![[personal profile]](http://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
perletwo posting in ![[community profile]](http://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
scans_dailyWelcome, s_d, to the tale of a sweet, modest little romance that bloomed in the background of the Big Universe Saving plots of the 1980s Legion of Super-Heroes. It's the story of a new-agey crystal girl and her mineral balance.
Blok and the White Witch.
For Blok, the attraction was instantaneous - love at first sight, when Dream Girl summoned her sister Mysa to help the Legion combat the Servants of Darkness and their unseen master in LOSH #291.
Mysa was instrumental in stopping the Great Darkness and earned a battlefield commission to Legionnaire in so doing. Once the dust settled in #296, however, Blok didn't let the grass grow under his feet.
Poor guy - cockblocked by the married folk...
They hummed along in the background with light flirty things like this - I remember but couldn't find Mysa making Blok a jewel as a thank-you for volunteering for the thankless task of cleaning up the computer archives. That made a nice setup for some 'history' stories, and in Tales of the Legion #314-316 Blok and Mysa were featured in a backup tale covering the White Witch's origin story. But it's the framing sequences around the archive tape that we're interested in.
He watches a sequence of Mysa's early childhood as the second daughter of Naltor's High Seer, and the only person on the planet blind to the future, viewed there as a crippling handicap. When Nura and Mysa's mother dies, she takes off looking for the fabled, and maybe nonexistent, Sorceror's World, which impresses the heck out of Blok.
Busted!
Another archive tape sequence, of her struggling to gain her apprenticeship. Yes, this is a younger version of sometime Legion nemesis Mordru taking inappropriate notice of Mysa.
On the tape, Mordru enslaves Mysa, but she manages to get a S.O.S. out to her Legionnaire sister.
After they part, she muses in flashback about her redoubled efforts to study white magic, and in the art we see it slowly change her into the porcelain butterfly of her 80s look. She concludes the story deciding she is worthy and proud to be a Legionnaire.
That's where we leave it as the Legion's history fractures into different continuities and reboots. But in Final Crisis: Legion of 3 Worlds, those continuities all collide, and the White Witch is a big part of the story.
As we open, Mordru has taken advantage of the interdimensional chaos created by the Final Crisis to enslave Mysa again.
She helps them escape back to Legion HQ, and helps create the portal to bring the 3 Legions together. She also facilitates the seance to bring back Kid Flash. But the tide turns, in a very bad way, when Kinetix is killed.
"...and the sacrifice must be mine."
The effects of Mysa's sacrifice are felt immediately, and widely.
At the end of the story, as the multiversal Legionnaires regroup and separate, Mysa refuses to go home with them, returning instead to Sorceror's World. Blok can't understand why she'd go back to the site of her torture, and leave him behind.
In Adventure Comics #4 of that title's last reboot, Blok is literally climbing the walls he's so frantic to find Mysa. Only his ongoing injuries from FC:LO3W keep him from going after her. So Brainy sends him with the two Legionnaires he feels will be most sympatico on a journey to Sorceror's World.
And that's where they are now - on Sorceror's World, where Mysa rules and Blok is her consort. She's made it into a beautiful place again, and trained Glorith as her apprentice. She goes into a deep well to have her magical struggles against the Essence de Mordru inside her, for the protection of Blok and everyone else - should she fail, the whole planet will collapse on her, killing the black magicks' host. They've sent Glorith on to join first the Academy and now the Legion and keep a close watch over her through a scrying pool. It's not a happy ending, but they are happy, and together.
So now they're both on inactive status. But maybe someday they'll rejoin the Legion, and be cute and lighthearted again. Hope springs eternal, right?
Blok and the White Witch.
For Blok, the attraction was instantaneous - love at first sight, when Dream Girl summoned her sister Mysa to help the Legion combat the Servants of Darkness and their unseen master in LOSH #291.
Mysa was instrumental in stopping the Great Darkness and earned a battlefield commission to Legionnaire in so doing. Once the dust settled in #296, however, Blok didn't let the grass grow under his feet.
Poor guy - cockblocked by the married folk...
They hummed along in the background with light flirty things like this - I remember but couldn't find Mysa making Blok a jewel as a thank-you for volunteering for the thankless task of cleaning up the computer archives. That made a nice setup for some 'history' stories, and in Tales of the Legion #314-316 Blok and Mysa were featured in a backup tale covering the White Witch's origin story. But it's the framing sequences around the archive tape that we're interested in.
He watches a sequence of Mysa's early childhood as the second daughter of Naltor's High Seer, and the only person on the planet blind to the future, viewed there as a crippling handicap. When Nura and Mysa's mother dies, she takes off looking for the fabled, and maybe nonexistent, Sorceror's World, which impresses the heck out of Blok.
Busted!
Another archive tape sequence, of her struggling to gain her apprenticeship. Yes, this is a younger version of sometime Legion nemesis Mordru taking inappropriate notice of Mysa.
On the tape, Mordru enslaves Mysa, but she manages to get a S.O.S. out to her Legionnaire sister.
After they part, she muses in flashback about her redoubled efforts to study white magic, and in the art we see it slowly change her into the porcelain butterfly of her 80s look. She concludes the story deciding she is worthy and proud to be a Legionnaire.
That's where we leave it as the Legion's history fractures into different continuities and reboots. But in Final Crisis: Legion of 3 Worlds, those continuities all collide, and the White Witch is a big part of the story.
As we open, Mordru has taken advantage of the interdimensional chaos created by the Final Crisis to enslave Mysa again.
She helps them escape back to Legion HQ, and helps create the portal to bring the 3 Legions together. She also facilitates the seance to bring back Kid Flash. But the tide turns, in a very bad way, when Kinetix is killed.
"...and the sacrifice must be mine."
The effects of Mysa's sacrifice are felt immediately, and widely.
At the end of the story, as the multiversal Legionnaires regroup and separate, Mysa refuses to go home with them, returning instead to Sorceror's World. Blok can't understand why she'd go back to the site of her torture, and leave him behind.
In Adventure Comics #4 of that title's last reboot, Blok is literally climbing the walls he's so frantic to find Mysa. Only his ongoing injuries from FC:LO3W keep him from going after her. So Brainy sends him with the two Legionnaires he feels will be most sympatico on a journey to Sorceror's World.
And that's where they are now - on Sorceror's World, where Mysa rules and Blok is her consort. She's made it into a beautiful place again, and trained Glorith as her apprentice. She goes into a deep well to have her magical struggles against the Essence de Mordru inside her, for the protection of Blok and everyone else - should she fail, the whole planet will collapse on her, killing the black magicks' host. They've sent Glorith on to join first the Academy and now the Legion and keep a close watch over her through a scrying pool. It's not a happy ending, but they are happy, and together.
So now they're both on inactive status. But maybe someday they'll rejoin the Legion, and be cute and lighthearted again. Hope springs eternal, right?
Tags:
- creator: clayton henry,
- creator: geoff johns,
- creator: george perez,
- creator: george tuska,
- creator: karl kesel,
- creator: keith giffen,
- creator: larry mahlstedt,
- creator: paul levitz,
- event: final crisis,
- group: legion of super-heroes,
- publisher: dc comics,
- theme: cute romance week,
- title: adventure comics,
- title: legion of 3 worlds,
- title: legion of super-heroes
no subject
Date: 2012-02-20 02:28 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-20 02:41 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-20 12:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-20 02:55 am (UTC)I also think it's a lazy cliche playing the Dark Phoenix card with Mysa as the Black Witch...we all know it's gonna be resolved at some point with her going full-tilt villain, Blok appealing to her emotional side, and then her making some grand sacrifice because women can't hold power without going nuts.
no subject
Date: 2012-02-20 02:58 am (UTC)except this is not the dark phoenix card... Mysa WAS controlling the power...
i don't see her going "full tilt Villain" either. nor was there really any indication she would... at least as far as i read it...
no subject
Date: 2012-02-20 06:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-20 06:16 am (UTC)and honestly, i don't see the relationship being romantic as detrimental... if anything... it stays as sweet as it was before... (i want to be somebodys rock:((((( )
no subject
Date: 2012-02-20 08:14 am (UTC)I can somewhat understand Razsolo's problem there. There are few sweet male/female relationships in comics (and fiction in general), so it would be à shame to lose one of them.
Looking at the scans though, I have à hard time believing their relationship was ever anything but romantic. He's clearly enamoured with her at first sight.
no subject
Date: 2012-02-20 08:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-20 09:06 am (UTC)...but it just seems to me that she's being set up for a fall. The only way she can contain Mordru's evil is to exile herself to the Sorceror's World forever with Blok there as her emotional support...I think it's inevitable that at some point she will end up giving in to the dark side/being taken over by Mordru/losing control/some variation of the above, and the only way she will be able to defeat him is to either die or lose her power altogether.
At the moment she is basically the most powerful mage of the 31st century that we know of, and being the most powerful anything doesn't seem to bode well for female characters in comics historically...
I would be super happy to be proven wrong because I like Mysa and I think being the caretaker of the magic of two universes could lead to a more interesting direction for her than being an active Legionnaire...but I just think of characters like Raven, Donna Troy, the Scarlet Witch, Jean Grey/Phoenix, Sersi in the Avengers, Illyana in the New Mutants, Supergirl in recent times...it's a pretty common thing in comics for powerful women to end up going crazy and/or evil and while some of them bounce back pretty quickly, some of them don't ever really recover from it at all... :\
no subject
Date: 2012-02-20 01:04 pm (UTC)A better analogy than Dark Phoenix might be wee Illyana trying to make something beautiful grow out of her bloodstone, only to have it rot from inside due to Mephisto's evil. If I'm right.
The sacrifice she refers to, I think, is giving up the luxury of dealing exclusively with pure white magics. To win the battle, and save the universe from Mordru, she had to get her hands dirty so to speak, because when he absorbed Kinetix the mystical shit got real.
I'll allow as how the Legion girls always get shuffled off into relationships pretty quick, but a lot of that goes all the way back to the original Adventure Comics days. My feeling about their platonic thing, somewhat reflected in these scans, is that while Blok had it bad right from the jump, Mysa held herself aloof from close relationships with all the Legionnaires for whatever reason. (Something to do with distracting her focus maybe? New Teen Titans' Raven would be the best analogy there.) But once she made the sacrifice, that was another luxury she couldn't allow herself - she now needs Blok's emotional support, and he's the only one physically durable enough to maybe survive if the black magic overwhelms her.
no subject
Date: 2012-02-20 10:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-20 03:47 am (UTC)...yeah, I wouldn't hold my breath.
no subject
Date: 2012-02-20 01:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-20 06:14 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-20 01:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-20 12:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-20 01:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-20 10:55 pm (UTC)That said, the Black Witch is also a terrific look, and I like the idea of her absorbing and cleansing Mordru's magic slowly and gradually (it seems more in keeping with her approach than sudden "Zap-kazazzle!, everything's hunky dory again!"
And Mysa and Blok always were a cute couple.