take. 

What do you think got me interested in the first place? More spoilers below. Honestly, not that many. Even if you read them, you'd still find plenty of new info in the book.

It’s a character-focused book, so it would be impossible to discuss it without dissecting the faces on the cover. 

Meta-Legion is the Justice League of this world. They even follow the pattern: the all-powerful stone-faced hero, the billionaire with gadgets, the warrior-princess, the boy scout leader, the guy with unexplained space powers, and Nightwing. Fine, maybe that’s more of a character salad, who cares. It’s not even them I really want to talk about. 

The All-Powerful Sovereign is your typical domestic tyrant and he picks the perfect victim too, a reformed villain Hella Heart. Her life’s absolute nightmare and that is exactly what makes her interesting. Sovereign has less in common with Superman and more with Dr. Manhattan. While Hella needs attention and understanding. She doesn’t get it from him, and she doesn’t get it from her Wisteria Lane neighbors. Even if they attempt to connect, it always comes down to their own agenda. Is it even surprising that she eventually slips? 

To be fair, I was rooting for her not to. She gives this victim-of-the-circumstances vibe and still tries to do the right thing. Kinda like Harley Quinn if she was locked in a house with laundry and dishes. Most of Supurbia characters are like that, you know who they’re based upon but they are still different enough for you to ignore it. 

We only get to see the beginning of Hella’s full arc before the run gets canceled. So I imagine, she had miles to go. 

Meanwhile Sovereign himself remains a distant figure. By the end, he’s just starting to get in touch with any emotions. So again, canceled too soon. 

The billionaire Night Fox is having an affair with Nightwing I mean Agent Twilight (not that Twilight and not the other one). Night Fox’s wife and business partner Alexis finds out and it’s your typical betrayal story that hurts a whole bunch of people. While the unhappily married couple decides what to do and how to be, Agent Twilight becomes one of the most sympathetic and interesting characters. His love is all bruised and tortured, and he is almost ready to give it up even though he doesn’t want to. Not only I would still like to see how the whole story plays out, I’d like to see way more of his friendship with Tia. 

Tia is the wife of Cosmic Champion (unexplained space powers) and a former superhero. Reminds you of anyone? Yeah, Jessica Jones. She gives up patrolling and fighting crime to raise her daughter. But unlike Jess, Tia misses it and she isn’t afraid to fight about that with her husband Dion. She manages to get her way too, and she ends up in an awesome costume speaking in tricky rhymes. She even saves the day when she goes after Batu.

The Warrior-princess Batu has two kids and a husband, and believe it or not, their lives are far from perfect. So far, in fact, it gets better before it gets worse, not the other way around. Batu is not a Diana-type, she’s quite the opposite and reminds more of Sovereign. If you look closely, most of these heroes lack empathy which is the reason for their domestic troubles. Batu is no exception – her issues with her kids are a good example. She ignores her son when she believes her daughter is the one with the inherited power, but as soon as she finds out otherwise, she forgets all about her. I like how this story in particular developed with a balance of a caring father and a powerful but absentee mother. This is what drives Sara to evil. If only we got a little more of this evil child and could see her grow from a rebellious teen to a real threat… 

And then there is the person through whose eyes you are supposed to be looking at all of it, the newbie on the block – Eve. She’s a superhero fangirl and the wife of new Marine Omega who arrives to the neighborhood with her husband just before the old one passes away. 

Out of all the characters I liked her the least. She had this optimistic desire to get involved that, for the most part, is a foreign concept to a millennial. She wants to help, she’s a nurse, she’s nosy for good reasons. She also saves the day and becomes a hero. But that was still not enough for me to like her. Matter of taste, I suppose.

Art and overall thoughts

The art in this book is vibrant. That’s the best word for it. It’s not my favorite style but the more you get into the story, the less you mind it. In this case, the art fits the story well. It’s a little… mischievous would be the right word. And it sort of lightens the whole mood of the book. It works in harmony with lettering, colors, and really, the more I think about it, the more I like it. 

These days Russell Dauterman is mostly associated with a very specific X-men look, so it’s easy to simply not recognize his work. I didn’t, he certainly grew and changed a lot. 

Covers are another part that’s hard to ignore. They immediately make you think “Desperate Housewives”. And it’s probably very intentional because this story certainly has similar vibes. Less than let’s say, Vision, but more than nearly anything else. 

Supurbia is a good read. It’s emotional as hell if you let it sink in. And you should. It has great characters, complex heroes, and scary villains. Villains might not be the driving force here but they’re formidable and by no means easy to defeat. Supurbia can give you tons of enjoyable content and hours of fun, but I won’t recommend it to you unless you can live with an unfinished story. It has a conclusion, but it’s certainly not over. 

[duriens]

so we all agree that kirkwall is both horrifying and fascinating and i wish they'd delved more into its bloody history beyond the snippets we get from the codexes of the band of three. like hello?? three seekers of truth - among which a dalish mage - scurrying about the sewers and lower passages of the city, discovering that kirkwall was designed as some sort of magical symbol, has grooves in the sewers allowing the flood of blood downward for blood magic purposes, and last but not least realizing that its circle of magi had a much higher number of failed harrowings & episodes of blood magic hysteria than basically any other circle in existence??? you cant leave me hanging like that. why was the veil so thin there even before tevinter came? why were they weakening it further?? what was tevinter doing with all those disappeared slaves every year and the huge blood magic ritual involving thousands of slaves and the city itself being a magic symbol??? did the band ever find out if the Forbidden Ones are the same Forgotten Ones of dalish lore??? why was xebenkeck called 'forgotten one'??? hello????? what the fuck is up in kirkwall??????

[artbyblastweave]

One interesting thing about Caesar which I basically never see anybody talk about, right, is that his father was killed by raiders. I understand why nobody talks about it, because he's the world's biggest asshole, and the game itself only addresses it in a blink-and-you'll-miss-it line. But it's notable to me because it's basically the textbook example of a Freudian excuse, and in a lesser game likely would have been played up as such. His father gets killed by raiders in the NCR heartland, and fifty years later he's built an empire standing opposite the NCR that's noted for having basically eliminated raiding as a concept within its borders (part-and-parcel with the rest of the oppression.)

This is never directly presented as a contributing factor to Why He's Like That. It isn't presented as the fulfilment of some oath he swore on his murdered father's grave. In fact, it's almost the inverse- you only find out about this when he briefly mentions it as part of the extremely curated, self-aggrandizing backstory that he's giving you as part of an extended sales pitch. It's a curt mention- something that happened, an explanatory factor in how he and his mother wound up in the care of the Followers. A figure he has to account for in telling you his life story, because as an outsider you aren't going to fall for the "Son of Mars" routine. But not something terribly important besides that. Not something with a place in the mythology. Definitely not a loss or absence that's meaningfully impacted him in any way going forward, because the Mighty Caeser is of course totally above such petty concerns.

That digression aside, the point is this- it's comically easy to imagine the version of this story that leveraged these exact backstory details, unchanged, to paint a picture of Caesar as a brooding antihero, making the both-sidesing rampant in the fandom textual. There's probably some Conan-style grim-and-gritty sword-and-sorcery rise-of-a-king epics out there you could seamlessly slot him in as the protagonist of (the man himself reads Grognak comics.) There are the bones of an unironic self-satisfied ultramasculine power fantasy rattling around in there, the shrewd modern man who uses strength, guile and modernity to dominate his lessers, a hard-man-making-hard-choices, the whole process a masturbatory tract in favor of whatever ideology the infallible Great Man Protagonist chooses to embody. This is a kind of story, in science fiction, more often than not a grotesque one. And it's clearly the kind of story Caeser thinks he's the protagonist of. But Hank Morgan this fucker is not. And I'm intensely grateful that the narrative refuses to let him get away with pretending that he is. At the end of the day his army is wearing football gear.

[zalia]

Destiny Architecture

I went on a whole ramble about the architecture of the various factions in Destiny and thought I'd share it here. I'm not an architect, so my knowledge is basic when it comes to technical things, but hopefully it is interesting!

They did a fantastic job with the architecture of the different factions and what it says about them.

The Red Legion and Caiatl's Ascendency are all pragmatic, organised military designs - fortifications, the round buildings with windows on each side linked by trenches. Watchtowers. In the Arms Dealer strike, you have areas where there are loads of vehicles meticulously organised. They are prepared for the long haul, dug into the planets they land on, and they are proud of their machinery, both literal and metaphorica - it's all on display, the pistons and furnaces and engines. There are service shafts and hangars! It's all very practical (and makes the Glykon even more unnerving because the passages and service shafts don't make any practical sense in the way that they connect!).

Calus on the other hand... the Leviathan has the same base in terms of doors and the like, you can recognise some of the same basics - like the shapes of the doors etc. but the pragmatic things are hidden away - they're reminiscent of the servant quarters in old British stately homes - you need them for the place to function! But the people in charge don't want to see them. Calus wants to be surrounded by gold and riches and luxury and not think about the things and people that make it possible. It's always been something that I've thought of when it comes to his empire – he acts like all of it was a place of luxury and hedonism and art, but like the Roman Empire that inspired the culture, that luxury is truly only available to a few people, and is only possible because a much greater number of people are working to provide the materials and labour. We don't really hear or see much about the people the Empire conquered beyond the Psions, but were they living in such luxury? Probably not.

The Eliskni architecture all feels very cobbled together and makeshift - there are visible seams and bolts, spots where colours don't match. It's makeshift, which suits their history as a people who have been forced to flee and exist on scavenging for a long time. And there's always a lot of nautical theming going on too - rigging and nets and hoisted awnings like sails. They feel like places made by people who are expecting to need to pack up and leave at any minute. Everything tends to be rounded, which is particularly obvious when you see the Devils in Rise of Iron - everything is more angular because of SIVA and the Rasputin influence, even the shanks. I'd love it if we could get a look at the original Riis architecture.

The Hive are very gothic architecture with a dash of Gaudi (take a look at the Sagrada Família for what I'm thinking). High chambered ceilings, flying buttresses, all the carved figures and motifs - except when you get closer you realise that it's also uncomfortably organic. And it's also decaying – once you get inside the dreadnaught especially you find it full of piles of festering debris, wormspore growing from the corpses of thralls. There are spaces where anything could jump out at you. It's like a civilisation mocking the grand architecture of other species by warping it into something rotten (and also very gothic literature as well - the grand imposing gothic mansion with the dark secret and unpleasant history). The names of the locations in the Dreadnaught often tie-in with the architecture since a lot of them are religious: the portico, basillica, the crypts, the Cathedral of Dusk. They are a species worshipping Oryx, the very real and tangible god.

The Moon under Crota has a similar style, but where the Dradnaught is organic, the areas under the surface of the moon (outside the Red Keep) are more technological - there are still the flying buttresses and supports, the spikes and and pillars around the Hellmouth, but they're blockier, less rounded, stone and metal rather than chitin.

Savathun's Throne World has similar architecture, and returns to the organic feel of the Dradnaught, but in blinding white and red rather than browns. It's similar to the Leviathan in a way – the public areas are much cleaner feeling, regal and filled with Light, but when you dig down you can find the same rot and debris as the Dreadnaught (thinking especially of the 2nd mission of the Witch Queen campaign). Where the Dreadnaught was a mockery of other species, the Throne World feels like it's trying to copy them – this is what Savathun thinks the Light is, look she's changed, really! But in the end, it's more like a coat of paint slapped over a wall with a bad mold problem. The names also switch from kind of Catholic, to more magical and alchemical - Apothacary, altars, temples etc.

The Awoken are really doing the whole fantasy elf thing in a lot of ways, but more with stone than woodland than in Tolkien when we see the Dreaming City. Everything fits in seamlessly with the landscape (which makes sense since it was essentially created with wish magic to be exactly what Mara wanted!). The buildings follow the lines of mountains, pathways carved into crystal caves, the bridge which has supports like the branches of trees like they've grown up from the ground. And there's nature everywhere! But it's not a natural environment. Even when it seems like you're in nature, it's very cultivated - like the garden of a stately home which wants 'wilderness' so has landscaped it. It's also deceptive in the way you go from the 'wilderness' to these very high fantasy buildings, and then as you walk you see these technological marvels like the Oracle Engine, just integrated into it. The Dreaming City is very much portraying an image and is a very finely tuned machine in itself. I kind of wonder what the other Awoken settlements beyond the Dreaming City and the Vestian outpost look like.

Clovis Bray facilities are very minimalist and very obviously designed to make you think 'lab' and 'high technology'. He really wants you to see his stuff and have you think 'this is the future' in a way that draws 70s sci-fi ideas of the future - the way all the sharp edges are rounded off, the bright blocks of colour, the way all of the technology is very conspicuously on display, the massive windows that make all the conveyors and machinery visible. He wants to show off his stuff, and also make everyone who works there know that they're being watched. There's also the huge open spaces and massive drops like Eternity and Creation, which are utterly impractical but also feel infinite and are designed to make you go wow.

You see similar architecture on Neomuna (since Clovis was involved with the colonisation efforts) but on a much more human scale. They have a lot of the same components – the pillars and display screens, the curved bases of the walls – but they're softened with plants and murals, places to sit and socialise. It's not a lab, it's a city where people live. And also it's Neptune, they are a long way from the sun, so everything is bright and vibrant to make up for that. I think you can also see a lot of influence from the Ishtar Collective locations on Venus in Neomuna - they also tend to have a lot of display screens and neon and lots of spots for plants to grow. And then you get outside of the City and see the Veil Containment bunker and see the concrete and metal pragmatism that underpins the city.

The Iron Temple/Vostok is a place that is trying very hard to be a medieval castle with all of the statues and bonfires and the whole aesthetic of the Iron Lords. The statues of the Iron Lords all bear axes and swords. But when you look at it, you can see the very Soviet brutalist foundation of the place. So much of it is blocky concrete - the walls are squared off and unornamented, the observatory is concrete and metal. Every time I go in to where Tyra stands, I'm surprised that the pillar she's standing by is not round, because it's very easy to buy into the illusion they're projecting. There's also the concrete pillar that serves as vault and lights up when you approach - it has the technology, but like the Dreaming City, it's integrated into the landscape. Unlike the dreaming City, they really don't want to show you it.

Raputin's bunkers are just fantastic design in so many ways. They have a very clear shape (you can see the shape of a door and know immediately that this is something Warmind related), everything tends to be at right-angles. It's all very pragmatic and logically laid out. There is definitely technology there, and it's not really trying to hide, but it isn't showing off like Clovis does. Where Clovis is 70's aspirational sci-fi design, Rasputin architecture has a very Cold War vibe to it - none of the technology is flashy - it's chunky terminals running the most basic looking command line UI. It's thick cables and pipes and probably a million redundancies. The kind of tech which is designed to be found in a few centuries and still be reasonably functional. Also unhackable unless you are physically present. Rasputin is an AI so advanced that he can out-think the Vex, but his facilities are built to have the resilience of a Nokia 3310 phone, and are inspired by bunkers designed to survive nuclear war.

(I also think it's not accidental that the Warsats are made up of many angular shapes, especially triangles, trying to be a sphere, considering the whole motif of the pyramids vs the Traveller)

Pyramid Architecture is really really trying to pull off the sword logic 'pared down to remove anything extraneous' and present the idea of a universe united as one in its final shape... and is failing miserably at that. At first glance it's all straight clean lines, black stone, leaning towards brutalist, but they just can't keep it up – they're full of pillars serving no purpose, statues, coloured stone insets. Rhulk's pyramid is full of artwork painted onto the walls. There's so much symbolism built into them. They're incredibly ornate! Because as much as the Witness wants everyone to believe that it is one united force with one specific goal, it kind of isn't. It's made up of many many individuals. Even if those individuals that made it up all agreed on the final shape, it's nearly impossible to get one person to have a 100% consistent view of the universe, let alone hundreds! And especially in the Witness' pyramid ship in Root of Nightmares, you get the impression it's something of a mausoleum for its species and the other species its destroyed. There's lots of coffin-shaped and sized objects in there, and relics hidden away. It isn't as clean and focused as it would like the universe to think.

[edenprime]

In my mind, Tali's parents were in a sort of... lavender marriage*, and their true partners were Shala'Raan and Han'Gerrel.

I mean - Raan was the one who was with Tali's mother when she was born. They synced their suits with each other. It's implied that she was like a second parent to Tali, that she spent more time with her and her mother than Rael during her childhood.

On the other hand, Gerrel speaks of Rael'Zorah as being his partner in crime since they were teenagers. He tells their story with a fondness that speaks of years of partnership. He's the only one who notices that Shepard was deflecting when defending Tali, but let's be real - he doesn't know Shepard. He knew Rael. He's also the only one you're allowed to confide in when it comes to the secret geth experiments.

*Not because I believe the quarians are homophobic, I just think it could be a practice they used to mantain their population. After all, Tali explains in ME1 that sometimes they had to put in laws to make sure the population remained sustainable. Added to the quarian's inherent loyalty to each other... well, this way, they had a child as expected, but could keep their preferred partners.

[crapula-estatutario-nobinario]

"Make the first shot count. You won't get a second."

Aw fuck, another serious piece. Living for curly haired Joshua ngl

[rei-ismyname]

X-Men/Mutant Dynasties

Something I've always felt uneasy about is when offspring of Marvel mutants basically inherit their mutant gift 1:1. The X Gene (though I don't love that either) is supposed to be a naturally but randomly occurring thing in humans that causes them to develop a strong mutation. In many cases, a superpower as opposed to six toes. I'm sure people experience such minor mutations as well but it's not due to the X Gene.

A character that exemplifies the my dislike of this is Raze, the alternate reality/'future' child of Wolverine and Mystique. Them existing in a pretty ridiculous era with a constant nostalgia recycling is a factor too.

This idiot. He literally just has both parents gifts - shapeshifting, claws, and a healing factor. Keep in mind those are metal claws too - something Logan doesn't have biologically. Maybe it's a Mystique thing and she's like a ditto in Pokémon breeding because her kid with Xavier is this chump.

It's just Charles Xavier again! I'll admit part of the dislike is them featuring in such mediocre, unimaginative stories, and they're pretty transparent Nostalgia bait. Has it lead to good stories? I don't think so, not as a critical element. Could you honestly tell me what either of these idiots' motivation is without looking it up?

Also, I think taking the randomness out of it just leads to eugenics and bioessentialism - a place the x books should not go, or at least not have nominal heroes doing it. Leave it to Mr Sinister.

Mutant trait inheritance has been around since almost the beginning. Polaris has Magneto's powers but weaker, Siryn has *similar* powers to Banshee, Nightcrawler looks like Mystique (though that makes sense through retcon. Shit, maybe she IS a Ditto.) On the flip side, there's even more Mutants that inherited none of their parents' mutation.

IRL Mutation is supposed to be, well not random per se, but the result of damage to genes. In our universe it's neither a good thing nor bad thing. In 616 it's pretty muddled tbh. I'm not a scientist - I'm a writer, so I'm not going deep on something that doesn't have internal consistency. I'm always going to dislike thin characters trying to evoke familiarity through mashing two iconic ones together, but it's more than that. What's the source of my discomfort then?

Yeah, it's the eugenics. HoxPoX actually took it further, revealing that Moira and Charles intentionally sought to breed reality warpers, to the point of researching partners that would give the desired result. They were successful too, resulting in Proteus and Legion, two of the most powerful mutants alive. The ethics of these actions aren't editorialised but I think they're meant to be read as horrifying - especially when you consider the context of the 'pairings' and the lives these poor kids have had. Maybe it's not so surprising Xavier views David as a weapon and Moira seems to hate Kevin. It makes Chuck and Moira look terrible.

Pic unrelated, I just wanted to break up the text and what better than Beatnik Namor?

The superbaby schemes never come to light and they're not really punished for being shit parents. Certainly not socially. I'd love a book where they were, but the time has kinda passed. Maybe the fairy tale morality of big two comics doesn't have the framework or the desire to explore it, though I think that if you're going to put eugenics in your fiction you probably should.

I've been sitting on this draft for months because I feel like I don't have the knowledge or vocabulary to explore it properly. I'm probably missing something. I've decided it's been edited and rewritten enough and I'm posting it as is, so if you have any thoughts on this I'd love to hear them. Join the conversation!

[mephestopheles]

Welcome to the brainrot, have we considered Geth naming conventions?

Geth are autonomous small running programs stacked on top of each other in a "mobile platform" that generally becomes more intelligent the more there are. Even post Rannoch and with the upload Reaper code their sense of individuality is going to be very different than humans or other organic species.

Legion was content with being given a name in ME2 but that's because to them* naming the part that speaks is weird, it would be like naming a toe. At least in a Geth, their toe would also be part of the consensus so to speak.

This got long, the rest is under the cut

Post Rannoch, (and leaving aside that the sudden and faulty storytelling of trying to repeat Mordin's sacrifice) we see Legion not only say "I" instead of "We", they sacrifice themselves to complete the upload, spreading their many programs amongst the rest. The other Geth that comes over does note that Legion's sacrifice will be remembered, which suggests that instead of individual programs creating a higher intelligence based on numbers, they're unified in each mobile platform.

Does this mean that the individual smaller programs are now considered individuals, or is it still many smaller programs that inhabit a mobile platform? Only becoming a single being as they evolve together to develop personality quirks and preferences as time goes on?

From a writing standpoint, it was definitely easier for them to basically hand wave the "there they're intelligent now and understand the difference between I and we. But the hand wave doesn't work for me. If they're essentially software and can go anywhere, do they "die" when they leave their platform to rejoin a hub?

If that was the case before the upload, what happens now? Are they locked into specific platforms now and can't bounce from one to another? Does that frighten them because that locks them out from the way they used to understand and know each other? If they're not locked out from rejoining hubs or becoming part of a ship or space station, do they retain who they are when they return to their mobile platform?

Legion's sacrifice suggests they can't, but given that's to complete the upgrades, it stands to reason the Geth would either find a way to maintain cohesion while changing spaces, or would remain in one platform.

Now granted this is a very limited viewpoint. It assumes that the Geth's response to individuality would align with other organic responses to it, and with a sense of "self" would begin to understand self preservation.

They understand preservation of their species as a whole, as we see with them willing to forgo freedom and autonomy for base survival. But individual freedom and individual self preservation is going to be very new, they might even as a species refuse to participate in that kind of individualism even if they have to work harder to maintain the community they are used to.

All of this so I figure out naming conventions among Geth.

I can't see them suddenly developing names as organic species understand them, although they might start using a similar convention as the Quarians use. They might also prefer numbers or codes. Shepard was inside the consensus for a while, it's unclear how long, but when I species measures in nanoseconds even a few minutes would be a lifetime. Would that impact any human-like characteristics upon the Geth? Do we think that Shepard has that much influence even as he's removing the virus from the Geth?

I think Legion believes so. I think that Legion has felt and responded to Shepard's influence even when they were speaking across a gulf of disparate understanding. Shepard's willingness to give Legion a chance, willingness to help Legion, and treat them as an equal in the latter half of ME2 and when you meet him again in Me3 make me believe they fully believe that Shepard is enough to change things.

So a new Geth, someone joining the Alliance to help but doesn't have a name, or designation that humans would understand. Would they accept a name given by a human, or an Asari? I'm not even sure the Asari would try to impose a name on a Geth.

I know humans will. We can't help it. We fucking named a roomba Stabby. We name snow plows. I know humans on some level are nervous of artificial intelligence, but let's face it, the Geth arrive to give us a hand, we will adopt them, even if they don't understand why.

So, that leaves me with a couple of possibilities, the Geth that stick around Rannoch and decide to help the Quarians rebuild will likely take their naming conventions after the Quarians at first before developing their own names over time. The Geth that interact with humans more are probably going to develop human naming patterns, if not outright named by humans to the point that maybe some Geth develop a culture that your name is bestowed by your favourite human.

Maybe that is a piece of code that's left over from Legion, a small program replicated many times that is within all of the Geth, but cultivated in those that stick around humans, that being named by a friend becomes a coming of age so to speak.

*they being used as the collective noun, and not the singular personal pronoun. I'm not even getting into Geth genders or if they even have a concept of gender. They're just figuring out person hood, nevermind gender roles.

[radioactive-earthshine]

Hello

Could you explain what you mean by Bart and Brainaic's friendship? I admit I never read any bit of LOSH and the only thing I remember of them interacting is when Brian told Bart he drank to forget him. It doesn't seem like they are friends but IDK

Teen Titans/Legion Special (2004)

This is actually something fairly on brand for Querl to say given his crassness inherited from the long line of Dox-Bitchiness. Querl is one of those great examples of a character who is a good person but he's not necessarily polite and nice all of the time. Although in more recent comics and media he has gotten significantly nicer.

His loose "blink and you miss it" friendship with Bart in the 90s comics comes as a little bit of a surprise considering the types of characters they are but it works as their dynamic evolves around mutually started chaos and working to get out of said chaos. The start of their connection also shows a surprising side of Post-Zero Hour Querl when he elects to show Bart some compassion after he had a very bad day.

This is not to say that their friendship was without a lot of frustrations as Bart did inflict himself upon the Legionnaires in ways that left... an impact.

Bart's first encounter with Querl can be found in his own comic when recently stranded Legionnaires specifically sought Bart out for help in getting back to their own time.

It ended disastrously when Bart while in the midst of an extreme case of the zoomies attempted to use the Cosmic Treadmill to take them home, but he had absolutely no ability to control it, and instead just flung everyone around through varying intervals of time (and gave Imra a migraine and Querl, Koko).

Impulse #21

Bart was even more hyper-active in this issue than normal, and I think it had something to do with the Slurpee he was drinking at the start of it.

Regardless if the zoomies were a result of Mark Waid deciding to go full ham for the chaos in this issue, or if the slurpee did something, the day did not end well and the Legionnaires left hoping to find another way home.

Querl did not expect to see Bart again for a long, long time, if ever.

They were all wrong.

Because like the One Ring he resurfaced as he inflicted himself upon them again about a day later at S.T.A.R. Labs in Legion of Super-Heroes (1989) Issue #88.

But not before the issue opens up reminding everyone that while Bart does have his chaotic moments, Querl is no less guilty of chaos and is his own unique brand of mayhem.

They are in fact, kindred.

LMFAO @ Rokk's "I've asked him NOT to." in regards to blowing up S.T.A.R. Labs because Rokk has about as much control over Querl as Max or any authority figure over Bart when he has an inkling.

S.T.A.R. Labs' solution to dealing with Querl was to put him under watch and surveillance, much to his extreme foul-mouthed displeasure, another trait he shares with Bart.

"What could possibly go awry?" is early Bart Allen's famous summoning incantation.

With Bart back in proximity of the Legionnaires things begin to unfold again chaotically, this time however it is Querl's fault for trying coopt Bart into helping him operate under the radar put on him.

This is their first instance working together, and it is the incident that brings them together and what likely prompts Querl to drink.

With the telepathic ear plugs, Querl directs Bart and gives him what he believes are clear instructions, but he didn't count on Bart's own brand of logic and instead helps initiate a countdown towards nuclear meltdown.

Fortunately, everyone is able to work together to stop catastrophe and all it takes is a Coluan finger subjected to speed force.

"Well. THAT went all right, then, didn't it?" you're a grenade in a barrel full of oatmeal, sir.

The day's events leads to the Legionnaires being kicked out of S.T.A.R. Labs, and out of a home, until they can find a solution to get back to their time.

It also leads to the heartbreaking scene at the diner where Bart is very bluntly and firmly told that he was absolutely not accepted as a Legionnaire. But not only that, he was the first ever hero to be turned down. Superboy at this time is an honorary member so it's a poignant gut-punch and it's hard to read.

Querl lurks outside for reasons unknown.

In true Bart Allen fashion all he wanted to do was help and he did act earnestly it just was not a good day. Six to One rejected him and the comics do not reveal who voted to allow him in.

It is likely that Querl voted to allow him membership, but we never find out, but it is my personal interpretation due to how the final page goes and this is where we see Querl lean into compassion for someone kindred. Maybe he saw a little bit of himself in him.

Querl opens up to Bart literal direct communication and this is the start of a positive friendship between them. Bart has this link with Querl for an impressively long time in comic continuity, at least 11 issues, however the comics do not show them actively communicating until later when Bart is needed to help save the world from C.O.M.P.U.T.O.

We see them again in Legion of Super-Heroes (1989) #99 when Querl reveals to his team that he shares a link with Bart and summons him. Much to the Legionnaires' bemoaning.

Querl isn't wrong, they really are up against time and a threat that is literally world-ending. He trusts Bart is capable and reliable enough to efficiently help them at this point and Bart does.

We also get a humorous snippet showing Querl trying to translate Bart's pictograms. If anything, communicating with Bart sometimes had to have been a mental exercise that he either appreciated or attained a migraine from.

After this point, we do not see them interact much except for in the Teen Titans/Legion Special, and then the next time they are seen even in the same proximity is during Final Crisis when another Brainiac 5 entirely bottles Bart's 'youth' and leads to his resurrection.

They had an interesting and unexpected dynamic/friendship and it is one I feel people generally neglect to notice or consider unless you happen to be a fan of both comics.

We do see some hints in other media that is a throw-back to this old friendship and dynamic such as in The Legion of Super-Heroes in the 31st Century Issue #15 when an alternative history to Bart Allen lands him working with Querl in his birth time.

In this particular version of Bart he has not evacuated to the past (if he ever does) and he is still in VR, however he still works with Querl in harmony and manages to impress them enough to get an invite to the team immediately. The entire issue is like a little love-letter to Bart and is a delight to read and stands on its own.

So there's Bart's interesting relationship/friendship to Earth 247's Brainiac 5 that maybe some in the Flashfam fandom or LOSH fandom may have overlooked.

It's fun, it's unexpected and it's interesting, and it would have been nice to see it a little more fleshed out but 1000 years of time displacement just makes this impossible.

[datura-tea]

also i want to expound on the tags i left on this post:

#the fascism and imperialism of the legion begets violence and turns its victims into perpetrators and vice versa and so on the cycle goes...#in this system you would think violence and tragedy is inherent and inevitable but! it's really not!! people choose it. it's a decision tha#hinges on what kind of person you are#and ulysses is the kind of person that's just strong and beat down and aware enough to want to end the cycle - in a very convoluted way obv#we love a complex king<3

ulysses wants to end the cycle, but his interpretation of letting go and beginning again is to clear the board. so he plans to keep the ncr and the legion stuck inside the mojave to bite each other's dicks off and take the local populace with them. BUT - and this is very important - he puts this enactment of this plan in the hands of another. someone whom he believes has the power to kill or birth a nation without even knowing: courier six.

so he aims the bombs at the ncr and the legion, and gives courier six the trigger. that is, after they confront each other. which happens only after a slog through the divide where he takes the courier to task, asking them to account for their actions, as well as show them how the legion has shaped him personally, breaking him down and abusing him and doing violence unto him, making him do violence to others in its name, basically showing the cycle of violence and its consequences. asking the courier - and you, the player - now armed with this knowledge and these weapons, what will you do? will you end the cycle or continue it?

[thevalleyisjolly]

What are the chances that the goblins were one of the "legions" that the Toymaker mentioned? Their whole deal is chance, luck, probability, which is directly related to the concept of games; their power is structured around this language of chance and coincidence (which they've learned to manipulate that language to their favour) and they operate within those specific boundaries instead of the usual alien invasion blowing up everything they see; and despite the campy song and dance routines, they're able to utilize their power to tear through time and space and change history. Which doesn't seem like a thing your average goblin or alien menace should be able to do, but is in line with the Toymaker's powers. Also, they commit to that aesthetic and to the musical number.

[icy-dark-star]

Kirbytober Day 29: Crossover/Last Battle Ability

Oh hey, it's the prompt I have been looking forward to this entire month, today I get to combine two of my favorite games!

[marionjabbs]

i just KNOW mrs flood is going to turn out to be the final boss of the toymaker's legion and be the embodiment of the showrunner i just know it

the knowing winks to camera are getting SO ominous

[artbyblastweave]

One of the light-touch worldbuilding/storytelling/dramatic irony moments I really enjoy in Fallout: New Vegas is everything to do with Aurelius of Phoenix, the Legion Slavemaster operating Cottonwood Cove. Nested bit here, right? On first glance it seems like psuedo-Latin gibberish, something grandiose but divorced from meaning, like a lot of the Legion guys- but then you do the double take and realize it's a cognomen, a nickname Romans would receive based on great achievements or conquests-e.g. Scipio Africanus- and that implicitly this is the guy who helped sack the actual former city of Phoenix in Arizona. Stealth Future-imperfect trope, disguised at first glance because "Phoenix" is already a kind of grandiose mythologic-sounding word. And when you realize that, right, it's suddenly very funny, for the same basic reason The Republic of Dave is funny- grandiose terminology juxtaposed with a mundane name from the world we recognize. If it were Aurelius of Boise, Aurelius of Cincinnati, right, there are cities you could use in the pairing that would cause it to parse as much more of an explicit gag. So now it's silly in the way everything about the Legion is silly. But then it wraps back around to actually kind of unnerving, because first off, basically it's an offhand implication of something very nasty having gone down in Phoenix, A City From Real Life That We Recognize, in order for him to have gotten a whole Cognomen out of it. And second, it's obviously not a coincidence that his name doesn't sound dumb. Caesar isn't gonna let a subordinate quote-unquote "earn" a cognomen unless it's useful to him, unless it enhances the brand somehow, and having a guy named "Aurelius of Phoenix" walking around, well, it does do that! It feels calculated. It's not the kind of name that's downstream of cultural decay and half-remembered information. It's another example of how Caesar micromanages his slave army down to their very names, and how he lifts random superficial elements of Roman culture on an ad-hoc basis without integrating any of it on a deeper level. A lot going on, with this one guy's goofy name!

[sadrano]

Obi Wan: be careful with those old speeder bikes. They go boom very easily.

Anakin: ok, master!

*something detonating in the background*

Anakin, sitting behind Obi Wan: luckely I am a brilliant force-jumper!

Obi Wan, rolling his eyes: oh so good to me....

[somewherefornow]

Can you name your top 6 LoSH ships? (maybe why you choose them too? – I'd love to know)

Hi!! This is so hard bc LoSH has a lot of great ships! I’ll preface this by saying I’ve really only read the Preboot, Threeboot, and Retroboot so, yeah, probably missing a lot of good ones. But, in no particular order:

6. Block x Mysa

They have a lot of really good tropes going for them, the quiet girl with untapped power and the gentle giant. I like how they're both more introverted people who have this history of feeling sort of isolated from the rest of the Legion. It really allows them to create the sense that they're two people who can find a home in each other. There's interesting constrasts with them too, in that Blok is this super powerful person who would never want to hurt anyone, and Mysa is exactly the same, but while Blok's power you could see by looking at him, Mysa's is hidden. They have a really sweet arc in the Retroboot where Blok sticks by Mysa even after the dark energy she's absorbed has sort of stuck her in this constant battle for herself. Blok swears to be there for her, always, to remind her of who she is, and that's very sweet.

5. Gim x Cham

Like a lot of great ships, they've got a solid foundation of friendship. The later '84 series really had them teaming up a lot and working to try and protect each other. They've got some good chemistry too, with Gim more the jock and Cham more the theater kid. Gim is sort of straightforward while Cham can be unreadable, the contrast of the two makes their dynamic really interesting to me. I think there's also a crazy angst you could imagine in Cham not pursuing Gim out of a fear of rejection (because of the prejudices against Durlans) only for Gim to marry a Durlan (that isn't Cham). It's pretty wild! It's also interesting because Yera has such a dislike for Cham, it's easy to read it a different way. I also think Cham just should have gotten more to do in general. He's a top 10 legionnaire for me, for sure!

4. Brainy x Nura

I genuinely love their dynamic. Obviously, I'm very into Brainy x Kara and Nura x Thom, but I think the way these two characters both contrast and complement each other is really fascinating. I wrote some meta on it in the tags of a post about them that I'll leave here kind of speaking to what I find interesting about these two characters in relation to each other but yeah,

I actually got in a fight about this once where I said I thought Nura and Brainy felt like two of Levitz favorite characters (keeping in mind, as far as I've seen, he usually contends that his favorite was whoever he was writing in the moment). They just both feel like they're written with so much affection and their interactions always come across with so much charm and care, I think I just really started to look forward to seeing them on-page together and that really led to appreciating their dynamic more as a whole.

3. Garth x Imra x Rokk

"Funny I never realized how lonely my life had been until I met those two."

Rokk is sooooo in love with these oh my god. I genuinely just think this ship is the sweetest thing. These three came together with a dream to make the world a better place and they stuck together through it. The way these always seem to struggle so much when they're apart, you just know these three are meant to live their lives together. The Garth/Imra, Garth/Rokk, and Rokk/Imra are all equally compelling so it just makes Garth/Imra/Rokk feel intuitive. I love Rokk's relationship with Lydda and I think that's also pretty fun (to have the one of the main Legion Leaders with one of the Subs) but I always look forward to seeing the founders come back together. Garth and Imra face a lot of difficulties in the Preboot Era and things generally just feel so much more right and calm when Rokk is there with them. I really love all of Legionnaires 3 for showcasing their relationship. It's also sweet to see Rokk's pining in the Retroboot.

2. Brek x Dirk

It just makes sense, I really don't know what else to say. Fire Guy x Ice Guy. It's gonna get me every time. Dirk as the more cynical one, Brek as enthusiastic as ever! They're sweet. I feel like they're really only together in the Retroboot (I am thinking about Adventure Comics 09 and Legion of 3 Worlds specifically). I really can't say much else except that I think they're relationship's just really cute and they seem like they each give the other person some much needed balance.

1. Thom x Nura

I'm just obsessed with them, tbh. They have such a complicated relationship, it never fails to draw me in. The way Thom is secure enough in their relationship to let Nura flirt. The way Nura flirts but Thom is the one she always knows she's coming back to. Nura's strong independence at odds with her desire to communicate that she wants Thom with her, Thom's insecurity of not being enough for Nura at war with his need to love her despite that. I genuinely think I was gone on them the second Thom called her "my dream girl." That just got me, so good.

Thanks for the ask! I could talk Legion ships allllll day. :)