in the last few years, it seems the most important thing zoe saugin has done is to become some totally unrecognizable terraform hybrid creature, with none the personality.

so what can be done with her?

granted, she was kinda flighty to me and obsessed with changing her uniform, but still, she was always bright and cheery...and fun.

for some reason, i was hoping this terraform transformation would be temporary at best...that she would resume her previous form when the story arc was complete. but now she's in that blasted comic book background limbo...walking around like an 8 foot zombie.

i thought maybe she would come back and take some spotlight, but be changed from the experience of being a harbinger of evolution. her powers could "evolve" a bit and she'd still be good ol' zoe, but be confident and ready to save the universe again....in style.

so what to do with our giant freckled zombie of nature?

I always liked Zoe and hope she returns back to her human form!

Well I've always seen Zoe as a throw-away. Another post-boot character that didn't succeed. To me she was never memorable and ranks right up there with Kid Q as the Legionnaire I wouldn't shed a tear over.

I love the title to this thread.

I hope Zoe can be salvaged at some point. I like her Dazzlerish attitude on superheroics.

i hate to think of characters as "throw aways." everyone has a favorite and i'd hate to have one of my favorite characters just thrown away.

i'd like to think of zoe as a character that just hasn't succeeded YET. maybe DnA have plans for her other than this terraform thing.

i put some thought into a way to resolve this plot a bit. kinetix could exhaust whatever hypertaxis energy she has left (and i'm pretty sure this is possible since all the other terraforms used all of their energy to bring the seed pods back to human form) simply by putting it to some other use.

but how do you ask?
how about if dyrk magz and dirk morgna are exposed to the hypertaxis energy?
yay! we'd get sun boy/inferno and magno back (altho maybe magno's abilities would change because of this?)

all i have to say is....she's fixable.

You know, that's not a bad idea.

She's not so much a throwaway character as one who was simply diverted from her original intention and never quite managed to work into something worthwhile.

I loved her depiction in the Legion Annual where she lost her powers the first time. Her fascination in acquiring objects of power ultimately rooted in her desire to do good, to make a difference in the world. It showed a depth which disappeared as the quality of writing on the postboot series declined.

Now, see, that sketch really gets me pissed that PMS "jumped the shark" with the EMERALD VI storyline after the fans had guessed their plans for Zoe. She's wearing the L*belt... was the intent to make Emerald Zoe a Legionnaire again at some point? Or at FIRST? How neat THAT would've been... Sometimes predictable can be good. And trying to be unpredictable for its own sake can really "F" things UP... like virtually kill the reboot dead in its tracks after a solid first two years!

The only time Zoe every resonated with me was in her friendship with Vi. The outgoing "clothes horse" befriended the shy, industrious girl. They each had qualities the other needed.

Sadly, both characters are now part of the wallpaper at Legion World.

"Even though she has control of the eye..."

I remember I did a VERY quick colouring job on that @ one point. If I saved it on a CD-R, I might post it.

I really wish we hasd gotten The Emerald Zoe story!!!!

I agree with Lightning Lad that Kinetix is a throwaway character, not because not enough has been done with her, but because too much has been done with her, and she's still not very interesting.

She's gained and lost her powers. She's gone on a quest. She's been tailed, tattooed, and albinoed. She had the whole floaty haired thing going on. She's been bizarroed. She got tranformed in the space anomaly thingy that turned her into a zombie. She's been terrorformed and roboticanized and back again.

And STILL nobody knows what her powers do exactly after all this time. She originally "brought things to life" a la Life Lass, but it's been some time since she was shown actually doing that. She's also been shown using telekinetic type powers. She even made Invisible Kid visible once. How the heck did she do that? And what are her powers currently?

I say D&A should cut their losses and get rid of her. Bring back the Flying Nun to replace her, but ditch the habit. NOBODY wears those things anymore. They're so passe.

I've liked Zoe from the start because she was portrayed as a strong and assertive character, much like Saturn Girl in the Adventure Era.

I agree with Jim that some of the things done with the character were not great (the Zombie Zoe and the Terra-formed Zoe)

I think that if she was returned to her original characterization and given her powers back or given the Emerald Eye, then she would be a viable character.

However, I don't see Abnett and Lanning doing that. It seems to me that they stick with some core characters that they like to write about.

I think the ideal Legion writer has to like all the characters equally so as to be able to rotate them around a bit.

As usual Jim put's my thoughts into a more thought out and intelligent post. This is exactly why I think Kinetix has outlived her usefulness. Let her story slot be taken by another returning character some of us are dying to see (Andromeda maybe) or come up with an original one. And not someone drawn from a past Legion character. I mean a brand new idea not used in any form in the past. It may be hard to do but that's what DnA gets paid for right?

Oh, yeah, she's also been a Sci-cop, done the levitation bit, and changed her costume a billion times. How fickle is this chick?

Where is the Emerald Eye? It sounded like it was captured during the last battle with the Fatale Five, so does that mean it's on Legion World now?

I mentioned somewhere before that I'd like to see Zoe use it to turn herself back to normal. It would be interesting to see everyone's reaction to that -- especialy if Zoe claimed she could control it.

Yes, the other Legionnaires seem pretty blasé with all of Zoe's changes. I wonder why they wouldn't seek to help her become restored to at least her pre-hypertaxis version.

maybe Zoe and Sensor can start a support group for morphically challenged and abused characters....

let's not forget, they're the only 2 legionnaries NOT wearing clothes (as if a legion belt *hides* anything).

seriously, look! we're so used to dream girl wearing next to nothing, but even dreamer has a full bodysuit on!

i'm seeing a certain level of discrimination here....hmmm...could there be conspiracy afoot in the ranks of the legion???

You see, the thing is, she doesn't a story slot to give. Hasn't had one in about a year. And if she had, I still wouldn't give it to ya.

Love the thread title too

This has the potential to be interesting - but really only after she's reverted. After all - what's it like suddenly being able to think straight, talk properly and walk on the ground after spending a year telepathing broken interlac, being turned into a robot and back and not touching the ground in all this time.

Especially for someone as materialistic as Zoe, who's gone around completely unaccesorized for a few months

I could see her putting on everything she owned, then raiding Monstress' old closets, a la Joey from the Friends episode where he donned all of Chandler's clothing:

"Could I BE wearing any more CLOTHES?!"

But would she be wearing underwear?

Personally, I think that they should change her back to normal, bur let her keep her current outfit!

Incidentally, whatever happened to Zoe's Love Slave?

Per the point that too much is done with her, I think part of the problem is that she hasn't been treated consistently. If she'd just been allowed her orginal storyline with the Emerald Eye, developed a relationship of ambiguous control control over it, instead of being diverted on to all of these different paths, she would have been able to establish herself as interesting.

Again, here's the basic concept of Zoe:

Her ultimate motivation is the desire to help others. Her desire for "power" in the form of mystical objects is derivative upon this, but sometimes gets in the way of it. There is a constant tension between her wielding the power versus letting it corrupt/control her.

As far as her powers, they've always (until the terrorform phase) basically been a form of telekinesis, albeit not the clunky "levitate big objects around" type, but instead "telekinesis at the molecular level", which allows her to reshape and restructure the objects as well.

Personally, I think she's an interesting character with a lot of story potential, if she were just used as herself.

Next up: Tales of a 12th-Level Nothing.

He may be the smartest kid in the universe, but deep inside -- he still feels like it's never enough.

Love the thread title too! And I agree with EDE's summary of Zoe, plus I echo the feelings of ether_lad. Unlike Sensor, who at least has a personality, her transformation hasn't really served the stories much, aside from saving the day during the Ra's plotline and the Robotica story. But she doesn't add anything as a character, unlike her old self. Zoe has potential, if used correctly. All we need is a story to change her back to normal, and clarify her powers once and for all... I don't think she actually made Lyle visible in the Bizarro storyline, she just made the junk stick to him so they would know where he was. But her lust for power so that she could do good is what made her unique among the ranks of the Legion, and her fickleness just added to that. Wouldn't it be something if the real Zoe was somehow conscious inside that terrorform thing, and is somehow aware of what's going on around her? When (I'm trying to be optimistic) she gets changed back, it would be interesting to see how she freaks out!

I found this again while I was searching for the "Emerald Princess" pic for the "One thing" thread.

And it strikes me that even now, even after all the crap (including *two* decharacterisations...) she STILL scores reasonably well in the "Favourites" threads (like iB's recent poll ).

Why are writers obsessed with turning her into a zombie? Really. And why did DnA not change her back at the logical point during the Ra's two-parter?

She's a good character, really. But only when she's allowed to be.

She did use her power to make him visible. I think it was when he was invisibly delivering a gift to Spark for Cham.

Jim's right! LSH #81, I think. I know Lee Moder was the penciller. Chameleon later chastised Lyle for delivering the gift in public after Zoe "unmasked" him. Especially since it gave Ayla the wrong idea about her secret admirer.

Although, IB's instance in the Bizarro storyline sounds familiar too. My memory is spotty on those latter-days before DnA came in.

As for Kinetix, I wonder if her being able to make Lyle visible was just part of her own telekinetic powers. Or was she a bit more powerful around then because she was magically endowed by Mysa?

Missing Miss Zoe?

Why, she's appearing in the current PINUP MODEL contest!