The Least Helpful Legionnaire?

In the Legion story from Action Comics #387 (April 1970) the Legion is faced with the problem of having to drop one member to meet a heretofore unmentioned, archaic membership limit rule.

Brainiac 5 hits on the idea of asking the Legion's computer to tell them, "Which Legionnaire is the least helpful to the group?" The idea is that the computer would tell them the least powerful, or least useful, or least active member.....but we really don't get any criteria other than this one panel (above) reprinted from the story in question.

So we here at the Legion of Super-Bloggers thought it would be a fun experiment for a few of us to throw out our ideas as to who WE thought was "the least helpful" Legionnaire.

The only rules are 1. the Legionnaire(s) we suggest had to be one of the 26 then-current members from 2970, as shown below; and 2. we have to explain why or how we think s/he are the "least helpful."

Want to play along? Well, read on and see if you agree with any of our choices!

Anj: One thing I love about the Legion is that every member has their loyal fan base. That means I am ready to suffer the slings and arrows from those who love Duo Damsel. But let's face it, basically her power is that she is a set of twins. That's it.

Okay, it's more than that. She can split/merge when the time calls for it. But still ... that's about it.

Picture yourself. Would you be good in a battle against the five deadliest super-villains? A megalomaniac sorcerer? An evil artificial intelligence? A league of super-assassins?

Now picture two of you. Would two of you fare any better?

Listen. I love Luornu as a character. I love her grit and determination. I love her relationship with Bouncing Boy.

But as a Legionnaire? She is the least helpful.

Russell: I choose to hedge my bets and think the computer would have tossed out three options.

Creatively, the obvious answer is Dream Girl. Take her out of all of her then most-recent stories (Adventure #380, Action #379, Action #384) and you would literally not lose a thing. In the first she has a vision of "death by sailboat" or some other such nonsense. In the second story her place is basically taken by the computer itself, who warns that there is an impostor in the Legion. And in the third, she dreams that Mon-El dies; we all know *that* didn't happen. She eventually becomes a strong tactical leader, but really, her power is not all that helpful. She should have stayed in the Legion of Substitute Heroes.

Story-wise, Supergirl makes a great case for herself being the least helpful Legionnaire based on absenteeism. We can argue that Dream Girl or Triplicate Girl are useless, but there IS something to be said for the members who show up! In my unofficial Legionnaire appearance count, she appears a whopping 8 times out of 80 plus Adventure Comics stories. That is just embarrassing.

But personally, I would pick Matter-Eater Lad as least helpful. In my opinion, he has the least dynamic and useful power. In a fight, what does he do? He can't eat his opponent's hand. What if guys are shooting lasers at him, does he eat the energy? I have only ever seen him do this once, in the panel reprinted above, and it looks ridiculous. How is he not getting his face blasted off?! He's a great supporting character, but definitely not Legion of Super-Heroes material.

Siskoid: Obviously it has to be one of my favorites - Brainiac 5 himself.

First, irony.

Second, between his personality and propensity to invent things that are more dangerous than useful, Brainy has created at least as many problems as he's solved.

Third, fans have spilled a lot of ink asking whether Karate Kid's "super martial arts" should count as a power, but super intelligence isn't that much better. It's still a skill, or set of skills, taken to a certain extreme. Even Legionnaires with super-strength have a host of other powers. Brainiac 5? He cheats by using tech - i.e. the force field belt - which is really against the eligibility requirements set forth in the Constitution. So he shouldn't be there several times over.

Mike: Okay, you guys have not made this easy. My first instinct was to go with two of the Legionnaires already mentioned but I want to try to avoid repeating. And this was not easy. But then I figured since we are limited to choosing from the Legionnaires in that image from Action Comics #387, I would limit myself to considering the members as they stood at that point in time.

When I looked at the question in that way, my answer was Shrinking Violet. That is not easy for me to say because I do like her character, but much of what I like about her comes later.  At this time, she really did not play much of a meaningful role in the Legion.

She has a few moments to shine in battle but they were mostly in large scenes or story-lines involving most of the team and if you removed her from the story she would not be missed. The few times she was showcased in an issue it was inevitably a romantic plotline that had nothing do with her powers and any female Legionnaire could have played the role. That is not to suggest that such stories cannot have meaning, but the way they played out for her prior to 1970 they really did not.

Shrinking Violet does have an interesting and potentially very useful power set but up until this time it was hardly exploited.  While I regret to say it, these reasons are why Shrinking Violet gets my vote.

Jason: I went for easy pickins, but I have to believe that you're all just trolling me and are not really monsters who would consider Matter-Eater Lad, Brainiac 5, or Shrinking Violet to be less helpful members than Karate Kid or Invisible Kid. Anyhoo...

Chemical King has to be the least useful Legionnaire in this lineup. I really wanted to say Light Lass because I've always considered her to be a boring afterthought of a character, but the thrill of watching things rusting faster in comic books is enough to draw my ire and declare Chemical King the one to kick out of the Legion.

Yeah, maybe I'm getting too personal with this pick, but if an editor's note is needed to explain someone's power then maybe it's best left off the page. The Legion already has Element Lad in the lineup, and his transmutation abilities would be more offensively useful than any accelerated chemical reaction. As for any potential healing abilities his powers may be useful for, pffft. That's a fart sound. And while I'm sure Chemical King's powers would be a powerful digestive aid, he's got no place on the team.