Review of Burial Customs, By Johnathan

Here we go, here we go, here we go now. Today we're taking a look at what happens when a Legionnaire kicks the bucket. In Adventure Comics No. 341, the awesome yellow robot Computo seemingly vaporised Triplicate Girl (but really only 1/3 of her, so it was okay). The Legion, mildly wracked with grief, was moved to honour her thusly:

By signing their names. That's right, the Legion of Super-Heroes treats the death of a close friend in the same way that they do the approach of an eight-year-old clutching a duotang with 'Delia + Ultra Boy' and 'Mrs. Delia Nah' scrawled all over it. Luckily, the other 2/3 of Triplicate Girl don't show up until after the funerary rocket has left, so she doesn't have to see that Sun Boy absent-mindedly scrawled 'have a bitchin' summer - S.B.' across her engraved face.

Lame tributes aside, it is pretty cool that they shoot what little Triplicate Girl that they could scrape up into space. Not only that, but the charred hero-bits have a destination!

Shanghalla! Asteroid resting place of the galaxy's heroes! Number one destination for clone-happy mad scientists! Surprisingly small!

Shanghalla's another one of those things that got built up in my mind by the little entries at the back of Jeff Rovin's Encyclopedia of Super-Heroes. It's a neat idea, if little-used. I kind of wish that there were an issue of Secret Origins or something dedicated to it, but what are you going to do? Me, I'm gonna check out some tombstones!

Every hero interred in (on?) Shanghalla has his or her own little rocket ship, complete with a character synopsis and picture on the side. Uh... here they are:

Mog Yagor: Mog Yagor is a neat name, but recently I've been thinking that it sound a bit too much like something out of H.P. Lovecraft to be a coincidence. My current theory/hope is that Mog Yagor is the green thing up above and that the 'space beast' was a hostile astronaut. Because nothing brings greater joy to my solitary existence than reading way too much into the single-panel appearance of a dead character forty-odd years ago.

JOHN APPROVED

Hate Face: Oh, man. Hate Face. Possibly one of my favourite super-hero names ever. I was absurdly excited when some random character was referred to as Hate Face in a bar during the run of (I think) L.E.G.I.O.N. in the 90s. And he's so tragic! I mean, how many other people are ugly enough that their epitaph bears the phrase 'revolting visage'? My guess? Not too many. Someday Hate Face. Someday, someone will tell your story.

JOHN APPROVED

Beast Boy: Eh. Beast Boy is the only one of this corpsey crew that had appeared pre-mortem. He was similar to the other Beast Boy (the green one) in that he could change into animals, but dissimilar in that he was a complete wuss. He got all upset and quit his super-team and declared war on humanity or something because people sometimes found it disconcerting when he turned into a huge alien bear or whatever. Then he got killed saving a child, so everything was alright. Booooring.

NOT APPROVED

Nimbok of Vaalor: I gotta say: the people of Vaalor need a good editor. First off, they really shouldn't refer to themselves as 'his alien race' on the tomb of their planet's champion. Secondly, they need to clear something up a bit more: was the sorcerer disguised as his best friend or did Nimbok (great name) think that the sorcerer himself was his buddy when really he wasn't?

Thirdly, nobody should end an epitaph with an exclamation point.

NOT APPROVED

Leeta 87: Another great name; another horrible tomb-rocket. Is it possible that the best picture that anyone had of Leeta 87 was the one in which she is about to crack her skull open? Is there a connection to the fact that her rocket is shaped like a cocktail shaker? Was Leeta 87 a drunk? Does 'innumerable enemies' really mean 'innumerable martinis'?

NOT APPROVED

Still awful.

NOT APPROVED