Jab’s Legion of Super-Heroes Reviews: Quislet, Tellus & Rond Vidar

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QUISLET
-I keep forgetting this thing was on the original Legion, not the Reboot one.

-Quislet is perhaps the least-known and most minor Legionnaire ever (and that’s saying something), being one of the few non-humanoid members. A tiny little spaceship imbued with an alien energy, Quislet was a prankster and annoyance, acting sorta like Wheelie from Transformers but less Satanic, bothering his teammates and talking about how great he was. Quislet was always referred to as “he”, despite being a genderless construct.

-Quislet turns out to have stolen the spaceship and imbued it with his own life-force, and used to to travel the stars. He also helped Wildfire form a corporeal body! However, when the Emerald Empress destroyed his ship, he had to return to his homeworld of Teall, where he was captured. His ultimate fate is left unknown, but it’s believed that his people were about to wipe out his personality- tantamount to execution.

-With his super-complicated powers and inhuman appearance, he was doomed to a short run. And yes, they really did the “Poochie died on the way back to his home planet” ending. Though seen as “Missing” and as a statue in Legion headquarters in the Post-Infinite Crisis era, Quislet showed up in the “New 52” era as a roving “Cameraman” for the Legion as they entered the 21st Century.

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TELLUS (Ganglios)
-Tellus is another of those “non-humanoid” Legionnaires, one of the first, in fact, coming in during the later years of the original continuity. Basically more of a background guy half the time, he was an aquatic yellow creature with a big tail, who had Telekinesis & Telepathy (avoiding the “Same Power Problem” that others had since Saturn Girl was off the team in this era). He did some stuff with the Legion Academy, eventually getting inducted onto the team at the same time as Polar Boy, Magnetic Kid, Sensor Girl & Quislet, sort of a “new era” for the book. He had some adventures, but was gone by the “Five Years Later” storyline (he’d joined a criminal organization called the “Dark Circle” by then), which didn’t help his chances when the Legion reboots started happening.

-So his time was one of the shortest, being only a few years long, and he never made it back onto any Rebooted team. But that’s kind of what happens to non-humanoid characters in comics- the best you can hope for is a Hulk/Maul/Blok kind of thing where they’re just KIND OF “off”- going full-blown E.T. on everybody just makes people gloss them over or go over the top with them, and they nearly always fail in comics. He HAS appeared a few times in recent history, however, including a team that R.J. Brande sent to the 21st Century, and in the 2011 Legion Lost New 52 book.

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ROND VIDAR, GREEN LANTERN OF EARTH
-Rond Vidar is an older character reflecting DC’s history by being a Green Lantern in the Legion’s time period- though he started off as merely a genius scientist who saved the Legion from his evil father, Universo. He was eventually recruited into the Corps- something he kept secret from the Legion, since Green Lanterns were barred from Earth following the actions of the last one from that Space Sector (Universo himself). He hooked up with Andromeda (lucky bastard) and retired from the GLC after his ring was destroyed fighting Mordru.

-He showed up in the “Reboot” era as a time-travel researcher with no mention of his prior backstory (Universo was different in this continuity). This also let the artists indulge in their fetish for Doctor Who, as he wore various costumes worn by some of the Doctors. He was brought back for the post-Infinite Crisis “Unboot”, but got skooshed by Superboy-Prime and the Legion of Super-Villains, valiantly holding his own for a long time until the other Legionnaires escaped. His ring returned to the last Guardian- Sodam Yat, who returned to action and became just another guy in the fold.

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