Quote Originally Posted by Jim Kelly View Post
I well remember seeing the work of Mike Grell for the first time, when he INKED Dave Cockrum on issue 202 of SUPERBOY [and the Legion of Super-Heroes]. In hindsight, it was probably a shameless scheme by Murray Boltinoff to test Grell as the replacement for Cockrum. And the next issue Mike Grell was the new artist--who had the unenviable task of killing off Invisible Kid, my favourite Legionnaire. So really the debut of Grell on the Legion was very bittersweet. It's too bad that we couldn't have had both artists on the team--and that Lyle Norg got killed off. What was Cary Bates thinking--Invisible Kid was not one of the characters we saw as having died in the future, in ADVENTURE COMICS 354.

The third work by Grell that I saw was an Aquaman back-up feature in ADVENTURE COMICS 435. Thankfully, there was nothing bittersweet about that.
As for Bates' motivation for killing I-Kid, Cary Bates and, I guess, Murray Boltinoff who edited Superboy/Legion did seem to want to do a housecleaning of relatively useless Legionnaires once the Legion took over Superboy's comic with #197. Between 197 and 212, Bouncing Boy, Duo Damsel, Supergirl, Invisible Kid, and Matter-Eater Lad were shown the door and the powerful and popular Wildfire was added.