Obscure Superteam Sunday: the Legion of Substitute Heroes

In the Universe of heroes, especially when it comes to the future, what we really need to be reminded of is the hierarchy of cliques that existed when we were in High School.  The cool kids play varsity and are on the cheer squad and the dorks are in chess club and band.

In the world of super teams the Legion of Super Heroes are the cool kids and everyone else gets to be in the Legion of Substitute Heroes.  I know it sounds like a super powered version of Revenge of the Nerds, but it was never that exciting.

The Subs spent most of their time fighting second rate evil and whining about how they never made the Legion proper.

It's not that the Subs were bad people, or that they didn't try hard enough.  It's that their powers were limited or dangerous or silly.  You can judge for yourself when you get to the membership roster.

On the upside, the Subs never stopped trying and some of them even made it into the LSH.  The day Polar Boy made it to team leader is one of the happiest days among the ranks of the Subs.  It proved it was possible to clique jump and play with the cool kid does.  It is kinda inspirational.

The Legion of Substitute Heroes was founded by Polar Boy, Night Girl, Stone Boy, Fire Lad, and Chlorophyll Kid, five young heroes whose powers were not sufficient to earn them membership in the Legion of Super-Heroes — Night Girl for example could only use her powers in the dark. After receiving a Legion flight belt as a consolation prize, the five disconsolate teenagers decided to form a group that could pinch hit for the Legion. After several failures as a team, the Subs managed to save the Earth from an invasion by Plant Men while the Legion was off planet fighting a decoy armada of robot spaceships.

At first operating in secrecy, the Legion of Substitute Heroes was gradually recognized by the real Legion as a valuable asset, most notably after the assault on the Citadel of Throon when the regular Legionnaires were all defeated and it was left to Polar Boy and Night Girl to lead an effective attack and end the siege.^[1] The Substitute Heroes saved the Legionnaires from such threats as the Taurus Gang and the lethal League of Super-Assassins.

Members of the Legion of Substitute Heroes include:

• Antennae Lad (Khfeurb Chee Bez from the planet Grxyor): has the power to tune into any broadcast from any era, but mostly at random.
• Chlorophyll Kid (Ral Benem from the planet Mardru): has the power to make plants grow extremely fast. He gained this power after falling into a vat of super plant growth formula as a small child. He claims that he can only accelerate plant growth, not control plants, although some of his actions seem to contradict this^{[volume & issue needed]}.
• Color Kid (Ulu Vakk from the planet Lupra): can change the color of objects. Gained his power after being struck by a ray from another dimension. In the 1985 Legion of Substitute Heroes one-shot, he was temporarily known as Color Queen after being exposed to Granderian Gender-Reversal Germs by Infectious Lass.
• Double-Header (Frenk and Dyvud Retzun from the planet Janus): has two heads as a result of gradual mitosis.
• Fire Lad (Staq Mavlen from the planet Schwar): gained the power to breathe fire (often accidentally, as he suffers from allergies) after inhaling vapors from a meteorite.
• Infectious Lass (Drura Sehpt from the planet Somahtur): spontaneously generates infectious diseases. Her aim and control are haphazard, though.
• Night Girl (Lydda Jath from the sunless planet Kathoon): has super strength and invulnerability which were engineered for her by her father, but they are only effective in darkness.
• Polar Boy (Brek Bannin from the planet Tharr): had the ability to project cold and ice. When introduced he had difficulties controlling the powers, but became proficient after training for several years. After the Substitute Heroes disbanded, he was admitted to the Legion proper, and later elected its leader.
• Porcupine Pete (Peter Dursin from Earth): has quills he can inaccurately shoot from his body.
• Stone Boy (Dag Wentim from the planet Zwen): has the power to turn into stone for hibernating on a planet with a six-month-long night. In the beginning Stone Boy could only transform into an inanimate stone statue and was often used in humorous ways (e.g., being dropped on a villain), or as a distraction while the other "Subs" carried out some mission. Stone Boy won a Legion test and was offered full membership but he declined and stayed with the Subs. During the "Five Year Gap", he underwent hypnotherapy and gained the ability to stay conscious during his transformation and, eventually, even to move in his stone state.