I’ve added a new page tracking down the people who were rejected from joining the Legion, updated to the latest review.
As noticed in the page this excludes people without a significant period between rejection and joining the Legion (such as Supergirl, Bouncing Boy or Wildfire).
I noticed some interesting trends, out of the 38 current rejects.
When it comes to the reasons for rejecting members: variations of “your power is useless” is the reason given most often, 12 times.
“Doesn’t control his/her powers” is the runner-up with 10 uses, with “someone else already has your power” is the reason given 6 times… all of which come from the same issue, by the way.
“Your power is artificial” is used just 3 times.
Two people show up without any powers (including the legendary Lester Spiffany, the very first reject, and the absurd Rann Antar who has a formula that makes feathers heavy).
No reason is given for the rejection of Rainbow Girl and Quake Kid, while Bizarro is rejected for being Bizarro.
Easily the weirdest one is Animal Lad: rejected by the villain who took over the Legion because Animal Lad is not evil… and then nobody calls him for a second chance!!!
An impressive 12 rejects (13 if you count Bizarro) become supervillains, with half of them eventually joining the Legion of Super-Villains.
That’s slightly above the 10 rejects who will eventually join the Legion… with a massive caveat: most of them join during the “Five Year Gap”, meaning we don’t actually see them being actual members.
Considering how badly the Legion was doing during the Gap, that is one big asterisk next to their membership!
Only two of the rejects covered so far eventually become legitimate Legion members: Polar Boy and Spider Girl (with her new codename Wave).
She’s notable for being the only reject so far to join both the Legion of Super-Villains and the Legion of Super-Heroes… although she joins in February of 1994, with that entire continuity ending in September of the same year, so that’s yet another minor asterisk.
Polar Boy is and will always be, of course, the MVP of Legion rejects.