Legion of Super-Heroes 297
And Everything Else About Him
For all Cosmic Boy lovers out there, this is the issue for you : Spotlight on Cosmic Boy.
Right from the page one splash page we get a demonstration of just how powerful Cosmic Boy's magnetics are. Here he is holding back a starship!
I've never seen magnetic powers better rendered than Giffen's way of doing it.
Cosmic Boy doesn't only pull down the ship. He rips it apart.
Inside the ship are three terrorists who put Cosmic Boy's family in the hospital. He explains how he is able to pull them out.
I'm not even going to ask whether blood has enough iron for magnetics or if its possible to move the body around using it. Just enjoy the comic, man. Before Rokk becomes a murderer his girlfriend stops him.
This is Night Girl from the Legion of Substitute Heroes.
Ok, that needs some explaining. The Legion of Substitute Heroes is a group formed by a bunch of, well, Legion rejects. They got rejected because of 'insufficient powers'. Nonetheless, its a free United Planets, so the Substitute Heroes continue to operate and lend a hand from time to time. Night Girl is a founding member. She has super strength. We're talking Superman-level strength here, but, yes, but, only at night or in deep shadow. Awesome power, awesome weakness, Night Girl deserves a limited series.
When Cosmic Boy finally wakes up, he realizes what happened and hugs Night Girl for stopping him. There are just some moments when we are not in control. Today I was in one of those malls were there was just no parking space. My family was with me and I made some wrong decisions and lost a precious parking slot to another driver. My entire family ripped into me, really talking me down. But I've been around a long time, and I realized that it really wasn't them talking; it was the out of control emotion. There are just moments when our mind plus our emotions combine and make us talk or act in a way that we wouldn't if we calmed down and really looked at the situation. I advised them to be patient and we found parking a few minutes later.
Now we get a flashback to the origin of Cosmic Boy. Amazingly, there really isn't any origin. Everybody on his planet, Braal, has magnetic powers! The next question is what makes Cosmic Boy so special. The slightly lame answer is that he is a bit more powerful than the average Braalan - at least I'm hoping the average Braalan can't take down and rip apart a starship. But really, an entire planet of people with magnetic powers?
Oh yeah, Cosmic Boy mentions one other thing just as crazy. In Braal they have a five generation recession. That's just so insane its funny.
The flashback also shows the first Legion Headquarters. The clubhouse that looks like the bottom half of an upside down rocket - very Golden Age.
Then we have this great snapshot of the early Legion.
Cosmic Boy then visits his parents and brother, victims of a nuclear explosion. He's not allowed to go to the intensive care unit; an occasion were we get to see him magnetically break electronic locks.
Rokk soon learns that his Mom has died. Once again the rage takes over and we get to see yet another use of his power - flight. It turns out flying by utilizing a planets magnetic waves is faster than via Legion flight ring.
What's about to happen is that Cosmic Boy really is about to kill his Mom's murderers; then some Legion members arrive. They are about to stop him but Sunboy does something brilliant: He tells the others to leave Cosmic Boy alone. Not because Sunboy wants him to kill, because Sunboy realizes that Cosmic Boy has to face this on his own - Cosmic Boy needs to know who he is in the face of this. I'm shocked. Isn't Sunboy supposed to be a bit of an airhead? Anyway. . . I was watching Suze Orman's show a while back and she was talking to a Mom who kept giving her thirty-something daughter financial assistance and Suzie was like, you have to stop doing this Mommy, you have to let your daughter face this on her own and grow. This Cosmic Boy situation is exactly the same thing.
Here's the final decision
And here's how Rokk feels about that decision of his
I'm very satisfied about how this issue not only gives us the story but manages to showcase the many ways Cosmic Boy can utilize his powers. Compared to the other Legionnaires I'm placing Rokk's power levels right under the big guns : Mon El, Ultraboy and Superboy. I'm still bothered by his entire planet having the same power he does though. Somebody retcon this one in the DCnU.
Posted by Pete Albano - October 8,2011
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