And now- a trio of Legionnaires most iconic for DYING!

FERRO LAD (Andrew Nolan, aka Ferro)

Ferro Lad- The Legion’s Sacrifice:
-Ferro Lad is one of those little hints that the Legion series, in spite of it’s goofiness, was a little more serious than many other books at the time. Where else could a team book actually have a character DIE in one of his first missions? This was pretty much brand new stuff for comics at the time (I mean, a SUPER-HERO… DYING?), and was done very well, showing Ferro Lad knock out Superboy himself and fly a bomb into the heart of a Sun-Eater, sacrificing his life to save the entire universe. This gave the goofy-named kid in the terrible costume (I mean… “Fe” on the front? At least the Metal Men had COOL symbols to use) a lifelong credibility he would never have gained otherwise, and he became a Legion legend for it. And he coulda been black, but Mort Weisinger (who I would bet money is a racist) forced Shooter to change it, saying “We’d lose our distribution in the South.” Ah, THE SOUTH. And because Shooter couldn’t do what he wanted with the guy, he chose him for his “Someone should die in this story” situation.

Ferro Lad thus stuck out as a great sacrifice and a true hero- his fellow recruits were Princess Projectra, Karate Kid & Nemesis Kid- the latter of which turned out to be evil. It was very soon into his run that he died, and he would be referred to a great deal afterwards. He was “brought back” in a manner of speaking near the end of the first continuity as one of the “SW6” clones. Since the clone was created very shortly before Ferro Lad’s death, this was in essence a resurrection of the same character (now called “Ferro”), but the book ended not to long afterwards.

Reboot:
-The Post-Zero Hour team featured a “Dorky Younger Guy” type Ferro, which I thought was a rather brilliant move. His death was a legendary moment in LOSH history, but if you’ve got an all-new continuity to play with, why NOT break out one of the old toys that went un-used? I mean, you’re not gonna replicate the exact same story anyways, right? And that he was mostly known for DYING means you can constantly have his death hanging over the book. And it’s kinda neat to give people a look at a guy who never really got his chance to be a regular character.

In this version, Ferro was the son of a 20th Century actress who’d abandoned her children for their grotesque facial deformities. An unscrupulous scientist raised them, but Andrew left for the Legion (who were in the past at the time), becoming one of their early members. He befriended Karate Kid and was fused to his helmet for a while. He did not appear in the Threeboot continuity, nor did he return for the revival of the Silver Age group (since he was, rather famously, dead in that version).

CHEMICAL KING (Condo Arlik)

-Chemical King, next to Kid Psycho, is pretty easily the least-known and important member of the Pre-Reboot Legion of Super-Heroes, as given by his hard-to-define powers and limited appearances. His “debut” was actually in a story set in the LOSH’s future, where his statue appeared among a list of their Honored Dead Legionnaires- his inclusion onto the main book’s roster meant he was created LITERALLY JUST TO DIE- at the time, the “Adult Legion” stories were meant to be glimpses into the future.

The writers at the time introduced him (going undercover in the Legion of Super-Villains), then put him right into the background, simply because it’s impossible to write enough situations for a guy who can set some things on fire and make other things rust- he eventually was able to stun people by slowing their body chemistry down, which he stated COULD be used to kill them- but that was against the Legion Code. Granted, a Ranged Stun effect is still actually a pretty good weapon. And shockingly, he was around for NINE YEARS. My favourite bit is when he uses his powers to convince Element Lad that he’d executed Roxxas, the murderer of his entire race, because he knew that once Element Lad had carried out the execution, he would be horrified at his own actions. Thus- crisis averted!

He got some use here and there, but the shy, introverted Chemical King was doomed, using his powers to save everyone from World War VII. Reboot Condo was basically just a newscaster, so we never really saw much of him again. The Post-Infinite Crisis Legion saw a “Chemical Kid” join the Legion Trainees, using a modification of the formula that gave Chemical King his powers.

KID PSYCHO (Gnill Opral)

-Kid Psycho is a classic weird one-shot character emblematic of DC’s Silver Age- he was born a mutant as a result of his parents getting some radiation thrown at them, and got Mind-Over-Matter Powers as a result. However, his powers had a HUGE flaw- each use of them would lower his life expectancy by one year (how they discovered this I have NO idea), and so he was rejected for Legion of Super-Heroes membership. He went into the past (casually, I guess…?) to implore Superboy to speak on his behalf, and he did- the Legion promised to use him only for emergencies. However, even DARKSEID unleashing three billion Daxamites on the universe wasn’t enough of an emergency, as Legion writers basically felt free to just ignore this goofy concept and character (the giant head & turban wasn’t a help, I would imagine).

But of course, there was ONE story where he’d be perfect- see, for their magnum opus, Crisis on Infinite Earths, Marv Wolfman & George Perez had basically created a situation where every creative team had to “Sacrifice” a character to their big story- the gigantic storm of character deaths would help make this one of the most important stories of all time. Many creators were REALLY annoyed about this apparently (though I haven’t read enough about that era to know the specifics), particularly when Wolfman & Perez copped out of their end of the bargain by creating a Titan JUST to die in their Teen Titans book (this would be Kole, who was around for like half a year or something). But the Legion writers, who apparently couldn’t pick one of 26 people to off, instead trotted out “Emergency Member” Kid Psycho, who tried to save some people in France with his powers, but got knocked out and was killed by the oncoming Anti-Matter Wave in the series’ opening issues. Which is a REALLY admirable cop-out, when you think about it- answering a “Whatever happened to?” question while snipping off some of the excess characters while they’re at it.

Kid Psycho appears in neither the Reboot nor Threeboot continuities, and he’s only seen as a past member in the Post-Infinite Crisis books.