30 Days of Winter Day 24: Invisible Kid's Last Try

[randyripoff]

One of my favorite comic book deaths, probably because it was my first.

From Superboy #203, written by Cary Bates, art by Mike Grell.

I've chosen not to reproduce the first 13 or so pages of this comic, mainly just to keep the page count legal. So, a quick summary of the events up until now.

The story begins with several uniformed invaders entering Legion headquarters, attempting to access the Legion museum. All are thwarted save one, who turns out to be Element Lad. That's right, it's a Legion training exercise--but there should have been a Legionnaire on duty in the museum. It turns out that Invisible Kid was on duty, but he appears collapsing on the floor.

They take him to the infirmary and after a mento scan then find that he was more or less shirking his duties, as he was visiting another dimension at the time to see his up to now unknown girlfriend Myla. Her dimension only seems accessible to Invisible Kid, as his powers allow him to visit the dimension. Well, current Legion leader Mon-El is pissed, and forbids him from turning invisible for a week. Invisible Kid isn't happy, but accepts his punishment. He plans to return to the dimension after his punishment is over and ask Myla to be his wife.


Meanwhile, Dream Girl has one of her premonitions, and it's a doozy. Validus is on his way to attack. Since the only way that Validus can be controlled is by Tharok, Superboy hightails it to Takron-Galtos to check up on the half-man, half-robot member of the fatal five. He finds this:



Meanwhile, the Legion is tracking a fast flying, object that's just entered their solar system:







Remember, this is the same Superboy who at the time could easily move planets around. Validus takes him out like the trash. Sun Boy and Karate Kid try, but they're less than useless.

Mon-El has a go:



Nope. So that's the two most powerful Legionnaires tossed aside like rag dolls.

However, Invisible Kid's figured out how Validus is being controlled. Remember that whole "Legion Museum" thing? Well, one of the items on display is Tharok's robot brain. That's how Validus is being controlled.

Unfortunately, Invisible Kid has run out of time.



All's not too terrible for Lyle, however. He gets to be with his lady love:




One of the reasons I've always loved this story is seeing just how much of a bad ass Validus really was. He pretty much punked the Legion out without breaking a sweat. I don't think he's given this sort of treatment anymore.

Comments

[silverzeo]

.... why was Validus's nose was with his brain?

[randyripoff]

Not sure, but that was the initial character design.

[aaron_bourque]

. . . Why does Validus have a nose? And full, luscious lips?

[randyripoff]

From everything I've seen, he was drawn with a nose and mouth at this point.

[nezchan]

Phantom Girl seems to have been jealous, and stuck on some wax lips in that last panel.

[grimmbear]

With all of the restarts is Validus actually one of Lightning Lad and Saturn girl's twins?

[khaosworks]

Yep, he is. In present continuity he's been reverted back to human (and child) form.

[keeva]

Lyle portrayed as heterosexual still bothers me.

[cleome45]

Maybe he batted for both teams...?

[meicdon13]

I don't know much about the Legion, but didn't he have a thing with Braniac 5?

[cleome45]

That was sort of implied if you squint at certain scenes in the original (think of how emo Brainy got when they visited Lyle's grave post-Crisis). But it was more a Reboot thing, I think. Because there he actually kissed Lyle on the cheek at some point.

[elsewhere7.livejournal.com]

Yeah, in Post-ZH Legion, Lyle was written/intended as gay (http://www.slushfactory.com/features/interviews/jeffmoy.shtml) but the creators came down with a sudden case of chickenshit when it came to stating it.

The kiss from Brainy came near the end of DnA's Legion run, and just seemed tacked on since they never followed up on it, which was pretty lazy on their part.

Then, Lyle got de-gayed by the Waid then Shooter threeboot, and I don't think either writer really thought about how offense some folks might see that.

[cleome45]

[sigh] Yeah. Shooter's, er, issues with gays have been documented on this very site. Waid, I don't know so much about.

The skittishness about just letting a dude openly have a boyfriend at this late date is ridiculous. I wish TPTB would stop treating me like some kind of frail flower whose feeble hetero brain is going to collapse in on itself should I happen to see such things in my comics.

(I confess that the fandom that lives in my head tends to be about 99% bisexual. I just hate the thought of anyone feeling excluded. ;) )

[randyripoff]

Hmm. It's funny, coming at the Legion from a primarily pre-Crisis period, I've always known Lyle and the rest of theLegionnaires as heterosexual. Mind you, it doesn't bother me that there are gay Legionnaires post-Crisis, nor would it have bugged me before then. However, I can't imagine being offended either way the characters are portrayed, at least not in terms of sexual preference or identity.

[bruinsfan]

Yeah, I read Legion as a kid, and in the Levitz-GIffen era, so I'm not perturbed by major revisions to the characters being overturned and them going back to their default state. (Though I do miss the Shrinking Violet/Lightning Lass relationship from the dystopian Legion stories.) It's not as if they're running Northstar through reparation therapy, ya know?

[badficwriter]

I miss this coloring.

[randyripoff]

I do too, very much. Computer coloring is great, but it seems like all the colorists now want to use every single color at their disposal in every page.

Of course, it probably helps that these are scanned from the Legion Archives (and btw, DC, think about publishing a few more of these...I know I'd buy them) and not from the original comics (I wish I had all the comics I owned when I was a kid, but I don't).

[pallas_athena]

I hadn't seen this scene before! Hurrah, Legion love.

Invisible Kid went out like a hero... and was replaced by Pepe Le Pew. Ah well.

[cleome45]

Don't be ragging on Jacques now. If a stripe was good enough for Steve Canyon, it's good enough for anyone, damnit!

[psychopathicus_rex]

Has Validus always had a face on his brain? I thought it was just a regular brain - that's always how I've seen it.