Wednesday, December 2, 2015

Who's Who: Celeste Rockfish / Neon

Celeste Rockfish / Neon
by Siskoid

Real Name: Celeste McCauley
Super-Power(s): Green Lantern emerald energy, mostly used for flight and force blasts.
Planet of Origin: Earth
Legion Seniority: Celeste was the second new recruit following the Legion's reformation after the Five-Year Gap.


Legion Log 
Celeste is the niece of long-time Legion rival Leland McCauley III. She studied at the Science Police Academy and eventually became a private detective, opening her own agency called the Rockfish Detective Agency, where Dawnstar became her partner under the alias "Bounty." Her first encounter with the Legion derived from a paternity suit against Sun Boy. He was nevertheless the one who later hired her to investigate a contract given Roxxas by Earthgov, which led her to the reforming Legion of Super-Heroes. Later, she confronted Roxxas directly and was severely injured. But she was miraculously healed...

Several years earlier, during a vacation on the planet Twilo, Celeste witnessed a Green Lantern crashing and futilely tried to help him. The Lantern's ring "remembered" her however, and its energy followed her all over the galaxy for a while. When it finally caught up with her, it healed her and gave her powers like those of the Green Lanterns: discharging energy for a variety of effects, which somehow made her transparent. With these, she was inducted into the Legion, a move that made Brainiac 5 wary given her uncertain control of them, which was fine with her, as she didn't like him very much.

While fighting Glorith, Celeste's body was aged to the point of death, but as it turned out, her body was only being kept alive by the energy anyway. Free of her physical body, she became a being of energy, and went on the run with the rest of the Legion, using the code name Neon.

Celeste's history changed briefly during Zero Hour so that it was a Darkstar she'd tried to help and with whose powers she was gifted. She soon disappeared from existence.


There is no record of Celeste in any other version of Legion continuity, except as a Legionnaire from this collapsed timeline in Final Crisis: Legion of 3 Worlds and in a flashback in Legion of Super-Heroes vol.4 #105.


Important Celeste Rockfish Stories:

Legion of Super-Heroes (v4) #6
Celeste makes her first appearance, hired by Sun Boy to uncover an EarthGov plot

Legion of Super-Heroes (v4) #10
Celeste is mortally wounded by Roxxas, but green energy descends to save her life

Legion of Super-Heroes (v4) #12
Elements of Celeste's origin are revealed as she recuperates

Legion of Super-Heroes (v4) #23
After protesting that she isn't dangerous, Celeste accidentally unleashed her full power

Legion of Super-Heroes (v4) #51
Celeste gains an actual costume and helps fight Grimbor

Legion of Super-Heroes (v4) #53
Celeste's body is aged to death in battle against Glorith

Legion of Super-Heroes (v4) #54
Celeste is reborn in energy form as Neon

Legion of Super-Heroes (v4) #60
No one remarks on it, but Celeste is first seen as a Darkstar as history breaks down before Zero Hour

Legionnaires #17
The anomalous Darkstar Celeste is remarked upon not long before the timeline collapses

Final Crisis: Legion of 3 Worlds #5
Celeste as Neon fights Superboy-Prime along with Legionnaires from several timelines

1 comment:

  1. I'm not sure if it was editorial meddling or if the creators just never quite had a handle on her but there's always been something that didn't work with Celeste.
    Her personality worked in the team but her look never rose above generic; grey fatigues, orange body-suit then glowy green figure. That and her lack of defined powers just never made her interesting.
    She started off with a GL link but did the PTB yank that away from the book?
    Points to McGraw for trying to revatilize her with the secret connection to Glorith. I've always wondered how that would've turned out if Zero-Hour never happened.

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