Storm Boy
2973 - Myke Chypurz is born on Earth.
2990 - 17-year-old Myke Chypurz begins college.
2993 - 20-year-old Myke Chypurz auditions for the Legion of Super-Heroes, hiding a weather generator. He is rejected for lying about his powers, but also because Imra Ardeen discovers his deep narcissism & lack of empathy.
2994 - 21-year-old Myke Chypurz graduates and takes a pointless office job in his father’s company.
2998 - 25-year-old Myke Chypurz begins undergoing dangerous secret surgeries to give himself weather control powers.
3007 - 34-year-old Myke Chypurz and Justice League of Earth go public and stage a coup to control Earth's population. They fight Legion of Super-Heroes.
Storm Boy's Comic HistoryStorm Boy was one of many one-time Legion applicants with only a single appearance. The oldest character in the JLE, he showed up in Adventure Comics #302 from 1962, in a backup story called The Secret Origin of Bouncing Boy. It uses tryouts for new Legion members as the backdrop to tell Bouncing Boy's backstory, but does also include a few rejects; Lester Spiffany tried to buy his way onto the team despite having no powers, while Storm Boy tried to cheat his way on using a hidden weather control device. He's found out by Cosmic Boy, who literally sics Triplicate Girl on him. It's mean, but kind of hilarious.
We actually learn years later from the Legion Who's Who book that "His ill-advised stunt made him the butt of endless jokes among his Metropolis University peers, but he eventually graduated college and got a position at Metropolis Weather Control Station. He works there even now, although he is frequently repremanded for creating super-hailstorms over the Phi Beta Kappa fraternity house". Which sounds like he was kind of being set up to be a future supervillain even then? |
Our Storm Boy StoryWhen being updated for the Justice League of Earth, the clear idea of Storm Boy was that he had been deeply traumatized by the rejection of the Legion (which... I'll admit, actually tracks. The Legion doesn't seem to have been very nice when rejecting people), and in the intervening years went on to have a series of extremely dangerous surgeries to implant weather manipulation technology inside himself. He's clearly a very toxic, unbalanced character and therefore fit right in with the new JLE.
Given that he starts out as such a one-note idea, Myke is actually a really easy character to adapt. It's one of those times we're really just using him for one thing, so all we have to do otherwise is put together the basic beats of his story so that he's available for that thing. Still... He actually does kind of feel like there might be a little bit more utility to him, so We should remember that he's available if we want to add him to another story somewhere. |