She’s not a DANCING Queen, she’s a CALORIE Queen.

So we all remember Matter-Eater Lad, right? Legion of Super Heroes, good guy, could eat and digest anything? Yeah. You remember good old Tenzil Kem. He was from the planet Bismoll (yes, as in Pepto, it was the ’60s, deal with it) and was, simply put, awesome. Look, in one of his early adventures he chewed through prison bars too tough for Superboy to bend. Got that? He’s more powerful than Superboy.

Anyway. He wasn’t the only person from Bismoll to end up at the Legion’s doorstep. No. There was also…

Taryn Loy!

Hmmm. Sounds kinda lame like that. Let’s try it again! There was also…

Calorie Queen!

Doesn’t sound much better. Oh well. Anyway, so she should be the same as Matter-Eater Lad, really. All Bismollians have the same eatin’ skillz, after all. But no, she’s a step better. I’ll let her explain:

So she can eat anything and then “divert” some of the energy into strength. Huh. The whole thing is just… it escapes through her pores, this energy does. Which would make it body heat. So instead, her core temp is all fucked up but she can punch the shit out of a wall? Doesn’t feel right.

Anyway, she also had a bad attitude. This was mostly so that once they came up with a better Matter-Eater Lad they wouldn’t actually have to, you know, replace him. She was kinda snarky.

Also she had the same powers at he did. And the Legion never allowed members to have the same powers. Except when they did. And they did frequently. Really the rule was there as an escape clause for easy shunning. What I love is that after she left she joined a kinda-team, got in one fight and lost. And so, losing one single fight, gave up her “title” as Calorie Queen and retired. Wait. Title? Yeah. All right. But still, one fight and she folded. Makes you wonder why anyone bothered to invent her if it was clearly just to one-up a character and then leave anyway.

So she left. Later on she ended up hanging with Matter-Eater Lad when they were both adults and proved herself to be much smarter than he was, as well as more capable in politics. Still. Tenzil (Matter-Eater Lad) Kem had his… charms, too:

That unusual freak. He liked eating jails. And still, we all cheered him, didn’t we?