One thing I liked about Star Trek: The Next Generation was that they had a whole episode that explained why so many of the "alien" races they met on the show still had many humanoid features. Something about an ancient race seeding the cosmos, it made sense within the context of the show. I'm trying to remember whether Marvel or DC have done something similar. I Look at a team like The Legion of Super-Heroes with a roster from all over the galaxy, yet most can still pass for human - was there ever an in-story reason given for that phenomenon?
R.J. Brand was everyones "daddy" so they all be "cousins"..????
ReplyDeleteThere sure was! In the early’90s, when editorial commanded that, since Superman had never been Superboy, the Legion could never have been inspired by Superboy, therefore they had to throw out their history and replace it with something else, the Legion writers decided to use Mon-El, who they renamed Valor, as the 20th-century inspiring figure, and said that he had “seeded” the various planets of the galaxy with human populations, leading to the 30th century United Planets. There is, unsurprisingly, a lot more to it than that, and it sorta looks like they’re not really using the idea at the moment, but, short answer, yes.
ReplyDeleteI've been reading the Legion stories since the 60s, and for some reason I had the impression that many of them were human colonists who developed their special abilities to survive on the planet they ended up on, such as Polar Boy, Matter-Eater Lad, Cosmic Boy, etc.
ReplyDeleteAlmost Badger. There was a post Invasion mini series that claimed most of the various races that made up the Legion ranks had human origin. Millions who were affected by the meta-gene bomb went through-out the galaxies seeding planets that gave us the various legionnaires.
DeleteThe Cosmic Boy mini-series also implied something similar.
ReplyDeleteI simply blamed it on a DC version of the Celestials.
ReplyDeleteActually there's a real-world scientific explanation for aliens looking just like humans (or "humans with bumpy foreheads"). The conditions under which life can evolve into complex organisms are fairly narrow, and the features that produce sapience also will tend to produce many of the same physical features. (The full explanation would be a rather lengthy essay, but that's a decent summation.) They might have, for example, subtle differences in skin color or a different number of fingers on each hand, but on the whole they'll be bipedal mammals with sparse body hair.
ReplyDeleteOh, and seeing Quasar had me imagining Ambush Bug asking him to fix his TV set.
ReplyDeleteDC did do something similar. In DC Comics Presents #2, it is revealed that microbes from an alien ship seeded life on both Earth and Krypton. Of course, this was pre-crisis.
ReplyDeleteThanks to all - comment sections like this remind me that this blog has the most knowledgeable visitors ever!
ReplyDeleteSpeaking about Legion things, my guess on the Daxamite problem with lead is that their physiology includes a crucial enzyme which includes tin, or works with tin. Lead is chemically very similar to tin, so it messes up the chemical reactions, much like crucial magnesium reactions in Terrans get messed up by the chemically similar beryllium.
ReplyDeleteMany non-corrosive poisons work that way; they are almost the right element or compound, but they are different enough that they mess up the reaction.
In his book The Chemicals Of Life (IIRC), the late Isaac Asimov described such poisonings as like putting the wrong key in a lock, and jamming the lock.
Midichlorians?
ReplyDeleteThe Invasion miniseries set off a gene bomb that triggered the metagene in a lot of humans. They developed powers like seen in the various worlds of the Legion of Super-Heroes. The series ended with those newly empowered humans leaving to colonize other worlds, thus giving an origin to those worlds that are "Earthlings but with planetary powers". There was later waves of colonation for worlds like Winith where the colonists don't have powers naturally. Dawnstar's people were in of those later waves.
ReplyDeleteThey were all magically empowered by Mopee the 5th Dimensional.
ReplyDelete@Anonymous: I can just hear his title song.
ReplyDelete"I have re-entered the Seventh House..."
No-no-no-no-no! Not one of _those_ 5th Dimensionals!!
ReplyDeleteWhat is interesting is how little the Green Lantern races overlap with the LSH races. We have seen Daxum GLs but lots of races in GL Corps have never been seen in LSH. The LSH era government is multi-species but there are humanoid races near earth's sector (i.e. Korugar) who have never been seen.
ReplyDeleteWould be interesting if a LSH and GL had a shared writer who wanted to expand on connections.