posted
At least according to Superboy #207. Cary Bates must have forgotten that Garth and Ayla looked similar enough that she could plausibly disguise herself as him.
Is this the worst continuity error in any Legion story?
-------------------- Aaron Kashtan/Sir Tim Drake
From: Providence, RI | Registered: Feb 2005
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posted
Also in Superboy 207, Mekt was shown to have white hair from birth, when we saw the issue where it turned from red to white (in Superboy 172 I think.)
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From: Champaign, IL | Registered: Jul 2003
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posted
Bates played fast and loose with Legion continuity. In Superboy # 200, for example, he has Dr. Lars Hanscom show up as Starfinger when in fact the not-so-good doctor didn't have powers before. In Adventure # 335-336, Hanscom brainwashed Lightning Lad into becoming Starfinger, and reprogrammed the latter's robot arm to generate various powers.
When a fan pointed out this discrepancy on the letters page of Superboy # 202, Bates answered that, since Lightning Lad no longer had an artificial arm and the element of surprise over Starfinger's identity was lost, he (Bates) simply decided to have Hanscom take over the Starfinger identity.
Bates, I think, was fully aware of Legion continuity, but he chose to ignore it when it hindered the purposes of whatever story he was telling. I can only guess that he made Garth and Mekt twins because he wanted to establish (in only a few flashback panels) a close relationship between them, which magnifies Garth's anger over Mekt turning evil. (Such a close relationship is absent from other versions in which Mekt is older.)
So, yeah, it's an egregious violation of continuity, but probably done on purpose.
-------------------- The Semi-Great Gildersleeve - writing, super-heroes, and this 'n' that
From: The Stasis Zone | Registered: Jul 2003
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Eryk Davis Ester
Created from the Cosmic Legends of the Universe!
posted
Anyone happen to know when the "twins are the norm for Winathians" idea was first introduced?
From: Liberty City | Registered: Jul 2003
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posted
I think the Garth/Mekt twinship was just a rehash of the old good twin/evil twin cliche.
I think it was also Bates who gave Dr. Regulus sun powers in Superboy 191. Also pretty cliched. Sun Boy has sun powers so he has to have an arch enemy with sun powers, just like Garth and Mekt. Why can't somebody have an arch enemy with completely different powers?
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From: Champaign, IL | Registered: Jul 2003
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posted
Bates also changed Chemical King's powers in Superboy 195.
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From: Champaign, IL | Registered: Jul 2003
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Eryk Davis Ester
Created from the Cosmic Legends of the Universe!
posted
quote:Originally posted by jimgallagher:
quote:Originally posted by Eryk Davis Ester: Anyone happen to know when the "twins are the norm for Winathians" idea was first introduced?
I think it was when Ayla left the Legion after GDS wasn't it?
That late? I knew it was post-Adventure, but I would've guessed earlier than that. You may well be right, though.
From: Liberty City | Registered: Jul 2003
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quote:Originally posted by jimgallagher: I think the Garth/Mekt twinship was just a rehash of the old good twin/evil twin cliche.
I think it was also Bates who gave Dr. Regulus sun powers in Superboy 191. Also pretty cliched. Sun Boy has sun powers so he has to have an arch enemy with sun powers, just like Garth and Mekt. Why can't somebody have an arch enemy with completely different powers?
Well, I guess there's Micro Lad... oh wait.
-------------------- Aaron Kashtan/Sir Tim Drake
From: Providence, RI | Registered: Feb 2005
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posted
Shadow Lass has Lady Memory. Shadow Lass *does* have the power to remember things, just not in a super way. I suppose Lady Memory casts a shadow, as well, but I digress.
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posted
quote:Originally posted by jimgallagher: I think it was also Bates who gave Dr. Regulus sun powers in Superboy 191. Also pretty cliched. Sun Boy has sun powers so he has to have an arch enemy with sun powers, just like Garth and Mekt. Why can't somebody have an arch enemy with completely different powers?
Fire powers are very common in the future.
We've got Sun Boy, Dr. Regulus, Beauty Blaze, Sun Emperor, Flare, Sun Girl, Inferno, Kynda, Sun Killer, etc.
Then there are the mysterious similarities.
How likely is it that there would be two *completely unrelated* characters with the power to 'emit paralyzing radiation,' like Modulos and Radiation Roy?
How likely is it that the Legion universe would have two similarly costumed blue-eyed blonde men with the power to turn into a beam of light, like the Taurus Gang member Quanto, and the Super-Assassin Lazon?
Man, I just noticed that one of my favorite sites for researching old Legion foes is down! Hope it's just a temporary thing!
posted
It's really difficult to come up with original super-powers, or even to use super-powers in interesting, novel ways.
Jim is correct that Bates altered Chem's powers and was probably using the "good twin/bad twin" motif, but are those necessarily bad things? (Actually, in Chem's case, it probably was bad. There was no good reason for changing his powers, as doing so added nothing to the story in # 195.)
One thing Bates attempted to do, I think, was to focus on the story he was telling at the moment and not let it get bogged down with extraneous back story information. He could have included a caption or flashback indicating how Regulus and Hanscom got their powers, but doing so might have distracted from what was important in the story (e.g., Regulus's attempt to trick Sun Boy and Hanscom's kidnapping of one of Duo Damsel's selves). Besides, they're villains . . . they're inventive and secretive about what's going on when we don't see them.
Bates was also aware, probably, that a large part of his audience (including me) was discovering the Legion for the first time in those days. He may have chosen not to risk driving new fans away with extraneous details.
Should he have given Regulus different powers? Perhaps . . . but I think the real crux of the story is his enmity toward Sun Boy. Regulus's powers don't matter that much.
Sir Tim also makes a good point about Micro Lad, but that character has to be viewed in the context of the story in which he debuted. S/LSH # 212 featured a group of Legion applicants who were rejected because their powers were similar to those of existing Legionnaires. Similar powers was the whole point of the story.
(And wonderful things were done with Micro Lad via later writers, who wove in the Imskian political/terrorist angle. So, again, similarity of powers is only one aspect of the character.)
It's admittedly difficult for me to view Bates' work objectively since he was the writer of the Legion during my formative days as a fan, and those stories remain close to my heart. Still, having written stories myself, I can sympathize with some of the choices he made, whether I agree with them or not.
-------------------- The Semi-Great Gildersleeve - writing, super-heroes, and this 'n' that
From: The Stasis Zone | Registered: Jul 2003
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posted
quote:Originally posted by He Who Wanders: It's really difficult to come up with original super-powers, or even to use super-powers in interesting, novel ways.
Oh, I totally disagree, on both counts. Pick up any super-hero role-playing game and there are literally *dozens* of powers that haven't seen much play, and a few that you have to go digging into one-shot appearances in Indy comics to find used on panel. You can find ten powers not currently used in the Legion on the first page of most super-hero RPGs. Heck, you can find a half-dozen options just among *psychic* powers, and that's a tiny sub-set of super-powers.
As for creative uses of old powers, it sometimes seems like writers go out of their way to avoid doing that.
Shrinking Violet, for instance could do a hundred different things to mess up a person from within their body, from disorienting them via splashing around in their inner ear, to blocking nerve signals by expanding to the size of a pea in their spinal cord, leaving them temporarily paralyzed.
And what does she do, in nine fights out of ten? Turn off her shrinking powers so that she can kick someone in the face.
That's the most clever thing Salu can think of doing with her powers, turn them off?
Hop over to wikipedia and you can assemble a three page list of ways that Chemical King (or Kid) could wipe someone out.
Lightning Lad has been *said* to be able to not just generate electricity, but also to manipulate it. He *should* be able to turn off someone's nervous system, or jerk them around like a puppet by causing their muscles to seize up and move at his command. And what's his *only* tactic in combat? Chucking lightning at peeps, which any fool with a blaster can do. Is he the fool, or the writers who never bother to have him do anything other than shoot his invisible blaster?
Even Geoff Johns, who, IMO, is more derivative than creative, came up with Sun Boy shooting red solar radiation at Superboy Prime, and Shadow Lass using her light-nullifying powers to 'black out' the stored solar energy in his cells.
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