Legion of Super-heroes #63

[iamrman]

Writers: Mark Waid and Tom McCraw

Pencils: Lee Moder, Brian Apthorp and Scott Benefiel

Inks: Ron Boyd and Tom Simmons

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The Legion moves in to their new headquarters.

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The Legion take a look around their new headquarters.

The Legion are called away on a mission and encounter this weirdo.

I guess Matter-Eater Lad was too silly for the new Legion, so he got demoted to chef.

Comments

[beyondthefringe]

Tenzil and Chuck (Bouncing Boy) don't get a lot of respect in post-reboot Legion teams. Sure, they're silly, but part of the fun of the Legion has always been that in the right circumstances, they'll accept some pretty second-rate members so long as they're useful or maybe just have a nice personality.

Though to be fair, Tenzil got written out of the title a lot even before that. Drafted to serve in Bismoll politics, driven insane by eating the Miracle Machine--writers seemed to have trouble finding good uses for him.

I'm surprised he didn't get an upgraded codename. Omnivore, perhaps.

In re-reading an article about him (https://majorspoilers.com/2007/05/20/hero-history-matter-eater-lad/)
I started wondering just how the heck his power actually works. I mean, he can bite through anything, and digest just about anything -- either his people have equivalent of Wolverine's claws for teeth, or... maybe it's actually a strange form of molecular dissolution that just manifests through the act of eating. He's not -biting- so much as dissolving stuff and absorbing/metabolizing it, much like the "destroyer" element of Power Pack.

Much like Calorie Queen, Bismoll's other hero, who eats stuff and converts the energy into strength.

[full_metal_ox]

Much like Calorie Queen, Bismoll's other hero, who eats stuff and converts the energy into strength.

Which sounds somewhat like Akimichi Chouji in Naruto (and it rather bugs me that he keeps getting fat-shamed as a running gag, since his weight and caloric intake are the basis of his power.)

And then there’s Yoshitomi Akihito’s Eat-Man, who eats useful items and carries them in an internal hammerspace for later reassembly and deployment. From what I remember of his stories, they were fairly formulaic (he’d take the mission and rescue the Chick of the Week), but a lot of the fun consisted in the narrative playing fair: they’d establish what Bolt Crank had in inventory, and the question would be what imaginative and sometimes recombinatory use he’d find for it.

(On one occasion, Bolt broke out of prison by eating his way through the wall—-and shortly thereafter, pursued by a helicopter, remembered he conveniently had a huge slab of brick wall to throw at it.)