Monday, July 10, 2017

More abstract than cheesecake this time!


When Mattel did their Legion of Super-Heroes set some years back, I had been wishing they would've added 80's Legionnaire Quislet as a pack-in. He could've worked not unlike Booster Gold's Skeets, but that wasn't to be. Still, we've got an issue with him today, but not the one I was thought it was at the time: from 1988, Legion of Super-Heroes #44, "Quislet's Story" Written by Paul Levitz, pencils by Greg LaRocque, inks by Mike DeCarlo.

Extra-dimensional explorer turned Legionnaire Quislet has disappeared, sucked into a bizarre hole in his quarters along with Wildfire. Although Brainiac 5 thinks Quislet's just popped off for a party (and might be a bit peeved he couldn't figure out the hole) the situation is more dire than that. Wildfire does a large portion of the narration in this one, since although he was an energy being, he wasn't a scientist, and had no idea what he was seeing in Teall, the energy world Quislet was from. Or more accurately, escaped from: instead of merely exploring, he stole the trans-dimensional ship he lived in, and escaped from the hivemind the rest of his people lived in. Now the Teallians wanted Quislet back, and maybe Wildfire as well. Resisting, Wildfire gets blown out the hole back into the regular universe.

Having learned from his teammates, Quislet bluffs it out, convincing the Teallians his ship was booby-trapped, and would explode without him or if he was forcibly reconnected to the hivemind. He had also learned, while building Wildfire's newer, more human-looking containment suit, how to defend his ship against energy attacks, and is able to escape. Back on earth, Quislet plays it off as nothing; maybe it even is for him. Also this issue: Dream Girl is unsure about Star Boy's potential replacement, Atmos, who seems like a creep (and has a weird, armpit-less torso) and the Luck Lords plot against Lightning Lad, setting up the next issue, the 30th anniversary of the Legion.

When I picked this up, I thought it was going to be an issue I'd already read, with the sad fate of Quislet: in Legion #58, during what would be the final battle with the Emerald Empress (pre-reboots) Quislet's ship was destroyed; leaving him no choice but to return to his dimension...and either death, or reprogramming. Quislet wouldn't return post-Zero Hour, but has come back since. I think Atmos came back before he did!

3 comments:

  1. Huh. Might just be me, but based off what I just read and your description, Quislet comes off like a bit of a dick, also like Skeets sometimes.
    Ditto for this Atmos guy, who really is creepy-looking. The hell's the deal with his lack of armpits?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Quislet might've been...inconsiderate is probably about right, but he was pretty alien, even to the Legion. Things like needing food and air and whatnot would've just seemed dumb to him. "You need more air? You just had some yesterday! Unbelievable..."

    ReplyDelete