Wednesday, July 18, 2007

Review of the Super-Human Detritus of the 30th Century, Part 10, By Johnathan

This one's a follow-up issue of the old Super Detritus series. Since there's all kinds of Legion of Super-Heroes comics out there, with all kinds of crazy nerdlingers writing them, there's a pretty good chance that any goofy Legion reject will show up more than once if you read for long enough. Not that I'm complaining, mind you. I love that kind of stuff. I'm just warning you all so that you don't complain when I start writing about *sigh* Crystal Kid again.

See how long it takes you to guess who I'm dredging up today!

The setup: Legion of Super-Heroes No. 305. For the last few issues Colossal Boy has been dating Shrinking Violet. People start getting suspicious, because Colossal Boy is creepy around women and Violet had a much cooler boyfriend in Duplicate Boy. Turns out that SV'd been replaced by a Durlan actress by some sort of underground movement back on Imsk, so an infiltration is arranged:


Spooky dark rebel headquarters, complete with shapeshifter-containment bag? Check. Turns out that there's a faction on Imsk that wants to secede from the United Planets and they've kidnapped Violet to pump her for information.


Ah! Literally! Dude, that's a pretty creepy info-extraction setup right there. This underground faction is pretty serious, I guess. The Legion'd better watch out and... wait. Who is that?


Dude! It's Micro Lad! Possibly the lamest of the so-called Legion of Super-Rejects! This, my friends, is why Imsk is still in the UP. Seriously, Micro Lad?


That Micro Lad? He's who you've chosen to lead your conspiracy? First off, he's a jerk. An unoriginal jerk with a glass jaw and bad hair. Secondly, he was born, raised and lives on a planet populated entirely by people who can shrink at will, yet still goes by the name Micro Lad on a day-to-day basis. It's be like me calling myself Able To Breathe Guy or the Has a Spine Kid. The guy's trying really hard to have delusions of grandeur but can't quite get it right.


See? He installed spooky mood lighting for when he talks to prisoners but he ruins it by making piggy faces. (For those of you keeping track, Durlan actress posing as Shrinking Violet turned out to be Chameleon Boy posing as Durlan actress posing as Shrinking Violet. And he's pissed.)
Take a good look at this panel because it's the high point of Micro Lad's life. Immediately after his little gloat Chameleon Boy busts out and Legionnaires start popping up everywhere.

Micro Lad shows off his mad thinking skills by deciding that a hostage would be a good thing to have:


But...


Gets completely taken down by Braniac 5. The rebellion on Imsk lasts roughly five minutes after the Legionnaires pull their heads out of their asses long enough to notice that something's up. In the parlance of my video game playing chums: they got owned.

I used to feel slightly sorry for Micro Lad. He was obviously a sheep, blindly following Phantom Lad and Esper Lass until he got his clock cleaned by Phantom Girl. He just had bad advice and judgment and friends, I said to myself. Turns out I was wrong. Micro Lad is a genuine, Grade A jerkwad. Boo to you, sir. Booooooooooooooooo.

NOT APPROVED

2 comments:

Cap'n Neurotic said...

This issue contains one of my all-time favorite Legion moments, when Cham pulls his "Repeat after me, not all Durlans are the same" bit. Who's stronger now, huh, Chameleon Kid?

Skeleton Munroe said...

Yeah, seeing Micro Lad get taken down a few pegs is pretty great. Grimbor aside, I don't know that I'd pin all my hopes on putting a Durlan in a bag.