What did Bouncing Boy and Duo Damsel do to deserve this? A reread of LSH #46-55, Annual #4

As I'm writing this, I'm currently fighting a fever. So if anything written here makes no sense at all, blame a fever-induced hallucination.

On October 28, 2973, Chuck Taine (Bouncing Boy) and Luornu Durgo (Duo Damsel) became the first Legionnaires to get married and leave the team. This all occurred in Superboy #200, written by Cary Bates and drawn by Dave Cockrum.

It's not a great story - Chuck has lost his powers and will have to leave the team, so he decides to propose to Luornu, she says yes, and they almost immediately have a wedding. But all is not so peaceful - she's lost her powers as well and can no longer split into two. This is because the original Starfinger (with the crazy-bad costume) has kidnapped the other self. Superboy has to give the engaged body to Starfinger so they can reunite.

Oh, and Brainiac 5 has the great comment that she doesn't need superpowers anymore - she's going to be a wife! Ahh, the early 70's.

To be honest, you can tell that Bates probably just wanted to have a big event for the 200th issue and wanted to get rid of two characters who nobody really cared about. Or that he didn't want to write them anymore.

So for 15 years in real time (let's say 5 in comic time), Bouncing Boy and Duo Damsel were the married couple who would show up once every two years, usually for a giant-sized issue, remind everyone that they used to be Legionnaires, eventually took over the Legion Academy, and accomplished very little else. They were married but never had children and they were former Legionnaires but they never once talked about rejoining.

And yet, for every reboot, they're always front and center in every incarnation. Well, Luornu is, whether she's Triplicate Girl or Triad. Chuck was a big part of the Zero Hour reboot but I don't remember him showing up in the Mark Waid book.

But that's a topic for another day.

For this, after re-reading the whole Conspiracy story line that ran from issues 46 through 50, I'm wracking my head trying to figure out why Paul Levitz and Keith Giffen hate both of them so much.

Issue #46 - Hey, Duo Damsel's on the cover of a book that isn't a flashback... hmmm...

After Superboy's death, four Legionnaires decide to kill the Time Trapper. Mon-El, Brainiac 5, Saturn Girl, and Duo Damsel swear an oath to do whatever it takes, and possibly die, in order to stop the Time Trapper and make him pay for what he did to Superboy.

Okay, I understand why Mon-El and Brainiac 5 would do this. But why would Saturn Girl? Why would she be willing to risk her life, and never see her husband and children again, to get revenge against an all-powerful villain? I don't remember her being especially close to Superboy - they were friends, but nothing more than that. She also acts so completely out of character for these issues that she's almost unrecognizable.

And the Duo Damsel motivation is even worse. She states that she loved Superboy once, even though he ignored her and didn't reciprocate her feelings. And that's enough to throw away her long-time marriage to Bouncing Boy and possibly die? A high-school crush that went nowhere is more important then her life right now?

For four issues there are two story lines running through this book - the conspiracy and Chameleon Boy's hunt for Starfinger (the new one with the better (maybe??) costume). I honestly preferred the Starfinger story line because it was true to the characters and made some sense. And it's always nice to see Pat Broderick's artwork on the Legion.

Issue #48 also marks the last issue for Greg LaRocque, who unfortunately leaves the Legion not with a bang but with a whimper. I'm sure that must have been a rough conversation, when he was told that Keith Giffen is coming back with issue #50 and he's out of a job. Let's raise a glass to his excellent work on the Legion - he really embraced the sci-fi elements, designed some great looks for some of the characters, and made the book his own.

Issue #50

Fans of the Legion were ecstatic with the news that Keith Giffen was coming back to pencil and co-plot the book. The dream team was back together.

But, which Giffen would we see? The clean artwork at the beginning of his Legion run or the dark, ink-heavy work at the end?

We'd end up seeing a combination of the two. Within just a few pages, he's already made tons of changes. Some are big, like a complete re-creation of Metropolis. Some are small, like Bouncing Boy's horrible mustache.

In this issue, the four conspirators, plus a recently returned-from-the-dead Rond Vidar head off to face the Time Trapper, using the Infinite Man's body as a catalyst. White Witch is not happy they're using this body, so she disappears.

The four Legionnaires try their best to fight but, to be honest, none of them are capable of going against the Time Trapper. They fight one-by-one, get demolished, and one of Duo Damsel's bodies is destroyed. So now she's just... Damsel?? Sorry, bad joke there.

Rond Vidar is revealed to be a Green Lantern (the culmination of a super-long storyline) and, when the Infinite Man comes back to life and fights the Time Trapper, they are finally able to defeat him... kinda... The five are sent back to Legion headquarters, battered and bloodied.

The fallout from this issue continues for the rest of this series, but I'll just recap some of the big stories:

• Shadow Lass takes a badly-injured and barely-alive Mon-El on a quest across the galaxy to try to save him.
• Polar Boy charges Brainiac with the death of the Infinite Man, the Legion votes on whether he can stay, but he resigns and heads back to Colu.
• White Witch quits and heads back to the Sorcerer's World.

And now, the aside you've all been waiting for: What happened with Duo Damsel and Bouncing Boy?

Before writing this, I decided to bore my wife with this story line and see how she felt about it. I asked her to imagine this: your partner took off and almost died in an attempt to get revenge for the death of a person they used to be in love with, but never dated, and was willing to die and leave you, without actually telling you what they were doing. How would you feel?

Her response: "WTF?"

So yeah, the fact that Bouncing Boy didn't have any reaction at all, aside from to support his wife, is insane to me. They could've had a great story line here, where he walks out, leaves her, and tries to figure out what to do with his life. Anything would've been better than what they did. What did Bouncing Boy do to get treated so badly?

And as far as Duo Damsel goes, why even include her in this? She has no powers, aside from splitting into two. And is that really a power? They're going against an insanely-powerful supervillain. Did no one think, "Maybe you should sit this one out?" I think the only reason she was included was so they could kill a character, but not really kill a character.

I also don't remember a scene where Lightning Lad laid into Saturn Girl, angry about her bad choices. But that could just be my faulty memory.

Annual #4

We get a Brian Bolland cover and Barry Kitson artwork within? How can we go wrong?

I've slagged the whole Starfinger saga for a while, and justifiably so, and here we get the final chapter. I don't know if this happens very much these days (do they even still print annuals?), but it used to be commonplace for writers to build long-term stories and wrap them up in annuals. Marv Wolfman was a master at this in the New Teen Titans. I always liked this approach because it made the annuals feel like they had value, if that makes any sense. When DC and Marvel started doing annuals that were themed, and had no connection to the regular stories, I wondered why I was spending so much money on comics that I didn't need to buy.

I've always loved Legion Espionage Squad stories and this is no different. I've mentioned many times in the past that Levitz handles the "weaker" Legionnaires better than almost anyone, and this is especially true with this team. Adding Dawnstar and Colossal Boy just makes this an even better mix of personalities. It's funny how I ended up enjoying the Starfinger stories when they stopped focusing on the villain and started focusing on the individual members of the team.

My only criticism of this book is the bad combination of artist and inkers. Even though this is one of Barry Kitson's first DC books, and he's still growing as an artist, I really feel that the inkers didn't do his work justice and it comes across very odd-looking. He will go one to be one of the best.

Issue #54

I just wanted to include this cover as a perfect example of the new Giffen artwork. You either love it or hate it, right? There really is no middle ground.

Everyone on the team gets new costumes. Which are... functional?? I'm trying to think of an adjective that is slightly positive. It's funny. Most of Giffen's changes to make the book look more futuristic and epic work really well. But the costumes just don't work at all. As Timber Wolf said, "They make me itch."

Random thoughts about this run:

• I really liked the way they wrote the Lightning Lass/Magnetic Kid subplot. She's interested in getting to know him better, and he's completely clueless, probably because he sees her as something like an older sister.
• I've said it before and I'll say it again, the best parts of Levitz's run are always the quiet moments when the team is hanging out together. The little character interactions there, in the less-important times, are what make the book work. When they're testing out Luornu's new force shield belt (given to her by Brainiac 5 after the Time Trapper fiasco) and they almost destroy the Academy because they didn't know the belt's strength, it's the trainees who are quick to criticize the former Legionnaires. It's those bits that I enjoy the most.
• Polar Boy's continued growth as leader is a great subplot. When he finally "breaks" and charged Brainiac 5 with murder, finally taking charge, and finally doing something against those he adored for so long, it's yet another piece in his development. It's really unfortunate how badly he was handled in the 5YL series.
• Dream Girl's self-destructive romance with Atmos was a great running story. When it's finally resolved, as she realizes she's being mind-controlled, it makes sense and shows the character's strength. It's a story that works for the characters.
• With the benefit of hindsight, it's weird reading Levitz and Giffen set up subplots with this book so close to the end. By issue 55, they knew this run was coming to a close and they were going to relaunch the book. So why were they starting subplots that they knew they were never going to resolve?

The biggest takeaway from this run, especially once Giffen joins, is you can start to see the dark, more mature plots coming to the forefront. From the new costumes, to the new dark look of the series, it's a precursor to what was coming with 5YL.

Okay, next week is the end of LSH Volume 3. My plan right now is to start with the reread and then go into something I'm tentatively calling "How the 80's wrecked the Legion". It'll be a fun retrospective about everything that was happening around the book that contributed to its fall from being one of DC's top-selling books. Let's hope it makes sense.